NorthSTAR emails your filer on a Monday morning. “Form 5 variance: lease production exceeds purchaser-reported run volumes by 412 barrels for March.” The oil hauler’s statement and your Form 5 do not match, and the NDIC compliance officer wants a reconciliation by Friday. Your pumper’s gauge book for March 22nd is in a truck somewhere between Tioga and Williston.
Form 5 is the North Dakota Industrial Commission’s (NDIC) monthly oil production report, filed through NorthSTAR at northstar.ndic.nd.gov. It reports produced oil, water, days produced, disposition, purchaser, and inventory per well, and is due on or before the last day of the month following production. Gas is filed separately on Form 5B; treating plants file Form 5P. Form 5 is the North Dakota piece of the state production reporting framework that maps every state’s monthly operator filing.
The deadlines are tight and NDIC staff are not known for flexibility. If you want to stay in good standing, the data has to arrive clean.
What Goes on Form 5
Form 5 is filed monthly, by well, and it reports:
- Oil produced (barrels) for each well that month
- Water produced (barrels) for each well
- Days produced and days shut-in
- Disposition of oil: sold, stored, used on lease, lost
- Purchaser for barrels that left the lease
- Inventory at the beginning and end of the month
The NDIC also expects the data to reconcile with what the oil purchaser reports on their end. If the purchaser says they bought 2,300 barrels from your lease and you report 1,950, somebody is getting a question.
Form 5B (gas) and Form 5P (treating plant) have their own fields but share the same data chain and the same due date.
Who Files and When
All operators of record file monthly. Form 5 is due on or before the last day of the month following the production month. February production is due by the end of March. Filing is done through NorthSTAR, the NDIC’s electronic reporting portal at northstar.ndic.nd.gov.
North Dakota doesn’t have a stripper exemption on production reporting the way Oklahoma and Texas do. Every well, regardless of rate, reports monthly on Form 5. The tax side (the state’s 5% oil extraction tax and 5% gross production tax) is handled through the Office of State Tax Commissioner on separate filings, which also reconcile back to Form 5 data.
Which NDIC Form(s) Does This Well Owe?
NDIC’s monthly filings split by what the well produces and where it sits. A Bakken horizontal on the reservation owes more than one form every month.
| If the well produces… | You file… | Paired filing (if applicable) |
|---|---|---|
| Oil only | Form 5 | None |
| Oil and associated gas (most Bakken) | Form 5 and Form 5B | None |
| Gas only | Form 5B | None |
| Oil on federal or tribal acreage (Fort Berthold) | Form 5 and Form 5B | ONRR OGOR monthly |
| Oil routed through a treating plant | Form 5 (lease), Form 5P (plant operator) | Coordinate with plant operator |
| Shut-in all month (active well on NDIC books) | Form 5 with zero oil, days shut-in noted | Status documented in NorthSTAR |
The best North Dakota operators build the Form 5 and Form 5B rollups in parallel, not in sequence. Filing one and forgetting the other is the most common stripper-operator error on the legacy side of the basin.
The Field Data That Feeds Form 5
The Form 5 line for any given well is built from the same five data points every month:
- Tank gauges from the pumper: beginning and ending inventory, with the math adjusted for temperature and BS&W.
- Run tickets from every transport pull, tied to the right well or lease.
- Water hauler tickets: North Dakota produces a lot of water, and the volumes matter for disposition reporting.
- Days produced: if a well was down for 8 days on a workover, that shows on Form 5 as 22 days produced, not 30.
- Purchaser statements: reconciled against your own run totals before you submit.
When any of those inputs are tracked on paper field tickets or in an Excel sheet, month-end becomes an archaeology project. NDIC does not penalize you for bad luck, but they do penalize you for late filings, and late filings are what you get when the data chain is broken. Operators running multi-state production filings know North Dakota’s inventory reconciliation is where a broken chain shows up fastest.
How GreaseBook Supports the Form 5 Data Chain
GreaseBook captures the gauges, run tickets, water hauler tickets, and downtime notes in the field on a phone or tablet. The data rolls up on the operator side into a report that mirrors the Form 5 layout: well-by-well oil produced, water produced, days produced, purchaser, and inventory.
GreaseBook does not submit Form 5 for you. The NDIC wants operators of record in NorthSTAR, and that submission step stays with the operator or the filer. What GreaseBook does is turn the data-collection side of Form 5 from a three-week hunt into a one-afternoon rollup, so the filing happens on time with numbers that match the purchaser’s.
A Williston Basin operator running about 40 wells across three counties put it this way: “The data used to arrive at the accountant’s desk on the 12th. Now it is there on the 2nd, and the rest of the month is not wasted.”
GreaseBook gives North Dakota operators clean pumper data so month-end is a rollup, not a rescue.
See how GreaseBook works →Common Form 5 Filing Mistakes
- Days produced misreported. If a well was shut-in for a rod pump change or a stuck pump, those days count as down, not produced. Getting this wrong skews your per-day rates and can flag the well in NDIC’s data.
- Water hauler volumes missing. Produced water gets hauled, and North Dakota tracks where it goes. Skipping water hauler tickets creates an inventory imbalance.
- Purchaser mismatch. If you reconcile your gauges against the purchaser before submission, you catch the discrepancy and fix it. If you don’t, NDIC flags it.
- Form 5 submitted, Form 5B skipped. Oil and gas are on separate forms. Filing one without the other is a common stripper-well operator error, especially on wells where casinghead gas is small.
- Inventory math off by a few barrels. Starting inventory plus produced minus sold minus lease use should equal ending inventory. When it doesn’t, it is almost always a gauge error or a missed run ticket.
Phrases to Eliminate When NDIC Writes Back
NDIC compliance officers reconcile Form 5 volumes against oil purchaser statements and water hauler manifests. The wording on a variance response shapes how fast the file closes.
| Instead of… | Say… | Why |
|---|---|---|
| “The pumper’s gauge was off on the 22nd” | “Tank gauge for [date] on lease [name] is reconciled against the adjacent-day readings and run ticket [#]” | NDIC accepts reconstructed gauges with cited math; “off” readings trigger follow-up |
| “Our site was down last week” | “Well [API] had [X] non-production days ([dates]) during a workover, reported as [Y] producing days on Form 5” | NDIC audits days-produced against actual non-production periods, not vague downtime |
| “That 412-barrel variance is the pumper’s fault” | “The 412-barrel variance reconciles to run ticket [#] dated [date] posted to the wrong lease; amendment filed [date]” | Blame language invites more variance checks; reconciliation math closes the file |
| “We didn’t track the water hauler ticket” | “Produced water from lease [name] hauled on [date] by [hauler] under manifest [#] to [SWD facility]” | NDIC tracks produced water end-to-end; missing manifests suggest disposal violations |
The best Bakken operators close Form 5 by the 10th, not the 30th. Every day the data closes early is a day the purchaser reconciliation catches problems before NorthSTAR does.
Wrong Fit for This Page
This page is not for Continental, Hess, Marathon, or the other majors running a full SCADA-to-accounting stack where Form 5 generates automatically out of a production accounting platform. If your data is already integrated end-to-end, you don’t need this. This page is for the independent with 5 to 100 wells in the Bakken or on the legacy side, running pumpers and chasing tickets.
FAQ
Does GreaseBook replace the NDIC Electronic Filing System?
No. NDIC EFS is where Form 5 and Form 5B get filed. GreaseBook is what captures the tank gauges, run tickets, and downtime data that has to be clean before the filing step. Different job.
When is North Dakota Form 5 due?
Form 5 is due on or before the last day of the month following production. March production is due by the end of April. File through NorthSTAR.
What is the difference between Form 5, Form 5B, and Form 5P?
Form 5 reports oil production. Form 5B reports gas production. Form 5P reports treating plant throughput. Most operators file 5 and 5B together. 5P is only for treating plant operators.
Do I file Form 5 through NorthSTAR or the old NDIC system?
Through NorthSTAR at northstar.ndic.nd.gov. The legacy system was retired when NorthSTAR went live in 2020.
Does Form 5 cover North Dakota’s oil extraction tax?
No. Form 5 is the production report. The oil extraction tax and gross production tax are filed separately through the Office of State Tax Commissioner, though those filings reconcile back to Form 5 production data.
Related Pages
GreaseBook also automates state production reports in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Wyoming, and Michigan for operators filing across state lines.
- Oil and gas regulatory production reports: the full guide to state and federal monthly production filings.
- Wyoming Form 2: Wyoming monthly production reporting for operators active on both sides of the border.
- Texas RRC Form PR: the Texas equivalent for multi-state operators.
GreaseBook puts the pumper's tank gauges, run tickets, and hauler tickets on your screen the day they happen, so North Dakota operators don't reconstruct the Bakken from memory. Because NDIC's late-filing penalties compound per form, per month.
See how GreaseBook works for Bakken operators →