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North Dakota Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties
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Stay Connected
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Basin Bits Magazine
This semiannual magazine, published in the spring and fall, is the official publication of the ND Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties.
To sign up to receive a copy of the magazine, please click here.
To read the latest Basin Bits edition via PDF, click this link.
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Uniform County Truck Permit System
This is a county road permit system for over-weight or over-width vehicles on county roads. Since 1986, the NDAOGPC has operated the Uniform County Truck Permit program as a service to counties and the petroleum industry.
For more information or to get permits, click here.
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 We hope you are able to enjoy the more seasonable weather as we move further into the spring season.
Be careful as you drive around parts of western North Dakota; the trucks are really starting to move!
Thank you for your continued interest in the activity of the ND Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties.
Have an enjoyable weekend!
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MHA Nation's 2014 Bakken Expo Shares Information on Oil and Gas Development on Tribal Lands
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Tex "Red-Tipped Arrow" Hall, Three Affiliated Tribes Chairman, cited the need to maintain balance on tribal lands as he welcomed attendees to the 2014 MHA Nation's Annual Bakken Oil and Gas Expo held April 22-23 at the 4 Bears Event Center near New Town, ND.  | |
Tribal Chairman Tex Hall welcomes MHA Nation's Annual Bakken Oil & Gas Expo participants to the event held this week near New Town.
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Hall said that he is working to keep and enhance that balance with several key tools and policies. In addition to establishing the "People's Fund", which sets aside a portion of oil and gas tax revenue received by the Tribes for future disbursement to tribal members, Hall said the MHA Nation has invested a substantial amount of money toward issues like public safety, health care, tribal roads, and reducing the amount of natural gas that is flared on the reservation. The event offered an opportunity for industry partners, tribal leadership, state and federal officials, and members of the public to gather and learn about many of the top issues being faced by the Three Affiliated Tribes as reservation lands continue to produce large amounts of oil. The MHA Nation, Hall said, is number one in oil production out of all other tribal lands in the United States. If it were considered a state, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation (FBIR) would rank as the nation's seventh highest in oil production. In dealing with the many impacts of strong oil and gas development, Hall said it is not easy. Or cheap. The Tribes will be investing approximately $100 million in tribal road improvements just in the 2014 construction season. BIA Road 14, a major road artery on the reservation that connects ND Highway 22 and BIA Road 12, will be completely reconstructed at an estimated cost of $29 million. Hall said the Tribes are also increasing their investments on road maintenance equipment, paving materials, road design improvements, and maintenance staff. In order to better address the Tribe's transportation issues, the Tribal Council recently created a Department of Transportation. The department provides vehicle registrations, overweight load permitting, and is currently developing a license plate division. The Tribal Council also recently passed a resolution calling for all oil-related truck transports to be monitored by a GPS device. The resolution does not apply to trucks carrying water or gravel. Richard Hall, director of the tribal DOT, said that the resolution is a way for trucking companies to be held accountable for their loads while providing a useful tool for those companies to use for issues like billing. The director said that the monitoring system is about 180 days away from 100% implementation, citing the need for additional staff and computer equipment. |
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Another potential project that the MHA Nation is looking toward is the construction of a bridge to connect the White Shield and Twin Buttes Segments of the reservation. Ron Hall, a consultant hired to lay the groundwork for such a bridge, said his team is currently working with stakeholders to develop a cost-benefit analysis of having such a bridge in place. Once the initial stages are completed, he said, the plan for construction will be to use an enhance design-build technique that will allow for the project to be staged and get things on the ground quicker. Another potential project that the MHA Nation is looking toward is the construction of a bridge to connect the White Shield and Twin Buttes Segments of the reservation. Ron Hall, a consultant hired to lay the groundwork for such a bridge, said his team is currently working with stakeholders to develop a cost-benefit analysis of having such a bridge in place. Once the initial stages are completed, he said, the plan for construction will be to use an enhance design-build technique that will allow for the project to be staged and get things on the ground quicker.  | |
U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp
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U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp also addressed the crowd on how she is working in Washington, D.C. to enable better collaboration between the federal government and the MHA Nation. Heitkamp stressed that "tribal minerals and tribal properties are not public lands", and as such should not be subject to the intense and time-consuming well permitting process they currently undergo. The "regulatory infrastructure" currently in place for well permitting on the reservation requires about 180 points of contact in order to be approved. Heitkamp also pointed to the need to develop an "all-of-the-above energy policy" that does not marginalize fossil fuel production like oil, natural gas, and coal in favor of renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric. "We have to be able to turn on the lights...in order to make our economy work," she said. She added that a big part of the total energy picture includes those critical fossil fuels, which are being attacked. For more information: Oil revenue way up for tribes; money going to roads, other infrastructure - Amy Dalrymple, Forum News Service ND tribes warn of the environmental impact of oil - Josh Wood, AP |
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Economic Development Section Featured in Regional Conference
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 The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology played host this week to the 9th Annual New Horizons Oil and Gas Conference, held April 23-25 in Rapid City, SD. In addition to providing a multitude of technical sessions on issues including reservoir stimulation, water resource management, and hydraulic fracturing, one panel discussed the petroleum industry and its affect on regional economic development. Ben Snow, President of the Rapid City Regional Development Center, chaired a session focused on that regional economic development. Kicking off the panel discussion was Matt Koch, VP, U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Partnership to Fuel America. Koch shared that the national and global appetite for energy is increasing. The United States, he said, possesses a great deal of domestic energy resources including oil, natural gas, and coal. Technological advances have led to huge new opportunities to expand domestic oil and natural gas production, which will potentially create jobs and generate revenue. Koch noted that a large majority of federal lands throughout the nation are locked up for production. In order to fully take advantage of the natural resources available, Koch said a more streamlined process for extracting those resources should be established.  | |
Matt Koch, Partnership to Fuel America, shares on the energy potential of the United States.
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Providing a perspective from the state of North Dakota was ND Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties Deputy Executive Director Brady Pelton. Pelton shared on the oil and gas activity taking place in the state and the opportunities such oil development offers to companies wishing to establish themselves in the market. He also noted that with large-scale development, there are side effects. An increasing population base brought on by the many job opportunities within the oil and gas industry has stressed existing infrastructure and created a large need for continued infrastructure investment. Pelton discussed how state, county, and township roads in the western half of the state are at a critical point. The ND state legislature, he said, provided one-time funding appropriations for road construction projects in the last legislative session, but that more investment was needed. Affordable housing was also identified as a key priority in the region. Without those affordable housing units in place, many companies as well as political subdivisions are being forced to provide housing stipends in order to keep their employees. Pelton shared that quality of place is quickly rising to the top of issues in the western area of the state, particularly because employee turnover is becoming a major issue. In order to attract and keep long-term employees and their families in western ND communities, he said, quality of life issues like safety, quality public school districts, adequate healthcare and emergency services, and recreational opportunities must be addressed. Hunter Roberts, energy adviser to South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard, said that South Dakota is in a unique geographical position in relation to North Dakota's Bakken/Three Forks Formations to be close enough to benefit from the economic opportunities but not too close, enabling the state to avoid the "boomtown" drawbacks. South Dakota, he said, is becoming more involved in the secondary supply chain to the Williston Basin. Roberts said this helps North Dakota by providing services while benefiting the SD economy directly. |
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Vision West ND Consortium Approves Regional Plan
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 The Vision West ND Consortium approved its Regional Plan on Thursday, April 24, 2014 in Stanley, ND. The regional planning project received an initial $1.5 million dollars grant from HUD to get the project started.
Vicky Steiner, Executive Director NDAOGPC, and Shirley Brentrup, Vision West project director, will be meeting with 19 county commissions in the coming four months asking for their sign off on the project. HUD's grant term ends January 2015.
Consortium members have identified five primary issues in the western region of North Dakota -- Housing, Child Care, Emergency Services, Housing, Transportation, and Water.
 The intention of the Regional Plan is to be comprehensive, specific and bold in stating its findings and recommendations. Development of the Regional Plan has been conducted in two phases. The first phase, beginning in February 2012, consisted of local community planning. This phase also included planning & zoning, crew camp videos and webinars. Phase two focused on the "bigger picture" regional issues while conducting expert interviews.
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Vision West ND Consortium Chairman Daryl Dukart listens as Deb Nelson shares some population increase data recently presented in a population projection webinar.
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Also during the meeting, Deb Nelson from DLN Consulting, reviewed the new population estimates for three sub-regions in western North Dakota. The population and production trends can be found at www.visionwestnd.com/webinars.php or www.ndwebinars.com. The conclusions found that the taper doesn't start until 2020-2030, after which it's expected the population will level off. It also found that the Bakken is in a dynamic state of flux and projections will need to be revised regularly.
The Consortium also received media training from AE2S staffers Daron Selig, Heather Syverson and Andrea Boe. The most important thing is to know your content and the rest will follow.
The next Consortium meeting will be in Tioga June 25th during the "One Million Barrel a Day" state-wide celebration.
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Social Media Tips and Tricks
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"Social media is a verb," Scott Wild told attendees at a social media class at the DSU Strom Center this week. Twitter gives us real time communication, he said and "we are now content producers when we respond online." He also advised that traditional media starts the conversation; social media continues it. "Be real," Wild said.
He also suggested that any person or business using social media will eventually receive negative comments. In order to effectively deal with those negative comments, users should have a social media crisis plan in place in response. TweetDeck and HootSuite are programs that allow users to monitor their online presence. Google Alerts works in the same manner. Wild asked class attendees to evalute the "hot points" that their customers would be frustrated by on their websites and design solutions so that the customer finds the information quickly. Scott's presentation that he made to the class is available at: www.wildinspire.com/ctb. Check it out for some tips on effective social media communication.
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NDAOGPC Continues to Accept Applications for 2014 Scholarship Awards
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ATTENTION ND STUDENTS!!
T he NDAOGPC is again sponsoring a scholarship program for students in North Dakota focusing on energy-related degrees. Students who have completed 12 credit hours or more are welcome to apply for one of six scholarships that will be awarded in August 2014. Applicants should be pursuing degrees in engineering, chemistry, geology, petroleum sciences or other studies directly related to the oil and gas industry. Invitations to apply for the Association's 2014 scholarships were recently sent to all North Dakota colleges, universities, and vocational schools. We strongly encourage all readers to share this opportunity with anyone they believe may qualify. The application can be downloaded HERE.
Last year, the Association awarded a total of $10,000 to six deserving students. Don't miss this great opportunity to gain financial assistance for an industry related education! The deadline for application submission is June 15, 2014.
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Upcoming Events
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May 20-22, 2014
The 2014 Williston Basin Petroleum Conference will be held May 20-22, 2014 in Bismarck, ND. Booth space is sold out, but limited sponsorships are still available. The full agenda can be found here. You can register for the event by clicking here.
Limited hotel rooms remain in Bismarck, so please book your hotels as soon as possible. Hotel reservations can be made immediately here.
For more information regarding the conference, please visit www.wbpcnd.org or contact event coordinators at 701.223.6380 and ndpc@ndoil.org.
September 18, 2014
Be sure to mark your calendars for the 2014 Annual Meeting of the ND Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties to be held Thursday, September 18, 2014 at the Grand Williston Hotel in Williston, ND. Information on hotel room blocks, the registration process, and sponsorship opportunities will be shared as we get closer to the event.
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Oil and Gas Stats
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WTI Crude: $101.67
Brent Crude: $111.47
Natural Gas: $3.77
ND Rig Count: 185
From the ND Petroleum Council's News Clips
for April 25, 2014.
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Please take your time to review all materials and links provided for your convenience. We at the ND Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties will continue to provide you up-to-date information on upcoming events and news happening in North Dakota's oil and gas producing counties! Sincerely, Vicky Steiner
Executive Director
Brady Pelton
Deputy Executive Director
ND Association of Oil & Gas Producing Counties |
400 East Broadway Avenue Suite 304 Bismarck, ND 58501
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