In this basin most heavy haul rides on a winch truck. It is also the hardest seat to find on a job board, because almost nobody titles the ad heavy haul. Here is what it pays, how to spot one hiding behind a generic CDL ad, and what North Dakota requires to move an oversize load.
| Company | Where | Posted pay | Seat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Oilfield Rentals | Watford City | $40–45/hr | Over-dimensional loads across the US · 2 yrs oilfield winch · DOE |
| Rolfson Oil | Watford City | $40/hr | Winch · 3 yrs winch · hazmat · housing if needed |
| Black Gold Energy Service | Williston | $28–40/hr | Rig moves and equipment hauling · manual |
| WISCO Trucking (WTI) | Williston | $24–37/hr | Frac, mud and upright tanks · based on experience · $4,400–6,300 biweekly average · tanker endorsement |
| Basin Trucking & Rental | Williston | $25–35/hr | Winch, permitted loads · 1 yr winch |
| Dacotah West Crane | Williston | $28–32/hr | Crane counterweights, rig-up |
| E Services LLC | Williston | $80,000–130,000/yr | Winch operator · 1 yr · on call · DOE |
| Black Hills Trucking | Dickinson, Williston | Not posted | Winch haul · no wage in the ad |
Eight were confirmed still up on September 27, and those are the ones named here. Three more, read in August, still count toward the ranges, unnamed. 10 of the 11 printed a figure.
One of the postings we read in August said from $32 an hour. That is a floor, not a wage, and it is worth understanding why before you read one as good news.
That same ad covered two different seats...winch and slick truck...in one posting. Those are two different trucks and two different skillsets, and almost nobody pays them the same. So a single number on a two seat ad tells you where the range starts, not what either job actually pays.
Ask which truck you are being hired on before you take the number at face value. It is a fair question and any straight outfit will answer it.
You move the things too big or too heavy to go down the road without paperwork. Straight from the descriptions we read:
The part outsiders miss is how much happens before the truck rolls. Route, permit, escort, bridge weights and clearances. Anybody can drive a loaded truck down a straight highway. What you get paid for is knowing the load fits before you commit to the turn.
Search heavy haul or rig move in North Dakota and you get close to nothing back. That is not because the work is not there.
Two real examples off this basin:
If you filter by title you will miss both. Read the duties, every time.
Skip the title. Go to the duties and look for these.
And the counter-tell that usually means it is not this job: tanker endorsement required. Tanker means liquid...crude, water or hot oil. Different job, different page. Heavy haul rarely asks for tanker, and when a winch ad does, read on: one Williston outfit wants it because its winch drivers may also be asked to haul water.
Mostly, the tell holds. We found one field services company advertising a vac seat and a winch seat in the same ad, side by side...tanker endorsement listed on the vac, nothing on the winch. The endorsement is the line between hauling liquid and hauling iron, and employers draw it themselves.
They get bundled in job ads constantly, so it is worth being clear.
Small North Dakota outfits will run one driver across all three depending on what the day needs, and a couple of the postings we read said so plainly...one offered cross training for winch and slick deck right in the ad. That is a real way up. A hotshot seat with cross training available is how a lot of hands got onto a winch truck.
Of the Bakken winch postings we read that print a wage, all but one print an hourly rate. The other prints a yearly range. That is worth knowing, because winch work is not priced that way everywhere.
In other basins it is common to see winch and vac seats paid as a percentage of the ticket instead...you get a cut of what the job bills, so a busy week pays and a slow one does not. We have not found a Bakken winch posting priced that way, but you will run into it if you look outside the state or talk to an outfit that works several basins.
If you are ever comparing the two, do not compare the headline numbers. A percentage is not an hourly rate. Ask what an average week actually paid the last guy in that seat, and ask who eats the slow weeks.
NDDOT issues the permits. The Highway Patrol decides on escorts. Know these before an interview and you will sound like you have done this.
Legal without a permit: 8 feet 6 inches wide, 14 feet high, 53 foot trailer, 75 feet overall. Past that you need paper.
Routine permit ceilings: up to about 18 feet wide, 17 to 18 feet high, roughly 200 feet long. Axle groups run 12,100 lb steer, 24,000 single, 45,000 tandem, 60,000 tridem, 68,000 quad.
Superload is roughly past 18 feet wide or high, or in the 150,000 to 250,000 lb range. Different process, longer lead time.
Escorts: over 14 feet 6 inches up to 16 feet on a two lane needs one pilot car. Over 16 feet needs two on a two lane, one on a four lane. Past 18 feet wide the Highway Patrol may require a trooper at the regional commander's call, billed hourly plus mileage. Pilot cars hold 300 to 700 feet off the load and stay on the radio.
Timing: permits generally run two to three days. Spring thaw restrictions hit non-interstate highways roughly February through May, and that is the one that quietly wrecks a load plan if you did not know it was coming.
Worth knowing on the benefits side, because these postings are unusually specific about it. Of the ones we read in August, one listed a housing allowance after 30 days, 80% employer paid health after 60, plus cell phone and FR clothing allowances, another advertised 100% paid medical and dental and home every night, and another called out stable year round work, which in this basin is not nothing. Of the seats still posted in September, one provides housing if needed and another pays a $2,000 sign on bonus.
Most hands get here sideways. Swamping, then a truck, then permitted loads. If you are not carded yet, the swamper seat is the fastest legal route into a truck in this basin.
How Swampers Get Into A Truck →11 North Dakota postings, every one opened and read in full, in August and September 2026. On September 27 we checked the August ones again and read the new ones: eight were confirmed still up, and those are named with company and town next to each number. A posting we could not find still up counts toward the ranges for 6 months from the last day we saw it, but it loses its name.
This role is the hardest in the basin to count honestly, because the postings hide behind generic CDL titles. We classified every one of these on the load the employer described, not on the job title. Two only turned out to be heavy haul once we read the body.
We report what a company posted. We do not grade it.
No estimated or modeled salaries appear here. Job sites generate their own guesses and they are not real...we checked one Williston listing where the site showed a confident annual range while the posting body contained no pay at all.
The postings behind this page were read in August 2026, and the newer ones in September 2026. The figures here are a reading from those months, not a promise of what any company pays today.
Government baseline for context: BLS puts heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers at a national median of $57,440/yr and mean of $58,240/yr (May 2024, OEWS). That is every truck driver in the country in every trailer type, which is exactly why the national number is not much use to you.
We post a fresh North Dakota board every week, and we read the descriptions so you do not have to. Free.
Every one of these is a real seat in this basin, paying what the company said it pays. Never worked the patch before? Start with how to get an oilfield job with no experience.
Work one of these seats? Tell us what you actually make. Your name, email and company are never published, and nothing goes public until a seat has 5 reports behind it.