Montana O&G Industry Restarts Dormant Oil Wells Amid Biden's Gas Price Explosion

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In response to rapidly rising gas prices, the Montana Petroleum Association has announced that wells in the Bakken oil fields are officially going back online.

Inflation, regulations and a lack of additional oil resources — such as those that would have been supplied by the Keystone XL Pipeline, which was canceled by President Joe Biden on his first day in office — have led to rising gas prices in the states, experts say.

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, energy prices were rising. In response to Vladimir Putin’s offensive, much of the Western world has imposed sanctions on Russia, disrupting its exports of oil and further exacerbating the pain at the pump.

Alan Olson, executive director of the Montana Petroleum Association, told The Western Journal that up until this point, federal regulations have prevented many oil companies from producing oil.

Thanks to rising prices, oil producers can now cover that cost, making drilling worth it again.

According to KTVH-TV, the Bakken oil fields “become more stable between costs and profits” when the price of oil reaches roughly $80 per barrel, which are the prices America is beginning to see now.

However, as a company seeks to ramp up production, a lack of personnel and a shortage of supplies have become a major issue.

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“There’s a lot of uncertainty that the industry is facing with upcoming new federal regulations,” he told The Western Journal. “You know, we had a lot of discussion over the methane fee that was part of the Build Back Better bill.

“I mean, that would have hammered the small producers. Actually, it would have hammered everybody.”

Hamstringing small producers with hefty regulations is a big deal, especially considering states like Montana “no longer have any of the major oil companies producing oil,” Olson explained.

“We’ve got a lot of very small, independent oil producers that, to meet up with some of the proposed new federal regulations, it’s going to leave them with a couple of choices,” he said.

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