Halliburton Co. to move portable housing used in Olympics to North Dakota for oil workers

Housing from Olympics to be moved to ND oil patch

BISMARCK, N.D. — A Houston-based oil field services company will haul a huge portable housing complex used at the recent winter Olympics to lodge some of its workers in North Dakota’s oil patch.

But Williston Mayor Ward Koeser said Halliburton Co.’s plan will do little to curb the city’s housing crunch, spurred by an oil boom in northwest North Dakota. The prefab housing facility will quarter less than a tenth of the more than 1,000 housing units needed in the city, he said.

“Halliburton needs to hire more employees and this will help,” Koeser said. “But this is essentially a stopgap measure.”

The City Commission on Tuesday night approved a zoning change and permit request by Halliburton to allow for the use of the temporary housing.

“They have cleared all of those hurdles and I assume they’ll be moving forward,” Koeser said.

The mayor said the complex will be placed at an industrial park in Williston, on about six acres of land that the company bought from the city for about $160,000.

The company said in a statement that the 158-bedroom camp would include kitchen, dining, recreation and office areas.

“The camp was used at this year’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, and will be demobilized and transported to Williston,” the company’s statement said.

Halliburton officials did not respond to specific questions about the housing complex, its cost or when it would be moved. Koeser said he did not know when the move was planned.

Oil activity in the region has put pressure on the city’s rental housing market, the mayor said.

About 70 apartment units have been built recently and another 80 are planned to come on line this year. But it’s not enough, Koeser said.

The region has more than 500 job openings “but literally no place for those people to live,” he said.