Bakken oil production zones tend to be tight, meaning that they have to be fracked to produce, and many run out of oil in a short period of time.
The oil *is* there, but the cost to recover that oil is high.
There are other production zones.
Barnett Shale in Texas is more economical, especially for natural gas (notice natural gas prices coming down due to Arkansas, Louisianna, and Texas production recently).
Horizontal drilling techniques developed in the past 4-5 years, and more particularly, hydraulic fracturing (fracing), has opened up these shales, which were traditionally too tight to produce from a normal vertical well with a small frac (no k) put on it.
They are all very expensive to drill (anywhere from $3-4 million, up to $7-9 million), depending on depth, length of horizontal well and how hard they get popped with a frac. The frac job alone, with a million gallons of water, sand, and dish soap like detergent forced into the formation at very high pressure, can cost $1-3 million.
They all have high volume production, initially, with approx 60-70% of total reserves recovered in the first year. With that kind of steep decline, drilling these wells is very price sensitive,
. An operator has to ensure they will get their money back quickly or the investment begins to look rather sour.
In ND (the only state of the union to show an INCREASE in jobs), operators have been reporting completions in the Three Forks and Sanish formations, that are almost equivalent to the Bakken Shales. Both formations are in very close proximity, depth wise, to the Bakken.