A blog from the National Association of Manufacturers ("The business of America is business," according to Coolidge) visits North Dakota and says the state's healthy attitude toward the energy industry can help reverse outmigration. It's true that with gas prices above $3 oil companies will want to explore new sources, but it would nice for the state to develop through a less volatile industry. It probably looked like the sky was the limit for the oil industry in Williston around 1979. But that didn't last long.
Goodbye, Bismarck, and Thanks for All That Energy
Nice headline, though.
7 comments:
I have a friend who is a "land man" in western ND. The Bakken (sp?) is yielding some amazing oil wells..
If geologists are correct there is an amazing amount of oil in North Western ND...in fact some are speculating that the Bakken may be connected to the massive oils fields in Alberta...
It is far deeper than what they found in the late 70's....
The sheer number of "landmen" in each county courthouse indicates growing interest....basically they are tracing abstracts of oil and mineral rites on every inch of ground....some amazing wells have been tapped that have gone pretty much un-noticed by the media...
The way to stop/reverse outmigration is to promote emerging technologies locally and provide an economic environment conducive to new start-up businesses. An example would be taking nanotechnology work (like this) being done at NDSU and helping form a business around producing products based on this technology locally.
Another oil (or other energy) boom wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing in the short term, but diversification is the key to keeping people in the state.
Exactly. Extractive industries tend not to leave much behind once the source is tapped out. The way to really take advantage of another energy boom is if some amount of the tax revenue generated were earmarked for funding economic diversification, such as the nanotech project Bryan referred to.
Norway (the beloved motherland) holds its oil income in a special fund to pay for its social safety net. So far, they've been the only oil-producing country to eschew the party-'til-well-dries-up attitude taken by most other exporters.
Woah there!! Now it's great that the Norskies have been looking to the future when it comes to oil, but their tax rate is about 40% of their GDP (compared to 30% for us). I'm as liberal as the next guy, but that doesn't mean I like taxes...even if it is a tax on "The Man".
I'm not saying that the state should tax the bejeezus out of energy companies or go all Hugo Chavez on them (Norway has a state-run oil industry).
I'm saying that if there were an energy boom, it would be wise to direct any surplus tax revenue it generates into new jobs in new industries, perhaps by funding science and high-tech university programs. That way, if the boom went bust or the wells went dry, there would be other things to drive the economy.
But perhaps this discussion would be more relevant after North Dakota becomes the next Saudi Arabia, or Alberta.
Norway is a socialist country. They have serious taxes but they offer serious services to citizens.
all medical is free.
all school fee's free
all college tuition free
retirement? free
and they pay a living wage for ALL occupations
They set aside 40k for every man,woman and child each year thanks to their abundance of oil and gas. They are the #8 producer of oil and natural gas.
gasoline is between 7 and 9 dollars per us gallon. they do this to encourage public transportation.
A Mcdonalds happy meal costs about 15 dollars.
exchange rate is approx 6 kroner to the us dollar.
As a bit of a socialist myself I see a lot of advantages to their system. The capitalist portion of me also see's serious problems when implemented on the large scale (ie...US sized country)
most of the companies buying oil rights are from out of state.
My friend is all over eastern montana and western ND....three years ago these little county courthouses would have 1-3 landmen working the abstracts...last week? he said there were easily 40 in each courthouse..sitting in hallways,filling up the hotels...some in elaborate mobile homes...
Post a Comment