Getting the co-op perspective on oil development in North Dakota

Bismarck, North Dakota, played host to the 18th Williston Basin Petroleum Conference and Expo May 2-4.

“If you walk up to an anthill and you kick the top off of it and how the ants are all scurrying and busy, that is exactly what’s happening here in Bismarck this week,” says Dale Haugen, general manager of Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative.

About 2,700 people attended the 2010 Williston Basin Petroleum Conference and Expo in Bismarck, ND, yesterday.

The conference drew in people from all over the country to bring them up to speed on drilling, fracing, producing oil and other topics, as a result of the recent oil boom in the Bakken and Three Forks formations. (Fracing is the process of injecting water and sand into boreholes to create or restore fractures in rock formations, which releases trapped oil.)

(left to right): Leonard Hibl, Roughrider Electric; U.S. Representative Earl Pomeroy (D-ND); Dennis Bratlien, Sheridan Electric; and Dennis Gad, Basin Electric.

“When this thing took off in the Bakken a couple years ago, it (conference attendance) exploded. When it was held in Minot two years ago, I think, there were 1,200 or 1,500 people registered,” says Mark Holter, manager of member services for Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative.

Estimations for attendance reached 2,700 yesterday.

In the video below, hear what co-op representatives say about how the oil boom is affecting their cooperative.

Basin Electric member co-ops at the Touchstone Energy booth are Sheridan Electric Cooperative and Roughrider Electric Cooperative. Mountrail-Williams Electric Cooperative had a booth as well as Basin Electric subsidiary, Dakota Gasification Company.

Marathon Oil Corporation‘s CEO Clarence Cazalot spoke at the conference yesterday.