Oil is king of county
Mountrail County surges into second place in N.D. oil productionBy KIM FUNDINGSLAND, Staff Writer kfundingsland@minotdailynews.com
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From drilling rigs reaching toward the sky to loaded tankers rolling down the road, oil field activity in Mountrail County continues to increase at a very rapid pace.
In just a few short months, Mountrail County has surged past sprawling McKenzie County into second place in monthly oil production in North Dakota. If the trend continues, and all indicators are that it will, Bowman County might soon lose its longtime lock as the top oil producing county in the state.
"It's been busy. Very, very busy," said Joanne Stanley, county recorder for Mountrail County. "The landmen come into our office and look up mineral interests to see who owns what. We've added staff. We've added public computers. We've added copy machines and wireless Internet. We've converted the law library upstairs in the courthouse to handle another 23 people. We can only fit about 30 people on the main floor."
Stanley's office recently added two full-time employees to bring the recorder's staff up to five and has access to another "floater" county employee two days a week to help with the bulging workload. The recorder's office handled a total of 1,250 documents in 2002. By 2006 that number had climbed to 5,551. At the end of August 2008 the number had nearly doubled at 10,325 with a full four months remaining in the year.
According to the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division, 27 drilling rigs are currently active in Mountrail County. When the rigs finish at one site they are moved almost immediately to another prepared site, mostly in the Shell Creek oil field that borders southwestern Ward County. In addition to drilling sites already tapped into or awaiting a drilling rig, thousands of additional acres in Mountrail County have either undergone or are scheduled for seismographic testing and appear destined for oil development. Surveyor flags are seen in virtually all portions of the county.
Much of the paperwork required by landowners and oil companies passes through the office of Mountrail County Auditor Joan Hollekim. The work load in her office has also increased substantially, mostly in planning and zoning.
"We've had a lot of public hearings to change agricultural zoning to industrial," said Hollekim. "I'm guessing more than 50 this year so far. Normal is three or four a year, but then I don't even know what normal is anymore. It definitely has been an increase in the work load, that's for sure."
According to Hollekim, a floating employee spends several hours a week helping out, but that's not enough to keep up with the work. The auditor's office intends to add a full-time planner as soon as one can be found.
"My office, the commissioners, all are trying to keep up," added Hollekim. "The sheriff's department added three new deputies. We've hired three more road workers and are proposing to add three more next year."
Roads in Mountrail County have taken a severe pounding from the high volume of heavy trucks traveling to and from the oil fields. In many cases, paved roads that became battered and uneven are no longer an option.
"We're putting them back into gravel, like the one south of Palermo and east of Belden," said Raymond Neether, assistant supervisor of roads and bridges. "It makes maintenance better than before because we couldn't keep anything in the holes. Now we're short on gravel, too, and are just starting to find some new pits. We keep plugging away but we're not gaining or even keeping up."
In addition to work on roads being done by Mountrail County, oil companies are adding new roads on an almost daily basis to access drilling sites or storage facilities, meaning the demand for gravel will likely continue to increase.
"They've got locations waiting for rigs the way it looks," added Neether.
According to the Sept. 24, 2008, edition of the Oil Patch Hotline, the pressure on roads will only increase. It says the number of tanker trucks running from Stanley to Minot will reach 250 per day before the end of the year. When the tanker trucks arrive in Minot, each carrying about 600 barrels of oil, they will have their contents pumped into waiting rail tanker cars. Such transportation is said to be necessary because pipelines flowing at full capacity.
Near Belden, another project is under way spurred by oil activity. Mountrail-Williams Electric Co-op is nearing completion of a large electrical sub-station that will serve other sub-stations in New Town, Stanley and Parshall.
"We actually ran out of power last winter in that area because we overloaded MDU's sub-station in Stanley. We had too much load on there," said Mark Holter, of Mountrail-Williams Electric Co-op member services. "It's a big project. We had to build 37 miles of transmission line from Tioga to Belden. They've got all the poles in the ground and are starting to string wire."
Once oil is found at a drilling site, electricity is needed to operate pumpers that bring the oil to the surface. Mountrail-Williams Electric Co-op employees have all they can handle with the installation of distribution lines. Extra help has been required to meet expanding demand.
"There's just no way we could do that much work," explained Holter. "We've got eight contractors working for us in Mountrail County. That's 125 men working there. The town of Stanley is kind of going wild with building. I guess you'd say they're rockin' the Bakken."
The Bakken formation is where the new drilling has been taking place. Successful wells are said to be producing plenty of oil, something reflected in monthly statistics compiled by the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division. There's also huge finds of natural gas, which can be seen being "flared off" at several well sites. A natural gas plant under construction south of Belden will eventually handle the surplus. Mountrail-Williams Electric Co-op is also erecting a smaller sub-station at that location just to serve the gas plant.
