Energy Quote of the Day: 'I Didn’t Expect a 25-Year-Old Man to Get Beaten to Death'

Trucks are parked near new homes rented by oil workers on July 28, 2013 in Williston, North Dakota. North Dakota has been experiencing an oil boom in recent years, due in part to new drilling techniques including hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

For a stark on-the-ground report from Williston, North Dakota â€" widely considered the hub of Bakken Shale oil & gas development â€" read this story written by Brooklyn-based freelance journalist Laura Gottesdiener. The piece provides a glimpse inside the North American oil & gas production boom that often gets lost in the maze of production figures, reserves estimates, corporate strategies and market analysis that dominates business reporting on the issue.

Few Wall Street analysts, market reporters, traders, lawyers or fund managers ever see this side of the industry they spend their professional lives covering, which is why we found it important to highlight. While this angle has been widely reported, this particularly raw account of life in a modern US oil boom town is worth reading.

“At 9 p.m. on that August night, when I arrived for my first shift as a cocktail waitress at Whispers, one of the two strip clubs in downtown Williston, I didn’t expect a 25-year-old man to get beaten to death outside the joint.” A Trip to Kuwait (on the Prairie) Life Inside the Boom by Laura Gottesdiener, writing for TomDispatch.com

Clearly this story is not for everyone and we are not looking to offend, but merely offer a view into the human side of the US energy renaissance.

For greater detail on the Bakken Flaring issue, read here.

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Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson, Managing Editor at Breaking Energy, covered international oil and natural gas market fundamentals as an Analyst then Senior Analyst in the Research & Advisory division at Energy Intelligence Group. Earlier in his career, Jared spent several years working in the environmental consulting industry. He holds a Master's degree in international relations with a focus on energy from ...

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