The story of the North Dakota oil surge may spill onto TV screens later this year.
ABC ordered the pilot for “Boom,” a drama set in the state’s lucrative oil fields. From Variety:
“Boom,” from ABC Studios, centers on the biggest oil discovery in American history, which has triggered a geopolitical shift and an economic boom in North Dakota — the greatest since the American Gold Rush in 1849. Set in a modern-day “Wild West,” the drama, written by Josh Pate and Rodes Fishburne, tracks the pilgrimage of a young, ambitious couple, seeking a better life, to the oil fields of the Bakken, where they come across roughnecks, grifters, oil barons, criminals and fellow prospectors.
North Dakota is the nation’s second-leading oil producer behind Texas. The state accounted for 11.5 percent of U.S. oil production in 2013, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
North Dakota is home to the Bakken shale formation, a region that has sparked a U.S. oil boom through the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The process injects a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals into tight rock formations to access hydrocarbons buried deep underground.
