MDU's Knife River To Open Plant in Williston -- Heart of the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here (regional links break early and break often). A big "thank you" to Don for alerting me to this story.

Knife River Corporation announced plans today to open a Western North Dakota Division with full aggregate, ready-mix, asphalt and concrete construction services. Headquartered in Williston, division employees will perform private and public work throughout western North Dakota and eastern Montana.

This was announced on April 11; a couple days later there was an article detailing the amount of money flowing to the oil patch in North Dakota. Perhaps the most amount of money ever appropriated for road construction and maintenance has been earmarked for the Bakken: $610 million plus another $100 million for other oi-related impact projects over the next two years.

So, MDU's Knife River decision to set up shop in Williston is huge.

One of the first things I thought of when I read this: the huge additional workforce that will be needed. Initially, my hunch is that the bulk of the workforce will come out of Boise, Idaha; Bismarck; and, perhaps, Minnesota.

The office and all production equipment will be situated on property in north Williston, with plans to have full ready-mix operations available by early May. A spokesman said that when North Dakota's spring road restrictions lift, an asphalt plant transferred from Knife River's Boise, Idaho, operations will be permanently placed. Knife River already has secured a paving contract with the city of Williston.

For investors, despite all the volatility of the stock market recently, MDU has held its own very, very nicely and continues to pay a respectable dividend.

I would be surprised if we did not see a story on Seeking Alpha or Investopedia regarding this recent announcement.

This would also be an opportunity to go back to read all those articles between 2006 and 2008 that said the Bakken was over-hyped. Even Snopes.com, as recently as March, 2010, fails to put the Bakken into perspective.