Natural Gas Interest After Japanese Tragedy

Wouldn't it be interesting if the tragedy in Japan re-energized the natural gas markets?

Six (6) New Permits -- North Dakota, USA

Producers: EOG (2), Zenergy (2), MRO, and XTO.

Fields: Heart Butte, Squaw Creek, Antelope, Marmon, and Bailey.

No production numbers for any new wells were reported today on the daily activity report except BEXP's Macklin 15-22 1H, file number 19176, with an IP of 2,312 which was reported earlier.

Several wells listed as "plugged or producing," including two Fidelity wells (Kostelecky and Oukrop) which should be of interest when the production numbers are presented.

Global Warming: Graphs

Link here.

End of Nuclear Energy As We Know It? -- Pundits, Analysts

Germany to shutter seven of its seventeen nuclear reactors.  All reactors built before 1980 will be shut down. A third of its nuclear capacity is being shut down for at least three months.

Business leaders urged caution when making major decisions on nuclear plants, which in total supply about a quarter of all electricity needed to power Europe's biggest economy. "Panic and party politics make bad advisers," said Hans Heinrich Driftmann, who heads the German Chamber of Industry and Trade.

Why North Dakota Is Booming -- WSJ Article

Link here.

Be sure to read the comments!

Data points from the article:

• 3.8% unemployment

Energy

• Biggest impetus, of course
• Oil
• Fourth in production behind Texas, Alaska, and California
• 650 oil wells drilled last year (2010)
• Expect 5,500 new oil wells over the next two decades
• Between 2005 and 2009, oil industry revenues have tripled to $12.7 billion from $4.2 billion
• Oil industry has created more than 13,000 jobs since 2005
• Most state officials, including Democrats, are pro-oil
• "The industry services the old-fashioned liberal goal of making middle-class constituents wealthier."
• Oil revenue will put an extra $1 billion in state coffers; based on now-low $70/bbl
• Coal
• Wind: industry ranks 9th in the country

Agriculture

• Employs only 7.2% of the state's work force
• Yet, number one in many grass crops (wheat) and honey production
• Number one in Premarin production

High tech

• Great Plains Software, founded in the 1980s; sold to Microsoft in 2001 for $1 billion; over 1,000 employees
• Headquarters Microsoft Business Systems
• PacketDigital
• Aldevron: manufactures proteins for biomedical research
• State employment in science, technology, engineering and math-related professions grew over 30% --> five times the national average
• North Dakota now outperforms the nation in everything from percentage of college graduates under the age of 45 to per-capita numbers of engineering and science graduates

Other

• Median household income increased from $42K (2000) to $50K (2009); the 17 percent increase over that decade was three times the rate of Massachusetts and more than 10 times that of California
• Taxes are moderate
• Right-to-work; attractive for manufacturers

Slick Water Fracking -- Terminology Explained

After reaching total depth, and noting a natural gas show and an oil show in two different formations in a Kansas exploratory well, it was noted that drilling would be followed by a "massive Slick Water frac."

A couple of notes. First, a definition of this type of fracture stimulation:

Slickwater or slick water fracturing is a method or system of hydro-fracturing which involves adding chemicals to water to increase the fluid flow. Fluid can be pumped down the well-bore as fast as 100 bbl/min. to fracture the shale. Without using slickwater the top speed of pumping is around 60 bbl/min. -- Wikimarcellus

Water fracs generate fractures by injecting water with little or no proppant. “Slick-water fracs” employ linear gels or friction reducers to the water. Water fracs can generate similar or sometimes better production responses than large, conventional gel treatments. Microseismic imaging has shown that water fracs can create very long fractures. However, since water is less efficient than gels at carrying proppant, the effective fracture half-lengths may vary significantly, depending on proppant concentration and placement effectiveness. -- E&P.com.

The frac is described as "massive":

Black Hawk will perform a modern large scale frac procedure on the Sellers 'B' well designed for 103,500 lbs of proponent, which is 3 to 4 times the size of previous fracs targeting an area known to have Mississippi zone oil.

Comment, October 26, 2011: operators are routinely fracking with 3 million pounds of proppant (sand alone, or sand + ceramics) in the Bakken, Williston Basin, North Dakota. If this is accurate: 103,000 pounds of proponent (sic) it seems very, very small.