Assessing Oil's Impact - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Assessing Oil's Impact

Ward County may only sit on the fringe of the Bakken Oil Play...

but the direct and indirect impact of oil production is being felt in every city and town within the county.

The latest projections from the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources show that impact will continue to grow and maintain a significant presence well past the year 2050.

Today those numbers were being looked at by city, business and university officials.

The Mineral Resource Department figures only a few rigs will actually be drilled within the actual county borders - with the peak estimated at 106 in 2022.

However, even with limited active oil work going on, the numbers show Ward County continuing its upward trend in housing need as Minot stands as the commercial center for the Bakken, growing both commercial and industrial businesses.

(Neil Sharpe, MSU Dir. of Great Plains Center For Community Research and Service) "Lynn's projections will take a look at giving the city and Ward County officials an opportunity to take a look at how many of those they think they can capture what will be the growth of the city, so it's a really all projection."

One area of the projections shows Minot holding about 11 percent of the energy jobs while Williston is expected to have 57 percent and Dickinson about 27 percent.

If the projections materialize, the city of Minot will need to grow permanent housing from it's current number of 28-thousand to 36-thousand by the year 2036.

(Neil Sharpe, MSU Dir. of Great Plains Center For Community Research and Service) "The interesting part about it, it doesn't look to be a flash in the pan. It's not the 1980's oil boom and bust, based on what Lynn is projection it could go to 30 years."

The information was collected today as part of the Vision West program that is designed to plan for the region's future.