Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Will It Ever Quit? Now, Another Developer -- With Potentially Another 850 Units -- In Williston, the Heart of the Bakken

From a press release:
IRET announces the acquisition, with a joint venture partner, of 40 acres of land inside the city limits of Williston, North Dakota, for a purchase price of approximately $4.6 million. The land has been approved for multifamily development with the potential to accommodate up to 850 units. IRET owns 70% of the joint venture entity.
Folks can do a lot of back-of-the-envelope calculations on this little bit of data.

A huge "thank you" to Don who alerted me to this story. I would have missed it. In fact, readers, I think, alert me to about 75% of stories I link.

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Speaking of folks that go unappreciated or under-appreciated, a big "thank you" to Karen over at the Bakken Shale Discussion Group. For a long time, on a daily basis, despite having a real life (unlike me), she posted the results of wells that came off the confidential list on a daily basis.  I couldn't wait for her reports to be posted. It was because of her posts, I finally decided to get my own "Basic Subscription" at the NDIC website. One of the nice things about her postings at the Discussion Group, folks would comment on the peculiarities of various wells.  I learned a lot.

I will thank her again on a stand-alone post -- I hope it doesn't embarrass her -- but a lot of folks really appreciated all she did. She probably did more than anyone else to get me really interested in the NDIC reports. 

She hasn't posted in several weeks now. I assume her BEXP oil well came in with a typical BEXP IP and she is on a Caribbean beach somewhere. It takes a lot of work to post these results every day, and with the manufacturing phase about ready to kick in, it will only get more challenging.

So, thank you, Karen, wherever you are, and I hope you are enjoying the beverage of your choice on that white, sandy beach.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow, IZ

4 comments:

  1. It will slow down when the demand is satisfied and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

    If the country ever gets back to a strong growing economy then the demand for energy will grow with it. Therefor more growth in energy places like the Williston Basin is critical. Hopefully there will be enough supply of energy to satisfy a growing economy that their prices will stay reasonable and not go through the roof killing the recovery.

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    1. Great point.

      You know, I had forgotten that. Some time ago I was going to do a post (maybe I did, I forget) asking the question how many times does one read that the country is short something. I get a kick out of that: hearing that the country is short of something and we're in one of the worst recoveries ever. Today we're short of guar gum used in fracking. Last summer North Dakota builders couldn't get enough lumber because there was not enough nationwide.

      Yes, I agree with you. Can anyone imagine what it would be like if the entire US economy was booming?

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  2. But it you think about it, 850 units can house 2,500 people at the max.... The area needs housing for 100,000. So when you think about it this just a drop in the bucket. Plus to build that many units will take 2 full years, so in essence 3 building seasons starting today. So when its done, we will need housing for how many? 100,000, 150,000? My project in Minot will house 3,000 when all said and done, takes 3 years and in the mean while Minot will be farther along in housing than when I started. People see 850 units and while historically its a big, big deal, it a small answer to the the larger problem of enough housing.

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    1. I agree.

      One of the reasons I started blogging on the Bakken several years ago (the original blog was deleted, so I could start over), was to counter the arguments that the Bakken was over-hyped.

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