Posted on 11/09/2008 7:47:58 PM PST by Nachum
PARSHALL, N.D. — In this tiny reservation town about two hours from the Canadian border, a Southern twang is sometimes heard over the din at the local diner and there’s talk of Texas tea beneath the streets.
Roughnecks from Texas and Oklahoma have travelled here on hopes that they now share with the town’s 1,000 or so inhabitants — that there is oil in Parshall.
About 400 people own mineral rights under homes, businesses, churches, nursing homes or tribal land. All of it has been leased, town officials said.
“We were dying,” said Loren Hoffman, a local farmer and the city auditor. “Our town was slipping backward, but now we’re on the upswing.”
While it’s the namesake of the Parshall oil field, which sits in the crude-rich Bakken shale formation, a quarter of Parshall’s residents live in poverty.
No-one is sure how much oil might lie beneath the town, but with the wells spreading south toward Parshall near the Fort Berthold Indian Reserve, things have begun to change.
“We’re seeing an influx of youth that we didn’t have before,” Hoffman said.
At Parshall’s only restaurant, the Redwood, there is now Tex-Mex food on the menu, though locals were leery of it at first.
Business at the Redwood Restaurant, like other establishments in town, is brisk. The hamburger smothered with gravy is still a big seller.
“We put breakfast burritos on the menu and no-one would try them — they thought it would be too spicy,” said Shad Green, 39, who came to the area last spring from Texas to work the oil wells for $32 an hour.
After a co-worker was killed on an oil rig where he worked, Green quit the business and bought the Redwood.
Green, his wife and her mother, sister and 18-year-old niece are there, and his son and daughter-in-law expect to move there in about a month, to help work in the restaurant, he said.
Strong Southern drawls like Green’s are becoming more prevalent in town.
“People are getting more familiar with the accent,” Green said.
But it’s no longer the case that you know most of the people you see in Parshall.
“I’ve lived here all my life and I don’t recognize most of the people in the local cafe,” Hoffman said.
A number of businesses are reporting record sales, said Parshall Mayor Richard Bolkan, who also owns the town grocery store.
Occupancy is nearly at 100 per cent at the 15-room Parshall Motor Inn, said owner and manager Jeanette Cecil.
Cecil purchased the inn — and the mineral rights below it — in August 2006, less than a year before the oil boom, she said.
She plans a 10-room expansion for next spring to house the welders and surveyors who are flooding into town.
In just over a year, horizontal oil wells have been spudded throughout the region, where the hilly prairie had been previously disturbed only by crops and Cold War-era missile silos.
Dozens of nodding donkey pumps now dot the landscape and flames from waste gas now light the night sky.
In April, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken.
The agency said the Bakken, much of which lies four kilometres under the surface in western North Dakota, was the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.
Wichita, Kan.-based Slawson Exploration Co. has begun drilling on the outskirts of Parshall, and another well is planned this month that will partially drill beneath the town, said Todd Slawson, one of the company’s owners.
Next year, a rig will likely drill directly beneath the town, he said.
“We’ve never drilled anything like this,” he said. “Every time we drill, it is a benefit to someone. This happens to be a benefit to a lot of people.”
The city is leasing land at $500 an acre, plus royalties. Individuals are getting paid about $85 a lot, which is about one-sixth of an acre, Hoffman said.
But the rush of oil companies has already brought a measure of prosperity to Parshall where, according to the 2000 Census, the unemployment rate topped 20 per cent.
Unemployment was more than 40 per cent for the reservation.
Cecil, the owner of the motor inn in town, said people are keeping quite about their chances of striking it rich, and no-one she knows is already banking on the money.
“Everyone in town is so busy — I don’t think people have stopped to really think about it,” she said.
No, wait a minute. The is a near distinct moose flea in that region.
Here in the DFW area, we got $26,500 an acre for our natural gas. The landmen were snapping up mineral rights for a few hundred bucks an acre until we started organizing.
If you think we were the ones jacking up the price of gas, think again. The landmen were reported to be selling all those cheap leases to drilling companies for anywhere between $40K and $62K an acre.
I'd love to see the lease folks signed.
A close family friend working up there says there’s oil all over the place—wherever you punch down there’s crude oil-—everywhere...they can’t get enough rigs up there...the natural gas is just burning up-—building lines to capture it now.
I drink your milkshake.
Nice website...yours?
The Bakken is producing and oops they found a second layer below the Bakken which means there’s more oil in Nodak land. My wife’s portion of the lease payment is due Dec 3rd. The landmen called and asked if we wanted to delay the check until 2009 for tax purposes. My wife demurred and said we will take the money now before Oilbama comes after our wealth “so he can spread it around”.
The Bakken is producing and oops they found a second layer below the Bakken which means there’s more oil in Nodak land. My wife’s portion of the lease payment is due Dec 3rd. The landmen called and asked if we wanted to delay the check until 2009 for tax purposes. My wife demurred and said we will take the money now before Oilbama comes after our wealth “so he can spread it around”.
OLd OLd very Old news. It’s been drilled baby drilled for a long time now.
I hope this will be a total success story for everyone concerned.
So, has it been declared “the most fragile environment in North Dakota” yet?
I personally don’t know the history of that region but my family member is there right now and the place is booming and the oil is gushing...like never before.
I own 2500 acres along the Canadian border
2nd layer? Do tell.
If they don’t drill then they’re just showing their true traitorous colors. Democrats don’t want to drill because they believe in that global warming lie. God gave us the earth to use as we wish, drill baby drill!
So what do you know? Have they found any goodies under your land yet?
They are slowly making there way eastward. Only a matter of time before they come knocking I guess, or try steal it from under me..
These is supposedly a lot of oil under this rock. drilling though it is the hard part.
Wish you the best. We own lots of land in the southern tier of God awful NYS and a gas drilling outfit has leased it from us. They are poking holes everywhere—with the technology they have now they can drill lots deeper than they used to.
They made some sound tests in about ten locations a few years back. But I haven't signed any leases for drilling rights yet.
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