In our driveway sits an oil well… My mother and I teared up a little when they took the land and scraped it off to put the rig there.
World News America - Oil boom in North Dakota town
The state is in the midst of an oil boom and small towns near the valuable shale reserves are going through major transformations.
But while some locals are becoming millionaires and businesses are thriving, Sharon Carpenter reports it comes with an environmental toll.
Lillian Hoffman and her husband opened a cafe in Killdeer, North Dakota, five years ago. She tells the BBC how the recent oil boom has affected her business and what locals think about the changing town.
World News America - North Dakota cashes in on US oil thirst
A recent oil boom in North Dakota has turned local farmers into millionaires and pushed the unemployment rate to the lowest in the country.
Spent two days in North Dakota where the oil boom has officially arrived. Experts expect 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Bakken formation - that’s 2x of what the US imported from OPEC countries in 2009.
Crude Oil Production in May 2010 (Source: US EIA) North Dakota moved into #4 in 2009, passing Oklahoma and Louisiana - and experts tell us that California is next.
(Source: WSJ, North Dakota Geological Survey)
Lynn Helmes, Director of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, tells us that new technology allows over 99% of the wells to produce oil that are drilled into that geologic target. The risks are very low as a result, and the rewards very high.
Morning view over Dakota Badlands. Owners of this camp ground tell us they can see the gas flares from newly established oil wells all over the horizon at night.
If I could at least hire 4-5 more employees that would be great. I usually put in 14-16 hours a day so it would be nice to have more staff. I can’t compete wages wise with the oil field. So that’s hard.