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North Dakota's oil boomtowns are facing an uncertain future - here's what it's like to live there
North Dakota's oil boomtowns are facing an uncertain future - here's what it's like to live there
Mark AbadiJun 6, 2018, 18:48 IST
Scott Berreth, a derrick hand for Raven Drilling, works on an oil rig drilling into the Bakken shale formation on July 28, 2013 outside Watford City, North Dakota. North Dakota has been experiencing an oil boom in recent years, due in part to new drilling techniques including hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.Andrew Burton/Getty Images
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North Dakota towns exploded in size as part of the state's oil boom.
But the end of the boom spelled economic disaster for many of the new residents in towns such as Williston and Watford City.
Now, the towns are facing an uncertain future.
The discovery of oil in northwestern North Dakota turned several small towns into unexpected boomtowns from 2006 to 2014.
In places like Williston and Watford City, town populations more than doubled as lucrative jobs in the oil industry attracted workers from all over the world.
By 2016, the price of oil plummeted from more than $100 a barrel to $30, sending the same towns into an economic tailspin. Now, with fewer jobs to go around and local schools and police departments straining, its residents are facing an uncertain future.
Here's what it's like to live in North Dakota's oil boomtowns.
During the boom, thousands of people flocked to small towns like Williston and Watford City as lucrative jobs in the oil industry became readily available.
Williston's population mushroomed from around 12,000 in 2007 to 30,000 today. Watford City has grown from less than 2,000 people to more than 7,000 a year ago.
The influx of jobs led North Dakota to become the state with the highest share of millennials in the country, with the group comprising 27.5 of the statewide population.
Williston's job service office is filled with people like Kennedy Mugemuzi, who moved to Williston from the Congo in 2015 and is working two full-time jobs to support his family.
The town's population has started to dip in the past two years as uncertainty about its future grows. Yvonne Niess and her daughter, pictured below, left Williston for Atlanta, Georgia, in 2016.
"We have too many hotel rooms, too many apartments, too many restaurants," Williston businessman Marcus Jundt told The New York Times. "People are going to go broke. People are going to lose their jobs. It’s going to be painful."
In an effort to escape the boom-and-bust oil cycle, Williston and Watford City have continued to invest in new roads, businesses, and expansions to their airports and fire departments.
Meanwhile, local police are struggling to keep up with the surge in population. Many towns have seen a rise in crime, car accidents, and drug trafficking in recent years.
"We're so used to trying to maintain that small-town attitude where you always wave at your neighbor and everybody's always your friend," Watford City police chief Art Walgren told the Associated Press. "Now, there are more people that you don't know than those that you do."
Schools in these towns have become unexpected melting pots, as people from all over the world continue to move to North Dakota hoping to be there for the next oil boom.
Those days could be coming back sooner than expected. The price of oil is already back up to more than $60 a barrel since the bust years, and North Dakota is on track to break its own oil production records this year.
