Expanding Infrastructure, Improved Facility Designs Grow Multiphase Production By Colter Cookson With oil prices climbing to the mid-$60s, drilling and completion activity is accelerating. While U.S. rig counts are staying remarkably consistent with 80 percent of active rigs targeting oil, the production of oil in most of the nation's horizontal resource plays comes with huge quantities of associated gas. This is one reason the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that dry gas production will set a record in 2018 at an average of 80.4 billion cubic feet a day, a 9 percent increase over 2017. North Dakota's portion of the Williston Basin offers a microcosm of the U.S. trend. According to the state's Pipeline Authority, higher oil prices have increased the amount of acreage with economic drilling locations by 44 percent compared with 2017, putting the state on track to achieve record oil production in 2018. But there is a catch: Associated gas production is climbing with the increased oil output. Enough natural gas accompanies the oil in the Bakken that the increased activity has led to tremendous growth in liquids-rich natural gas production. The same challenge that faces operators in other resource plays-figuring out how to best utilize the gas accompanying the oil in multiphase production streams-is compounded by the reality that local gas infrastructure and take-away capacity are insufficient to support that growth. In response, says Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, the industry has doubled down on efforts both to use natural gas on site and to build the infrastructure needed to get it to market. 38 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER