Oil production in North Dakota hit another high above 674,000 barrels per day in July as oil companies successfully tapped the region's shale bounty, data from the state's Industrial Commission showed on Wednesday.
Oil output in the Bakken, Sanish and Three Forks prospects rose to a record high just under 610,000 bpd in that month, the data showed.
The state's oil output has increased without fail since April last year, as a result of the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies that have made the boom possible. The production figures have doubled since May 2011 and North Dakota is second to only Texas as the largest oil-producing state in the country.
However, the state's output in July was just about 9,500 bpd higher than the month before, well below the average 21,600 bpd monthly increase recorded since the start of the year.
North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 2.9 percent in July, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Pumpjacks near Tioga, N.D., pull crude from the Bakken Formation.