Here’s a few quick notes on interesting news from the Bakken that I won’t cover in a separate post.
Hard work, determination, and perseverance will produce superb results in Bakken. With those skills in California, you are underemployed. And that assumes you can even find a job.
Here is one more in a non-ending string of stories of people who find success in the oil patch of North Dakota:
11/8 – Dickinson Press – From dropout to hotshot: Washington woman turns life around in North Dakota Oil Patch – Here is another person who applied herself in the oil patch and succeeded. She was a high school dropout. Went to Williston. Cold called hotshot companies until someone gave her a chance. Spent three weeks learning how to strap down equipment, pull a 40-foot trailer, and find her way around the oil patch on time and safely. Now she is a hotshot driver with dreams of owning her own rig so she can make even more money.
I believe there are thousands and thousands and thousands of stories like this in the Bakken. One of the fascinating patterns of reviews of the documentary The Overnighters is the idea that everybody who goes to North Dakota fails. Reviewers tend to think there is no success to be found there, just like in the rest of the US economy.
The reality is radically different: The Bakken, Permian, and Eagle Ford shale fields are wide open frontiers with tremendous opportunities for anyone who wants to give it a shot.
In other news:
10/20 – Williston Herald – State nears flaring goals – Targets for flared gas are 26% in fourth quarter of 2014 down to 10% in 2020. Capture of natural gas is improving, with only 28% flared in August.
10/23 – Bakken.com – Helms advises Utica’s Simmers on rapid industry growth – Some terminology and timeline education for me: In 2012 Utica gas field shifted from exploratory to development. Lynn Helms said the discovery phase in Bakken started in 2006 and ran until 2009. Then the development stage started. Article quotes him as calling that the ‘harvest stage’. The Million Dollar Way blog refers to that as production.
City of Williston – Building permits for 2013: $341 million of construction including 1,501 apartment units. Permits for 2014 through October 31 with two months to go in year: $475 million of construction including 1,290 apartment units. Looks like progress to me. Looks like a boom, too. Hat tip: Million Dollar Way. MDW says building permits in 2012 were $470 million.