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Every workover rig available is going right now in the Bakken, North Dakota’s top oil and gas regulator Lynn Helms said on Friday, during his monthly oil production report, as companies try to get wells online as quickly as possible after back-to-back blizzards idled a substantial number of four and five-well pads in Williams, Divide, and McKenzie counties.

March was a good month for production, Helms said, with a 2.8 percent increase in crude oil production from 1.089 million barrels per day to 1.12 million barrels per day. That figure is 2 percent above revenue forecast. Gas production, meanwhile, rose 4.5 percent to 3.01 billion cubic feet per day from 2.87 billion cubic feet per day in February.

Gas capture percentages were 95 percent, and this time Fort Berthold was a bright spot, with 97 percent capture. Helms said he expects continued improvement in the Fort Berthold area, with new solutions for gas capture in the works for the Twin Buttes area, which has been a problem spot.

But production is not going to look as rosy in April, Helms said, and may not look great in May either, given the time it will take to repair electrical distribution infrastructure. Load limits remain in place because of wet conditions, and that is a condition that might go on for a while, given the recent flooding issues caused by rain.

“We saw production in the first blizzard dropped from about 1.1 million barrels a day to 750,000 a day,” Helms said. “We recovered not quite back to a million barrels a day. And then the second blizzard came in. It was heavily impactful on electrical power and infrastructure in the Bakken oil fields.”

“It took a week, or I guess within a little bit less than a week, we recovered to 700,000 and it’s taken another week, we think we’re back at about a million barrels a day.”

One of the biggest of problems was that so many natural gas processing plants were knocked out of service, some for nine hours and others for well over a week.

“Just this past week, our largest gas plant came on and that’s really enabled a lot of production to come back on,” Helms said. “So we’re back to a million barrels a day, maybe a little more. You know all of the large operators reported enormous production losses. And of course that has led to the deployment of every workover rig available being out there trying to get wells back on production.”

Last weekend in Williams County, a dozen four and five-well pads along Highway 2, headed toward Ray, remained idle. They appeared to be without electricity, with some poles still clearly broken and lines laying down on the ground.

In his discussions with drilling contractors, Helms has learned that most drilling rigs went south to Texas and New Mexico, both of which escape winter sooner than the Bakken. Those areas hired the available workforce, too, which has added to the Bakken’s difficulty in attracting workforce.

“It’s taking around two months to train and deploy a drilling rig and crew, and very similar timeframes for frack crews,” Helms said. “So it’s just very, very slowly coming back.”

“There have not been any new frack fleets constructed since before the pandemic,” Helms said. “So the iron that’s out there is starting to show some wear and tear, some age, and, at some point, we’re going to have to see capital deployed to bring that iron back on.”

“I was reading an article today, and some of the large operators were saying, ‘Well you know we could bid up the price to hire frack crews, but all we would be doing is hiring them away from smaller companies that can’t afford to pay as much.’ So there wouldn’t be a gain in the number operating, in the number of wells completed, or really a more rapid rise in production. So it’s very much workforce limited.”

North Dakota rig counts are at 40 right now and Montana rigs are at 2, according to figures from North Dakota Pipeline Authority Justin Kringstad. Helms said the Bakken hasn’t seen those numbers since March of 2020. There are about 15 frack crews running now, a number last seen in April 2020.

Prices, however, have been well ahead of revenue forecasts, pushed in part by sanctions against Russia, which attempt to choke a major source of financial capital for the invasion of Ukraine, as well as continued supply chain issues and lower than expected production from OPEC.

“Today’s price is almost $102 a barrel for North Dakota light sweet and $106 West Texas,” Helms said. “So we’re estimating about $104 a barrel for North Dakota crude prices. That’s more than double revenue forecast. Revenue forecast was based on $50 oil, so that’s 108 percent above that.”

“And of course the market did not like the signal that it got this week or late last week of the cancellation of the offshore lease sales in the Alaskan lease sales,” Helms said.

“For example, the RMPs, or the resource management programs, and the records of decision from Corps of Engineers and Forest Service weren’t filed along with information about why various quarterly lease sales were canceled,” Helms said. “And why some of the tracts were chosen that were chosen to be in this latest lease sale.”

North Dakota is a few days away from a May 18 deadline for protests in the projected June sale, which has 15 parcels listed. If there’s a protest against one or more of the tracts, they could be pulled from the sale for further consideration.

Assists the Rig Operator in performing job activities associated with the rig-up and rig-down of the workover rig, picking up/laying down and standing back rods…

Manages tools on the workover rig floor and assists in daily maintenance. Must have a minimum of 1 year of experience as a workover rig floorhand to be…

Spot in, rig up, and rig down well service unit (rig). Minimum of 1 year operating rig. Workover rig experience (minimum 6 months verified experience).

Installs / disassembles (rig up/rig down) of wireline and pressure control equipment in accordance with original equipment manufacturer’s standards including…

Operate the rig safely during rig up/down and pulling operations. Perform all required equipment inspections-workover rig, fall arrest system, derrick, hoisting…

The successful candidate will have an outstanding track record of success in workover rig experience in operating heavy equipment while ensuring communication…

Ensures all crew members are at the rig and prepared to work at the scheduled time. Determines how a service job will be performed based on specific conditions…

Inspects the setting up, taking down and transportation of the assigned workover rig. The Rig Operator, reporting to the assigned Tool Pusher/Field Supervisor,…

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Communicates with customer and/or the delegated well site representative, rig crew and field support staff. Plans, directs, supervises, and evaluates the work…

3+ years workover rig / wellsite supervisory experience. Ensures efficient maintenance of assigned rig and equipment. High school diploma, equivalent or higher.

The Floor Hand position is part of a 4-5 person workover rig crew on a well service rig, who are responsible for performing services on oil and gas wells…

Operate the rig safely during rig up/down and pulling operations. Perform all required equipment inspections-workover rig, fall arrest system, derrick, hoisting…

Perform services on oil and gas wells as part of a 3-5 person workover rig crew. Lifts, removes, installs and operates well head pump, jacks and performs other…

We are immediately hiring full snubbing crews for 170k stand alone rig assist and 150k rig assist snubbing units! High school diploma, GED or equivalent.

Savanna Well Servicing’s Canadian division has an exceptional track record of quality service and has operated in all plays through the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Savanna Well Servicing provides expert service in oil and gas exploration, workovers, well maintenance and abandonments across Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Manitoba.

Savanna Well Servicing USA is based in Dickinson, North Dakota—the heart of the American Bakken formation. Exceptional crews and leadership have resulted in a strong and sustained demand for Savanna’s workover rigs in the area. Savanna’s US workover crews have exemplary safety records and continue to deliver a premier level of service excellence. Savanna Well Servicing currently runs Service King and Loadcraft Rigs and is known for its high quality, well maintained equipment.

Axis is a completion and workover company built for today’s operators, as you shift into manufacturing mode while drilling ever-longer laterals. We’re advancing both goals through our core mission: optimizing completions.

For too long, well services has lagged other oil and gas sectors in innovation. Axis is changing that with integrated, data-driven services. New, purpose-engineered equipment. And a team that unites oilfield veterans with the next generation of crews and engineers through our leading-edge training culture.

How much does an Oil Rig make in North Dakota? The average Oil Rig salary in North Dakota is $49,023 as of September 26, 2022, but the range typically falls between $41,933 and $59,761. Salary ranges can vary widely depending on the city and many other important factors, including education, certifications, additional skills, the number of years you have spent in your profession.

Review the job openings, similar jobs, level of education, and experience requirements for the Oil Rig job to confirm that it is the job you are seeking.

We provide superior hotshot trucking for the Bakken Oil Field, continental United States and Canada. Currently we dispatch in North Dakota. We aim to be a step above our competitors. We value every ...

A Workover Rig Floorhand is responsible for all activities conducted on the workover rig floor by performing but not limited to the following duties: Essential Duties & Responsibilities * Operates ...

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North Dakota is a Midwestern state of the United States. It borders Canada and lies at the center of the North American continent. The geographic center of North America is near the town of Rugby. Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, and Fargo is the largest city.

Soil is North Dakota"s most precious resource. It is the base of the state"s great agricultural wealth. But North Dakota also has enormous mineral resources. These mineral resources include billions of tons of lignite coal. In addition, North Dakota has large oil reserves. Petroleum was discovered in the state in 1951 and quickly...

About North Dakota North Dakota is a Midwestern state of the United States. It borders Canada and lies at the center of the North American continent. The geographic cent....More

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Job Service North Dakota announced six oil companies are looking for workers to man fracking crews in the new year, said Cindy Sanford, customer service office manager of Job Service"s Williston branch. She said she couldn"t reveal the names of the companies due to confidentiality clauses, but she said the companies are looking to hire 45 to 65 workers per crew. On the low end, that could bring 300 hires to the Bakken, she said.

"It"s getting busier in our offices, as far as not only with job seekers but also the companies," said Phil Davis, the agency"s western area director. "We are seeing more of the service rigs - not so much the drilling rigs - but our service rigs and workover rigs, jobs are coming back there, which is a great thing."

Oil companies announced in October they would post positions for workers in the Bakken as oil prices climbed to an 18-month high in December. Oil on the New York Mercantile rang out Thursday at $53.83, almost a 50 percent increase over last year. That"s down from an all-time high of $136.29, which was set July 3, 2008, but almost double the 10-year low - barrels of oil went for less than $27 in early 2016.

After peaking in June 2014, oil prices started to fall off, causing oil companies to lay off workers and take rigs offline. As of Thursday, North Dakota"s rig count was 39. That"s down from its all-time high of 218 in May 2012, but the count has been on a slight increase over the past several months.

The recent job postings in western North Dakota mostly are for service or workover rigs, which are used to complete a well and install the pump after drilling is done.

November"s increase from October for all job openings for Stark County, where oil jobs once were abundant before the bust, was 140, while Williams County, the heart of fracking, saw a 50-job increase.

The December numbers are expected to come out Wednesday, Davis said. He added companies are looking for workers who have more skills than the crews hired when the oil boom began in the early 2010s, which saw a lot of "greenhorns" come to North Dakota, he said.

Davis couldn"t say whether the job openings meant the oil industry could turn around since it went bust in recent years, but he did say it was exciting to see the jobs come back.

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STANLEY, N.D. (AP) — Federal, state and local investigators in northwest North Dakota are looking into the cause of an oil rig explosion and fire that sent three workers to the hospital.

The crew members were taken to a burn center in St. Paul, Minnesota. The well site in Mountrail County is owned by Chord Energy, which said the three contract workers are in stable condition.

“The primary focus of the parties at this stage is caring for the welfare of the injured, working with the relevant entities to investigate the incident and ongoing assessment of damages at the facility,” the company said in a statement.

The blast and fire happened Friday night near Stanley. According to authorities, the fire was contained to the site location. Emergency crews from Stanley and New Town were among those responding to the scene.

One reason American gas prices remain so high lies in the ruts of J&J Rental’s parking lot here in Watford City – the heart of North Dakota’s oil country.

At a time when spiking oil prices should be driving a boom in U.S. production, and helping to relieve those painful numbers at the pump and on monthly utility bills, two of the company’s five service rigs have been idle. Vice President Greg Burbach, whose coveralls are spattered with mud, sits down in his office to explain why.

In January, as the price of oil climbed steadily higher, he started getting daily calls from customers interested in hiring the rigs, which are used for maintaining and repairing oil wells. So over the next two months, he spent $12,000 on ads in 10 markets across the country trying to hire workers. He only got one.

Spiking oil prices have heightened the debate over whether the U.S. should emphasize more drilling or saving the planet. In North Dakota, officials think they’ve found a third way – doing both.

Customers still call weekly to see if he’s assembled any crews to run the $900,000 pieces of equipment. He hasn’t – despite offering a monthly housing allowance, a daily bonus, and a 10% pay raise.

“I can’t just hire people off the street,” says Mr. Burbach, walking around one of the rigs, which stands 104 feet tall, with a ladder for crews to climb and long guy wires to anchor it to the ground. With the winds that whip across the prairie here, it requires experienced hands to operate the machines safely.

Greg Burbach (left), a vice president with the oil-services firm J&J Rental, stands with his colleague John Thiers near one of their rigs used to repair and maintain oil wells. The North Dakota company is having a hard time finding experienced workers, despite offering hefty bonuses and housing allowances.

After decades in the industry, Mr. Burbach has seen his fair share of booms and busts. But something is different this time. Despite oil soaring to more than $100 a barrel, almost no one here is expecting a significant boost in production this year.

They can’t get workers. They can’t get capital from Wall Street. They can’t secure new leases on federal lands. And the cost of doing business has gone up dramatically – everything from labor to steel to the diesel needed to drill for oil.

“We were told not to drill and shut everything down because the planet’s going to burn up,” says Dave Williams, chief executive officer of Missouri River Resources, an oil producer on the Fort Berthold Reservation. “And now we’ve got everyone saying we’ve got to produce as much as we can.”

North Dakota illustrates that there is no switch to flip that will instantly boost U.S. oil production, not even in one of the most prolific, pro-oil states in the country. And part of that, people here say, is due to the Biden administration’s hard pivot away from fossil fuels in its bid to mitigate climate change.

To be sure, there has long been a fundamental tension between meeting America’s energy needs and saving the planet. But that cleavage has grown in recent years amid increasingly urgent warnings that Earth is on the verge of a meltdown.

Now, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Republicans in Congress are calling for an overhaul of America’s energy policy. The president has miscalculated in his efforts to fight climate change, they say, undermining national security and U.S. foreign policy. They argue instead for increased oil production to enable America to lead unfettered by unsavory leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, progressives are accusing oil companies of profiteering – taking advantage of high oil prices and federal subsidies – while ruining the planet.

Amid the national debate, North Dakota presents an interesting case study in balancing the push for increased U.S. production with the growing social and political momentum toward mitigating climate change. Some states have sought to transition off fossil fuels, following the lead of many European countries. Others have dug in with a “drill, baby, drill” mentality, suing their way out of federal regulations or waiting until the next GOP president. North Dakota was arguably in the drill camp – until last May. At a conference of oil bigwigs, Republican Gov. Doug Burgum shocked the crowd by announcing that he planned to take North Dakota carbon neutral by 2030.

Controversy has swirled about the environmental impact of a proposed oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which lies in the Badlands of western North Dakota.

“We’re trying to chart a course that takes us down the middle of that road – not drill at all costs and produce at all costs, or shut things down because we have a climate crisis,” says Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources. “We think we can do both.”

The last time oil prices spiked, Gary Goodman left Kentucky for a fresh start in the oil fields of North Dakota. It was 2012. With a felony conviction and few job prospects, he boarded a train in Cincinnati and headed west with a few work clothes, a sleeping mat, and $1,600 he’d saved up from doing odd jobs. Thirty-nine hours later, he arrived in North Dakota.

People from all over the country poured into Williston and Watford City, staying in “man camps,” tents along the street, or RVs in the Walmart parking lot. Mr. Goodman headed for a Lutheran church that was letting people sleep on the floor. “You ever been in trouble?” he recalls the pastor asking him.

“I’ve got a rap sheet as long as your arm,” admitted Mr. Goodman, explaining he was imprisoned on drug-related charges, but nothing violent. “I’m here to make a life, to try to do the right thing.”

The pastor checked out his story and let him in. Mr. Goodman bought a pillow and hunkered down with 60 other guys for a couple of months, getting a gym membership so he could take daily showers. He soon landed a full-time gig and stayed for seven years.

It was thanks to workers like Mr. Goodman that North Dakota became the country’s No. 2 oil producer after Texas. “We were paying gobs of money for a pulse,” says Paula Lankford, who runs the Williston branch of Job Service North Dakota.

The boom transformed Watford City from a town of 1,700 to 6,200, and made the surrounding county the fastest-growing in the United States, according to the 2020 census.

From 2019 to 2021, North Dakota’s oil production dropped 25% – far worse than the 9% decline nationally. One of the main reasons it’s not possible to simply turn on the oil spigot now that prices have surged again is that many of the itinerant workers have vanished. Some have headed to the Permian, the large oil field that stretches across Texas and New Mexico. The oil is cheaper to extract, and there are no cryogenic windchills that leave icicles on your eyelashes and “make you wish you’d never been born,” as one worker here puts it.

In March, the local job service office had seven times more openings as active résumés in construction and extraction, says Ms. Lankford. An RV park where out-of-state workers used to sleep stands empty, a “for sale” sign tacked to the fence.

“I had guys asking me to lay them off so they could collect unemployment insurance,” says Shane Johnson, who owns J&J Rental, which includes the oil-services operation in Watford City where Mr. Burbach has been trying to woo workers.

But Mr. Goodman is still driven to work. After recently returning from Kentucky to Watford City, he swings by J&J Rental to fill out paperwork, pick up a harness to keep him safe on the derrick, and grab a hat with the company’s black-and-red logo. Then he heads to Outlaws’ Bar and Grill on North Main Street, to fill up on bison meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

The next morning, with a full moon still hanging in the sky, workers in Carhartts and muddy work boots trudge into The Corner Post gas station to fuel up for another day in the oil patch. They clutch sodas, sticks of beef jerky, and wedges of frosted cake, as well as foam containers loaded with eggs, biscuits, and bacon from the breakfast buffet. The four cashiers punching registers have been working since 5 a.m.

Outside, supersize pickups and flatbed trucks brimming with equipment fill up with gas before rumbling out of the parking lot. There are pipelines to fix, wells to drill, and, yes, there’s oil to pump.

But despite the high prices, Mr. Helms at the Department of Mineral Resources projects that North Dakota will only see an increase in production of at most 9% this year, to 1.2 million barrels per day – still 300,000 barrels short of the 2019 peak. Currently 40 rigs are operating across the state, down from 55 pre-pandemic.

Iron Oil CEO J.R. Reger says he’s sticking to his plan to use only one drilling rig in the Williston Basin for now because his costs have risen as much as 15% over the past year. He worries oil prices will plummet before he can recoup his costs.

Industry officials say investors are hesitant, too, for several reasons. They poured money into oil for years and didn’t get great returns. Secondly, as socially responsible investing picks up, windmills are in vogue, not oil rigs. Then came the Biden administration’s pivot – and with it, increased regulation.

The federal government has canceled the $9 billion Keystone XL pipeline; suspended lease sales; bogged down the permitting process, according to industry executives; and nominated people who see banking policy as a key tool in accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.

“I really think the regulatory impact on the financial sector is the largest thing tamping down the industry,” says Kathy Neset, a geologist and founder of Neset Consulting Service, who recently finished a term on the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. She says Biden administration officials are putting unrealistic expectations on the industry during a crisis.

They see it differently: The Ukraine war and its consequences for energy underscore the need for weaning the country not only off foreign oil, but also off fossil fuels altogether. And it’s “important and appropriate” for the market to price in climate risks, says Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, who formerly led the sustainable investment team at BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund manager.

In the short term, there are no policy constraints on ramping up production, he adds, noting that corporations like Exxon and Chevron are already doing so. Speaking at a Monitor Breakfast in Washington April 6, Mr. Deese acknowledged that smaller companies reliant on private equity are having a tougher time boosting production and said the administration is willing to help. “We are open to practical and pragmatic ideas as long as they’re grounded in real, not imagined constraints.”

GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota’s sole House member, has a few suggestions: Approve permit applications that have languished since last year, signal support for building natural gas pipelines, and reform the environmental review process.

Over in the Senate, his fellow North Dakota Republican Kevin Cramer is also pushing for less federal regulation as well as more investment in the industry. But Senator Cramer, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, says it’s important for both sides to step away from extreme positions and work together.

“You can’t dig your heels in on, ‘Climate change is a hoax,’ or the other side saying, ‘The world is ending tomorrow if we don’t do something about it,’ and expect a real solution,” he says.

Delvin Rabbithead Sr.worked as a roughneck in the oil patch for a year during the last boom. Then one winter, as the temperatures started dipping to minus 30, he decided to switch to the comfort of a heated truck cab. As a driver, he hauled away the salty water that is a byproduct of oil production.

– Delvin Rabbithead Sr., a former truck driver for oil companies who became concerned about practices he was seeing in the industry and joined an environmental group

Yet he quickly witnessed something on the new job that disturbed him: drivers who wouldn’t bother to go to the designated disposal sites but would dump their effluents elsewhere under the cover of darkness. These and other experiences served as a wake-up call about the industry he’d grown up around. “I started realizing what it was doing to our land,” he says.

Much of North Dakota’s oil and gas is obtained through fracking, a controversial extraction technique that enabled the U.S. to become the world’s biggest producer in 2018. In this GOP state that gets 50% of its tax revenues from energy production, few are calling for scrapping fossil fuels altogether. But environmental activists and landowners are concerned about everything from saltwater spills and leaky pipelines to emissions from the flaring of gas that is extracted alongside oil.

During the previous oil boom, the flames could be seen from the International Space Station. “It was like a Christmas tree, all lit up,” says Mr. Rabbithead.

The Fort Berthold Reservation where he grew up is particularly notorious for gas flaring. So he joined a group called Fort Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights, and says they were close to reaching a deal with tribal leadership to lower emissions before the pandemic hit.

Natural gas flaring statewide has dropped 96% since 2011, according to state officials, who inspect flaring sites and review companies’ self-reported numbers on the practice. But activists say the rates are far higher, citing a satellite study.

Across the Missouri River that Lewis and Clark once plied, farmer Donny Nelson is fighting another battle. He personally has lost about 100 acres to saltwater spills, despite the state’s remediation efforts.

As co-founder of the Salted Lands Council, he’s fundraising to map saltwater spills statewide and determine the cost of properly restoring the land. His guess: $1 billion or more.

As trucks rumble outof The Corner Post headed for the oil fields, Larry Dokken is driving 70 mph awayfrom the Bakken. Mr. Dokken been working in the oil industry here since 1964. But now he’s on a new mission for Neset Consulting: overseeing a carbon storage initiative that would be the largest in the world.

The idea is to capture emissions at 31 ethanol plants in the Upper Midwest and send it by pipeline to Beulah, North Dakota, where it would be injected deep underground and stored permanently. The state would get to claim huge carbon offsets, and the ethanol producers would be able to sell their low-carbon ethanol at a premium in states like California, the largest ethanol market in the nation.

It’s one of numerous initiatives launched since Governor Burgum announced his carbon-neutral goal last year, and by far the biggest. Other projects include advancing a $1 billion plan to capture and store coal emissions, building one of the nation’s largest low-cost hydrogen hubs, and turning soybeans into diesel fuel.

The $4.5 billion carbon storage project is not yet approved, and there are plenty of skeptics. In order to get the necessary permits, Summit Carbon Solutions is drilling three wells and bringing up core samples from thousands of feet underground, then shipping them to Denver for analysis. Its goal: prove that the sandstone layers can hold carbon, and that the cap rock just above them is impermeable enough to keep it from escaping.

Mr. Dokken, the project manager, pulls up to the entrance gate at the site on a recent sun-dappled morning. A drilling rig is boring 4,000 feet underground. Inside one of the heated trailers on-site, a geologist monitors the rock layers they are expecting to find, and at what depth. The crew is pleased with the progress so far.

Summit is offering to pay landowners to lay a pipeline across their property and for carbon storage rights. But not all are thrilled with the project.

One disgruntled local landowner has been leaving leaflets in people’s mailboxes warning about the dangers of transporting carbon gas. In Richland County, to the east, residents recently approved a resolution to deny Summit the right to invoke eminent domain for the pipeline.

running across his property concerns him. He says his insurance wouldn’t cover an accidental leak or its effects, including on livestock grazing nearby.

– Larry Dokken, an oil industry veteran who, along with engineer Jean Datahan (right), is overseeing work on a huge carbon sequestration project in North Dakota

“Good things still have to be done in a thoughtful way – not the wild, Wild West approach that we just got done with in the Bakken oil field,” says Mr. Coons, whose organization recently sued the state over a new law governing “pore space,” where carbon would be stored.

Questions still linger about how well carbon storage works. In 2020, a $1 billion coal carbon-capture plant in Texas sequestered 15% less carbon than was projected. The project was mothballed after three years because it wasn’t economically viable.

“You’ve got to develop the technology so you can make it pay in the free market,” says Sen. John Hoeven, who as the GOP governor of North Dakota laid the regulatory groundwork for carbon storage and later advanced tax credits for the technology. “We’ve got about a 10-year head start on everybody else.”Get stories that

“[These companies] are trying to figure out how to be the next robber barons,” says Scott Skokos of the Dakota Resource Council, an environmental watchdog group. Although he credits the governor with finding a third way between unchecked drilling and an abrupt turn toward green energy, he sees it as a quixotic quest. “He’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too – and I don’t think it’s possible.”

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When oil began its second boom in 2007, oil workers flocked to the Williston Basin in western North Dakota. Within a few years, 75,000 new jobs had been created. (See Map 1.)

Map 1: The Williston Basin underlies much of western North Dakota. The geological layers beneath the basin contain oil shale which can produce oil once it has been “fracked” or broken up. The process requires the work of petroleum geologists, mining engineers, oil field specialists, truck drivers, and rig workers. Courtesy North Dakota Geological Survey.

Most of the new jobs were in oil extraction and transportation. Of course, trucking (transportation) is closely associated with oil extraction jobs because the Bakken shale requires fracking with water and chemicals to release the oil. Water is trucked to each well (perhaps 1,000 truckloads of water per well), creating a high demand for experienced truck drivers.

In 2012, the average oil field wage reached $112,462. These wages are very appealing, but oil field workers earn their pay the hard way. They work from 80 to 120 hours a week. If they work outdoors, they have to do their jobs even when a 30 mile-per-hour wind is drilling frozen bits of snow into their eyes, and the temperature is dropping to 25° below zero.

Jobs in the oil fields tend to be specialized. Engineers specialize in one kind of task. For instance, a coil tubing specialist is the person who inserts tubing into a well for pumping fracking fluids into the well. Specialists may work for one company, but some will work as independent contractors for many companies. That means they receive a specified amount of pay and no benefits.

Many of the best oil field jobs require a bachelor’s degree in engineering, geology, or chemistry. In addition, high-paying oil field jobs require years of experience in handling the equipment, analyzing oil production in a well, and in managing the crew.

Image 3: This young oil field worker (or roustabout) is working on a rig that is drilling a new oil well. The work is extremely dangerous. For inexperienced oil rig workers, the pay is around $18 per hour. If this young man sticks with the job and is a good worker, he will be able to work up to a better position. SHSND 2013-P-024-0923.

Jobs that do not require a bachelor’s degree will probably demand a great deal of physical labor. For beginners, the pay usually starts at about $18 per hour (in 2014). (See Image 3.) A hard worker with a clean record might be able to work up to a better job.

Oil has pushed other jobs in western North Dakota as well. Today, there are more jobs in every field of employment in the Williston Basin, and generally higher pay, too. This happens because a well-paid oil field worker buys a car, groceries, and a television. The stores that sell those goods hire more employees. In this way, oil field workers distribute their income throughout the region. The effect of oil field jobs resulted in an increase in the pay of all workers in the oil region from $33,000 to $50,500 per year between 2007 and 2011.

The costs of oil production have been high. Oil field work is dangerous. The death rate for oil field workers is about eight times higher than the national average for industrial workers. Many of these deaths result from truck accidents on narrow highways. In addition, truck-train collisions have increased 67 per cent in North Dakota since 2006 while, nationally, truck-train collisions are down 32 per cent.

Injuries in oil-related jobs are also rising. North Dakota oil and gas workers have filed four times more workers’ compensation claims since 2007. Many experts think that oil-field injuries are often not reported. Companies often compensate workers for injuries that are otherwise not reported on workmen’s compensation claims.

One more danger to oil field workers (and others living nearby) is the quantity of very fine fracking sand that blows in the North Dakota wind. Air samples taken by federal health and safety officials indicate that there is more silica (sand) in the air in Williston Basin counties than is considered safe. Over time, inhaling silica can cause a lung disease called silicosis. So far, oil field workers have not shown signs of silicosis but, because the disease occurs slowly over time, it may not show up for many years.

Why is this important? North Dakota is seeing job growth while many other states are experiencing loss of good jobs. There is no doubt that oil field jobs, ranging from entry level clerks to geological engineers, are raising the standard of living in western North Dakota. The benefits from those jobs extend to associated areas of employment, too. However, the jobs are generally more dangerous than coal mining, farming, and manufacturing jobs available in other parts of the state. North Dakota residents will soon have to make important decisions about how to find a balance between valuable jobs and job safety.