The Midwest/Plains Oil Boom Thread

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by araman0

Having a town base so much of its economy on a single industry can be very scary stuff. What happens if after 20 years the oil dries up there?

Also the new construction appears to all be sprawl, with very little if anything occurring closer to downtown. The center of the city looked abandoned in that video.

Williston is a town of only 13,000. It's expected to grow to 65,000 so unless they import some New Urbanist planners who want to create a fantasy Potemkin Village of dense, transit oriented development with tall luxury condos, it's going to grow like every other city in the plains grows: outward. Only unlike the incremental sprawl that occurs elsewhere, this is a city that's going to have to expand to 5 times its present size.

And there is life after the oil starts to wane but they will need to do two things: invest the gains from the boom into a sustainable economic diversification strategy as well as invest in quality of life improvements such as higher education and relevant civic ammenities. It actually has a very nice downtown that can be improved but the car is king out there and the culture of the energy business is fairly antithetical to the ballet/cafe crowd.

[diablo234]

Originally Posted by Xusein

Too bad for those jobs, you have to live in a place that is a windswept tundra for half the year that is like a day away from any real cities.

So lame that the "booming" parts of the country are often the most isolated.

More like windswept prairie.

Anyways although it is considered to be isolated, according to Google Earth it is only about five hours to Billings which has half a million people residing in that metro.

[Bond James Bond]

US domestic oil production exceeded 5.7 million barrels/day last week for the first time since February 2004. It's now risen about a million barrels/day since its lows in September and October of 2008. Clearly this North Dakota production is having an effect on national production.

Data

[Jennifat]

Originally Posted by Xusein

Too bad for those jobs, you have to live in a place that is a windswept tundra for half the year that is like a day away from any real cities.

So lame that the "booming" parts of the country are often the most isolated.

I've been to Williston. When I saw it five years ago, it looked like a pretty godforsaken place. There's absolutely nothing there other than your typical small town businesses, abandoned grain silos, modest housing, and crummy motels along US HWY 2. The area surrounding town is wide open prairie, although it's nearby the North Dakota Badlands, which I must say is quite a beautiful area.

That being said, the workforce the town is attracting probably isn't too concerned with basic cultural amenities or attractive urban planning. Even at quadruple the current population, I highly doubt Williston will ever be a worthwhile place to visit.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Xusein

Too bad for those jobs, you have to live in a place that is a windswept tundra for half the year that is like a day away from any real cities.

So lame that the "booming" parts of the country are often the most isolated.

Isn't that the definition of a boom town? if it's big already then it was already successful.

Also, remember that all citires were small at one point. Who would move to Denver? Or Phoenix? Those places were tiny hamlets but got going with some industry taking hold.

The upside to living in away from a smaller city is that land is dirt cheap. You can build a much bigger and nicer house with the same amount of money in North Dakota than you can in, say, Massachusetts.

[JohnFlint1985]

Wonderful news!!! Bond James Bond I guess you remember we talked about this about 3 years ago. If all this will continue for foreseeable future we can finally brake our dependence on Middle east.

[Bond James Bond]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

image hosted on flickr

Williston, oil rig 07 by [IQ], on Flickr

With the royalty payments they're getting from all these wells, I bet North Dakota has some of the richest farmers in the world.

In fact, I just did a google search and found this - from 3 years ago. Can't imagine how much it would be now.

In less than a year, Stohler and his wife, Lorene, 82, have become millionaires from the production of one well on their land near Dunn Center, a mile or so from the sod home where Oscar grew up. A second well has begun producing on their property and another is being drilled — all aimed at the Bakken shale formation, a rich deposit that the U.S. Geological Survey calls the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

Beverly Hillbillies.

[diablo234]

I figured I might as well post some news about new developments taking place around Williston.

Granite Peak Development - Harvest Hills

Granite Peak Development - Westgate

Granite Peak Development - Sand Creek Retail Center (Menards is already signed on as a tenant)

Granite Peak Development - Bakken Industrial Park

City of Williston - Williston Growth Map

[musiccity]

Originally Posted by diablo234

More like windswept prairie.

Anyways although it is considered to be isolated, according to Google Earth it is only about five hours to Billings which has half a million people residing in that metro.

Half a million for Billings is a bit of an exaggeration but your right, it has enough aminities for someone from Williston, ND to drive here if they need anything.

[brewerfan386]

Also if you have a passport card, Regina, Canada is only 3 1/2- 4 hrs away.

[srsmn]

Originally Posted by musiccity

Half a million for Billings is a bit of an exaggeration but your right, it has enough aminities for someone from Williston, ND to drive here if they need anything.

Billings metro is recorded at about 160,000. Even so, I might be alone here, but....is there anybody alive that "5 hours from Billings" sounds like a cool selling point to?

Billings would have to be much closer to Williston for there to be real regional cohesiveness, where they can pool assets and amenities. Heck, Pittsburgh and Cleveland have been trying for that for years, and they're *maybe* 3 hours apart....and they're much, much bigger cities. Oil boom or no, Billings and Williston are both going to be 'stand-alone' towns for a long while yet.

This could be good news, however, for cities like Billings, Fargo, or even Sioux
Falls if it necessitates some regional corporate offices for the oil companies...

[diablo234]

I just want to make a correction to my earlier post since I mistook the trade area population with "metro area" population. But regardless it is close enough for someone from Williston to drive there to do some shopping, etc. Also as Montana's end of the Bakken Oil Fields opens up for drilling expect Eastern Montana and Billings by extension to benefit as well.

[Bond James Bond]

There's another rock formation called the Tyler Formation which is starting to draw interest. It doesn't seem to be as much a slam-dunk as the Bakken, but it's still pretty good. Could be you start to see a lot of development around Dickinson, which, unlike Williston and Minot, is on an interstate freeway.

Formation creating interest
The last paragraph is probably the most intriguing paragraph in the whole article.

Map of the location below. The yellow and green areas are the better spots. A closer-in map can be found here

[Dariusb]

Wow! Congrats to the people of Williston. I hope that they diversify their industries so they will continue to grow and flourish in the long run.

[Somnifor]

There was a big article on the oil rush in sunday's Minneapolis Star Tribune:

North Dakota’s great oil rush
Article by: LARRY OAKES , Star Tribune
Updated: October 16, 2011 - 7:24 AM

Even as North Dakota revels in its newfound prosperity, some worry the oil boom is too much of a good thing.

WILLISTON, N.D.

School bus driver Barb Russell heard there was good money to be made here in the oil fields of North Dakota, so last month she packed a bag, locked her Farmington home, and headed west. She tripled her income.

The 60-year-old grandmother rose every morning at 3 a.m. in September to drive a bus full of Halliburton workers to drilling rigs in a place where trucks roar non-stop and everybody who wants a job has one.

Finding somewhere to lay your head is another matter. Russell ended up living in one of the dormitory-style "man camps" that have sprung up across the booming oil patch to help house the influx of an estimated 35,000 workers.

"I wish 'em the best on getting housing for everybody, especially with winter coming," said Russell, who stands out among the men in her pink cap. "I'd hate to see people sleeping in their cars."

There's no place like it anywhere else in America.

New drilling technology has freed up vast reserves of oil in the Williston Basin of western North Dakota, fueling an economic bonanza that has become a flat-out gold rush. As the rest of the country desperately tries to skirt a double-dip recession, North Dakota boasts a $1 billion budget surplus and the nation's lowest unemployment rate. Recruits from Minnesota, Texas and both coasts keep arriving, reversing a long population decline. Schools are rushing to hire more teachers. Towns are adding more cops.

And the boom keeps booming -- almost 200 drilling rigs are boring 100 new wells a month. The state's most recent figures show 16,435 job openings, 48 percent more than a year ago.

But so many workers have flooded the oil patch that many long-time residents and officials are beginning to complain about something most places in the country could barely comprehend: Too much prosperity; too much rapid growth.

more

[diablo234]

Bismarck Tribune - North Dakota likely to pass Calif. as oil producer this year

Associated Press | Posted: Saturday, October 15, 2011 1:42 am

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - North Dakota will likely leapfrog California and may even overtake Alaska in the next year - far outpacing earlier industry predictions - to become one of the nation's three biggest oil-producing states, a government regulator said.
Government and industry officials had predicted that North Dakota likely would hit the No. 2 spot within the decade but the explosion of drilling activity has accelerated the timeline.
Not considered a big oil state until recently, North Dakota went from the ninth-biggest producer in 2006 to fourth in 2009, where it currently stands. This boom is thanks to advances in drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques and a rise in oil prices that made it more profitable for companies to tap into the vast reserves trapped in the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations.
North Dakota's 5,951 wells produced about 444,000 barrels per day in August, the last month for which figures were available. Last August, the daily barrel count was about 350,000, officials said then.

Read more: http://bismarcktribune.com/news/stat...#ixzz1b3uSaouf

..

[Somnifor]

The Star Tribune seems to be doing a series of articles on the North Dakota oil boom this week. This is from today's edition:

Minnesotans drawn to North Dakota’s siren song of prosperity
Article by: LARRY OAKES , Star Tribune
Updated: October 17, 2011 - 1:39 PM

Companies, workers benefit from prosperity of our oil-rich neighbor.

BISMARCK, N.D. - There's no keeping up with North Dakota's surging economy, but at least they're hiring some of us to do chores.

So much prosperity is flowing from oil wells there that it's spilling into neighboring states, with a growing number of Minnesota companies and workers sharing the lucrative oil field contracts and wages.

Of Minnesota's largest metro areas, Moorhead, sister city to Fargo, had the biggest population gain over the past decade -- 15.2 percent. Wayzata-based Northern Oil and Gas, which was built on North Dakota crude, saw oil revenue jump from $3.5 million two years ago to nearly $60 million in 2010. And there's no shortage of tales of Minnesotans getting steady work and big salaries by heading west.

"You guys are far and away our most common source of workers from out of state," said Michael Ziesch, manager of North Dakota's Labor Market Information Center. However, Ziesch added that many of those workers are daily commuters to the North Dakota border cities of Fargo and Grand Forks.

Just 17 counties in western North Dakota produce oil, but the impact is being felt statewide. It has the country's fastest-growing economy and lowest unemployment rate. It consistently has some of the highest personal income gains and lowest mortgage delinquency rates.

Bismarck, the state's capital, on the eastern fringe of the oil patch, is a good place to begin taking seismic readings of the economic vibrations from all the drilling. Many companies have come here or expanded for oil business.

more

[He Named Thor]

Congrats to ND on their luck, but that town's going to have some major issues. Going from a town of nobody in the middle of nowhere to who knows how many people that fast? Water, electric, sewer, road congestion, schooling, police, emergency services, healthcare, poor building standards (every crooked builder in the midwest is gonna be there) etc. I doubt the town council/village board have any real clue how to handle this situation.

I hope they can sort everything out, and are smart enough to start planning to diversify NOW.

[herzellaV]

I've read some articles about this topic, please allow me to share it here. For those wondering where to go to escape the fear of the downturn, consider North Dakota. CNN notes that while six-figure salaries are possible, the path to the cash isn't really for every person. The North Dakota oil boom, centered on the Bakken oil development, has kept the state's joblessness rate the lowest in the United States at 3.5 percent. Large oil signifies a large number of jobs - if candidates can hack grueling hours, lack of housing and harsh winter months. Article resource: North Dakota oil boom brings jobs aplenty.

[desertpunk]

Drilling begins soon here in New Mexico at the Mancos Shale Formation in the San Juan Basin. An estimated 1.5 billion barrels lies underneath the ground. The game is changing radically. If more offshore drilling were allowed we might be able to cut oil imports by more than 50%. Combined with increased fuel efficiency, we could possibly cease most oil imports altogether, with the balance coming from Canada and zero oil from the Middle East.

http://www.abqjournal.com/main/2011/...next-boom.html


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