Samson Oil and Gas Provides Update on Stockyard Wells -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

Global Oil Production vs Oil Consumption -- A Graph Is Worth 10,000 Words

Link here: a graph is worth 10,000 words in this case. I'm sure the Saudis can make up the difference.

See the comment below explaining this graph and this link for further explanation (again, "anonymous" has bailed me out and taught me a lot, thank you): http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/06/oil-production-and-consumption. To explain the graph below, BP writes:

Update: The authors of the BP report have asked us to highlight that a large part of the difference between consumption and production, in the charts above, is accounted for by such things as biofuels, oil made from coal and other non-conventional sources, which are not included in their production figures.

The Brits Discover The Bakken -- North Dakota, USA -- Incredible Story -- Tells It Better Than I Ever Could

Link here.

It barely matters that the view from the motel patio is a building site where a new Holiday Inn will soon rise. It's Richard Seeley's night off, chunks of boneless pork are spitting on the gas grill and the beer is good and cold. And he knows that before dawn he'll be back on the job again. Thousands of miles from home, Seeley is here for one thing only: the black juice underground that is catapulting western North Dakota out of the stereotype of lonely, broken-down farms and empty ghost-towns into a land of plenty that is soon to join the ranks of the top oil-producing territories of the world. It is a process that is bestowing great wealth on a few North Dakotans whose forebears, mostly immigrants from Scandinavia, homesteaded on unforgiving land here and whose own children held on to their sub-surface mineral lease rights even during the grinding times of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

Not doing badly either is North Dakota itself. It was just as our current Great Recession was descending on the rest of the US three years ago that its oil boom was kicking up. Today, the state has an unemployment rate of 3.3 per cent, compared with 9.1 per cent nationally, and a huge $1 billion budget surplus. And then there are guys like Richard Seeley, who joined the stampede here for a piece of the action. Based in this motel in Williston, the main town servicing the energy industry and housing its workers – or trying to – he puts in more than 100 hours a week for Halliburton. For every month he works, he gets two weeks off.

"Williston is the modern day gold rush town," says Seeley, who leads a "fracking" team, the name of a new and controversial drilling technology that uses pressured liquids to blast oil out of the vast table-top layer of rock 10,000 feet deep, known as the Bakken formation, that stretches into neighbouring Montana and Saskatchewan. "If you ever wanted to go back in time to the 1800s in California, this is it." 

Go to the link for the rest of the story. Incredible. Simply incredible.

A big thank you to "anonymous" to alerting me to the story.

The "Crying Tree" in Dunn County, A Nice Hess Well -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Someone asked about the "Crying Tree" in Dunn County.

Update:

• 18718, 1,348, Hess/Tracker, Little Knife, t10/10; cum 134K 6/12; 

It looks like a good well, but taken out of production for a couple of months. 

NDIC File No: 18718     API No: 33-025-01049-00-00     CTB No: 118718
Well Type: OG     Well Status: IA     Status Date: 9/30/2010     Wellbore type: Horizontal
Location: SWSE 8-147-97     Footages: 449 FSL 1884 FEL     Latitude: 47.560209     Longitude: -103.064038
Current Operator: HESS CORPORATION
Current Well Name: CRYING TREE 8-1H
Elevation(s): 2494 KB   2470 GR   2458 GL     Total Depth: 20905     Field: LITTLE KNIFE
Spud Date(s):  6/16/2010
Casing String(s): 9.625" 2266'   7" 11609'  
Completion Data
   Pool: BAKKEN     Perfs: 11609-20905     Comp: 9/30/2010     Status: F     Date: 10/4/2010     Spacing: 2SEC
Cumulative Production Data
   Pool: BAKKEN     Cum Oil: 58074     Cum MCF Gas: 61316     Cum Water: 25656
Production Test Data
   IP Test Date: 10/4/2010     Pool: BAKKEN     IP Oil: 1348     IP MCF: 1900     IP Water: 997

Monthly Production Data

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	4-2011	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2011	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2011	11	977	1448	285	1178	1178	0
BAKKEN	1-2011	26	5223	5089	1931	6223	6223	0
BAKKEN	12-2010	31	10420	10700	3506	12880	12880	0
BAKKEN	11-2010	30	15445	14716	5106	19228	18028	1200
BAKKEN	10-2010	31	26009	25861	14828	21290	18968	2322
BAKKEN	9-2010	0	0	0	0	517	517	0

Headline Story for North Dakota in the New York Times -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

This was sent to me a few days ago but I am only now getting caught up.

Of all the states, North Dakota’s economy grew fastest in 2010. The biggest decline was in Wyoming, according to a report released Tuesday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

As for North Dakota and Wyoming, how can two states so similar in shape and population density have such different fates?

The key seems to be mining.

Go to the link for the rest of the story.

Minnesota Through Wisconsin Sand Set For Fracking

Link here.

The gold in these green hills is sand. Not just any sand, but perfectly round, inert silica sand that comes from the 500-million-year-old Jordan sandstone formation that lies close to the surface in parts of both states. It's a vital component of fracking, the controversial drilling technology that squeezes natural gas out of solid rock.

Energy and mining companies are buying and leasing large tracts of land from Black River Falls, Wis., to Red Wing, Minn., and south along the Mississippi. Sand pits, processing facilities and transportation hubs seem to be opening monthly.

A big thank you to Greg for alerting me to this story.

Flashback: Price of Oil Tumbles in Wake of Saudi's Promise to Increase Output

This was the headline:

Crude Oil Prices Tumble As Saudis Signal Unilateral Production Increase

This was the story:  

Energy prices fell June 10 with crude dropping 2.6% to less than $100/bbl on reports Saudi Arabia will unilaterally increase production targets by as much as 500,000 b/d after an acrimonious meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries earlier in the week.

This was the date of the story: June 13, 2011

The price of oil closed today (June 14, 2011) at $99.59.

Yup, WTI crude is less than $100/bbl. Saudi has signaled that it will increase production.

ExxonMobil Doubles Marcellus Holdings

Link here.

As mentioned early on in this blog, I don't follow natural gas and don't have much to say about it (except as related to fracking, for the most part), but I have opined that the "big boys" are moving into natural gas in a big way perhaps seeing something the rest of us don't. Not along ago I posted almost an identical headline, "Icahn Doubles Stake in Chesapeake." And now ExxonMobil doubles its Marcellus holdings.

An ExxonMobil Corp. subsidiary’s $1.69 billion acquisition of two private companies with Marcellus shale assets deepens the major’s commitment to unconventional resource development.

The deal to acquire Phillips Resources Inc., Warrendale, Pa., and its natural gas exploration affiliate, TWP Inc., more than doubles ExxonMobil’s Marcellus shale position in the increasingly active northern Appalachian basin.

And this is why: EPA driving utilities away from coal. It's just a matter of time. See tab at top for more on natural gas.

EXCITING: Two Pages of Daily Activity Report With Increasing Activity -- Seven (7) New Permits -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

The daily activity report, June 14, 2011 --

Drillers: Oasis (3), Sequel (2), Whiting, and Hunt

Fields: Bell, Tyrone, Ross, Stoneview, North Tioga, Bull Butte.

Two of the Oasis wells will be on the same pad in Bull Butte, Williams County.

High initial production wells being reported:

• 18760, 2,789, BEXP, Brown 30-19 1-H, Mountrail
• 19532, 1,276, BEXP, Hospital 31-36 1H, Mountrail

Four Continental Resources wells were completed and reported, all averaging about 700 bbls IP

Shovel-Ready Jobs in the Oil and Mining Fields -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

This is an exceptionally good article on shovel-ready jobs and how those jobs support hiring in other industries in the immediate geographical area.

From Appalachia to Alaska, the growth is eye-popping. Thousands of new jobs have sprouted up, most well-paying and all boons to their regions. There’s no denying oil and gas extraction jobs are on the rise, and not just in Texas and Oklahoma.

North Dakota is drilling oil at a blistering pace. Pennsylvania and West Virginia, along with parts of New York and Ohio, are seeing a natural gas boom with their Marcellus Shale reserves. And Colorado, Wyoming, Alaska, and other Western states are adding extraction jobs in droves.
The six fastest-growing jobs for 2010-11, according to EMSI’s latest quarterly employment data, are related to oil and gas extraction. This includes service unit operators, derrick operators, rotary drill operators, and roustabouts. Each is expected to grow anywhere from 9% to 11% this year, in an otherwise stagnant economy.

Many, many data points:

• Despite seemingly more and more obstacles for the oil industry to survive, much less thrive, the industry appears to be doing quite well
• The growth in oil is not limited to just one or two states, or even to one or two regions, but literally in areas as diverse as Pennsylvania, Texas, North Dakota, and California
• Everything suggests that this phenomenon is not short-lived, but likely to go on for decades
• Non-oil and gas companies are also benefiting where they support the oil and gas industry

"In total, nine of the top 11 fast-growing jobs in the nation are tied in one way or another to oil and gas extraction." 

The discussion regarding 1099 vs W-2 pay was particularly interesting. It is amazing how the government can classify folks by the forms they fill out regarding pay.

My hunch is that regardless of where the federal government wants to take the nation in terms of shutting down the oil and gas industry, governors of debt-ridden states will be marching to a different drummer.

Natural Gas: Will Help Reduce Greenhouse Gas -- MIT

MIT reports periodically on its research into natural gas.

The conclusions reached in this paper will not be new to those who have been following the industry.

Natural gas is important in many sectors of the economy: for generating electricity, as a heat source for industry and buildings, and in chemical feedstock. Given the abundance of natural gas available through extensive global resources and the recent emergence of substantial unconventional supplies in the United States, worldwide usage of the fuel is likely to continue to grow considerably and contribute to significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, according to a comprehensive, multidisciplinary study carried out over the last three years by MIT researchers.

The link includes a link to the full report; in case the link above is broken, here is the link to the report itself.

A big "thank you" to Mike for alerting me to this article.

Dual Laterals and Potential for 10 Wells on 1280-Acre Spacing -- Interesting Discussion -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Over time we will probably be seeing more talk about dual laterals.

Here's a very early thread discussing effectiveness of dual laterals with some additional links.

• PowerPoint Presentation: Middle Bakken Play, Technical Problems, Solutions, Lefever and Helms
• September, 2010: Hess' Approach to The Bakken, Dual Laterals
• Packers Plus Presentation on Dual Laterals, single page with schematic

A big thank you for "go-devil" to take the time and post the links. I was not aware to the extent that dual laterals were being used in the Bakken.

The Permitorium Continues -- "Slow-Rolling" the Nation

Link here.

The US Department of the Interior has not made its new oil and gas regulations sufficiently clear for drilling permits and exploration plans to be approved within a reasonable time period, an American Petroleum Institute official charged. “Not enough is happening to assure that the oil and gas development this country needs will occur,” said Erik Milito, group director of API’s upstream and industry operations. “The regulatory process is more time consuming than ever.”

DOI’s Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement has extended some Gulf of Mexico leases, where operations were suspended following the Macondo well accident and spill, and issued some permits, while its Bureau of Land Management quit implementing the so-called wild lands order, Milito told reporters during a teleconference. But producers remain confused, he said.

“We have seen dozen of exploration plans get recycled 4-5 times. It should require only one submission,” he maintained. “They’re getting sent back after the government has determined they are already complete. At some levels, it has put some procedures in place so that some permits can be approved. But a lot more are sitting on desks at DOI.”

What we hear from the administration in speeches is completely opposite of what we are seeing. There seems to be a shift in rhetoric, but not a shift in policy.

In the past, the administration made it clear that it favored renewable energy over oil, gas, and coal, even to the point of bankrupting coal-fuel utilities.

With WTI oil rising in price to $110 not long ago, I truly thought the administration was being honest with Americans when it suggested that the country needed to get back to drilling. I truly thought the administration was concerned about $5.00 gasoline going into a national election.

With the permitorium continuing, I firmly believe the administration is "slow-rolling" the nation on the issue of domestic oil exploration and production.