The trend has been declining at a time when the weather should have shown an increase in number of active drilling wells in North Dakota.
This supports my contention: fracking backlog.
It's expensive to complete all these wells and then let them sit. On top of that, the flaring continues to be a big issue. You can only flare for so long, and if you can't flare, and you can't complete the well, at some point, you have to shut the well in. Burlington Resources has been shutting their new wells in regularly, going from "Confidential" list directly to "Shut In," not even bothering with "DRL.
Overheard in Williston today (September 26, 2011): one of the big fracking companies located in Williston is going to bring in another 300 workers this next month (October). They have contracted housing for 300 folks starting November 1, 2011.
It was confirmed by another that Williston expects 11,000 new HAL workers this next year. My hunch is that the figure comes from the HAL press release in which the company said they were hiring 11,000 more works and most of them were headed to the Bakken. I expect that not all 11,000 are coming to Williston. More likely, several thousand will be coming to North Dakota and will be spread across the western half of the state, but regardless, it will be a lot.
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