Just returned from my Bakken "recon" trip

bknight · Dec 18, 2014

gogogo said: ↑

Wrong. Everyone in Dickinson Belfield area is paying $800 a month. Oil drivers are making under $30, the supervac guys make what you say. But I hear the new boss in Belfield just cut their pay while on standby so a bunch are quiting. Belfield is a different beast from the rest of the MBI locations. It's not as nice as you make it out to be. Have you guys out in the boonies gone live yet? hahaha I was one of the test trucks. What a disaster it became.
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I might be wrong for Belfield but not Ross, I know and drink with plenty of the oil guys and know what they make. You are right about housing though, I can only speak to what the costs are at the Ross yard.

Yeah we went live with TMW in August and live with the billing in October. There was a huge learning curve and there are still issues but it has improved drastically since we started into it. A lot more work for us dispatchers though.

Smakman · Mar 14, 2015

Here is my update. In September I decided to get out of ND and get back closer to home (Missouri) so I took a crude hauling job in Oklahoma. I was on my way home for a couple of days before I was to go on out to OK when I got the call from a service company about at flow testing job I had applied for, so......it was back to ND. That job was awesome. I was making twice what I was making hauling oil, but.....the oil price plunge came. I am still an employee but I have only worked 1 week out of the last 5. In between, I am hauling oil again but that has gotten spotty as well. Some days there is plenty to do, some days there is one or two loads, some days there are literally none. If things do not pick up with the service company soon, I will once again be shaking my tail feathers at ND and heading for more southern climates. May have to OTR for a while though I hate the idea because of the screwing that drivers take for the time input. For the moment, still in ND doing a wait-and-see.

UKJ · Mar 15, 2015

Smakman said: ↑

I do my research before I jump ships so I took a trip to ground zero to see for myself if all the hype is for real. Here is what I found out. Everything about the lack of housing is true, but there is a LOT of new housing being built right now so I suspect the prices will drop a bit in the coming years. The pay is still there, but it has come down a bit from the high it was at a couple of years ago. As for the general atmosphere in Williston.....it was like every wild west gold boom town you have ever seen in the movies but with rubber and steel instead of horses and wagons. The level of activity was crazy. There were trucks of all kinds everywhere. All in all, it was pretty exciting. I did get the feeling that the dust was just beginning to settle, so to speak, meaning that the growth is just starting to become paced and more organized.

There are many jobs available, both driving and non-driving, but you need to network and talk with people. Everyone I approached was happy to give me information and advice.

I was there for a day and 1/2 and was offered a driving job hauling oil field reclamation material on the second day even though I don't have any endorsements right now (I have held my CDL for 20+ years but have not been driving full time for about 10). I believe I am going to take the position and give the oil patch a shot. I have a good job for my area, but the top pay I could ever expect is $35-$40 K and I am sick of the office politics. One big thing to know is that you need to go to the oil fields with the proper mindset. There is not much else to do than work, so make sure you are committed to it. The WORK will be your life and if you cannot commit to that, you will probably fail in ND
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Idk what it's like now but just a few months back all of that "Tons of housing" being built was for companies only, not individuals, unless you wanted to pay $4,000 a mth for P.O.S. dwelling. I just stayed at mancamps and bought two house cash back home. Now I am only 30 and basically retired. If I would of paid for those outrageous apartments or homes I would be broke.

Smakman · Jul 18, 2015

Well, here I am again. Still with the service company but doing my last few days of it. The money was awesome while it lasted but things are dead for this type of work now and, frankly, I am sick of ND. A long time friend of mine has a lease with Mercer (van) and is doing very well so I am in the process of getting qualified with them and we are going to team for a while. It's something to do while I figure out my next move.

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