MINOT (AP) - The number of operating oil rigs in North Dakota has hit 50, the highest number in nearly a quarter century.

"It's phenomenal," said Lynn Helms, director of the state Industrial Commission's mineral resources department. "Every one of these drilling rigs supports 40 direct jobs and another 80 indirect jobs. With 50 drilling rigs, that's about 6,000 jobs being supported."

Thirty-five of the rigs are in the Bakken shale formation in northwestern North Dakota, according to the Industrial Commission's oil and gas division. The Bakken is a massive oil deposit in western North Dakota, eastern Montana and southern Canada.

October oil production estimates for North Dakota are 125,000 barrels a day, the highest since July 1986. The rig count is the highest since September 1984.

"Those numbers are off the charts - nothing like anything we've ever seen in 20-plus years," said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.

Ness said the main hotspots for oil activity in North Dakota include all of Mountrail County and parts of Dunn County. "It's just incredible what's going on there," he said.

Helms said oil companies also are taking leases in McLean County and Ward County.

"The map we have of the middle Bakken shows that it's present all the way past the eastern boundary of Ward County," he said. "It extends just about to the middle of McHenry County."