North Dakota

About North Dakota

North Dakota is experiencing a boom in natural resources, particularly a boom in oil extraction from the Bakken formation, which lies beneath the northwestern part of the state. The development has driven strong job and population growth, and low unemployment.

Agriculture is the largest industry in North Dakota, although petroleum, food processing, and technology are also major industries. It is the fastest-growing state in U.S. by GDP. North Dakota has about 90% of its land area in farms with 27,500,000 acres (111,000 km2) of cropland, the third-largest amount in the nation.

The energy industry is a major contributor to the economy. North Dakota has both coal and oil reserves. Shale gas is also produced. Lignite coal reserves in Western North Dakota are used to generate about 90% of the electricity consumed, and electricity is also exported to nearby states.

North-Western North Dakota is currently in an oil boom with some of its communities experiencing rapid growth. The state is the 2nd largest oil producer in the U.S. with an average of 1,000,000 barrels per day.

The population of North Dakota is more than 730,000. During the first decade of the 21st century, the population increased in large part because of jobs in the oil industry related to development of shale-oil fields.

Although the energy states in USA are spread out in several states including California, Texas, Montana etc., the most exciting areas for real estate development today, had to be in western North Dakota. Known commonly as the Bakken Formation which essentially is a shale rock formation occupying about 200,000 squaremiles (520,000km2) of an area also known as the Williston Basin and underlyingparts of Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Oil in this Formation, which covers an area about 400 times the size of Los Angeles, was first discovered in 1951 but because the technology during those days, and even in the last boom in 2000, this black treasure remain mostly buried under 10,000 ft of dirt.

Estimated to contain about 3.6 billion barrels of oil in 2007, the estimated recoverable oil has been estimated to be 2.1 billion barrels by the State of North Dakota in 2008, various estimates place the total reserves, recoverable and irrecoverable with current day’s technology at upto 24 billion barrels. A recent estimate in 2013 then placed the figure at 18 billion barrels and then in April 2013, the US Geological Survey released are port that the expected ultimate recovery is about 7.4 billion barrels of oil. The recent advancement in the use of fracking technology in 2000 saw an increase in the daily oil production to almost half a million barrels by 2010. The oil boom is officially here!