Week 45: November 8, 2015 -- November 14, 2015

The top story of the week: oil nears $40/bbl.

I think this is the most under-talked about story in the Bakken right now, the fracklog. Everyone is concentrating on the "number," when, in fact, that's just a small part of the overall story. Here some things to keep in mind when thinking about these 1,000+ wells waiting to be fracked:

• they are all in the sweet spots of the Bakken
• operators have spent 7+ years perfecting completion techniques, resulting in huge 90-day production, and then 1-year production profiles
• every well in the Bakken -- especially in the sweet spots -- will create a halo effect on neighboring wells 
• the infrastructure is most robust in the sweet spots of the Bakken
• 3 - 5 days to frack; once decision is made to frack, oil will moving fairly quickly after that

Operations
Spectacular production! 
Water-flooding the Bakken 
The Red Queen has not fallen off the treadmill; it will take awhile for the Red Queen to fall off her treadmill;

Fracking
Fracklog at 1000+ -- SeekingAlpha
Halo effect 
Increased volumes of fracking sand being ordered from suppliers
Halo effect?
Fracking led to a lot of jobs

Refining
Update on the Dickinson refinery 

Miscellaneous
Keystone XL analysts need to be looking west, not east
Number of North Dakota millionaires jump
Random fallout from the Keystone TKO