Chris Faulkner knows there are skeptics who think that the towns surrounding the oil-rich Bakken area of North Dakota are growing too fast.
He knows that there are plenty of critics who think that what this slice of North Dakota is experiencing is a boom, not a sustainable industry.
Faulkner, though, thinks that those critics are wrong.
Faulkner, chief executive officer of Breitling Energy Companies, spoke during the Opportunities in North Dakota and the Bakken Summit held yesterday at the University Club in Chicago. The event, held by Illinois Real Estate Journal, Midwest Real News and Law Bulletin Publishing company, featured a range of speakers who discussed how the growth of the oil industry — thanks in large part to new technology and fracking — has changed life in the North Dakota communities located in the heart of the Bakken.
Conference speakers focused, too, on the opportunities the area holds for commercial real estate professionals across the Midwest and the country. The communities in this part of North Dakota need new supermarkets, apartment units, hotel rooms, restaurants and gas stations. It’s why many commercial real estate companies — many of them located in neighboring Minnesota — are setting up bases in the area.
The Bakken formation, of course, has been in the news because of how much oil companies are extracting from it. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Bakken formation might hold 7.4 billion barrels of oil. The formation is located in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.
Faulkner, like the others speaking at yesterday’s conference, don’t see a boom when they look at the Bakken. They see an industry that will last for decades.
And for Faulkner, this industry is still in its earliest stages.
“We are still in the infancy of what is happening in the Bakken,” Faulkner told attendees at the summit. “There are decades and decades of drilling ahead of us.”
His message? There is still opportunity for investment in the region. There is still time for real estate developers to land contracts for new supermarkets, restaurants and multi-family buildings in the area.
Faulkner said that he expects drilling technology to evolve even further in the coming years. This means that companies might be able to tap even more oil in the Bakken, making the current estimates for the amount of oil available in the region too conservative.
“You have not missed out,” Faulkner said. “The opportunities here have just started. The windows has not yet shut. It’s not even close to shutting.”