Bakken Hitting Its Stride -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I don't know if anyone else happened to catch it, but on the NBC Sunday evening news -- last night, out of New York City -- yup, that one -- they had a short video feature on "Boom Town, USA," which of course was Williston, North Dakota.

There was nothing in the piece that we didn't already know but it was another little segment that went nationwide, following the recent Jim Cramer/Mad Money/CNBC production from Killdeer, ND.

Other signs that the Bakken is hitting its stride are seen in a couple of blogs that provide me tips. One is sent to me automatically -- I'm on the mailing list -- but it seldom comes out any more. It is advertising based, and I doubt I see it more than once every two or three weeks. It is time-consuming  to write about the Bakken on a daily basis. There is absolutely so much to keep track of.

Another excellent site which used to provide a huge amount of education about the Bakken has pretty much turned into a "can anyone send me production data" on a given well.

Now that I am back in Williston awhile, I have the opportunity to read the Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Journal which provides a phenomenal amount of information useful to folks interested in the Bakken.

As a reminder, whether or not I post new stand-alone posts, I continually update previous posts. For newbies, I think you will get a kick out of spending some time at the site, learning more about the Bakken.

I will be in the Williston area for a few more days and if anyone has a specific photo they would like to see, let me know and I will do what I can. I can't promise anything but if I'm out and about, and can do it easily, I would love to do it.

It appears that daily visits to this site have doubled over what the visits were about one year ago.

The site remains very simple in appearance. Many of my readers still have dial-up internet service and or slow connections for various other reasons, and the simpler the site remains, the faster it downloads. Unfortunately (or fortunately), it is optimized for the Firefox browser and on a big-screen Apple computer the site looks very, very nice. The site does not look as good on Internet Explorer (Microsoft) and I am sometimes horrified (okay, to strong a word. How about "greatly disappointed") to see how awful it looks on old versions of Internet Explorer.

Again, as long as I'm rambling, a couple other things: the blog was started as a way for me to keep track of the Bakken and to help me understand what it was all about. I could have kept the site private but then thought others might learn from it.

The "million dollar way" has nothing to do with personal finance, but rather, it is the name of the four-lane divided highway that leads out of Williton on the north side that was my metaphorical way of leaving Williston 30-some years ago. It is the same road that metaphorically brought me back.

I post only those comments that bring some "value" to the site. I generally don't post comments to my stand-alone posts that have nothing to do with the Bakken. I have found that if I post only about the Bakken, it becomes a bit dry; adding my "nothing to do with the Bakken" stories has greatly increased the readership. That was not the purpose of "nothing to do with the Bakken" stories but sometimes unintended consequences are positive.

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day. It looks like a beautiful day in the Bakken. I will be out and about taking photos.

By the way, a huge thank you to those folks who send me tips: Don, Greg over at Four-Fifty Gas, Charley, Neil, Dennis, and a few others.