Dustin Monke

Dickinson Police continue, widen search for burglary suspect

Dickinson Police continued their investigation Wednesday and widened the search for a man wanted after escaping police custody while being detained Monday night for his alleged role in multiple burglaries of firearms in the area.

Jeremy Mellmer, 31, was detained following a traffic stop around 7 p.m. Monday and had been handcuffed before he managed to escape, Dickinson Police Detective Sgt. Kylan Klauzer said. He did not say which law enforcement agent attempted to detain Mellmer prior to his escape, but said it was not a Dickinson police officer.

Area authorities are searching small towns in southwest North Dakota where Mellmer has known family and associates, Klauzer said. Police are also using electronic billboard alerts as far away as Bismarck in an effort to help find him as well.

Klauzer added that Mellmer is likely being aided by others as he evades authorities.

“He doesn’t have a vehicle,” Klauzer said. “He’s using other people to move around right now. We don’t think he’s going to be by himself.”
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Dickinson police search for man after 3 arrested

Authorities in western North Dakota are searching for a man after he fl ed Dickinson Police during an arrest Monday night.

Jeremy Mellmer, 31, is considered armed and dangerous, the Dickinson Police Department said Tuesday in a Facebook post. His escape from custody resulted in a residential Dickinson neighborhood being blocked off for several hours late Monday night as police searched a home where he was thought to be.

At about 7 p.m. Monday, police arrested three Dickinson residents on the 900 block of Eighth Street East on multiple charges stemming from recent burglaries throughout the city and area. Police found stolen property associated with a number of burglaries throughout the Dickinson area, according to a report from Det. Sgt. Kylan Klauzer.
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Tyler formation proved tough to tap into

Graphic courtesy of Timothy Nesheim, North Dakota Geological Survey

AMIDON — Hydraulic fracturing of the Tyler shale formation was expected to liven the sleepy plains of Slope County with oil activity.

But more than two years after the first well was spudded, three horizontal wells drilled by Marathon Oil Co. between September and December of 2013 have proven economically unfeasible and are now abandoned. A permit for a fourth well has been canceled.

The challenging geology of the play combined with the steep drop in oil prices kept Marathon from setting off another shale play in western North Dakota, said Timothy Nesheim, a subsurface geologist with the state Geological Survey.

Nesheim said the first two Tyler test wells “produced oil at rates too low to be economical at nearly any oil price.”

It’s a sharp change from September 2013, when Marathon estimated it could produce about 1.6 million barrels of oil equivalent from four test wells it had received permits to drill.

The wells produced 4,471 barrels of oil and 5.2 million cubic feet of natural gas, all of it coming from the Rundle Trust 29-21H and Powell 31-27TH wells, according to state Department of Mineral Resources Oil and Gas Division data.

Nesheim said the Rundle well — one of two drilled on a pad — had an initial 24-hour production rate of 88 barrels of oil per day and stabilized at just 7 bpd “for several months before it was plugged and abandoned.” By comparison, Bakken wells are producing an average of 117 barrels a day so far in 2015, according to Oil and Gas Division data.

Even at oil prices of $80 to $100 a barrel, the well’s production rate was about 5 to 10 percent of what it needed to be economical, he said.

“We had our hopes up. It looked good,” said Ken Urlacher, who farms and ranches on the Rundle land and takes care of the landowner’s cattle operation. “Obviously, if it didn’t look good, they wouldn’t have spent all the money in it and put the tanks on it.”

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After a year of plenty, Dickinson’s independent retail businesses prepare for more normal year-end sales

Out of Town owner and manager Brooke Leno, left, helps employee Chloe Jazvic as she helps a customer and Melissa Moos folds clothing on Friday, Nov. 29, 2015, at the store in the Prairie Hills Mall in Dickinson, N.D. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press)

Holidays can make or break the profit margins of small retail businesses.

In Dickinson, the time carries even greater meaning for relatively new businesses — especially those that sprang up in recent years around the promise of the burgeoning energy industry and population growth, only to see commerce wane in the wake of the industry’s slowdown.

“In general, business is slower,” said Brooke Leno, manager of Out of Town and Out of Town Kids in the Prairie Hills Mall. “People aren’t coming in and dropping a bunch of money like they used to. They’re being more strategic about their purchases. It’s nothing that’s going to make or break us. It’s definitely slower and you can tell. But it seems like the last few days, people are getting into that Christmas shopping.”

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Stenehjem makes campaign stop in for Dickinson

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North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem touted his nearly four decades of political experience working with the state’s agriculture and energy industry Wednesday in Dickinson as part of his campaign seeking the Republican nomination for governor.

Stenehjem geared much of his 20-minute speech to a small but friendly crowd gathered at the West River Community Center around topics important to western North Dakotans — agriculture, oil and education.

“We also have to emphasize that North Dakota, more than ever, is truly a part of a global marketplace,” Stenehjem said. “We must redouble our efforts to secure global sales of all of our farm and energy commodities. If there is one thing we’ve learned, it’s the importance of diversifying our economy. We’re doing that in marvelous ways and we can do more.”

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