Monday, July 16, 2012

Voyager Oil and Gas In-Play -- From Yahoo.com

6:56AM Voyager Oil & Gas provides operations update; 2Q2012 average production was ~ 900 barrels of oil equivalent per day, a 40% increase over 1Q2012, in-line with co projections (VOG) 1.45 : Co had 6.44 net (150 gross) Williston Basin wells producing from the Bakken and Three Forks formations at June 30, 2012. The Company added 1.41 net (32 gross) Bakken/Three Forks wells to production during the second quarter of 2012. An additional 1.22 net (31 gross) wells were being drilled or awaiting completion as of June 30, 2012 and are expected to be additive to production during the second half of 2012. ~ 225 rigs are currently drilling in the Williston Basin with 210 to 215 rigs drilling in North Dakota and 10 to 15 rigs drilling in northeastern Montana. Voyager expects that the current level of drilling activity will continue and much of its acreage will be developed and converted into producing wells. Approximately 34% of Voyager's current acreage is held by production, either by producing wells or wells that are in the process of being drilled or awaiting completion.

Apple iPad Rumor -- If Accurate, It Will Kill The Competition -- Absolutely Nothing About the Bakken

Link here to MacRumors.
The company is developing a new tablet with a 7.85-inch screen that is likely to sell for significantly less than the latest $499 iPad, with its 9.7-inch display, according to several people with knowledge of the project who declined to be named discussing confidential plans. The product is expected to be announced this year.
If accurate, this could blow away the competition. An iPad the size of a Kindle and about the same price?!

If it is "too cheap," the Justice Department will investigate.

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On another note. But related.

I brought up a computer issue with a close family friend who is in charge of buying PCs for a fairly large southern California company.

The issue is this: we have a relative, on a tight budget, looking to buy a new computer, and absolutely wants an Apple. All she plans to use the computer for is a) occasional e-mail; and, b) make flight reservations and print airline tickets, rarely. 

Seriously that's it.

She is on a tight budget, and $300 is a lot of money for her to spend on any one item of anything.  Right now she has dial-up and rarely uses her computer. With her new computer, she will get cable internet at home.

She absolutely wants an Apple. Personally, I won't buy anything other than Apple, and have had Apples only in the house since my first home computer in 1984 (actually I had a TRS back in 1978, I think it was).

But I can't justify a $1200 Apple computer for someone on a  limited budget who plans to use it for occasional e-mail and occasional flight reservations when one can do that with a $300 Lenovo.

So, I brought that up with our close family friend who grew up with PCs, is a bit of a computer geek, and doesn't like the way Apple restricts one's ability to get "inside" operating system to modify it for one's one use. But after years of buying computers for the company she works for, without hesitation, when hearing the above, she said: iPad.

Only problem: printing. An iPad is really part of an Apple eco-system and an Apple computer is necessary even for those who want only a tablet.

She agrees. But even with all that she still sticks with recommending an Apple computer.

I pressed the argument -- Window PCs are practically identical to the casual computer user these days, but still our friend, a huge PC user wouldn't budge. For neophytes and occasional users of the internet, the Apple iPad or Apple laptop is still her recommendation. I was quite surprised.

WPX Has Permits for Fourteen Wells in One Section

Link here.

This may not be the first, but it sure got my attention.

Fracking Sand -- In the Trenches -- CarpeDiem

A note from an observer in the trenches regarding fracking sand, CarpeDiem. com.

RBN Energy: Natural Gas LIQUIDS Pipelines Coming Out of the Marcellus -- Tellig Us Something?

Interesting question RBN is asking.

There are some interesting things happening in the oil AND natural gas patch.

Investors Only: Hess -- "Cheap" -- SeekingAlpha

Hess, one of the most inexpensive oil plays, SeekingAlpha.com.

Note my disclaimer; this is not an investment site; do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here. I am not trading in Hess in the foreseeable future.

Hess Changing Completion Design -- Filloon

Continuing his series on completion designs, Mike Filloon notes that Hess has increased number of stages and amount of water, at SeekingAlpha.com.

Obama's Permitorium -- And More To Come

I don't know how much more proof is needed:
Oil from the Gulf of Mexico as a proportion of U.S. output has fallen to a 14-year low as the shale boom shakes up traditional production patterns, reducing the impact of hurricanes on national supplies.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows that the Gulf will account for 21 percent of domestic output this year, the lowest level since 1998, based on Energy Department data. The Gulf represented 29 percent of production in 2009, the most since at least 1993.

Growth in output from shale-rock formations in the U.S., including the Bakken in North Dakota, has bolstered inland supplies. North Dakota pumped 609,000 barrels of oil in April, up 74 percent from a year earlier, according to department data. 
Now, if they can just regulate the heck out of fracking, the administration will have gone from "hope and change," to "change." All in less than four years. Actually two years: the spill was in 2010.

And, there's more to come: from Oil and Gas Journal.com -- today: 
Excessive and poorly conceived federal regulations threaten to stifle an onshore US oil and gas renaissance that is being made possible by hydraulic fracturing and other new technologies, state officials and producers told the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. States are better qualified and have worked with producers and other stakeholders to develop rules that are effective and economic, they said at field hearings July 13 in Edmond, Okla., and July 14 in Fargo, ND.

State regulators have repeatedly shown that they can move faster than a federal bureaucracy, noted Patrice Douglas, an Oklahoma Corporate Commission member, during the July 13 hearing.

Douglas noted that in the 2 years that the US Environmental Protection Agency spent studying hydraulic fracturing, the State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations Inc. (Stronger)—comprised of state regulators, environmental groups, and oil and gas producers—completed reviews of five states’ fracing regulations and made recommendations that states, including Oklahoma, have implemented.
If one wants to see the US fail, one does not have to look far on how to do it.

And, then, of course we have this: a) oil supplies dropping; b) refinery activity increasing; c) consumer demand for gasoline rising ever so slightly; and, d) gasoline prices rising again. Just in time for the election.

And, this, this is almost bizarre. Almost? It is bizarre:
"President Obama tells entrepreneurs: "If you got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."



North Dakota Rigs Map: A Map For Locating North Dakota Rigs

A new link for locating North Dakota rigs, easy to remember: North Dakota Rigs Map.

For the time being, "Magic Rigs" is not up and running. I've not explored North Dakota Rigs, yet, but it is linked at the sidebar at the right, also.