Move to North Dakota

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B

Beyond Borders

Peacock
Gold Member
@Alibaba or anyone else in the oil industry

Can you give advice on someone moving to a boom town like this and getting footing in a gig that doesn't involve extremely hard labor - especially the kind that grinds on the hands. White collar, etc.

I don't have any problem with getting down and dirty at all, but I've broken one of my hands 6 times throughout my life, the last 2 of which I refused surgery. I can still work with them but typically avoid doing anything majorly taxing on the hands like pounding hammers or chopping wood, etc - as employment i mean. I can still do those things - just not all day. A cold environment like that in ND will surely aggravate it as well.

I guess what I'm asking is if it's still possible to get a piece of the pie without starting out in the trenches? I don't have a Bachelor's degree (just AA) or much of an employment history, but I am intelligent, focused, extremely-hard working, and driven. The university semester I did do was straight A's, I tested high enough on the AZVAB's to go intelligence when looking at the Army, and most every job I've ever had has tried to push me towards a management position and get me to hang around for the long term.

What I'm saying is that I'm confident I can prove myself if I can get past my complete lack of credentials and get my foot in the door somewhere to show them what I'm made of. I have money coming from online stuff, and I have waiting and bartending skills - that combination could likely hold me over until I figured it out, so I've got time. No family, no kids either, and I'm 31 years old.

It seems like my situation would be perfect for something like this if I'd been working in the trades the past decade but instead I've been playing around in college or traveling while holding down hospitality jobs and running my own landscaping and freelancing businesses.

I want to hold on to my freewheeling lifestyle, but I want to wipe the slate clean on old debts first. i want to shove some money into a 401K and put aside some loot to invest in some solid opportunities I have.

So do you think it's even feasible to break in considering my circumstances, or is all white collar work in a place like that reserved for BA-holders?
 
scotian

scotian

Peacock
Gold Member
Beyond Borders said:
@Alibaba or anyone else in the oil industry

Can you give advice on someone moving to a boom town like this and getting footing in a gig that doesn't involve extremely hard labor - especially the kind that grinds on the hands. White collar, etc.

I don't have any problem with getting down and dirty at all, but I've broken one of my hands 6 times throughout my life, the last 2 of which I refused surgery. I can still work with them but typically avoid doing anything majorly taxing on the hands like pounding hammers or chopping wood, etc - as employment i mean. I can still do those things - just not all day. A cold environment like that in ND will surely aggravate it as well.

I guess what I'm asking is if it's still possible to get a piece of the pie without starting out in the trenches? I don't have a Bachelor's degree (just AA) or much of an employment history, but I am intelligent, focused, extremely-hard working, and driven. The university semester I did do was straight A's, I tested high enough on the AZVAB's to go intelligence when looking at the Army, and most every job I've ever had has tried to push me towards a management position and get me to hang around for the long term.

What I'm saying is that I'm confident I can prove myself if I can get past my complete lack of credentials and get my foot in the door somewhere to show them what I'm made of. I have money coming from online stuff, and I have waiting and bartending skills - that combination could likely hold me over until I figured it out, so I've got time. No family, no kids either, and I'm 31 years old.

It seems like my situation would be perfect for something like this if I'd been working in the trades the past decade but instead I've been playing around in college or traveling while holding down hospitality jobs and running my own landscaping and freelancing businesses.

I want to hold on to my freewheeling lifestyle, but I want to wipe the slate clean on old debts first. i want to shove some money into a 401K and put aside some loot to invest in some solid opportunities I have.

So do you think it's even feasible to break in considering my circumstances, or is all white collar work in a place like that reserved for BA-holders?
Click to expand...

There´s a lot of options out there, are you dead set on a white collar office job? From my experience, the biggest money to be made is out in the field and it doesn´t necessarily have to involve hard labour (although many do).

An excellent, high paying field that doesn´t require a lot of education (mostly 1-3 week long courses, but they are expensive) is quality control/weld inspection.

Check out the American Welding Society´s website here: http://www.aws.org/w/a/certification/CWI/

Basically weld inspectors do a mix of field work (visually inspecting welds, ensuring welders are following proper procedures, etc) and office work (dealing with engineers, contractors, reading and mapping isometric drawings, etc). Its a good job and you don´t necessarily need a welding background to get into it.

There´s also in-service inspectors and they are certified by the American Petroleum Institute, these guys work in refineries and inspect pressure vessels (API 510 cert), storage tanks (API 653) and piping (API 510). You can find all of the info for API certs here: http://www.api.org/

AWS and API tickets are recognized world wide, so if you you get those tickets (would take around 2-5 years) and you want to work outside the states, no problem, I know they are in high demand in places like Alberta, Canada and certainly anywhere in the world oil is refined.

Here´s a job ad for a CWI in North Dakota I found: http://www.roadtechs.com/petro/wwwboard/getpost.php?rec_nbr=203131

Search USA job sites for quality control, CWI, API, inspection, etc. there´s lots of jobs out there, other international sites include; miscojobs, rig zone, oil careers, etc.

Anyway, thats just one of the many fields of work that a guy like you can get into.
 
B

Beyond Borders

Peacock
Gold Member
scotian said:
There´s a lot of options out there, are you dead set on a white collar office job? From my experience, the biggest money to be made is out in the field and it doesn´t necessarily have to involve hard labour (although many do).

An excellent, high paying field that doesn´t require a lot of education (mostly 1-3 week long courses, but they are expensive) is quality control/weld inspection.

Check out the American Welding Society´s website here: http://www.aws.org/w/a/certification/CWI/

Basically weld inspectors do a mix of field work (visually inspecting welds, ensuring welders are following proper procedures, etc) and office work (dealing with engineers, contractors, reading and mapping isometric drawings, etc). Its a good job and you don´t necessarily need a welding background to get into it.

There´s also in-service inspectors and they are certified by the American Petroleum Institute, these guys work in refineries and inspect pressure vessels (API 510 cert), storage tanks (API 653) and piping (API 510). You can find all of the info for API certs here: http://www.api.org/

AWS and API tickets are recognized world wide, so if you you get those tickets (would take around 2-5 years) and you want to work outside the states, no problem, I know they are in high demand in places like Alberta, Canada and certainly anywhere in the world oil is refined.

Here´s a job ad for a CWI in North Dakota I found: http://www.roadtechs.com/petro/wwwboard/getpost.php?rec_nbr=203131

Search USA job sites for quality control, CWI, API, inspection, etc. there´s lots of jobs out there, other international sites include; miscojobs, rig zone, oil careers, etc.

Anyway, thats just one of the many fields of work that a guy like you can get into.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for shooting me the answers on this, Scotian - I really appreciate the time you guys have taken to lay down what you know here.

The AWS seems to want some real work experience before even putting an application in for the training though. Looks like they want 3 years minimum experience if, like me, the applicant has an AA - takes even more years if you don't have the AA. And they also state they want that AA to be in an engineering-related field.

Here's the excerpt from the page you linked:
"DO YOU QUALIFY?
To qualify as a Certified Welding Inspector, you must pass a vision test and have a combination of qualifying education and work experience, with supporting documentation:


MINIMUM EDUCATION MINIMUM WORK EXPERIENCE
Associate or higher degree in engineering technology, engineering, or a physical science 3 years
High school diploma plus two or more years engineering/technical school courses 3 years
High school diploma plus one year engineering/technical school courses or one or more years of vocational education and training in a welding curriculum 4 years
High school diploma or approved high school equivalency diploma 5 years
At least 8th grade 9 years
Less than 8th grade 12 years"

I'll take a closer look at the API- just wanted to throw that back out there to see if I'm missing something. I do realize you were just throwing out some examples though, so I'll keep on digging. Thanks again.
 
scotian

scotian

Peacock
Gold Member
I got this forwarded e-mail from a friend today, its about the Bakken oil field in North Dakota, puts things into perspective:

Subject: OIL

OIL- You better be sitting down when you read this !!!!!!

As you may know, Cruz Construction started a division in North Dakota just 6 months ago.

They sent every Kenworth (9 trucks) we had here in Alaska to North Dakota and several drivers.

They just bought two new Kenworth's to add to that fleet; one being a Tri Drive tractor and a new 65 ton lowboy to go with it.

They also bought two new cranes (one crawler & one rubber tired) for that division.

Dave Cruz said they have moved more rigs in the last 6 months in ND than Cruz Construction moved in Alaska in the last 6 years.

Williston is like a gold rush town; they moved one of our 40 man camps down there since there are no rooms available.

Unemployment in ND is the lowest in the nation at 3.4 percent last I checked.

See anything in the national news about how the oil industry is fueling North Dakota 's economy?

Here's an astonishing read. Important and verifiable information:

About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest.

The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer;

how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?" Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the Middle East put together."

The U. S.. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big.

It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was

in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana.

Check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information
Administration (EIA) estimates

it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is ecoverable( 5 billion barrels), at $107 a barrel,

we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor.

They had no idea.." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.

"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reportsThe Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

It's a formation known as the Williston Basin , but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.'

It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada .

For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end.

Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.

However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves,

and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL !!!!!!

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.

And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from 2006 !!!!!!

U. S. Oil Discovery - Largest Reserve in the World

Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world.

It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.

In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted.

With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news:

We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.

Here are the official estimates:
8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
18 times as much oil as Iraq
21 times as much oil as Kuwait
22 times as much oil as Iran
500 times as much oil as Yemen
and it's all right here in the Western United States !!!!!!

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this?
Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of pe'ople dictate our lives and our economy. WHY?

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East, more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.

Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, it has to.

Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?

Got your attention yet? Now, while you're thinking about it, do this:

Pass this along. If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time

you complain about gas prices, by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.

Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to every one in your address book.

By the way, this can be verified. Check it out at the link below !!!!!!

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
<http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911>;

Curz Construction:
http://www.cruzconstruct.com/services..php
<http://www.cruzconstruct.com/services.php>
 
D

Dilbert3204

Chicken
What is the best way for someone to get a job in this industry, without any skills? Like one of the guys above me, I have been looking online and everything seems to say they want a CDL or several years of experience that I don't have.

I have an MA in Economics and right now am living with my parents, teaching as an adjunct (extreme low pay) and working as a tutor in Kansas. My dad worked for Marathon as an engineer in an office for 33 yrs, but he doesn't know anyone that could take me without a "real" degree like CS or engineering.

I am wondering, should I just try driving up to ND some Thurs after class for the weekend, and seeing what I could get? I am locked in my teaching gig until May 18th, and I need something other than basically teaching 8th grade math for college credit for less than $10k a year.:mad:

Is there something I should put on my resume denoting the fact, that I'm not a shitbag? I think it would be great to be some geologist or chemist assistant or some somewhat technical, how would I find a job like that?
 
B

Beyond Borders

Peacock
Gold Member
scotian said:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information
Administration (EIA) estimates

it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is ecoverable( 5 billion barrels), at $107 a barrel,

we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor.

They had no idea.." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.

"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reportsThe Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

It's a formation known as the Williston Basin , but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.'

It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada .

For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end.

Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.

However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves,

and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL !!!!!!

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.
Click to expand...

I think it's time to go up there and start a business, folks...
 
M

MikeCF

Crow
Gold Member
Dilbert3204 said:
What is the best way for someone to get a job in this industry, without any skills? Like one of the guys above me, I have been looking online and everything seems to say they want a CDL or several years of experience that I don't have.
Click to expand...

I read a story about FedEx. They were paying $20 an hour w/benefits.

They told employees, "Just give us notice before leaving."

Like a lot of opps....You ain't going to find them on the Internet. You gotta be there in person.

Luck = intersection of opportunity and preparedness.

But you gotta show up to get lucky.
 
drymarro

drymarro

 
Banned
Those numbers are a little off. If they were able to get $50 billion barrels.... and the going rate of oil expenditures for America is $7 billion/yr... then that's about 7 years...
 
Aliblahba

Aliblahba

 
Banned
MikeCF said:
Dilbert3204 said:
What is the best way for someone to get a job in this industry, without any skills? Like one of the guys above me, I have been looking online and everything seems to say they want a CDL or several years of experience that I don't have.
Click to expand...

I read a story about FedEx. They were paying $20 an hour w/benefits.

They told employees, "Just give us notice before leaving."

Like a lot of opps....You ain't going to find them on the Internet. You gotta be there in person.

Luck = intersection of opportunity and preparedness.

But you gotta show up to get lucky.
Click to expand...

It takes a pioneer spirit. The biggest gains come from the biggest gambles. People took a huge risk boarding the Mayflower, or getting in a wagon heading across the praire. If your looking for someone to hold your hand, it's not going to happen. The road to success is one of uncertainty and lonliness. Leaders don't look to their peers for acceptance, they make a decision and move on. Make the decision and go. This is your story, stop looking for someone else to write it.
 
B

Bad Hussar

Pelican
Wow. The numbers Scotian mentioned are off the charts. If these ND reserves are fully exploited a lot of countries will suffer due to much lower oil prices.

But just immagine the satisfaction of finally being able to give all the eternally bickering countries in the Middle East the middle finger. The world will be such a better place without America's reliance on oil from the ME it's hard to even immagine such a world.

Lets just hope, for the sake of Americans and also for world peace, that vested interests do not derail this in order to protect their extremely narrow financial interests.

PS: I think there is a typo. 10% of 503 billion barrels is around 50 billion, not 5 billion.
 
A

Anon-A-Moose

Kingfisher
America with locally-produced petrol would be amazing. In 40 years we can rely on ethanol from corn and such to produce gas easily (it's possible now, but...), meanwhile this would stimulate the economy. I mean, if our government even remotely got its act together, we could be looking at another "golden age" unlike anything we've seen since the 1960s (fucking Arabs ruined it in 73). Hell we could have a huge advantage over China and the EU, where gas is even more expensive and transit less flexible.
 
Screwston

Screwston

 
Banned
Been thinking about this all day. I think I'm going to sell my baby, buy a minivan and keep the extra money to take up there with me. I'm going to go this summer. I can finish my classes this semester and save up some more from work until I leave. Just need to install a cd player in the soccer mom van, make sure it's running good and ill be good to do. I have no problem sleeping in it if I have to. I used to sleep in a Civic when I couldn't find a couch to crash on. Thoughts scotian, ali and anyone else? I'm excited.
 
raliv

raliv

Woodpecker
houston said:
Been thinking about this all day. I think I'm going to sell my baby, buy a minivan and keep the extra money to take up there with me. I'm going to go this summer. I can finish my classes this semester and save up some more from work until I leave. Just need to install a cd player in the soccer mom van, make sure it's running good and ill be good to do. I have no problem sleeping in it if I have to. I used to sleep in a Civic when I couldn't find a couch to crash on. Thoughts scotian, ali and anyone else? I'm excited.
Click to expand...

Same thing here, man. I'm in Georgia and looking for vans and small campers as we speak. Hit me a PM with your thoughts, Houston!
 
Hotwheels

Hotwheels

Crow
Gold Member
Eliogabalus said:
Lot of natural blond women there I've hear. I wonder how different women look there compared to the ones on east/west coasts.
Click to expand...

Don't go there for broads. Go to make money.

On the other side of the state, Fargo, there are a fair number of hotties but remember it's a BIG state. The women are so outnumbered in the Bakken their bitch shields have to be set at a level that would make the Death Star proud. I was reading about some of them planning to get concealed carry permits as they do not feel safe with so many horny guys around.
 
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