Staggering Number Of Bakken Wells To Be Connected To ONEOK System; Texas Grid Reports Record-Breaking Demand -- August 5, 2015

It's going to take a lot of wind / solar to meet energy demands of the future. We've only just begun. Fuelfix is reporting:

The Texas electric grid broke the all-time record for hourly demand between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Wednesday as temperatures continue to peak above 100 degrees, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

The ERCOT system demand reached 68,459 megawatts within the record 60-minute time frame, which exceeded the previous Aug. 3, 2011 record of 68,305 megawatts. One megawatt is enough to power about 200 homes during periods of peak demand.On July 29, ERCOT asked Texas consumers to reduce their power use to reduce the chance of outages, though Jones said the electric grid has been able to provide capacity as high as 71,000 megawatts. It was the first system-wide conservation alert since March 4, 2014.

As for the record-setting Wednesday, ERCOT said wind power contributed about 2,500 megawatts during the peak.

2,500 / 68,459 = 3.7%.

Thank goodness for wind. Backed up by natural gas, of course. One cannot depend on wind; it's an intermittent energy resource.

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Free Market Capitalism In The Mideast

When you read this article, imagine the future of the US if we had an administration that actually cared for the well-being of the country and its citizens.

The New York Times is reporting: Qatar is the world's wealthiest country by output per capita with its LNG exports.

Once a poor nation whose economy depended on fishing and pearl diving, Qatar is a relatively new giant in the global energy trade.

In the 1970s, Shell discovered the world’s largest trove of natural gas, called the North field, in Qatari waters. But there was no market for the fuel. Potential customers in Europe were too far to reach via pipeline, the usual method. Shell walked away.

Looking to the example of Malaysia and Indonesia, Qatar and Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who was then its emir, started promoting L.N.G. in the mid-1990s. Exxon Mobil was the important early investor; Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips soon followed.

Qatar and its energy partners took the business to a new level, developing far bigger and more efficient plants. Last year, Qatar produced about a third of all liquefied natural gas, although Australia and the United States have big export ambitions.

It is a lucrative business that has made Qatar the world’s wealthiest country by output per capita. While industry growth has recently been flat, worldwide volumes have roughly quadrupled in the last two decades to about 240 million metric tons a year, or 264 million short tons, accounting for about one-third of overall gas exports. Annual sales are estimated at $180 billion.

I think the writer at the NYT completely missed the bigger story.

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Staggering

Updates

August 14, 2015: Seeking Alpha has a bit more on this. 

Original Post

Reuters is reporting:

U.S. natural gas company Oneok Inc's chief executive officer said on Wednesday the company was on track to connect more than 700 wells in the Williston shale basin in North Dakota in 2015 and forecast connecting more than 600 next year.

Oneok CEO Terry Spencer said the company connected more than 260 new wells in the Williston in the second quarter, bringing its year-to-date total to more than 560 new connections.

"There continues to be an inventory of flared gas in the Williston basin and we estimate approximately 145 million cubic feet per day is dedicated to the partnership, with the majority of the wells flaring already connected to our system," Spencer said, referring to Oneok Partners LP.