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N.D. Kelly Hickel was born in Ray, North Dakota some 10 miles west of Tioga. He and his family have worked in the oil industry since the 1950’s. History note, Tioga is trademarked as the oil capital of North Dakota being the first oil well was struck some 8 miles south of Tioga on April, 4 1951.

Hickel has work for the Hess Oil Company for 32 years. In his younger years he worked for a drilling crew which takes a strenuous physical toll. He later worked as a liner of pipe and truck driver.

Hickel says this is the fourth oil boom for Tioga since the 1950’s. He says as everyone knows by now the invention of horizontal drilling was instrumental in creating the existing boom in the western oil patch of North Dakota. He says only 2 to 3 percent of the potential oil in the area has been tapped.

Hickel says the Hess Corporation is spending nearly $2-Billion dollars upgrading it existing natural gas plant east of Tioga and building a facility to load hundreds of rail cars to haul out oil in the area just west of Tioga.

Hickel says once the upgrades on the existing natural gas plant are completed it will have the capacity to produce some 300 million cubic feet of natural gas, propane and butane.

According to a story on Prairie Public Radio the Public Service Commission approved the North Dakota portion of an unusual pipeline project. the pipeline will take a byproduct of natural gas, ethane, that’s captured at the Hess plant in Tioga to a processing facility in Alberta. It’s a 430-mile pipeline with 80 miles in North Dakota. The total cost of the project is $300 million dollars and the North Dakota portion of that is $60 million.