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Everybody remembers last year's devastating flood in Minot, ND. They haven’t recovered yet, but they won’t give up. You can help.

They look you in the eye out here. It’s almost disconcerting. I’m not used to that firm-handshake, look-you-in-the-eye stuff. I feel like it’s 1952 or something (and I mean that in the most positive way). On the street signs of Tioga (such as they are), there are so many Norwegian names, you might think you were in Lillehammer. In my NR piece, I mention Kathy Neset, who is a very successful oil consultant here in the Bakken — almost a guru, I would say. She’s not from out here. She’s from New Jersey. As she was leaving, in the late...

In the process of putting together the first edition of Petroleum News Bakken, we decided a geology lesson was needed. Welcome to Petroleum News Bakken. I hope you like our first edition well enough to check in twice a month — first and third weeks. Our editor, Ray Tyson, and I were born and raised in the Midwest; Ray in South Dakota, where he returned to live and work several years ago, and me in Minnesota. But nothing prepared us for the shock of the oil boom in nearby states and provinces. I’m staying in Alaska, focusing on the industry...

The North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Mineral Resources, has released a new and higher average cost for drilling and completing Bakken wells in North Dakota. Lynn Helms, director of the department that includes the state’s oil and gas division and geological survey, is now quoting $8.5 million for drilling and completing a Bakken well, versus the $7.3 million estimate he used in a December presentation, and the $6.6 million figure he used in August. (See related story on well costs on page 1 of this issue.) The latest estimate is in a slide he used in a March 20...

nfrastructure challenges in western North Dakota could limit the number of oil and gas drilling rigs in the Bakken system’s rich Williston Basin, industry executives said at a conference. As companies have flocked to tap resources there, heavy equipment has overwhelmed roads while workers have filled up available housing. The problem is more acute in North Dakota than Montana, said Mark Williams, senior vice president of exploration and development at Whiting Petroleum Corp. There are close to 220 drilling rigs in the Williston Basin. “We could easily double the number of rigs, purely based on resources,” Williams said. However, he...

Bizarre case is forcing court to decide if police may take advantage of technology in making arrests JewishWorldReview.com | (USNWR) The tiny town of Lakota, N.D., is quickly becoming a key testing ground for the legality of the use of unmanned drones by law enforcement after one of its residents became the first American citizen to be arrested with the help of a Predator surveillance drone. The bizarre case started when six cows wandered onto Rodney Brossart's 3,000 acre farm. Brossart, an alleged anti-government "sovereignist," believed he should have been able to keep the cows, so he and two family...

The number natural gas flaring permits issued in Texas has more than quadrupled over the past two years, as oil and gas production in the state has boomed, according to the Texas Railroad Commission. The state commission issued 651 permits last year, compared to 306 in 2010. In 2009, 158 permits were handed out. Companies flare, or burn off, natural gas produced from their wells if low prices make the fossil fuel uneconomical to sell or if there’s not enough pipeline capacity to get to it market. Flaring also occurs to relieve dangerous pressure levels in wells and for other...

The granddaddy of property tax revolts is now underway in North Dakota. The North Dakota group, Empower the Taxpayer writes "On June 12, 2012, the voters of North Dakota will have the opportunity to make North Dakota truly 'Legendary', as the first to pass a state constitutional amendment that will abolish the property tax, prioritize spending by the legislature, and finally give local governments something they never had: true local control over spending." Public unions and proponents of big government are now involved in a major wave of fearmongering because North Dakota counties get about 60 percent of their revenue...

Politics: The president stages a photo-op in Oklahoma to take credit for the portion of the Keystone XL pipeline that doesn't need his approval and for oil production on private and state lands beyond his jurisdiction. If one of his aides some morning remarked on a particularly lovely sunrise, it wouldn't surprise us if President Obama responded with a "thank you," so gifted is he in taking credit for successes that he has nothing to do with and that occur despite, not because, of his policies. So it will be Thursday, when Obama is scheduled to appear in Cushing, Okla.,...

Barack Obama is committed to killing off the family farm – an American tradition. For generations children and adults have worked together on the family farm. Those days are over. Senators John Thune (R-S.D.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) today introduced the Preserving America’s Family Farm Act, to prevent the Department of Labor (DOL) from enacting its controversial proposed restrictions that would ban children from working on family farms. Senator Thune spoke out against the Obama Administration’s proposed labor rules for youth who work on farms and ranches on the Senate floor. The Obama Administration’s rules are so strict they would...

Energy: The economist at the newspaper of record defends the president's energy policy of Solyndra, Chevy Volts and algae while dismissing the oil boom on private lands as a small-town hiccup with no impact on price. New York Times columnist and Keynesian economist Paul Krugman asks in a recent column why gas prices are rising if we are in the middle of a domestic oil boom. Doesn't the "drill, baby, drill" crowd claim, he argues, that prices will drop "if only we would stop protecting the environment and let energy companies do whatever they want"? Without our domestic oil boom,...

While the haggling continues over oil pipelines across North America and bottlenecks intensify in the U.S. mid-continent, Canadian Pacific Railway, or CPR, is in its fourth year of turning trains into a significant method of crude transportation. The Calgary-based company, determined to build an edge on its rival Canadian National Railway, has been leading the way in shipping crude from the Bakken field in North Dakota and Saskatchewan. It started at 500 rail cars in 2008, each holding 650 barrels (about 890 barrels per day), expanded to 13,000 cars last year (23,150 bpd) and is now targeting 70,000 cars (125,000...

BISMARCK, N.D. -- University of North Dakota teams risk forfeiting any post-season games if their athletes, cheerleaders or band wear or display the school's Fighting Sioux nickname and American Indian head logo, an NCAA official said Wednesday. Bernard Franklin, an NCAA executive vice president, said in a letter to university provost Paul LeBel that the university "must forfeit competition" if "it has not adhered to this requirement" in any post-season games that UND teams have been invited to play in. "We ask that the university take measures to minimize or eliminate the presence of the imagery or nickname brought to...

The continuing boom in North Dakota seemingly has no end. Last June oil production from the Bakken Formation exceeded 11 million barrels a month. In February it reached 16 million with estimates that by late spring North Dakota could be producing more oil than either California or Alaska. That’s more than double what the state produced just two years ago. The population boom in Williston and elsewhere continues to set records. The oil industry employs more than 30,000 people and could exceed 100,000 if production rises as expected to a million barrels a day. There are so many job openings...

What is it about California that make its elected leaders work so hard to earn their place in the dunce's corner alongside Greece? With all the state has going for it - abundant natural resources, an educated populace, and an entrepreneurial tradition second to none - California politicians and the people who put them in power seem determined to destroy the state's economy in order to achieve some higher purpose. Nowhere is this clearer than in the bizarre economics of California's tax and energy policies. Were California to shut down its entire manufacturing sector, turn off its power plants, idle...

The Brady Bunch has released their annual scorecard rating states based on how strict their gun laws are. The scorecard is a very useful tool to help rights groups understand how their state compares to others on a liberty scale; more points = less liberty. Alaska, Arizona, and Utah have all achieved the coveted Zero Points/Zero Stars on the Brady scale and are now competing to see which state will be the first into negative numbers – which is possible through bonus points. Arizona and Alaska can reach a –2 point score by protecting carry rights on campuses of state...

Energy: At a plant that makes natural-gas-powered trucks, the president proposes still more alternative-energy subsidies. The privately developed technology that lowered the price of natural gas can lower gasoline prices too. It was a tad surreal to see President Obama, champion of green energy and unions, visiting a foreign-owned manufacturer of natural gas-powered trucks in a right-to-work state. But there he was Wednesday, at the Daimler Trucks North America truck factory in Mount Holly, N.C., touting vehicles powered by a fossil fuel produced by drilling. The president, who recently touted pond scum as an energy source of the future, embraced...

FAIRBANKS - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney maintained a strong lead with most of the results counted in the Alaska Republican presidential preference poll held today. With 4,225 votes, the former Massachusetts Governor took 32.6 percent of the statewide vote. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum took 29 percent, Texas congressman Ron Paul took about 24 percent and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took 14 percent. At 10:30 p.m., 95 percent of the vote had been counted. Alaska was one of 10 states to participate in the Republican nomination process today and will divvy up 24 of its delegates according to...

Rick Santorum won the North Dakota caucuses on Super Tuesday. CNN projected Santorum as the winner shortly after 10 p.m. ET, an hour after the caucuses ended. North Dakota didn't receive as much attention as other nine Super Tuesday states. Mitt Romney and Santorum visited the state once, according to the Associated Press. Ron Paul, on the other hand, visited multiple time and seemed like a good fit for the libertarian Republican: the state leans heavily toward independents. Paul, who drew large crowds of Tea Partiers there, decided to spend the evening of Super Tuesday in North Dakota. The state...

Santorum 40% Paul 27% Romney 25% Gingrich 8% 78% of Precincts Reporting