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Chances are it will continue for another decade or so and then level out, but not as in "bust"...it will reach its peak of around 60,000-75,000 (if not more as some are estimating) for Williston...and more for the Williston region which includes Williams, Divide and McKenzie counties. They are saying Williston will need another 15-20 thousand housing units before they are caught up with the upcoming and potential demand. Not all at once of course, but they say they will need this housing by 2020.
below is a link that tells you what can be expected for job growth: http://www.willistonnd.com/usrimages...mit2Sept14.pdf
and more recently, they held a housing summit in Williston. Here is a link below that gives you some updated information from the previous link.
What irks me is all the traffic. Both semi trucks and cars. It just keeps growing.
I've been here for awhile and I've seen the lines at red lights and stop signs grow longer
and longer with each passing month. With the economy still in tatters back home people
are still rolling in here. And the traffic keeps piling up.
You start looking for alternate ways thru side roads and residential neighborhoods.
Routes that the slow lumbering semis can't follow. They are there,,you just hafta find them.
I know that Schlumberger and Halliburton are adding more frac crews. One frack crew can equal up 40-60 pieces of equipment along with about 80-90 people to operate and maintain the equipment(running 24-7-365) on one frac crew.
What irks me is all the traffic. ....
You start looking for alternate ways thru side roads and residential neighborhoods.
Routes that the slow lumbering semis can't follow. They are there,,you just hafta find them.
Those side roads are also more peaceful. You generally don't have people insistent that you go faster faster faster ...
You can drive down the tree-lined streets at 15-20 mph - watching out for people walking and children and such. Williston has a lot of nice houses to look at in the older sections.
I take a different residential street every time.
What irks me is someone who dives into these same streets and thinks it's OK to go 30+ mph.
Quote:
Originally Posted by von949
I know that Schlumberger and Halliburton are adding more frac crews. ...
This has got to mean something.
You probably already know this, but for those that don't; wells get fracked multiple times.
If there are 100 wells getting drilled over some given time period - x - after 4x time periods, there are 400 wells producing.
These wells get fracked initially and they might produce 3,000 bbl/day for a while and then the pressure drops and after some time, the well might 'only' be producing 500 bbl/day. ( I say 'only' since that might mean $30k/day worth of oil. )
They can go in and frack the well again to get more production ( for a while ). All wells deplete and produce less as they get older. The horizontal/fracked wells of the Bakken have a faster drop-off than 'traditional' well.
There isn't a particular limit to how many times the well can be fracked. The decision(s) are based on what it will cost to frack and what the extra frack work will produce.
The bottom line is that the more wells that get drilled, the more need there is for frack crews. Even when an area is fully-packed with wells and there is no place left to drill, there will still be fracking to do.
Well now everything has changed.
The price of oil has dropped like a brick in freefall and lots o folks are getting the axe.
Many outfits have halted drilling until prices find a higher floor.
Big boys like Schlumberger and Halliburton are laying off by the 1000's.
And some o the smaller outfits are calling it quits up there.
It doesn't look good for the immediate future.
We'll see what happens in spring.
One of the big boys sold out recently (don't remember which one, Halliburton? It was an entire lift diviision) and the way they announced it was walking into a morning meeting and telling aver a thousand workers tti turn in their trucks by end of day.
Last edited by ElkHunter; 02-24-2015 at 06:39 PM..
I will agree that February is not the best month to judge Bakken activity. In the 5 years I've been working up here, February is always the slowest month. March is no treat either. You have low productivity due to cold and a number of people just up and leaving. In previous years, they usually returned after Easter. This year, who knows.
The shale oil glut may hit the Bakken harder than other areas. Bakken oil is a premium product with a very high transportation fee to get it out of the state due to the lack of pipelines going to the coasts. Pipes going to Cushing are of little use as the market there does not place a premium price on Bakken crude.
If we are in June or July and the truck traffic looks like February, the local industry will be in trouble. Williston itself may do ok due to the surge spending from the state and new retail that is in town to service the area. I can't imagine that people would not come in from Montana or Canada to shop when the next closest retail hub would be in Minot or Great Falls.
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