They're Reading The Blog Over At Bloomberg -- March 13, 2018

A headline story today over at Rigzone from Bloomberg: oil bust was actually good for a town called "Shale City." Or "Boom Town." Share this with your friends and family:

As the price of oil goes, so goes Williston, North Dakota. Now, though, the community located deep in the state’s Bakken shale play is working to break free from the industry’s boom-and-bust cycles.

When oil sold for $100 a barrel, Williston -- one among many oil towns dotting the nation’s shale basins -- grew faster than its infrastructure and services could handle.

There was a housing shortage, a too-small police force and endless traffic tie-ups.
Then the bust hit, with oil prices falling below $30, and Williston lost around 4,000 residents in just a year as the industry responded with massive layoffs. Bad news? Not according to some. Even as the population fell, school enrollment and birth rates rose, adding incentives to improve infrastructure and services as Williston veered away from a population heavy with transient workers to one with a more settled populace.

The goal: Keep existing businesses happy while prepping for what was seen as an inevitable oil revival, according to Shawn Wenko, executive director of Williston Economic Development. "We shifted from a boom to a business model," he said. “And today, you see that mindset is paying off."

Since 2015, as oil prices floundered, Williston has added new roads, including a truck route around the city, two new fire stations, expanded the landfill, opened a new waste water treatment plant and started work on an airport relocation and expansion project. And school officials are studying whether to quickly add another 15 rooms to the high school as enrollment rates continue to grow. Public school enrollment jumped 49 percent in the past five years.

In essence, the community was able to take a deep breath and get reorganized during the industry slowdown, Wenko said. The timing is key. With oil prices now above $60 a barrel and the Dakota Access Pipeline in service, explorers are rediscovering the value of the Bakken as prices for oil development in Texas and New Mexico have skyrocketed.

Much more at the link.

By the way, some operators say they are making more money at $50 oil than at $100 oil.