Gov. Kelly Armstrong, center, speaks during a meeting of the Industrial Commission next to Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, left, and Attorney General Drew Wrigley on Oct. 27, 2025. On Tuesday, the commission approved an agreement with WBI Energy related to a financial backstop for a natural gas pipeline. (Photo by Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – The North Dakota Industrial Commission has officially committed up to $500 million in state funding to WBI Energy’s planned natural gas pipeline.
Tuesday’s unanimous vote marks the final step in a process of negotiations that began last summer, when the Industrial Commission selected WBI Energy’s proposed Bakken East pipeline as the recipient of the guarantee over a competing applicant.
The Bakken East pipeline will move 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from McKenzie County to central and eastern North Dakota. WBI Energy, a subsidiary of MDU Resources, expects to bring the pipeline online by the end of 2030.
Gov. Kelly Armstrong, chair of the three-member Industrial Commission, said commissioners are excited the project is moving forward.
“The goal of the Legislature was both financial incentive and promotional incentive. I think both of those things are occurring,” Armstrong said. “This is going to be great in the short term, and it’s going to be great for the long term for North Dakota.”
The Industrial Commission also includes Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring and Attorney General Drew Wrigley.
The 2025 Legislature authorized up to $500 million in financing for a natural gas pipeline to connect the oil field in western North Dakota to the eastern half of the state.
The Industrial Commission last summer selected WBI Energy’s two-phase project as the recipient of that financial backstop. The financing is being provided in the form of purchasing a portion of the pipeline’s transport capacity.
Potential gas shippers and customers, such as power plants or other large industrial users, had the opportunity to express interest in the project during a formal process earlier this year. The company is in the process of negotiating agreements with those suppliers and customers and briefed the Industrial Commission on the project’s status during a closed-door session last month.
“Those details were revealed, and the need remained for that $50 million per year from the state side to continue advancing this forward,” said Justin Kringstad, executive director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, who received authorization to execute the agreement on Tuesday.
The terms of the contract, aside from the dollar figure, were discussed during an executive session closed to the public and have not been released. The Industrial Commission unanimously approved a confidentiality request after the executive session, citing a state law that exempts trade secrets and other proprietary information from public disclosure.
While the state is granting WBI a financial guarantee of up to $500 million over a decade, or $50 million per year, the project may be able to proceed without the state’s support, or a reduced level of state financing.
The pipeline isn’t expected to begin operations for several years, and Kringstad said the state is actively working to find shippers interested in purchasing some or all of the state’s capacity in the pipeline.
“In a perfect scenario, by the time the pipe would be in service, the state would have zero obligation while still receiving all the upside benefits to the overall project,” Kringstad said.
WBI plans to construct the pipeline in two phases. The first phase, from McKenzie County to Washburn, is slated to be built by November 2029. The second phase, extending the pipeline to Mapleton, just west of Fargo, is expected to be finished by November 2030. The state’s financial guarantee is tied to the construction of the second phase.
The pipeline will have to gain regulatory approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The state’s financial guarantee for the pipeline is estimated to support $170 million per year in oil and gas tax revenues for the state government, according to information provided by Kringstad. The pipeline as a whole is projected to support $1.1 billion in oil and gas tax revenues for the state.
“This program is designed to be a net positive for the state of North Dakota,” Kringstad said.
That does not include the economic benefits from any new industries, such as data centers, manufacturing facilities or power plants, that are built along the route to take advantage of the availability of natural gas, Kringstad said.
Natural gas is produced in North Dakota as a byproduct of extracting crude oil in the Bakken oil field. Over time, greater quantities of natural gas emerge from the ground for every barrel of oil that is produced, creating a greater need for infrastructure to capture and export that resource.
That natural gas has to either be used, such as for power generation, or exported by pipeline to where it can be sold, in order to adhere to North Dakota’s flaring regulations. Approximately 4% of the natural gas produced in the state is currently flared, or burned at the well site.
Oil producers often choose to reduce oil production if the infrastructure to capture the natural gas is not in place. Any reduction to oil production also reduces the oil tax revenues that North Dakota’s state government collects.
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