Anyone Who Thinks The Bakken Is Overhyped Should Read The Headline To The Link -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Note: there are really two stories here, both about Halliburton.  About 2/3rds of the way down, there is a second story.

Does this catch you by surprise? It did me.

On April 12, 2011, Halliburton says they had 800 employees in North Dakota. Now in August, 2011, there is a story that Halliburton is hiring 11,000 new employees, "mostly" for the Bakken play.

Anyway, here are the stories and the links:

Link here.

I have posted the link to this story (from another source) earlier, but this headline is striking:

Halliburton to hire 11,000, mostly for Bakken Shale play

I find that incredible. The first article I linked with regard to this story had a different headline which did not mention the Bakken. Inside the article, the Bakken was mentioned as the primary reason for the hiring.

But here, no pussyfooting around. Halliburton is hiring 11,000, mostly for the Bakken shale play.

"We" hit a record of active drilling rigs last week (200), and projects are going forward to increase the number of man-camps.

My rule of thumb is that an operator needs about one frack team for every three rigs actively drilling just to keep up with drilling; that ratio will not alleviate the backlog. Only the bigger operators have dedicated frack teams, and there are a lot of smaller companies that hire any frack team that is available, and that's why the 3:1 ratio will only barely keep up with the drilling. Drillers reach total depth in 20 days now, and frack teams are faster, but there is still a lot of time moving frack teams onto a new pad, setting up, bringing in water, and then tearing down and moving on.

But this Halliburton story is eye-catching.

You can bet Schlumberger will do the same. I need to get a photograph of the huge new Schlumberger structure that is being built west of Williston.  Maybe tonight. Stay tuned.

Speaking of Halliburton, I missed this story:

In September 2010, Halliburton broke ground for a $15 million, multi-purpose facility in Minot. Located on the Great Plans Energy Park, Halliburton will occupy 38 acres of land in the Phase 2 portion of the park, located in east Minot. Parts of the facility are scheduled to be ready this year: A cement bulk plant is expected to be operational this spring; the remaining construction, including a maintenance shop, wash bay facility and administration office, should be completed by the end of 2011.

The Minot facility is expected to have 250 employees.

"Williston is our hub in North Dakota, so our nearly 800 employees in the state all fall within one Halliburton district, called the 'Williston District,'" Agard explained. "Of course, while they are based in the Williston district, some of these employees may go to various locations within the state to serve our customer's needs."