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North Dakota population hits record "....North Dakota catapulted to the No. 2 spot in terms of oil production in part because of output from the state’s Bakken and Three Forks reserve areas. Production in early 2014 passed the 1 million barrel per day mark and now stands at around 1.2 million bpd. More than 90 percent of that comes from Bakken and Three Forks.

Dalrymple said he expects oil production to increase by as much as 15 percent through mid-2017, generating around $8 billion in production tax revenue for the state.

The state’s budget for the next two years is based on a domestic crude oil price in the mid $70 range next year and closer to $80 beyond that.".......

Sliding oil prices leave socialist Venezuela on brink of financial collapse "........Where Chavez once drew praise from the world’s leftist elite for using the high price of crude oil during the 2000s to underwrite a socialist revolution, a growing number of analysts in Washington say Mr. Maduro is clinging to power in a country on the edge of becoming a failed state.

".....Venezuela still boasts some of the world’s largest known crude reserves, but it has continued for too long spending more on government programs than it has collected in oil revenue, analysts say. The average price of oil has dropped from more than $100 a barrel to less than $60 during recent weeks, only adding to Venezuela’s woes."....