Nokota Horses Catch German Network Interest -- Not A Bakken Story

Link here. Link is likely to be temporary.

The story of the Nokota horse, believed by some to be descended from Sitting Bull’s buffalo ponies, has caught the interest of the world’s largest public television broadcasting network.

A crew from ARD, a German network, this week spent several days near Linton, North Dakota, filming a travel segment on the Frank Kuntz farm.

Frank and Leo, brothers, own approximately half of the 1,000 Nokota horses estimated to exist in the world.

The Germans will use the Missouri River as a backdrop to their Nokota story.

For those filming, the Missouri represented not just a country, but a continent.

This is another great North Dakota story. I hope Public Television gets a copy of the final film and broadcasts it.

Linton, North Dakota, is near the North Dakota/South Dakota border, southwest of Bismarck.

The Nokota Horse Conservatory website has a Nokota Horse mini-documentary filmed by UC-Berkeley student, Lucie Schwartz.

Elsewhere:

Potential For Massive Run-Off Due to Melting Snow This Spring -- North Dakota, USA

The US Army Corps of Engineers says there is a chance for flooding this year similar to the massive flooding that occurred in the Missouri River Basin in 2009. Whether it floods may have much to do with rainfall.

Apparently, the current storage of water in all six mainstem reservoirs is "just 100,00 acre-feet above the base of the annual flood control pool."

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In an unrelated story, but the number is very coincidental, the US Army Corps of Engineers recently agreed to set aside 100, 000 acre-feet of water from the Missouri River Basin for use by oil companies for fracking. That is enough water to frack 10,000 wells, ten times more than all the wells drilled last year in North Dakota. (Numbers rounded.)

In case the link is broken in the future, December 17, 2010:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday it plans to make a temporary allocation of 32 billion gallons, or 100,000 acre feet available annually to the oil industry, but it will charge a hefty fee for storing that water in the Garrison Dam reservoir.

 

The corps decided to study water allocations after receiving numerous applications for industrial water permits for the oil industry.

It now has nine applications pending for a total of 34,000 acre feet of water.

100,000 acre-feet is enough for 10,000 oil wells a year, based on an average use of 3 million gallons per well. Next year is expected to the biggest year ever for new wells at 2,000, according to the Department of Mineral Resources.

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It certainly makes one wonder if that's how the 100,000 figure was arrived at when deciding how much water could be made available for fracking.

"Greenest 2011 Model Year Vehicles List" Released -- Not A Bakken Story

Today's Los Angeles Times reports that the new Chevrolet Volt barely made the top 12 list for "greenest 2011 model year vehicles."

The Chevrolet Volt barely made the list, coming in at number 12 of 12.

The natural gas-powered Honda Civic GX topped the list for an eighth straight year, with a score of 54, followed by the new all-electric Nissan Leaf. Other vehicles considered to be the greenest of the crop included the hybrid Toyota Prius and the hybrid electric Chevrolet Volt, which squeaked into the last spot.

"Vehicles running on electricity emit nothing from the tailpipe, but their 'upstream' emissions can be substantial, depending on where they're charged," said spokesman.

Coal-powered vehicles would have particularly huge "upstream" emissions.

By the way, it turns out the Volt may be a hybrid (like the Prius) and not a true EV (electric vehicle) as claimed by GM. If so, it would not qualify for the federal credit; hybrids do not qualify for the EV credit.

The all-electric Tesla Roadster did not make the top 12 list. (By the way, things are not looking good for Tesla. In fiscal 2010, Tesla's net loss nearly tripled to $154.3 million.)

In a February 2, 2011, op-ed piece, the FedEX CEO wrote, "People are rushing to buy the first all-electric Nissan Leafs and plug-in hybrid Chevy Volts."

Here are the sales figures:

According to GM's January deliveries report, the Volt, which was named Motor Trend's Car of the Year, last month was a bit of a letdown.

A whopping 321 Volts were sold, down from 326 in December. The Nissan Leaf, Europe's Car of the Year, fared even worse, moving 87 vehicles off dealers' lots. However, this is something of a win for Nissan, as only 19 Leafs (Leaves?) were purchased the month before.

A discussion of the disposal of these batteries at the end of their useful life has not been discussed in these links.

We're Starting To See The Beginnings of the New Energy Decade .. After a Lost Decade

Williams Cos (WMB) to split.

Investors appear to like what they hear.

And look at the dividend plans.

Proceeds will be used to pay off the company's corporate debt, with dividends expected to increase by 60 percent in June 2011, with an additional 10 to 15 percent increase in June 2012.

I think this is just the beginning of the new energy decade ... after a lost decade.

The Beginning of  a Beautiful Friendship, Casablanca

T Boone Pickens: Spreads His Bets

This is really, really cool.

Just after posting a story about GE "diversifying rapidly into ... oil, guess who else is diversifying ... spreading his bets, as it were?

Yup, America's spokesman for a) Texas wind energy; and, b) for natural gas as the bridge to America's energy future is shuffling his energy bets.

Texas oil billionaire turned wind energy and natural gas proponent T. Boone Pickens was adding to many of his top positions as 2010 closed out, while opening new bets in select energy players.

At the beginning of this year, Pickens predicted that oil will trade over $100 a barrel this year with prices averaging between $110 and $120, resulting in gasoline prices of $4 a gallon. 

According to the article, Pickens added new positions in EOG Resources, National Oilwell Varco, and increasing a large stake in BP, and increasing stakes in Chesapeake Energy, Halliburton, Plains Exploration and Prod, QEP Resources, and Weatherford International.

QEP is a big player in the Bakken, as is EOG, and Halliburton.

Four (4) New Permits and A Huge Well for Denbury -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Note: "we" hit a new record today -- 169 rigs actively drilling in North Dakota.

Producers: Anschutz (2), CLR, QEP.

Fields: Murphy Creek, Dollar Joe, and Squires.

Dollar Joe and Squires are in the Williston area.

The two Anschutz wells are in Murphy Creek, a very good field, and are on the same pad.

Denbury reports:

• 19137, 2,928, Denbury Onshore (Encore), Franchuk 34-19NWH, SWSE 19-145N-95W, Dunn County ... and that well is in ... drum roll ... please ... Murphy Creek! And this well sits on same pad as 19138 (if not on same pad, right next to each other) (Both links to Murphy Creek are the same links.)

Finally, they are changing the name of Encore to its acquirer: Denbury. Glad to see that. Note Denbury Onshore.

169: New Record for Active Rigs Drilling for Oil in North Dakota

Finally, after "seemingly forever," there is a new record: 169 rigs actively drilling for oil in North Dakota.

This record will not last long.

If there is adequate manpower in North Dakota to support the industry, "we" will hit 175 active drilling rigs by Memorial Day.

Fracking Choke Points in the Bakken -- North Dakota, USA

The fracking choke point in the Bakken is well known.

This press release shows how the difficulty of getting a well completed due to the fracking choke point.

Samson Oil and Gas advises that firm fracture stimulation dates for the Rodney #1-14H and Earl 1-13H wells have been established. In an earlier presentation Samson expected that the wells would be fracture stimulated in February after a service provider made a crew available, however, that crew was subsequently withdrawn.

Fracture stimulation operations are expected to commence March 14^th for the Rodney well and March 28^th for the Earl well. These two wells are the latest wells drilled to date in the North Stockyard field. 

Do not take this out of context. This is nothing more than a temporary delay, but it has to be very frustrating.

On another note, the press release refers to the "North Stockyard" field. To the best of my knowledge there is no "North Stockyard field." It is the "Stockyard Creek" field; at least that's the way it is still shown on the NDIC GIS map server.

This field has turned out to be a pretty good field. It is located about five (5) miles due east of Williston, in some beautiful, rolling prairie. The two wells, Earl and Rodney, could be nice wells based on previous results in Stockyard Creek. They are one mile apart from each other on the east side of this small field, smack dab in the center of field (north/south).

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The fracking bottleneck was also mentioned by EOG/CEO (Mark Papa), February 18, 2011:

On our last call, I mentioned the tightness and availability of Eagle Ford frac equipment. This continues to be a problem, although in EOG's case, we've been able to alleviate almost all bottlenecks relating to completions in frac equipment except proppants availability.