This Seems So Long Ago -- The Atlantic Monthly's Fascination With The Bakken -- From 2016

API: weekly US crude oil inventories. Link here. Also, at this site.

• previous: 4.755 million bbls 
• forecast: 1.5 million bbls
• actual: 3.229 million bbls (almost twice forecast)
• this is a "build"; but API data, at least recent history, has been significantly different than what the EIA will report -- tomorrow, 10:30 a.m. -- but a build of 3.2 million bbls suggests that the EIA data tomorrow could come in somewhere between a draw of 1 million bbls and a build of 1 million bbls; within that range, it will not change the number of weeks to re-balance which is currently at 20 weeks. I use the EIA data to calculate weeks until US crude oil stores have "balanced"
• analysis six hours before the API data was released; this suggests me to the stronger dollar is not being offset by increased demand/less supply hopes

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Flashback: Williston, ND -- August 8, 2016

I can't recall if I linked this article from The Atlantic Monthly. Regardless, it's fun to read (for the first time) and re-read a second time to see how an East Coast magazine saw Williston back in 2016.

I will leave it to current Williston residents to compare what was written then to how things are going now. All I know is the reference to Walmart. It was reported a few days ago that two Walmart stores in North Dakota will undergo renovation. One of them is the Walmart in Williston. (The other one: Wahpeton, in southeastern North Dakota -- about as far away from the Bakken as one can get and still be in the state. It's about 30 minutes west of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, which also has a Walmart, probably the only other Walmart in the immediate area.)

I doubt Walmart, known for its "tight" spending, would be likely to re-model one of its stores if it thought the local economy was dying.

From the linked article, this will keep the riff-raff out:

The writer mentions one other boom town that succeeded: Denver, CO.

The writer failed to mention, perhaps, the greatest boom town ever that owes its success to oil: Calgary, Alberta, Canada.