Researchers found that 275,000 tons of methane leak from the Bakken each year, similar to the emission rate found for another oil-producing region, Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg Basin.
“This study provides a key snapshot of Bakken methane emissions that will help answer the bigger questions: how much methane is the U.S. emitting, where is it coming from, and how is that changing over time?” said Jeff Peischl, the study’s lead author and a scientist from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder working at NOAA. Co-authors include scientists from NOAA, the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of California, Davis.
The 200,000 square-mile Bakken Shale formation is one of the country’s top oil-producing regions. At the time of the study in May 2014, the Bakken accounted for 12.5 percent of all crude oil produced in the United States. Only Texas surpasses North Dakota for oil production among states....
