New drilling technologies during the so-called Bakken Boom turned North Dakota into the nation's second-largest crude oil-producing state from 2012 to 2020. "This sale is a big deal in North Dakota," said Ron Ness, head of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, an industry trade group. "There's a sentimentality to this sale," said Kathy Neset, who runs a prominent North Dakota oil industry consulting firm and counts Hess as one of her largest clients. Chevron could take Bakken production higher than the output targeted by Hess in the future, said Matthew Bernstein, a senior analyst at Rystad Energy. Bakken oil production could drop to 1.15 million bpd from 2026 and be flat through 2030, before entering gradual decline as inventory exhaustion sets in, said Nathan Nemeth, a principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie.

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Persons: Dado Ruvic, Hess, Boom, Mike Wirth, Wirth, Ron Ness, Kathy Neset, Matthew Bernstein, Bernstein, Jessie Jones, Jones, Nathan Nemeth, Wood Mackenzie, Stephanie Kelly, Ernest Scheyder, Marguerita Choy, Simon Webb Organizations: Chevron, Hess, REUTERS, Gulf Coast, Reuters Graphics Chevron, North Dakota Petroleum Council, Rystad Energy, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Energy, Thomson Locations: North Dakota, New Mexico, Gulf, Gulf Coast ., Midland, Texas