Pictures above is temporary housing “Man Camps”
Oil Boom! North Dakota Sees ‘Black Gold’ Rush
David Brody – CBN News Chief Political Correspondent
January 31, 2014
NORTH DAKOTA — When you think of North Dakota, you might not picture a land of prosperity. But that’s exactly what’s happening there, thanks to a huge oil boom.
The history books tell us about the famous 1800s California Gold Rush, when people headed west to strike it rich. Today, in western North Dakota, the oil rush is on for people like Curtis Hanzel.
“This is not a boom that’s going to fizzle in three or four or five years,” Hanzel told CBN News. “This is going to be a long time 30-year boom.”
This big boom covers more than 200,000 square miles in the Bakkan oil fields. This isn’t a “Beverly Hillbilly” strike because the oil is actually in underground rock.
New drilling technology, called fracking, means that the roughly 170 billion barrels of crude oil can now be unearthed.
‘Black Gold’ Rush
Oil production has zoomed up 600 percent in the last seven years, putting North Dakota as the second largest oil-producing state in the nation behind Texas.
There are about 180 or so oil rigs in the state, and now many families are traveling here specifically looking at all of the juicy economic possibilities.
In many oil operations, workers keep their family and home in another state. But in this case many families choose to live here permanently.
Hanzel left his Utah real estate job and brought his family here two years ago.
“I realized that this was an opportunity to get in on the cusp of something that I think will be good for us in the long run,” he said.
It’s been good for Hanzel’s family and many others. The average oil worker in North Dakota makes $112,000. Beginners start at $66,000.
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From B Harmon Contributor: This is one of those situations where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If you don’t have employment with a big oil company, you are in a heap of trouble. I would think that this would affect the elderly especially those living on fixed incomes. For the young and healthy, this would be a chance to build their next egg and yet, $2,500 is a lot to pay for a 2 bedroom apartment.
Once a sleepy farming town,Watford City in McKenzie County, is now lined with semi trucks, new hotels and grocery stores and something they call “man camps”. These sprang up over night and offer temporary housing. Currently the population in McKenzie county 8,800 but is expected to rise to about 20,000 in the near future. Communities in McKenzie County are definitely major players in the oil boom and will see a continued population in crease for the next several decades.
At present, North Dakota is producing 733,000 barrels of oil today and it is estimated to increase to 900,000 barrels a day for up to 10 years. On a positive outlook, it could be producing as much as 1.25 million barrels a day for up to 10 years.
Every drilling rig creates 120 jobs and of those jobs, 25 percent are for truckers hauling water.
The downside to this oil boom is that the homeless has risen dramatically. Either they cannot afford to pay the high rent, or there are no vacancies for those moving in. Therefore, some have been sleeping in the Wal-Mart parking lots. The local Salvation Army is even helping some people purchase tickets back home after they arrive in North Dakota looking for jobs and end up homeless.