Bismark ND, Datalog, and KeyStone: The Complicated and Rich Energy Relationship Between the United States and Canada.

The Datalog story shows the rich economic and energy relationship between Canada and the United States, the importance of the U.S. generating top-notch engineers, and the ever-increasingly marketability of IP—oh, and Bismark.  And guess what?  Keystone XL—and its apparent resuscitation—may decide whether his venture booms or peters out.

An Alberta-based company, Datalog, is making its first Logging While Tripping (LWT) location in Bismark, North Dakota.  This means that $3 million of equipment is coming to Bismark, along with the resulting jobs and spending.

Logging While Tripping, in short, is a patented technology that speeds up the process of exploring whether oil or natural gas exists under a certain surface.  As such, oil drilling companies look to it as a technological means to lower the costs of extracting oil.  Datalog acquired this technology from LWT, Inc.—who patented the technology—in 2005, and apparently it has proven itself to be a wise investment.  The company boasts an annual revenue of over $45 million has approximately 300 employees.

The reason for the location:  attracting and keeping a high-skilled labor force.

“We made the decision to come to Bismarck rather than the traditional western North Dakota locations as we felt we would have a better chance of hiring and retaining good engineers and technologists in a major centre with full amenities,” explains Rob Duthie, vice president of Operations. “The cost of training an engineer is expensive so retention is key to our success. Our business requires our units to drive to well sites to perform our services as needed so the extra hour and a half to Bismarck from the Bakken play was acceptable for our logistics.”

But how smart this investment is may well show itself within the coming months and eyrasuntil the next few years.  Surprisingly, the price for crude oil coming out of North Dakota is actually falling.  The reason?  There’s more oil coming out then can be transported—one of the reasons that the Keystone Project was important oil producers in the region. 

But, in any case, as this small project shows:  The US-Canadian relationship is felt everyday in important ways.