ModeShift - Part 40

More Rigs, More Wells Describe American Oil and Gas Boom

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 12, 2012March 2, 20120

Every month the Energy Information Administration, a unit of the Energy Department, updates its Total Energy report, one of the most useful compendiums of data describing the interest and capacity of the American energy sector. The latest edition, published last month, illustrates a national oil and gas sector on a roll. Among the rich field of data charts contained in Total Energy, two are arguably the most revealing. Table 5.1 (page 77) reports that the …

Political Irony for Obama in North Dakota Oil Boom: Energy Sector Leads Jobs Recovery and Re-Election Chances

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 7, 2012March 2, 20120

Early this morning Scott Terrell boarded Amtrak’s Empire Builder in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho for the overnight ride east to Williston, N.D. A month ago I met Scott while riding the same train to the heart of the northern Great Plains oil and gas boom. In the weeks since, I’ve learned more about the influence of energy development in the Dakotas and other states, and how it affects men like Terrell. Let’s just put it this …

How Long Will North Dakota Bakken Boom Last? Decades Due To China

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 5, 2012February 2, 20121

Joel Bleth, a lawyer and engineer who co-founded Solar Bee, a very successful Dickinson, N.D.-based manufacturer of solar-powered equipment to circulate wastewater at treatment plants, sent a message here today asking how long the oil and gas boom in his state would persist. Dickinson, a prairie city of 18,000, has grown more than 10 percent since the turn of the century and for several years has experienced swelling markets for retail and office buildings, hotels …

North Dakota Oil Boom Like Air Ambulance Flying In Storm

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 4, 2012February 2, 20120

The day after Christmas, Scott Terrell, a painter and carpenter from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho turned 58. Never has he felt the weight and wear of his years so acutely. Last August Terrell joined the army of oilfield mercenaries that are rapidly converting great stretches of North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming into the most productive fossil fuel development zone in U.S. history. He quickly landed a job driving a Volvo haul truck on a …

North Dakota’s Oil Boom Leads U.S. Out of Recession

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 1, 2012February 1, 20131

Sunday evening, December 2011, Amtrakâ€™s eastbound Empire Builder pulls into Williston, North Dakota, a fast-growing northern Great Plains city riding the lashing tail of an oil-drilling dragon. A crowd gathers on the station platform. Men coming. Men going. Big pickups rumble in the parking lot. Four years into a drilling frenzy that has pushed North Dakota to the top of the nationâ€™s oil-producing states, the sound of Williston is diesel engines. The scent is diesel …

Great Plains Bakken Riches Describe New Wealth, New Risk

by Keith SchneiderDecember 27, 2011March 21, 20120

GLENDIVE, MT — Myrna Quale and Laura Glueckert own and manageÂ The Enchanted Room here in this Dawson County town of 4,700 residents close by the border with North Dakota. In the last nine months, they said in an interview, business in their W. Towne Street fabric and floral gifts store has picked up 15 to 20Â percent, “and we had a good business to start with,” said Quale. “I view it as a positive …

Bakken and Other Big Oil and Gas Plays Produced 200,000 New Jobs Since 2005

by Keith SchneiderDecember 23, 2011March 21, 20121

WILLISTON, N.D. — A pad of ice four inches thick greeted Ron Ivory on a clear and cold December morning at the busy water depot south of town. Ivory is 47 years old, a stocky and bearded truck driver from Vernal, Utah, with 23 years in the business. He’s been in North Dakota two weeks, working 14 hour days and earning $25 an hour hauling fresh water, 130 barrels a load, to oil production sites. …

Is American Energy Exploration and Production Breaking the Great Recession?

by Keith SchneiderDecember 22, 2011December 23, 20111

WILLISTON, ND — The Saturday morning earlier this month that Scott Terrell and I had breakfast at Gramma Sharon’s Family Restaurant, every seat was taken by roughnecks and drivers fueling up before heading out to work this state’s giant oil patch. The line of customers waiting to pay their bills was so long I did something I rarely do on reporting trips. I left cash on the table and utterly violated the ethos expressed on …

Bakken Oil Wells Surround North Dakota National Park

by Keith SchneiderDecember 21, 2011December 22, 20110

MEDORA, ND — Buck Hill is one of the tallest points in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which spreads across more than 70,000 acres of grass and tight canyons where North Dakota meets South Dakota and Montana. Several weeks ago Valerie Naylor, the park superintendent, hiked to the summit and counted six oil drilling platforms within eyesight. In the next few months more rigs will surround the park’s boundaries. With them will come open waste pits …

Boom in Bakken Oil Play, and Elsewhere Starting to Drive U.S. Economy

by Keith SchneiderDecember 20, 2011January 18, 20120

WILLISTON, ND — After dark beyond Williston’s last lit living room, and heading east on state highway 1804, North Dakota’s landscape turns alien. Steel towers of active oil drilling rigs, flooded by lights as bright as a sports stadium, flank every steep rise. The orange flare gas fires, like 20-foot birthday flames, break the pitch dark of every plunge into deep valleys. The sound of ceaseless prairie winds, and big trucks hauling water and drilling …