Chinese Company Names "Energy Company of the Year" -- Not A Bakken Story

From SeekingAlpha:

CNOOC Ltd. won the “Energy Company of the Year” designation, the highest honor bestowed by Platts Global Energy Awards. In addition, Platts also selected the company as the "Energy Producer of the Year."

Just saying.

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And more: Chinese company acquires rights to operate Brazil's electric grid. Posted December 22, 2010

Nine (9) New Permits in North Dakota -- USA

Producers: Hess, American and Newfield.

Fields: Manitou, Alkali Creek, Bear Den and two wildcats.

Hess has six permits on one pad; three wells will drill into the Manitou, and three wells will drill into the Alkali Creek oil field.

The two American Oil permits are wildcats.

Poll: Majority of Americans Now Dissatisfied With Where Country Is Headed

Bloomberg--

More than 50 percent of Americans say they are worse off now than they were two years ago, and two-thirds believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.

The survey, conducted Dec. 4-7, finds that 51 percent of respondents think their situation has deteriorated, compared with 35 percent who say they’re doing better. The balance isn’t sure. Americans have grown more downbeat about the country’s future in just the last couple of months, the poll shows. The pessimism cuts across political parties and age groups, and is common to both sexes. 

This was posted at about the mid-point of President Obama's first term.

Meanwhile, the bill to put more money in America's pockets January 1, 2011, is still being debated and could be defeated.

Just saying.

Modular Housing -- Interesting Concept -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Modular housing concept.

Federal Government's Scheme to Take Two Million Acres of Dakota Farmland

The Federal government is proposing to take 2 million acres of land in North Dakota and Montana off "the market" and turn it into a grassland conservatory. Two million acres is twice the size of Vermont. That's a lot of farmland to be taken off the market, plus everything else that would be eliminated. It is entirely voluntary, but the result will be a checkerboard mix of conservatory and non-conservatory land. That's the end of any linear power line transmission grids or pipelines in the future. This is not rocket science.

Most of this would not affect the Bakken directly.

Two Nice Wells Reported Today: an EOG Well and A Slawson Well -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

19047, 1,770, Slawson, Revolver 1-35H, Van Hook, Bakken
18203, 1,154, EOG, Fertile 34-31H, Parshall, Bakken

Something to Watch While Waiting for Bakken News

http://wimp.com/budgetcuts

This post will be removed later today, so if you want it, copy and paste the link.

Update: it turns out this is more popular than I expected, and I will keep this link, and give it a tag.

Why Is It So Hard to Find Some News? -- Not a Bakken Story

Don't worry, we will return to the Bakken shortly.

I was completely unaware of this. I watch the news pretty closely, and yet I almost missed this. It appears Congress has put to rest any possibility of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison holding terrorists or moving any terrorists to American soil for trial.

Congress on Wednesday signaled it won't close the prison at Guantanamo Bay or allow any of its suspected terrorist detainees to be transferred to the US,  dealing what is likely the final blow to President Obama's campaign pledge to shutter the facility in Cuba.

The move to block the prison's closure was written into a massive year-end spending bill that passed the House on Wednesday evening on a vote of 212-206, part of a last-minute legislative rush by Democrats to push through their priorities before ceding the House to Republican control in January.

I assume this story was reported in the NY Times, but I could not find it at Times on-line site. I assume it's there, and, no, I didn't google it.

The bad news: I can only imagine the amount of pork in this bill. Look at the narrow margin of victory.