Minneapolis StarTribune: 2nd in A Series of Articles on the Bakken -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

There's no keeping up with North Dakota's surging economy, but at least they're hiring some of us to do chores.

So much prosperity is flowing from oil wells there that it's spilling into neighboring states, with a growing number of Minnesota companies and workers sharing the lucrative oil field contracts and wages.

Of Minnesota's largest metro areas, Moorhead, sister city to Fargo, had the biggest population gain over the past decade -- 15.2 percent. Wayzata-based Northern Oil and Gas, which was built on North Dakota crude, saw oil revenue jump from $3.5 million two years ago to nearly $60 million in 2010. And there's no shortage of tales of Minnesotans getting steady work and big salaries by heading west.

"You guys are far and away our most common source of workers from out of state," said Michael Ziesch, manager of North Dakota's Labor Market Information Center. However, Ziesch added that many of those workers are daily commuters to the North Dakota border cities of Fargo and Grand Forks.

Just 17 counties in western North Dakota produce oil, but the impact is being felt statewide.

Seventeen counties may produce oil in western North Dakota, but "all" the activity right now is centered in just a few: Dunn, Mountrail, Williams, McKenzie, Stark, Bottineau, Divide, Burke. And, of those, it is the first four that account for the most activity.