Fantastic Friday: Some Huge Stories Will Be Blogged Today -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Update

This is SOOO coool, and the reason I love to blog. I retired from the US Air Force some years ago, and purposely have not checked in with what it is doing or even paid any attention. Even things that occurred "on my watch" I have forgotten. Someone (see comments below) pointed out that the missile wing and the bombers have left Minot and Grand Forks,and that was many, many years ago. Wow, does time fly by when a) you are having fun; and, b) when you are getting old.

Anyway, I digress. Not only have the missions changed, but the mission at Grand Forks is even cooler than when I was there. First, the tanker mission (which was there when I was there) is now part of mobility command (if I'm not mistaken) and that's a cool mission -- logistics -- in the 21st century. But secondly, the Global Hawk mission is incredible. Now, I can't say for a fact that the Global Hawks have yet arrived at Grand Forks, but my sources say they are. If so, this is an incredibly good mission for the base, and for the city, and for the state. This is state-of-the-art technology, a great fit for UND students to study. The Global Hawk was sponsored by DARPA which was the real inventor of the internet, not Al Gore. Oh, heck yah! They have arrived! See Governor Hoeven's website: the first of ten Global Hawks arrived last month.

So, anyway, one more thing to add to the list of great things in North Dakota.

Just so folks know, Texas Wagyu beef was served by President Obama to visiting South Korean guests. The Wagyu beef, no doubt, came from Texas. Yeahh.

Wagyu is a Japanese breed of cattle, one from which the famous Kobe type of beef is produced.

Original Post
The first beef I have today is with the Bismarck Tribune. When I got "home" last night, the hard copy of the newspaper had a huge front story implying that the first roundabout in North Dakota was going to be in Keene, North Dakota (it has not been built yet; it is only in the "what if" stage). The Tribune said that it would be the first traffic circle between Fargo and Billings, which means there might be a traffic circle in Fargo. If not, the first traffic circle in North Dakota is in Williston. It is already built, drivers are already using it, and lo and behold, there are no written instructions or guildeposts on how to use it. Imagine that. Contrary to the lengthy article in the Tribune suggesting that North Dakotans would be perplexed/surprised by a traffic circle, Willistonites appear to be navigating this circle just fine. For those who have not seen it, the traffic circle is out by the Harvest Hills subdivision, the one that would have had a park (don't get me started).

But I digress. Here's what I really wanted to talk about: another beef story.

Some time ago I received a crabby note from someone who said North Dakota was hampered by the fact it only had two industries: wheat and oil.  The writer said North Dakota, if it wanted to prosper, needed to diversify.

I have told folks that I don't post all comments. That was one I did not post. It was ludicrous on the surface and I did not want to embarrass the writer, who signed himself, "anonymous."

The writer, of course, was wrong. There is quite a bit of diversity in North Dakota: oil, farming (not just grain, but also sugar beets, e.g.), ranching, railroad, coal, tourism, two air force bases (airborne and missile, both), aeronautics, colleges and universities second to none in the region, industry (Bobcat), industrial processing (potatoes; largest processing plant in the US? I am not sure); technology (doesn't Microsoft have one of its largest campuses in Fargo?); and, of course, lutefisk (it is my understanding the biggest market in the US for lutefisk is North Dakota -- of course, we are consuming it and not producing it).

All that background for this. This is a huge story. For "anonymous," who felt North Dakota needed a bit more diversification, perhaps this will help (I doubt it).

Kim & Price, an American-South Korean joint venture, plans to slaughter North Dakota cattle and package meat for export to South Korean consumers. The cost of the facility would be between $80 million and $100 million.

“We continue to evaluate sites that are around Bismarck, but are more rural,” said Roger Hoyum, a management consultant working for the Kim & Price Corp., which plans to build a plant to process 1,250 head of cattle a day.

I do not know if North Dakota ranchers raise enough cattle to process 1,250 head per day, but I doubt it. If I am wrong, Warren Buffett, right now, is busy calculating how many more train cars he needs to bring in cattle from Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska to satisfy this processing center. (According to "agclassroom") there are 1.7 million head of cattle in the state.

By the way, two years ago, I would not have been able to "conceptualize" $100 million. But now I can. That figure, $100 million, represents the amount of new building that was done in the city of Williston in 2010. In 2011, that figure will be approximately $300 million. So for Willistonites, look at all the building that has gone in Williston in the past two years, and imagine one facility in Bismarck taking up about one-fourth of that. Yes, this is a huge story. And once built, it will continue for a long, long time.

I assume that Japan will follow. The Japanese love Kobe beef and something tells me the Japanese are looking at this deal. (Of course, the two are unrelated in the sense that the Korean deal is a direct result of the recent legislation to improve trade between the US and Korea, Panama, and Columbia.

This article will provide some data that might help put the Bismarck packing plant in perspective. Investors  plan to re-open an Iowa packing plant that was closed in 2004 due to mad cow disease scare. The Tama processing plant will start out smaller in scale than it was when it closed. It will cost about $10 million to renovate and re-open. It will likely start with a work force of about 100 employees and then ramping up to as many as 350. The packing plant, like the one in Bismarck no doubt, will be working with custom processors who will provide their own source-verified cattle. The plant is estimated to handle about 800 head/day, very similar to the Bismarck published plans.

I said there would be several "fantastic Friday" stories. Obviously a traffic circle (roundabout) in Williston, and a beef packing plant in Bismarck, can't be the only news stories to get me excited.

Later, I will talk about the Lodgepole formation. Very, very exciting. And it's  not even 8:00 a.m. yet.

Oh, one last thing: this will be news for most NoDaks, but according to First Lady Michele Obama, North Dakotans are living in a "veritable food desert." Not a "food dessert" -- such as Norwegian rice pudding (julegröt/julegrøt/julegrød) -- but "desert" as in "no food or water." I cannot make this stuff up.

Update: July 9, 2022.