Newly discovered oil reserves are transforming small rural towns in North Dakota into communities of overnight millionaires.
While the rest of the US struggle to cope with the rising cost of fuel, residents of Mountrail County, North Dakota, certainly aren’t among those feeling the pinch.
Newly discovered oil reserves in the county have been creating what is rumoured to be a millionaire a day, with as many as a third of the population on track to receive 7 figure sums from oil profits within the next 3 years.
Oscar Stohler, 83, and wife Lorene, 82, are among those who have benefited from the North Dakota ‘oil rush’. They’ve already netted over $1million in profits from one oil well recently established on their land near Dunn Centre.
With a further 2 wells now beginning production, the discovery has provided an unimaginable source of wealth for the couple. Not least because they have unsuspectingly reared cattle on the ranch for the past 70 years. Many of their neighbours in the 120 population town are also reaping the benefits of the oil find.
This new breed of oil millionaires have remained largely unaffected by their sudden wealth and have largely carried on with their ‘normal lives’. Tom Ralfstad, economic development director for local city Williston, has acknowledged that since the boom the locals are, perhaps unsurprisingly, favouring “big, shiny, gas-guzzling pickups”. Meanwhile the rest of the country are looking for more economical options.
Collectively, the North Dakota oil reserves form part of the Bakken Shale formation, estimated to be the largest continuous oil deposit ever assessed by the US Geological Survey. As a result almost 4,000 wells are now active in the area with further investigatory drilling taking place all over the state.
Current predictions suggest that 2008 is on track to be a record breaking year for both the state’s oil production and for its per capita income with 2007 figures already boosting the state to 30th position in the ‘national rich list’, up 12 places.
However, while this newly developed reserve will give US stores a much needed boost, as supplies from abroad become less reliable and increasingly expensive, the hunt for home grown oil reserves will continue, leaving many a financially squeezed American hoping that the next big find will be in their back yard.
Only time will tell whether this new oil find will change our current situation at all or whether it will simply make a few people richer.
