The oil boom which threatens to make our North Dakota relatives rich was the subject of a series of Fox Business News Reports from Stanley, North Dakota, last week.(You can see the complete reports on the Bakken Shale strike in western North Dakota by clicking on the Bakken Shale blog link, below left.)
With oil at over $100 a barrel, it is now practical to capture crude from the huge reservoir buried two miles below all those Norwegian farmers.The North Dakota oil is locked in shale and has to be teased out. This is expensive, but oil companies are now merrily digging like prairie dogs. Any time oil sells for over $50 a barrel, drilling is worthwhile in North Dakota, experts say. See how the drilling is done in the Fox reports.
A big advantage to drilling here is that the local population appears quite friendly and passive, so it is unlikely the government would have to subsidize the oil companies by sending planes, troops and bribes to protect their operations.
