Lesser Prairie Chicken Decision "Vacated"; Tea Leaves Suggest Bakken Fracklog To Go Over 1,000 -- September 3, 2015

Oil & Gas Journal reports:

A federal district judge in Texas vacated the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species after finding that the US Department of the Interior agency failed to follow its own evaluation procedures for conservation efforts that already were under way.

The decision potentially could affect FWS’s long-anticipated decision whether to list the greater sage grouse as a threatened or endangered species, which is expected by the end of this month. Both birds dwell in oil and gas producing areas, so listing either or both species as threatened would have a profound effect on operations.

Robert Junell, senior judge for US District Court for Western Texas’s Midland-Odessa Division, said in his Sept. 1 decision that FWS acted arbitrarily and capriciously in disregarding conservation efforts on millions of acres across five states to improve habitat and diminish threats to the bird. 

I assume the FWS, like the EPA, could ignore this judge and proceed as if the bird was still endangered and that inadequate steps were being taken to save it.

Or more easily, the President simply signs an executive order.

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Fracklog

The tea leaves suggest the number of Bakken wells drilled and not completed will surge this winter. If I remember, I will post a poll, to see what readers think the fracklog will be each month for the next few months.

Today, well into fracking season, 3 of 4 Bakken wells coming off the confidential list were not completed. There is excess fracking capacity; the summer weather has been excellent; and the wells that are completed are generally very good. But, yet today, 3 of 4 Bakken wells coming off the confidential list today were not completed.

My hunch is the fracklog will go over 1,000 before the winter of 2015-2016 is over.

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Weekly Petroleum Statistics

Gasoline demand continues to drop (a dynamic link) as driving season ends. Most recent weekly data shows this season's gasoline demand up almost exactly 500,000 bopd year-over-over. And this is with better mileage, more EVs, a recession in areas of the country. 

Natural gas fill rate, also a dynamic link: continues to rise; now slightly above the 5-year average, at 94. In the East Region, stocks were 38 Bcf below the 5-year average following net injections of 71 Bcf.

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Britain: 2015 Was Among The Coldest Summers In Twenty Years

Ice Age Now is reporting:

The UK’s average temperature this summer was among the lowest in 20 years, the Met Office has revealed. It also admitted it failed to predict the wash-out over the last few months.

Cornwall and the south coast coped with up to three times the average rainfall for August, while Dorset, Hampshire and Guernsey endured the wettest end to the summer in 50 years, the Met Office said.

It is hoped the use of a new £97 million supercomputer, the first phase of which went live this week, will allow more accurate weather forecasts in future.

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For The Granddaughters

Irony

I wrote the following some years ago after reading Harold Bloom's The Book of J. Harold Bloom introduces a fourth "definition" or example / type of irony.

First type of irony: Socratic irony. Irony as first used by Socrates. "A feigned ignorance and humility designed to expose the inadequate assumptions of others, by way of skilled dialectical questioning."

Second type of irony: common irony. "Use of language to express something other than supposedly literal meaning, particularly the opposite of such meaning, and also the contrast or gap between expectation and fulfillment."

Third type of irony, how J used irony: dramatic irony or tragic irony. "The incongruity between what develops on adjacent words and actions that are more fully apprehended by the audience or readers than by the characters." J was a master of such irony. I wonder if playwrights like Neil Simon or Oscar Wilde aren't good examples?

Fourth type of irony, invented by J: her irony was "the representation of what happens when altogether incommensurate realities juxtapose and clash." For example, a god wrestling with a human is J's type of irony (gross incommensurate beings, god vs mortal). How can Abram haggle with Yahweh? How can Jacob wrestle with a nameless one among the Elohim (angels)? How can we be persuaded that a masculine rough hunter like Esau would give away his birthright for a bowl of soup? I would think there are many, many examples of this type of irony in the Odyssey.

An aside: In the movie, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” the events between Johnny Depp and an unnamed boy may be examples of both the third and the fourth types of irony.  As an example of the third definition of irony: when Johnny Depp said he didn’t want to see the boy again. Later in the movie when they cross paths, Depp has been blinded and cannot see the boy.  The same event can represent the fourth definition of irony:  an unnamed, untrained boy saves the life of a trained killer.]

Of the four "types" of irony, Harold Bloom says J created her own form, the fourth form.