• BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Restaurants, rental cars and hotels are already booked and Bismarck's airport is expecting an impressive fleet of oil company-owned business jets to crowd the tarmac.
• Officials believe a three-day expo later this month spotlighting North Dakota's prosperous oil patch is bringing the biggest influx of visitors to the state's capital city since a professional bowling tournament rolled into town more than 30 years ago.
• The Williston Basin Petroleum Conference and Expo is set for May 22-24 at the Bismarck Civic Center. The event, the biggest ever scheduled in Bismarck, is expected to inject about $1.7 million into the city and neighboring Mandan, said Sheri Grossman, Bismarck-Mandan Convention and Visitors Bureau's director of sales.
• "We're really excited," Grossman said. "It's really a nice way to showcase Bismarck and Mandan, as well as the entire state."
• Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said some 4,000 people are expected to attend the conference. People are coming in from more than 40 states and countries as far away as France, Norway and Nigeria, he said.
• The expo will feature some 70 speakers, from politicians to top oil company executives, and industry-specific seminars. Officials from Montana and South Dakota, and from the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and .Manitoba, are slated to give updates on oil activity in those areas, which border North Dakota.
• Started in 1993, the expo is sponsored by Ness' group, the state Department of Mineral Resources and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Energy and Resources.
• The event has alternated in recent years between locations in North Dakota and Canada. It was last held in Bismarck two years ago when about 2,750 attended the event.
• Ness said the 300 booths that were available this year sold out within minutes of going online in February.
• Grossman said all 2,500 hotel rooms in Bismarck and Mandan have been

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