Alltite Opens Offices in North Dakota
by Daniel McCoy Posted on 4/6/2011
Wichita-based Alltite Bolting Solutions has opened a new office in North Dakota to provide in-field service to oil and natural gas drillers there.
The company's leaders say the move will help them capitalize on increasing oil production around the town of Williston, N.D., on what's known as the Bakken Formation.
Alltite's president, Andy Smith, says the company has rented space in Williston and hired Kansas-native Dane Moore to staff the office.
Smith says Williston is booming because of oil.
Oil field workers there, Smith says, had taken to sleeping in tents and campers because there were no rooms available in town. He even had to rent a car from a used car dealer because the rental service at the nearby airport said they hadn't had any cars for nine months.
Smith says the company eventually found a rental house it could use for an office, after looking for seven months.
"I had to take whatever I could get," he says. "If I didn't, it would have been gone in 15 minutes."
In 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the Bakken Formation contained "3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil."
The boom has meant jobs and money, but it hasn't come without its share of difficulties for the Williston area.
According to the Devil's Lake Journal, Williston police had an increase in calls of 250 percent in 2010 because of the influx of people.
Read more: Alltite opens office in North Dakota | Wichita Business Journal
