Locator: 51940B.
RBN Energy: will a newly sanctioned pipeline give the Bakken a big surplus of gas takeaway? Link here. Archived.
The developer of a planned natural gas pipeline across North Dakota has reached a final investment decision (FID) after securing long-term, demand-side commitments for almost all its 1.4 Bcf/d of capacity. The question is, with crude oil-focused drilling activity in the Bakken flat despite elevated WTI prices, will WBI Energy’s roughly $3 billion Bakken East Pipeline leave the play with way too much gas takeaway space? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the pipeline project, the financial support the state of North Dakota is providing, and the conflicting forecasts for crude oil and associated gas production in the Bakken.
Over the past 15 years we’ve written frequently about the ongoing need to build more midstream infrastructure to serve Bakken production. Crude oil gathering systems and takeaway pipelines. Crude-by-rail terminals. Gas gathering systems and gas processing plants. And, most recently, natural gas and NGL pipelines. Why? Because while Bakken oil production has been holding steady at about 1.2 MMb/d — well below the play’s 1.5-MMb/d peak in 2019 — a fast-rising gas-to-oil ratio (GOR) has increased the volumes of NGLs-rich associated gas being produced. (More on Bakken GORs and the play’s gas production outlook in a moment.)
The Bakken East Pipeline Project
We covered the NGL-pipeline angle in July 2025’s Two Gunslingers. That same month we told the gas-pipeline story in Torn Between Two (Pipelines), which focused on competing proposals by WBI Energy (the Bakken East Pipeline) and a combo of Intensity Infrastructure Partners and Rainbow Energy Center (the Intensity Pipeline) to develop new gas takeaway capacity from the Bakken production region in western North Dakota to the Fargo area at the eastern edge of the state.
In a twist we discussed in that blog, the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) — eager to encourage more in-state use of the Bakken’s gas bounty — undertook a competitive evaluation process to determine which pipeline proposal would receive up to $500 million in state support via a 10-year, $50 million/year commitment for about 150 MMcf/d of capacity on the new pipe.
The three-member NDIC, comprised of the state’s governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner, in August 2025 unanimously picked WBI Energy’s two-phase, 343-mile Bakken East proposal (dashed pink and red lines in Figure 1 below), citing the company’s experience in developing and operating gas pipelines and the financial strength of WBI’s corporate parent, Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources, which also owns four electric and/or gas utilities from Minnesota to Washington state. In addition, the commission determined that WBI was more likely to secure the commercial commitments needed to make the project a “go.”
