Flashback -- October 25, 2015

This is from a Bismarck Tribune story, dated September 14, 2010, in which experts forecast when North Dakota would be producing one million bopd based on the prolific Bakken:

It's estimated that production could exceed 450,000 barrels a day by 2013 and could reach 1 million barrels a day by 2020.

Wow.

In fact, according to the "Director's Cut" of April 16, 2013, North Dakota was producing 737,787 bopd in January, 2013.

One year later, by December, 2013, North Dakota was producing just shy of one million bopd: 926,687 bopd.

Unfettered, North Dakota could produce in excess of 2 million bopd by the end of 2016, but conditions are such that the time to drill out the Bakken has been extended by decades.

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If You Can, Disregard The Ads

The Washington Times posts a reprint from The Williston Herald on the Bakken bust, a human interest story:

He moved to Williston in 2010 and found work as a mechanic, bouncing around from one better-paying job to another, until being hired as a caser - someone who lays the final pipe after a hole is drilled for a rig.

For several years, work was steady, and money worries disappeared. He saved by living in a camper for several years, and was eventually earning enough to rent a townhouse for $3,000 a month and move his pregnant wife and three children here.

But at the beginning of this year, as the rig count started a free-fall from nearly 200 to the 68 in operation now, rumors started to swirl in the oil patch.

“We all saw it, every single one of us saw it,” Burgess said of the downturn, “it” being layoffs at major companies such as Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Sanjel.

“We didn’t realize it would fall as far and as fast as it did,” he said. “We knew that there was going to be trouble, but with them telling us it was going to be fine, we just got invested in it.”

Then, in late May, Burgess, 34, walked in to get his paycheck and was handed a pink slip along with it.

The family suddenly found themselves in over their heads, and Burgess, who could no longer afford the rent, was forced to break his lease. He took his wife and kids back to South Dakota, but decided to give Williston another shot.

At first, the job search proved fruitless. The oil industry, where most of Burgess’s training is, wasn’t hiring, and even job fairs seemed to be dead ends.

“A lot of (oil companies) are there (at the fair) just for looks,” Burgess said. “They would tell me, when the oil field picks back up give us a call.”

By the middle of last month, he was staying with a friend in a studio apartment, and was down to just a few dollars. Discouraged and broke, he headed back home a week ago to his family on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and its sky-high unemployment rate. He wasn’t there long before a few welcome job offers came in.

Much more at the link. I didn't want to post the article because of all the "awful" ads at the linked site, but I knew readers would send me the link.