Monday, Monday -- July 21, 2014; Stabilizers: The Next Big Story In The Bakken; Obama Administration Investing In Depleted Oil Fields In Texas

American Eagle, drilling in northwest North Dakota, announces operations update and reaffirms 2014 production guidance. A reader sent me the PDF link. Some key data points:

• drilled a four-well pad in 62 days (when the Bakken boom began, it often took 60 days to drill one well); averaged less than 12 days from spud-to-total-depth;
• brought twice as many Three Forks wells as middle Bakken wells to production
• on track to meet or exceed 2014 exit rate of production guidance of over 3,000 boepd 

Faulty ignition switches: It would seem an ignition switch should be one of the more basic things that an automobile company could get right; it can't be that difficult. A reader asks if Government Motors can make any automobile without a faulty ignition switch. Bloomberg is reporting:

GM has told its dealers to halt the sale of some Cadillac models, mostly used cars, because the company doesn’t yet have a fix in place for a defective ignition switch.

The Detroit-based automaker issued an urgent order dated July 8 to its dealers to stop delivery of 2014 Cadillac CTS sedans that use a standard key ignition. The order didn’t apply to the newest models with a push-button start.

Active rigs in North Dakota: 

	7/21/2014	07/21/2012	07/21/2011	07/21/2010	07/21/2009
Active Rigs	194	207	180	137	40

RBN Energy: the second part in a series on stabilizer capacity in the Eagle Ford. This is an important article: this is the next big story in the Bakken.

In 2010 Enterprise Products Partners signed a ten-year agreement with Pioneer Natural Resources to transport, process and market their crude, gas and liquids production from the Eagle Ford. Today that agreement seems to have put Enterprise in the catbird seat after the Department of Commerce softened rules governing the export of lease condensate. 

Today in the second of a two part series we describe stabilizer capacity and export routes to market for Pioneer, Anadarko and ConocoPhillips in the Eagle Ford.

Pioneer is developing its Eagle Ford assets in a joint venture with Indian company Reliance Industries. That joint venture includes a midstream asset development company called EFS Midstream. EFS provide gas and liquids gathering, treating and transportation services for Pioneer and have built 12 central gathering plants (CGP’s) connected by more than 400 miles of pipeline. These central gathering plants each have condensate stabilizers. We don’t know the capacity on these units, or their configuration, but it seems reasonable to assume that these stabilization units must at least have capacity to handle Pioneer’s existing production of about 50 Mb/d in the Eagle Ford. 

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Inappropriate Exuberance

A couple of stories that again point out the staggering changes coming out of the American energy revolution. First, a story on CO2 injection to revive dying fields. I've reported on this before. Don has been following the technology story for years. Motley Fool  has a nice review:

It is estimated that there are 160 billion barrels of oil still trapped underneath this country in what are considered depleted oil fields. That's a tremendous amount of oil given that America uses about seven billion barrels of it each year. In fact, if we could only find the key to unlock this trapped oil we could extend fleeting our reserves by more than 22 years.

That's why it probably comes as a surprise to learn that we've already found the key we need to unlock this oil. That key is none other than discarded carbon dioxide, with the primary source of this practically prized greenhouse gas coming from none other than coal emissions. It's a stunning turn of events to say the least.

America has actually been flooding depleting oil fields with carbon dioxide since the 1970's. Most of the carbon dioxide used has come from naturally occurring sources. The problem is that carbon is costly as getting it from those sources to spent oil fields requires pipelines. But thanks to technological advances in carbon capture and storage we're beginning to see new investments that are directed to cleaning coal and using the captured carbon to produce more oil. It's this combination that has the potential to breathe new life into some of America's long dormant oil fields.  

A positive forward was taken when NRG Energy announced earlier this week that it began construction on a billion dollar retrofit to its East Texas coal-fired power plant. [Posted earlier at the blog.]

While the project is being underwritten in part by $167 million from the Department of Energy, NRG Energy sees it being self-liquidating as the carbon dioxide that is captured will be used to yield a 30-fold increase in oil production from an aging oil field NRG Energy also co-owns. 

A second story was sent to me this morning by a reader. The link takes you to an article in Forbes Magzine but much of it references Carpe Diem which references other sources:

It is a truly amazing feat of engineering and science that enables drillers today to bore a hole 2, 3 or even more miles vertically below the surface, then literally bend heavy steel pipe to drill another mile or more horizontally through very dense underground rock, and ultimately hit a target no bigger than a quarter.  Although the image of this industry that one typically sees portrayed on television or in the rare movie that deals with the subject matter is of wild, crude, hard-drinking, oil-covered roughnecks carelessly tossing around equipment at a filthy drilling sight, the truth about today’s drilling operations is that they are scrupulously clean, incredibly safety-conscious, and deploy a higher level of modern technology than almost any other industry on the face of the earth.  It really is too bad the public seldom gets to witness that reality.

The article goes on to repeat much of what has been reported here regularly and often, on the blog. A nice article for newbies to read; others to archive. 

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The Rise Of China

Regular readers know I feel strongly that Americans, including myself, are too myopic, concentrating too much on the US economy, forgetting China (and even India, for that matter). Don sent this interesting article over at Seeking Alpha on automobile sales in China. This one data point caught my eye:

Ford, for example, added 88 new dealerships in China in just one day in June (the 19th), and management expects to reach 800 dealer points in China by the end of this year.   

I don't invest in automobile companies, but I do invest in the oil and gas industry. 

I think the two big stories in 2050 will be a) water; and, b) energy. The Maldives will still be around.