Eleven (11) New Permits -- North Dakota, USA

Producers: Whiting (2), Oasis (2), XTO, Anschutz, Zenergy, Gadeco, Murex, Marathon, and Slawson.

Fields: Manning, Sanish, Epping, Camp, Fortuna, Bailey, Big Bend, and two wildcats.

The two Oasis permits are for two wells on one pad in Camp field.

Again, true to form, Whiting gets a permit in its cash cow, the Sanish, and then a second permits, elsewhere. In this case, a wildcat. The wildcat is about 4.5 miles northwest of Belfield. I cannot stress enough how much Whiting impresses me with its business plan. Maybe more on this again, or you can check back on my posting January 28, 2011.

The other wildcat was the XTO permit, located about 10 miles south-south-east of Alexander.

By the way, the Fortuna field must be seeing a bit more activity. There was a permit in that general area yesterday and this is a very quiet area in the Williston Basin.

There was no other news of consequence in today's daily activity report.

Someone has noticed the paucity of new CLR permits so far this year; I've noticed that, also. I don't think it meeans anything, but I do find it interesting. Of course, CLR has such a backlog of permits to execute, so maybe they are just waiting for some of the leasing mania to slow down.

With 159 permits issued so far this year, North Dakota is on track for 1,759 new permits this calendar year. North Dakota issued 1,680 permits in calendar year 2010.