Photo by John Mowers
Oil barons of Wayzata: Northern Oil and Gas CFO Ryan Gilbertson (left) and CEO Michael Reger have built their company largely on Reger's family's history on the "Williston Basin," a tantalizingly rich source of oil. New drilling technology could make extracting it more likely.
A Wayzata company is seeking to harvest black gold from a vast expanse of shale in the upper great plains. It could contain up to 500 billion barrels of high-quality oil. The big challenge is to actually extract that petroleum out of the ground.