Up to 30pc of North Dakota's 1.1mn b/d of crude production remains offline as severe winter weather and travel restrictions persist in the state.
An estimated 300,000-350,000 b/d of crude output is shut in, the North Dakota Pipeline Association (NDPA) told Argus this morning.
The high end of the estimate has been lowered from 400,000 b/d earlier in the week as some gains had been made, but "progress has stalled," according to NDPA director Justin Kringstad, with extreme cold, blizzards and poor road conditions all limiting efforts to bring back wells.
The agency indicated on 22 December that some production had been restored, but extreme cold over the past day has made for additional curtailments.
North Dakota's Department of Mineral Resources earlier this week projected that a significant amount of production will stay offline through the end of the year and that there is "virtually nobody" completing wells right now.
