In the beginning, The Crude Life had million dollar dreams. Develop a lifestyle news network for the oil and gas industry that would assist in humanizing the industry. To accomplish that goal, founder Jason Spiess embedded himself into the Bakken oil fields to report boots-on-the-ground activity.
Thus the DBA brand known as Building the Bakken was born. A weekly Radio Podcast with a weekly newspaper column and monthly magazine feature.
There was also plans for a Making the Marcellus, Talking the Tyler, Extracting the Eagleford, Knowing the Niobrara, Hello Haynesville and The Permian Play. The only brand The Crude Life operated on a day-to-day basis was Building the Bakken while developing the formula and business plan to what was working in the modern world of communications, news and policy.
But we did have Facebook Pages - and they did have followers.
Eagle Ford Texas Facebook Page
Richard Gardner, PHD Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, Patrick Hart, President Meyer Real Estate Group, Ken DeCubellis, CEO, Black Ridge Oil & Gas, Nancy Hodur, Research Professor NDSU, Shawn Kessel, Dickinson City Administrator, Peter Elzi, Principal Partner THK Associates
Building the Bakken Radio Episode 2: How long will the Bakken “boom” last?
How long will the Bakken Boom last? This is the billion dollar question we posed to industry experts Ken DeCubellis, Nancy Hodur, Dr. Peter Elzi, Patrick Hart, Dr. Richard Gardner, Lynn Helms and Shawn Kessel.
Dr. Richard Gardner, Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, says population growths of 1-3% are normal, 3-5% starts to stretch the ability of small towns to deal with the growth. Gardner says their projects show the city of Williston projecting an 8% growth increase per year until 2020. Gardner says those numbers “boggle the mind and there is no way you can plan well enough to be building water systems, sewer systems, roads, parks, schools fast enough to meet that demand.”
Patrick Hart, president of Meyer Real Estate Group, says their company is poised for 5-10 years of “hyper-growth.” Meyer said their company is participating in the hyper-growth in a variety of industries in the oil patch. He added the Bakken play will span over 20-50 years and will change the way of life for “the Western edge.” Things will level off after 5-10 years of hyper-growth, but Hart believes it will be up to 10 years of a “frenzy.”
Ken DeCubellis, CEO, Black Ridge Oil & Gas, said there will be two phases in the boom. First, the oil production. Once the wells are in place, they will produce for 20-30 years. DeCubellis added the level of investment in drilling will be moderated by the access to the pipeline needed to move oil to the refinery. He said western ND lacks that infrastructure right now, and until that investment occurs, it will moderate the pace of activity. He added that in the end there will be a 5-10 year span of frenzy-like activity before leveling off. DeCubellis said the “big wild card” is if they find more productive formations. He added Continental Resources recently began talking about a third bench of the Bakken in northern McKenzie County. He also pointed out the Three Forks Layer, which has yet to be “fully understood,” in his opinion, and if those layers become productive, the Bakken Boom could continue even longer.
Nancy Hodur, assistant research professor, North Dakota State University, said to take stock in the information provided about the Bakken. She said all their models show despite tremendous growth in the past two years, there is still unbelievable potential in the future. Hodur said currently there are roughly 8,000 wells in the state and the consensus scenario is a projected 40,000 wells. She said this boom is the “real deal,” and it wasn’t going to “poof go away.” She added the oil activity “will change the face of western North Dakota.”
Dickinson city administrator Shawn Kessel addressed the city’s potential growth. Kessel said projections for the city’s population in the next 5 to 10 years are between 42,000 and 47,000, up from nearly 20,000 today. He said he was confident Dickinson would reach the 42,000 mark.
Peter Elzi, THK Associates, pointed to a number of factors that could affect the length of the Bakken play. For example, Elzi said just the number of known wells going up in North Dakota should result in at least 20-30 years of activity. However, Elzi did cite factors that could effect that time frame like “the EPA or the folks in Washington doing anything stupid.” Elzi believes the continued production of the wells and services will continue into the next generation.
“Your grandchildren’s children will be sitting in these chairs,” Lynn Helms, North Dakota State Director of Mineral Resources said at the informational session. “(The commission and Helms also predict) that oil development will stay level through 2025, hovering slightly above 1 million barrels of production every day”
(Interviews and feature from 2014)
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