Wednesday, September 17, 2014

200 -- September 17, 2014

Here it is, and yes, some rigs may be double-counted, but it is what it is.

Active rigs in North Dakota:


9/17/201409/17/201309/17/201209/17/201109/17/2010
Active Rigs200180196199146

See first comment below, part of which reads:
I check the active rig count every week so I checked this one. First of all there are only 199 rigs on the report, not the 200 in the header. This happens about once a month, don't really know why but it's not unusual. There is also one duplicate rig on the report (H&P 293); this also happens occasionally. I do know, though, that there are two rigs that are not on the report but are active and should be, so we really are at 200.
So, a couple of things.

First:  Yes, there may not really be 200 active rigs but this is the screen shot I've used since I started posting NDIC data. [See above.]

Second: Summer, if one uses the autumn equinox as the marker, does not officially end until September 23, or thereabouts. Therefore, "we" hit 200 before the end of summer, 2014.

Third: Whooopee!

Fourth: Note -- the table above -- the "200" beats the previous record of 199 for this date (September 17) back in 2011 at the height of the boom.

Fifth: the rigs currently being used in 2014 are bigger, more powerful than the rigs used in 2011.

Sixth: the roughnecks are more experienced in 2014 than they were in 2011.

Seventh: same for the petroleum engineers.

Eighth: Leonard DiCaprio's press agent has not confirmed that Leo will be taking a road trip to the Bakken following the UN Climate Change Conference in NYC next week.

Ninth: to quote Kudlow -- "drill, drill, drill."

Yeah, it's a big deal.

WTI is being priced about $94.50 today.

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Note to the Granddaughters

Last night I sent an e-mail (I don't text; I don't have a smart phone) to our daughter about 9:10 asking her to have our older granddaughter call me if she was still up and it would not interfere with her homework.

A few minutes later, Arianna called me. Earlier in the day she was telling me how to use atomic weights in determining the number of neutrons for a given element. I mentioned that more precisely it was "mass" and not weight.

Later, I remembered that yes, the periodic tables used by most middle schools still refer to "atomic weights." Knowing that T/F questions can sometimes be used to trick children on a test, I wanted to tell Arianna that, yes, she and her teacher are correct. "Atomic weight" is still used.