I'm Wrong Again -- 500-Unit Crew Camp In Dunn County -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Updates

June 7, 2012: Dunn County crew camp could grow to 1,650

Planning and Zoning Commission members approved 400 additional units for Boston-based Target Logistics’ crew camp 10 miles north of Dickinson on Tuesday at a meeting in the Dunn County Courthouse in Manning.

The commission will also review a request next Tuesday from Target Logistics to add 650 units to the facility, bringing the camp’s unit count to 1,650.

Original Post

By my reckoning, the current Bakken boom began in Montana in 2000. The boom began in North Dakota in 2007. So, we are somewhere between five years and twelve years into the boom.

I honestly thought we would see a leveling off in the rate of growth in 2012. Biological growth models typically follow an "S" curve, and I thought we would be near the top of the curve this year. It appears that will not be the case. A reader pointed out yesterday that, to date, building permits (measured in dollars) have almost doubled in Williston over what they were last year. Dickinson just approved a record-breaking 3,000 unit crew camp. And, now, in one of the more mature places in the oil patch, Dunn County has just approved a 500-unit crew camp. And another 400-crew camp permit is pending review.

Five Diamond Industrial Park, which sits on approximately 140 acres on the Dunn/Stark county line immediately northwest of Highway 22, said Brian Hymel of Draper, Utah-based Five Diamond Fund Managers.The lodging facility will be built in two 250-unit phases,... and could be finished as early as late fall this year. FDFM may apply for additional units, depending on the market conditions...

In addition, Target has applied for a permit for a 400-unit crew camp new Joy Haven, eight miles north of Dickinson.

Regular readers know why the crew camps are being sited eight miles north of Dickinson rather than east, west, or south of said city.

The fact that a 3,000-unit crew camp, a 500-unit crew camp, and a pending 400-unit crew camp in this area have all been approved in almost-lightning bolt fashion says two things:

• the Pronghorn Sand has gotten someone's attention
• "city fathers" have realized that temporary man-camps use less infrastructure than permanent housing, and temporary man-camps will be removed when the boom ends; new hotels / motels will remain "forever," probably turned into "old age" home for retiring truckers and roughnecks