Monday Morning -- Quiet Morning -- Oil Solidly Above $102 -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Elsewhere folks in the Bakken are learning that there are two "Samsons" in the Williston Basin. For newbies, that might be a reasonable link to visit to learn about those two "Samsons." I would recommend this site instead ; when you get there, scroll down to the note in bold red; read the original post, and then read the "news."

This was my original post on the KKR/Samson Investment Co deal. At that site is a very interesting link, which included this observation:

"There's about to be a new boom time when it comes to oil and gas," Jake Dollarhide, who manages about $65 million at Longbow Asset Management Co. in Tulsa, said today in an interview. "It's going to take a lot of capital. Every company is looking to get bigger or looking for a partner."

Oil and gas looks good; the talking head just said that he doesn't think the price of oil is going higher (that's the nuance of what he said; he was more circumspect); meanwhile the TCOP is up $1.07 today, solidly over $102.

Earlier I think Squawk Box (CNBC) said that the volume of electric cars in the market was three percent and falling. I could be wrong; again, I caught that comment after missing the first part. I do know that the Chevy Volt is soon to go into free fall. Three things: a) even with the $7,500 ($10,000) tax benefit, the Volt remains very expensive; b) one can buy the Cruz for a lot less and get very, very good mileage; c) if the tax benefits go away, the electric cars are dead; and, d) exploding batteries don't help.

I can't remember if Don sent me this story (which I think he did) or if I stumbled upon it myself (through Drudge?). It doesn't matter. The story is very fascinating. You can find it at several locations; this is the Canada Free Press on-line site: graveyards of wind turbines hit America.

Literal beacons of the "green" energy movement, giant wind turbines have been one of the renewable energy sources of choice for the US government, which has spent billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing their construction  and use across the country. But high maintenance costs, high rates of failure, and fluctuating weather conditions that affect energy production render wind turbines expensive and inefficient, which is why more than 14,000 of [these golden eagle and whooping crane killers] have since been abandoned. 

Meanwhile "we" start with 199 active rigs in North Dakota today. There is some suggestion that the number of North Dakota rigs will remain around this level; the number of rigs may increase in the Williston Basin but more are headed to the Montana said of the basin.