Oil Booms in North Dakota

[SiouxVolley]

Here is a positive recent story on Watford from NPR, which normally doesn’t write good things about oil towns.

http://www.kunc.org/post/after-struggles-north-dakota-grows-its-ongoing-oil-boom#stream/0

[SiouxVolley]

If some company finally takes the multi billion dollar plunge on an ethane cracker plant near Williston, that area would have double barreled growth again and Williston/Watford City could even grow so much they touch each other.  Ethane is plentiful but now it’s more profitable to crack it in Texas, so Houston’s chemical industry doesn’t stop growing because it has the needed feedstocks from all the increased nat gas fields nearby.  Ethane and propane cracking happen in the North like Calgary and Edmonton, which have downstream chemical industries, so Williston is not out of the question.  Ethane cannot continue to be pushed into the methane stream (nat gas) without causing safety problems at the consumer and it can’t be economically pipeline transported from the Bakken to Texas.

Europe is building a new cracker with Ethane from the Marcellus, which is already scheduled to supply a new cracker near Pittsburgh. The Bakken’s problem is that it is landlocked, so the finished products are harder to deliver.

http://www.timesonline.com/news/20180507/residents-of-potter-township-reflect-on-living-with-shell-cracker-plant

https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/114943-ineos-says-new-european-ethane-cracker-to-benefit-from-us-natural-gas

[Cratter]

1 hour ago, SiouxVolley said:

 Williston/Watford City could even grow so much they touch each other.  

That would put the Williston/Watford City metro area at 3.2 million?

[SiouxVolley]

1 hour ago, Cratter said:

That would put the Williston/Watford City metro area at 3.2 million?

Highway 85 filled with businesses doesn’t seem to far down the pipe.  Oil and chemical service businesses need a lot of frontage space.  Alexander and Arnegaard are between them and Williston likely wouldn’t annex in McKenzie County.

If a downstream chemical industry materializes, high paying jobs will be plentiful.  The Gulf Coast roads frontage road  even in Alabama are filled for miles.  Hardly means it is settled for miles outside the highway.

[NeutralObserver]

The official 2017 estimates had Williston at 25586, down slightly from 2016.  2018 estimates will be released next year.

The newspaper article posted earlier in this thread was misleading, as the article writer was confusing Williams County population with Williston. The 34000 number was for the whole county.  Williston has been around 25-26000 the last three years.

Here is the link to the North Dakota table, it shows each year since 2010 for each town in the state.

https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

 

[Nodak78]

This graphic was recently prepared for the school bond issue depicting Williston at 42k population estimate in 2018.  You can see the student population has not decreased in the last few years like some are thinking.  

[UNDBIZ]

33 minutes ago, Nodak78 said:

This graphic was recently prepared for the school bond issue depicting Williston at 42k population estimate in 2018.  You can see the student population has not decreased in the last few years like some are thinking.  

Your numbers are for Williams County, not Williston.  The graph shows an estimated Williams County population of 50,000 by 2025.  For reference, Ward County (Minot) was estimated to have a 2017 population of 69,000.

[Nodak78]

16 minutes ago, UNDBIZ said:

Your numbers are for Williams County, not Williston.  The graph shows an estimated Williams County population of 50,000 by 2025.  For reference, Ward County (Minot) was estimated to have a 2017 population of 69,000.

I stand corrected

[SiouxVolley]

On 11/29/2018 at 8:18 AM, NDSU grad said:

I hope you're right on Watford City.  It would be fun to have another competitive team in all sports in the WDA.  As to Minot, Nedrose has greater potential for increased growth relative to South Prairie.  Many of the younger grades at Nedrose have 50-60 kids per grade, so that would put them at a fairly large class b school.  South Prairie's younger grades are sitting at ~30 kids, but the problem with South Prairie is I could see a scenario where the southern neighborhoods ask to be annexed to Minot Public because of convenience.  That could hurt South Prairie's potential growth.   

Minot is in discussions to decide about how to proceed with their High Schools.  A split may happen rather soon (technically it is already split, but not a traditional one.)

http://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/11/creative-problem-solving-needed-to-address-minot-school-challenges/

School districts in ND have arbitrary boundaries which makes it more difficult to annex land from one to the other unlike cities do with rural land.  Formerly rural District 8 outside Williston is growing rapidly, now with 660 students grades K-8.  But that district continues to funnel students to Williston HS.  As it keeps growing, either a merger or new District 8 HS will happen.

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/enrollments-up-in-district-district/article_76dbd5c8-b60f-11e8-a470-53d4242b710d.html

[NDSU grad]

12 hours ago, SiouxVolley said:

Minot is in discussions to decide about how to proceed with their High Schools.  A split may happen rather soon (technically it is already split, but not a traditional one.)

http://www.minotdailynews.com/opinion/editorials/2018/11/creative-problem-solving-needed-to-address-minot-school-challenges/

School districts in ND have arbitrary boundaries which makes it more difficult to annex land from one to the other unlike cities do with rural land.  Formerly rural District 8 outside Williston is growing rapidly, now with 660 students grades K-8.  But that district continues to funnel students to Williston HS.  As it keeps growing, either a merger or new District 8 HS will happen.

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/enrollments-up-in-district-district/article_76dbd5c8-b60f-11e8-a470-53d4242b710d.html

If a bond vote is required to build a new high school in Minot it will never happen. The downtown parking garage disaster will forever be in the back of peoples’ minds. The community simply does not trust any form of government to be good stewards with their money, and for good reason. 

[SiouxVolley]

District 8 outside Williston will need to build new schools, as its enrollment grows by 150-200 per year at just K-8. It was just at 200 kids 8 years ago.

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/district-looking-toward-new-schools/article_b6a4987a-f8e5-11e8-8340-b33f837ff62a.html

[SiouxVolley]

The Williston City District (Dist #1)  voted no on school expansion recently, including a HS expansion that was just opened.  That district’s admin is trying to push legislation to bar the K-8 students from District 8 (rural but increasingly suburban area outsides Williston) from attending Williston HS.  That new Williston HS will be pressed to the limits soon but state law says they have to accept neighboring K8 district children that need a HS.  

District #8 may need to open its own HS or go to Ray, Grenora, Trenton, Tioga, Watford City, etc if the legislation passes.  District 8 has been growing faster than District #1 by many percentage rates. 

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/talk-of-excluding-students-from-williston-high-schools-surprises-district/article_301c5cc0-1dcf-11e9-94f6-abc643c35ea8.html

[The Sicatoka]

Wow, those school districts look like gerrymandered Congressional districts. Yeesh. 

https://www.nd.gov/dpi/uploads/171/map.pdf 

[Fetch]

I'm from Ray - would love to see those towns thrive & the Boom continue- there is a lot of oil in the Bakken - the right investors will keep that going for many generations- Love reading this stuff....Thanks

[SiouxVolley]

There is more growth coming if the jobs stay in Williston as there is much bigger classes coming according to Williston birth records.  (Granted, some of them are from town further north.)  Williston might have to add 400 student additions to their HS every two years.  

The local legislators are trying to get the state to pay for more expansions.

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/why-is-williston-high-school-overcrowded-already/article_bf06fb8e-2027-11e9-a7ea-178dfd8c4a80.html

If District 8 doesn't merge with District 1, then there would be more bickering among themselves.  District 8 should build their own HS but wouldn't be paid for under the proposed bill.

 

[SiouxVolley]

District 8 may vote on a new 600 student HS and two 600 student elementary schools.

https://www.willistonherald.com/news/district-board-leaning-toward-adding-a-high-school/article_b3406b50-236f-11e9-9360-6b6460308204.html

That district turned down a previous school bonding vote.

[SiouxVolley]

Looks like Killdeer is planning on building new schools too.  The article doesn’t state for what number.

https://www.dunncountyextra.com/killdeer-school-growth-choices-not-unique/

[Oxbow6]

Better get stuff built now with oil money if that lunatic AOC has anything to say about.

Drill baby drill!

#GreenNewDeal

[SiouxVolley]

1 hour ago, Oxbow6 said:

Better get stuff built now with oil money if that lunatic AOC has anything to say about.

Drill baby drill!

#GreenNewDeal

Her Green plan outlaws air transportation as high speed rail will be everywhere except to cross oceans.  

[Kab]

And she thinks she is going to control the world

 she had less than 16000 votes

the othe guy must have beenbad

keep drilling 

 

 

[Goon]

I wonder if @MafiaMan can come up with a meme for this one?

[MafiaMan]

@Goon

You rang?

[darell1976]

2 hours ago, SiouxVolley said:

Her Green plan outlaws air transportation as high speed rail will be everywhere except to cross oceans.  

We finally get the bullet train to run between Fargo and GF. 

[Oxbow6]

3 hours ago, SiouxVolley said:

Her Green plan outlaws air transportation as high speed rail will be everywhere except to cross oceans.  

There's a room for her in Jamestown

[Old Fella]

56 minutes ago, Oxbow6 said:

There's a room for her in Jamestown

Happy to see the 'no politics' is no longer being enforced.

It is important, with all that is happening in the white house, that all 'cult' members have a place to vent their fustrations/anger