Tuesday, March 4, 2014 -- QEP Withdraws Proposal To Unitize Grail Field

QEP requests to withdraw its proposal to unitize the Grail oil field. The NDIC approves without prejudice. Case 21213; orders 23517, 24239. A "huge thank you" to a reader for sending me this. I believe NDIC orders are published/archived in "Premium Services" to which I do not subscribe.

Another month, another ObamaCare delay. The Hill is reporting:

The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act, easing election pressure on Democrats.

As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements.

Prolonging the “keep your plan” fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.

Active rigs in North Dakota:

	3/4/2014	03/04/2013	03/04/2012	03/04/2011	03/04/2010
Active Rigs	189	183	207	172	98

 RBN Energy: Jones Act vessels through the Panama Canal.

There are no crude pipelines running from the Gulf Coast refining region to the West Coast. A Kinder Morgan plan to build such a pipeline last year (2013) floundered on lack of shipper interest. Surging crude supplies at the Gulf Coast and downward pressure on prices in the absence of an end to the crude oil export ban raise the tantalizing possibility of moving crude East to West through the Panama Canal (or the Transpanama pipeline). Today we look at the economics of such shipments.

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The Wall Street Union

So much for the Crimean Crisis. It's over. That was easy.

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Transformers expose limits in securing power grids.

The glue that holds the grid together is a network of transformers, the hulking gray boxes of steel and copper that weigh up to 800,000 pounds and make it possible to move power long distances. Transformers were badly damaged in an attack on a California substation last year, and government reports have warned for years that saboteurs could cause sustained damage to the grid by targeting the massive machines.

Only a handful of companies build transformers in the U.S., and it can take weeks or months to ship transformers in from overseas. The manufacturing process itself can last more than a year, in part because a transformer can't be bought off the shelf but rather must be made to measure for its substation.  

There's actually a bigger story regarding transformers than terrorism, a story we've discussed before.

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Americans open wallets in January and factories bounce back in February.

Reported previously, in North Dakota, pipelines are losing luster, rails surging.

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Porsche Cars North America unit reports February sales increased 15% y/y to 3,232 vehicles.

Subaru of America reports February sales increased 24% y/y to 34,909 vehicles.