Background pictures

Williston, ND status of early 2016

Williston, ND & Bakken Oilfield of Early 2016

WILLISTON- The rapid decline in the price of oil, globally and domestically, began in the middle of 2014. Since then, despite the sprouting apartment buildings across western North Dakota, including Williston, vacancy has remained at approximately 40% due to the worker layoffs and workers fearful of layoffs following this decline. Regardless of the newly built stores in Williston, such as Menards, businesses have slowed down on a town-wide scale. People have migrated away from the area. Truck traffic is nowhere near what it was prior to this decline. Multiple travel centers surrounding Williston, such as the Wild Bison (south of Williston) and the Pilot (north of Williston) that once teemed with tractor trailers and oilfield workers are now more quiet than they've ever been. Numerous oil-pumping units surrounding the area are standing still, motionless as the world waits for oil's oversupply to diminish.

But despite this apparent strain to the local economy given the unexpected slow down, many locals will agree that the change has been nice.

"I don't have to worry about being out of the house in the evening time anymore," one local teacher in the Williston Disctrict recently stated. 

Another big bonus for the community will be in place when oil business does pick up again--ND 85, the major road that traverses the western part of the state from north to south, now bypasses Williston. Before the construction of this bypass, truckers and other travelers approaching Williston from the north or south had to drive through the town if they wanted to continue on the highway. 

"That bypass is going to keep this town a bit more quiet, I think," a local Williston man stated this past week. 

One misconception regarding the job market in Williston has to do with the production side of oil extraction. Many people believe that the side of the oil industry that is responsible for maintaining the pump jacks and the working wells will always have work. This is not exactly true. Given the fact that a well is shut down, for instance, there's not much to do with that well. For active wells, eventually a "workover rig" and its crew will have to service the well for various reasons. In the event that a well is shut off, however, crews don't have that work. 

"We've cut our rigs back by 50-percent," said a manager at a well services company this past summer of 2015. 

But though certain jobs may have become scarce in the past year or two, businesses in Williston are still hiring, as one can see by simply glancing at Williston's Indeed.com page. But it should be no surprise that the high-paying jobs are not nearly as prevalent. 

New commercial growth is also supposed to be on its way in the near future. A $500 million development--part retail, part housing--may come to fruition in the next year or two, and the same goes for a brand-new airport that is forecasted to cost $254 million. Each project will be just outside of the city limits, though they will clearly mean more job and shopping opportunities for residents.

It is clear that many people in Williston believe that, "It'll come back," "It" being the boom. Others doubt it, though they do think business is sure to pick up as soon as the price of oil rises and stabilizes. 

"Once oil's at $50 a barrel for a few months, we'll start to see another change around here," a retired oilfield worker said just outside of Lonnie's Roadhouse in north Williston. "If we can just keep enough law enforcement around, I think we'll be doing all right," said the man.

Safe winter traveling in North Dakota- Dialing 511

Dial 511 during winter before traveling in North Dakota

Dialing 511--a habit of some wintertime travelers is not necessarily one for all, but it should be. The truth of the matter is: If more drivers in North Dakota were paranoid about road conditions during the wintertime, more drivers would safely travel from Point A to Point B. What happens, though, is many people drive out in a mentally lazy fashion. What we mean is that people assume that their four-wheel drive vehicles, or even their winter tires, or their own driving abilities are going to be enough to keep them safe. Of course this is not always the case. For instance, a plane may have proper on-board equipment to avoid a storm, but we're all familiar with what can happen when it gets caught in one. We have seen professional drivers wreck. We have seen bridges collapse due to poor engineering. All of these events happen because "accidents happen." Sure, sometimes major mistakes are due to carelessness, but on other occasions they're simply due to circumstances. Indeed, "accidents happen," but when preparing to take a roadtrip, perhaps "Discretion is the better part of valor." Perhaps dialing 511 is not a bad idea at all to see what the roadways in North Dakota are looking like during the wintertime, and even during the other seasons. 

Keep up with more news on the surrounding highway area by visiting Williston's NDDOT page. 

Tire Pressure Alert in Williston, ND and The Bakken

Tire Pressure alert in The Bakken- 1 to 2 psi per 10 degrees

To every driver in Williston, North Dakota and other nearby places: Keep an eye on the vehicle's tire pressure as the temperature begins to drop outside.

Studies show that a typical inflated tire will lose some air pressure as ambient air temperature drops. Specifically, for every 10-degree Fahrenheit drop in temperature, tire pressure will decrease 1 to 2 pounds per square inch. Typically, regular sedan's and light vehicle's tire pressures will change only by 1 psi per 10 degrees F, whereas a truck's (heavy-duty pickup to tractor-trailer size) will change closer to 2 psi per 10 degrees F. 

A quick example goes as follows:

It is 40 degrees (F) outside. A vehicle's tire pressure is 35 psi.

The temperature drops to 10 degrees (F), which is a 30-degree decrease in temperature.

Simply, we note the first digit of the temp decrease, the "3" in 30, and we multiple that by 2 psi. Now we see that the tire loses 6 psi due to the 30-degree drop in temperature. The tire's psi will then be approximately 29 psi. Click here--Tire Pressure Changes Due to Temperature--and scroll down to explore more data. 

Suggestion: Ignore TPMS sometimes and manually check

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) ruled that on September 1, 2005 all light vehicles manufactured in the U.S. were to come standard with a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). This system is designed to alert a driver of a decrease in tire pressure in one or more tires. However, owners of year 2006 model cars or newer should not solely depend on this system as their tire pressure monitor. In other words, handheld tire gauges are cheap and handy when it comes to physically inspecting a tire's pressure. 

Just as airline and fighter pilots do pre-flight inspections of their own prior to ascending into the sky, responsible drivers help maximize their (and their passenger's) safety by regularly checking their vehicle's fluids and their tire's quality and pressure. 

Save money by maintaining optimum PSI

Many people do not realize that a tire's pressure can determine its lifespan. A tire that is not properly pressurized will not wear properly. Uneven tire wear is oftentimes a result of over and under inflation, and also misalignment. 

According to Goodyear tire company, "Tires should be inflated when cool to the vehicle manufacturer's recommendations printed on the vehicle door placard or in your vehicle's owner's manual, NOT the maximum limit stamped on a tire sidewall."

In the event that a motorist does not have an owner's manual or sticker inside the door which indicates optimum tire pressure, one can probably find the proper pressure via a simple Google search or a call to the local dealer.

Goodyear furthermore recommends checking one's tire pressure and tire tread every month, and before taking a road trip.

Working on the rig floor while "tripping out" pipe

"Tripping out" drill pipe

The phrase "tripping out" is an oilfield phrase unless we're discussing the 1970's hippy generation, perhaps. What it means is simply this: Pulling thousands of feet of drill pipe straight up out of the ground and stacking piece after piece neatly together. Basically, take a look at the picture below. All of the pipe in that picture is pipe that was in the ground. The sections, one after another, that you see there, are called "stands" of pipe. For some rigs, a "stand" of pipe is two 45-foot pipes screwed together, and for other rigs, a stand is three 30-foot pipes screwed together. In the picture below, we can see that each stand consists of three pipes.

Usually during tripping out pipe, two people are on the rig floor while another person is up on the monkey board, 90 feet or so above the rig floor (in that little box at the top of the stands of pipe that you can see in the picture). Then a fourth very important person--the driller--is controlling the draw works, the elevators, and sometimes the iron roughneck (the device that unscrews each stand from the one below it). On newer rigs, the driller sits in the "driller's cabin," which would be that small blue box that you can see in the picture. He has a window in front of him so he can look out onto the rig floor, and he also has a skylight window, so he can see what is happening above.

Basically, then, the driller pulls up the first stand of pipe out of the ground. The elevators are having to pull up the entire weight of the drill string during this process while also overcoming the friction of the ground. 

1. Driller pulls up drill pipe until an entire stand is out of the ground
2. Roughnecks on rig floor "set the slips," meaning they toss a 150-pound stopper just below the bottom of this first stand that is up above the rig floor. Setting the slips means that the driller can slightly lower the elevators that are holding the top of the stand such that the stand can be unscrewed from the one below it--this unscrewing of stands happens at the rig floor. 
3. The roughnecks or the driller, depending on the rig, uses either tongs or an "iron roughneck" to unscrew this first stand a few feet above the rig floor. Once this first stand is unscrewed from the very top of the next stand (almost all of which is below the rig floor and in the ground), the driller will extend the elevators toward the front of the rig, which allows the floorhands to push the bottom of this first stand to where it needs to be on the rig mat. This is one of the most dangerous times during tripping out because a) the bottom of a 90-foot stand is hovering a few feet above the rig floor, b) one or two people are pushing this end together to where it needs to be, and c) the driller is lowering the stand to where it needs to rest on the rig mat. "Keep your feet as far away from that as you can," my first driller told me when I was first learning. You can imagine why.
4. Once the team places the bottom of the stand on the rig floor, the derrickman 90 feet above unlatches the elevators (unless the driller does this (only possible with hydraulic elevators)), and then he slings a rope around the top of the stand, pulling it toward him into the "alleyway," then filing it where it needs to go into one of the "fingers." In other words, the derrickman "racks back" each stand. Some rope is involved in keeping the stands where they need to be as well. If the derrickman didn't tie off each stand that he racks back, eventually one of the stands would fall into the alleyway, possibly then falling toward the derrick, which could end in a bad day depending on what the pipe hits.
   
5. As the derrickman finishes racking back the pipe, the driller lowers the elevators to get them latched onto the top of the next stand, which is sticking up above the rig floor maybe three feet. This little section of the top of this next stand is called "the stump." 
6. The driller then pulls up on this next stand while the floorhands "pull the slips." 

The process repeats time and time again until the team reaches the BHA (the bottom-hole assembly), which consists of the 90-pound per-foot drill collars, the directional tool (aka the mud motor) and the drill bit. This is arguably one of the most intense periods during tripping out because a) all the big shots--the company man and the rig supervisor--are on the rig floor watching to see what is going on, and b) dealing with the drill collars and subsequent parts of the remaining drill string involves hammers, lifting subs, pipe wrenches, chain tongs, winch lines and other tools that one must constantly use quickly. The steps are many, but a general idea is as follows:

1. When the first drill collar reaches the rig floor, the floorhands throw in the collar slips.
2. Then one roughneck slaps a "wedding band" on this top part of the collar; the one on the other side of the collar latches the wedding band shut, screws it tight by hand, then begins wrenching on it to get it as tight as possible while the other roughneck begins hammering the wedding band. The wedding band is deemed tight. 
3. The iron roughneck unscrews the stand above from the drill collar at the rig floor.
4. The floorhands push on the bottom of this stand, guiding its end as the driller lowers it to the rig mat.
5. Then one floorhand goes to the winch line controls.
6. The other grabs the end of the winch line, connecting it to a "lifting sub," which they must screw into the top of the drill collar so the elevators can latch onto something to keep getting the drill string out of the ground.
7. The guy at the end of the winch line signals to the guy on the winch controls that the lifting sub is ready to take flight.
8. The guy at the winch controls lifts up on the lifting sub just enough for the guy holding onto it to guide it to the stump, which is the top of the first collar.
9. The winch line guy lowers the lifting sub just enough for the guy who's guiding the lift sub to screw it into the top of the collar.
10. They put the winch line to the side so it's out of the way.
11. Using the iron roughneck or tongs, the roughnecks or driller then torque the lift sub to the collar at a certain torque.
12. Now they latch the elevators onto the lift sub, which is screwed into the collar so everything can now be lifted.
13. The two roughnecks remove the wedding band by using a pipe wrench.
14. They pull the collar slips out.
15. The driller pulls this first collar all the way up just as if he were pulling up a stand of pipe when tripping out. 
16. The roughnecks throw the collar slips back in, then connect the wedding band again.
17. With the iron roughneck or tongs, the team unscrews this first collar for the second one.
18. The driller lifts up and kicks out the free collar slightly.
19. The roughnecks shove the end of the collar to where it needs to be while the driller lowers it down to the rig mat.
20. The derrickman ropes the collar in similar fashion to how he would a regular stand of drill pipe.

Racking back a collar is generally harder because the collars are so heavy, but they luckily don't have to go as far as regular stands of drill pipe either. After racking back generally three or four of these heaviest sections of pipe, then the team must utilize the pipe wrangler to deal with the mud motor. Then once the drill bit is finally above the hole, they must throw in what's called a bit box, which is a special frame that the driller lowers the drill bit into so the drill bit can be unscrewed.  

Reasons for tripping out

Oftentimes, tripping out pipe is necessary in the event of tool failure, meaning that the directional tool just behind the drill bit has stopped working. Sometimes, too, the drill bit stops working. A crew also trips out pipe upon completing a well or a section of a well.

Sometimes the crew realizes that it must trip out pipe because pieces of rubber appear on the shakers, which separate a) the cuttings of the earth produced by the drill bit from b) the drilling fluid.

Real Winter Tires--a must for travelers in snowy states

Winter tires. Real winter tires, that is. 

Yes, real winter tires are very important for anyone living in truly wintry places. A December 2015 Car & Driver article titled Cold War by K.C. Colwell, mentions the following: "Only 25 percent of snowbelt drivers fit their vehicles with winter tires, while Quebec and many European countries make them compulsory." This means that most drivers are using the renown "All Season" tires. Note the quotation marks surrounding All Season. When people think of all of the seasons of the year, they typically think spring, summer, fall, winter, even if they live in the snowbelt of the U.S. So a reasonable person figures that an All Season tire is fine on a vehicle regardless of where the driving might take place. Unfortunately this is a misconception according to the professionals. Taking another glance at Cold War, "You may think you don't need winter tires because your car has all-seasons. But, ironically, if you live somewhere that actually has all the seasons, you need winter tires."

In an area that gets snow regularly each year, that stays below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (~7 degrees Celsius) for a number of months at a time, which therefore can contain and be surrounded by icy roadways (such as Williston, ND), during the wintertime one's tires should have the above symbol somewhere on them.

Some examples of tires with that symbol are the ones that Cold War discusses:

• Yokohama iceGUARD iG52c
• Dunlop Winter Maxx
• Bridgestone Blizzak WS80
• Continental WinterContact Si
• Michelin X-Ice Xi3
• Nokian Hakkapeliitta R2

Drivers in the snowbelt who travel outside of the town that they inhabit during the wintertime are especially suited for getting winter tires. Winter tire enthusiasts see the extra burden of dealing with two sets of wheels--a cold-weather set, and a warm-weather set--as extra insurance that helps keep us safe and off of the light poles.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of having winter tires

Having winter tires ideally means having a total of eight (yes, 8) tires and wheels for those who have cars with only four wheels. Of course this sounds expensive. Up front, it can be. But this is where budgeting comes into play. It's also where we must take into account the time and money one saves by not crashing. 

To be general about this, let's say that a set of rims costs $800 a piece. A set of tires costs about the same. So two sets of wheels and tires costs $800 x 4=$3200. Well, we can deduct $800 from this if we have a set of wheels already. Maybe we have decent All Season tires, too, which we'll use as our warm-weather tires. So in the end, we're only spending roughly $1600 on everything, and quite possibly less (for instance, the Continental WinterContact Si's are approximately $130, or $546 (after sales tax) for a set, plus perhaps another $60 for the installation itself; so $650 for the tires and installation on whatever rims a driver already has). 

In examining the average annual snowfall in North Carolina, and the average annual snowfall in North Dakota, we can see that western North Carolina and all of North Dakota are places where snow tires are going to come in handy. In central and eastern North Carolina, though, not so much. Certainly whether one needs winter tires depends on his or her geographical location. And though generally snow tires maximize the safety of travelers in the upper half of North America, i.e. anywhere at or above the 45th parallel north, this is not to say that one should pass up snow tires in places like western North Carolina. As we can see in the map below, snowfall occurs in geographical areas well below the northernmost U.S. states. 

No need because of AWD or 4x4? Not quite.

If we take a look at statistics regarding vehicle accidents in winter conditions, we'll see that many of the vehicles involved were All-Wheel Drive (AWD) or 4x4. This is because AWD's and 4x4's only tend to be marginally better than Rear- or Front-Wheel Drive vehicles at stopping or turning on icy or snowy roads. Take a look at the following video to become more convinced that getting winter tires in a wintry place is a great idea. Consumer Reports Winter Tires Video

We must mention the fact that winter tires are also not a license to travel at posted highway speeds when patches of snow and ice are covering the highway. Even with winter tires, drivers must consider slippage and momentum. When a vehicle is traveling at 60 mph, for instance, in the event that it slides off the road, it is going to slide off the road faster and with considerably more force than if the vehicle had been going 45 mph. So even with snow tires, drivers must be careful--part of the joy of snow tires, though, is that when drivers that are using All-Season tires are driving carefully, they are not nearly as capable on any given road as the good drivers who have winter tires. See the video below for more proof that winter tires are the answer in true winter conditions.

Winter Tires in North Dakota- Winter Safety Essentials

Winter tires in North Dakota may be laughed at or deemed unnecessary by many natives and non-natives alike, but as far as other drivers are concerned, implementing such equipment on one's vehicle is wise. Some of us have been in serious auto accidents because of our assumptions that our "All-Season" tires could handle snow and ice just fine. For some of us who live in North Dakota and/or other areas of the country, continent, or world, learning the hard way has been the result of such assumptions. People lose their lives every year in North Dakota and beyond because they weren't equipped properly for winter driving.

ND85 during November of 2014, approximately 20 miles south of Watford City

The stories of dangerous winter travels in this area range from survivors of near-misses that could've resulted in vehicle damage and/or personal injury or death, to the stories told by loved ones of people who went uncontrollably sliding into the front of a semi, dying on impact. Generally, those who've more or less cheated death by almost dying in a wreck are the ones who take their tires the most seriously in the wintertime in North Dakota. After all, a truth regarding winter driving is that TIRES have more to do with maintaining control of one's vehicle than whether the vehicle is front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive/4-wheel drive.

Here is an example of what you might come across in researching winter tires: Tire Rack's Winter Tire Test Results

Any of these tires are going to provide exceptionally better traction on snow and ice than All-Season or summer tires. Engineers and tire companies have poured countless hours into designing winter tires for roads in such areas as North Dakota. Indeed, having to deal with putting winter tires on for winter, then switching tires for the warmer months may sound like a pain, but for those who must leave town at some point during the winter, winter tires are simply insurance that is well worth it. The most convenient way to deal with having to use two sets of tires is by having two sets of tires on two sets of wheels--one set sits in the garage or shed while the other set is on the vehicle. And though this may seem like we have to spend more money on tires since we have to have two sets, it really comes out in the wash because each set lasts twice as long as if we kept the set on year-round.

Winter tires in North Dakota's winters are simply essential for highway driving, even at slow speeds. State authorities are known to do a good job clearing the roads after snow storms, for instance, but a state official driving a snow plow isn't always available right away. Snow and freezing rain can come at any time, whether it be tomorrow or another day right when we're in the middle of a drive to Minot, for instance.