Few Americans, let alone anybody else, would have heard of Williston, a tiny town of 15,000 on North Dakota’s prairie. But it is starting to get noticed. While most of the US is struggling amid an economic slump and high unemployment, Williston is booming. Such is the demand for labour that the local McDonald’s fast-food restaurant was recently offering $300 signing-on bonuses, while workers doing night shifts at petrol stations are reputedly being paid $15 an hour. Roads in the once-sleepy streets are now clogged with traffic.
The reason for the transformation is oil, but not the type drilled using traditional methods. Williston sits above the Bakken, a 500,000-square-kilometre shale rock formation containing copious amounts of oil. Thanks to technological breakthroughs that have led to the cost of shale oil extraction plunging, North Dakota’s production of crude has soared from just 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2005 to 550,000 bpd today, more than any other state bar Texas. Even Ecuador, a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), cannot match North Dakota’s supply.