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Curtis Hepburn strapped in a harness lines up a pipe on the "board", (the middle section of the rigs tower) on the Raven Drilling rig just outside of Watford City, N.D., Sept 20, 2013. In 2008 the North Dakota oil boom started its ongoing period of extraction of oil from the Bakken formation. Shale gas reserves has given the United States more independence over other nations such as Venezuela and countries in the Middle East. Photo Ken Cedeno

