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Friday, August 19, 2011

National Park Service's American Treasure: The Oldest, Continuously Producing Well in the World Celebrates 150 Years: Pennsylvania

Link here.
First producing oil in August 1861, the McClintock No. 1 oil well is located in Venango County, Pennsylvania, and was designated an American Treasure by the National Park Service.

The aging well produces about 40 barrels of oil a year, which goes to the American Refinery Group, State Impact reported.
A National Park Service "American Treasure."

Ah, yes, the good old days when the government recognized our American treasure. How times have changed.

New York Times: Update on Another Success Story -- Green Energy -- Not A Bakken Story

This is the second story in about as many days.

From The New York Times:
In the Bay Area as in much of the country, the green economy is not proving to be the job-creation engine that many politicians envisioned. President Obama once pledged to create five million green jobs over 10 years. Gov. Jerry Brown promised 500,000 clean-technology jobs statewide by the end of the decade. But the results so far suggest such numbers are a pipe dream.

“I won’t say I’m not frustrated,” said Van Jones, an Oakland activist who served briefly as Mr. Obama’s green-jobs czar before resigning under fire after conservative critics said he had signed a petition accusing the Bush administration of deliberately allowing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a claim Mr. Jones denies.

A study released in July by the non-partisan Brookings Institution found clean-technology jobs accounted for just 2 percent of employment nationwide and only slightly more — 2.2 percent — in Silicon Valley. Rather than adding jobs, the study found, the sector actually lost 492 positions from 2003 to 2010 in the South Bay, where the unemployment rate in June was 10.5 percent. 
As noted earlier, this is the second story on the success of the president's green energy jobs program. One has to ask why so much interest by The New York Times all of a sudden.

It's possible I've linked this story before, but I don't think so. Click on label "GreenEnergyJobs" at bottom of blog for related posts.

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.


Blowin' in the Wind, Bob Dylan

How many times must a man turn his head, and pretend he just doesn't see?

Halliburton Announces New Fracture Technology -- Used First in the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here. Called RapidFrac.
  • Reduces time from days to hours
  • Uses less water
  • Based on sliding sleeve process (unique differences from "plug and perf")
  • Up to 90 sleeves
Partnered with BEXP for testing:
Although initial system deployments have occurred in the Bakken Shale with Brigham Exploration and Williams Production Company, this technology has application for shale developments on a global basis.

"Brigham's success in the Bakken has been driven by its early adoption of game-changing technologies," said Lance Langford, executive vice president, Brigham Exploration. "We believe our industry is in the very early stage of developing tools and techniques to optimally exploit the Bakken and working with Halliburton to successfully launch its RapidFrac system is an example of what can be done in this world class resource."
Kewl. Maybe this is why BEXP continues to be the gold standard for Bakken well completions.

The Recession Was Reversed Until Nation Hit With Bad Luck -- Yes, Bad Luck in the Bakken Also

Update

Add this to the list: US Congress -- Democratic-controlled Senate and Tea Party-controlled House.

Original Post

This is the official "bad luck" list that impacted the economy, just when the recession looked licked:
  • the Arab Spring uprisings -- foreign
  • the tsunami in Japan -- foreign
  • the European debt crisis -- foreign
But there is one that was forgotten:
The North Dakota Department of Transportation is working on a number of road projects across the western half of the state, but landslides and flooding have made this construction season a stressful one. 
DOT director Francis Ziegler told members of the Energy Development and Transition Committee that this was the most stressful time the department has seen in the roughly 40 years he's been there.
I guess the official 2011 list is similar to an earlier list:
  • 9/11 twin towers -- domestic
  • Katrina -- domestic
  • mark-to-market housing bubble market collapse -- domestic
In the corporate world, these are written off as one-time events, and the successful corporations move on.




With Recent Interest in Legacy Formations, Another Look at Those Formations

This was published in 2001, but is a nice review of the "Petroleum Systems" in North Dakota. I have not yet had a chance to read it completely. It is also linked at my "Welcome" page along with several other similar documents.

I thought this particularly interesting in light of folks claiming natural gas coming out of their faucets is due to fracking. Scientists have ways of "fingerprinting" oil and determining its source:
Chromatographic analysis of whole oil samples provides a “fingerprint” of hydrocarbons from C1 to C44, when present. An oil fingerprint is a histogram of the yield and distribution of resolvable compounds present in an oil. Quantitative results from these analyses were used to characterize and type these oils, infer source rock characteristics, determine thermal maturity, assess mixing or commingling of production, and predict oil expulsion temperatures. All oils were fingerprinted using whole oil, high resolution gas chromatography, while saturate and aromatic fraction biomarkers were assessed on selected samples from various key producing horizons. In addition, whenever sufficient sample was available, API gravities and sulfur contents were measured.
The article talks about source rocks and viability of various formations as pay zones.

The most interesting graphic: the slide depicting relative amount of oil produced from the various formations in North Dakota since 1951. One might as well have called the Williston Basin the "Madison Basin." But, of course, that is changing quickly with the Bakken.

Flashback: Re-Posting Link to New Yorker Article

Gail sent me a note about the fine article in The New Yorker regarding the Bakken.

Knowing that other folks might have missed this link, here it is.

It's a great story.

A big "thank you" to Gail for reminding me that some folks might have missed it.

Snapshot: KOG's Production

KOG's daily net production:
  • July, 2011: 2,500 boepd
  • Estimate for December, 2011: 5,000 boepd (I read this wrong; see first comment; exit rate could be closer to 9,000 boepd)
Link here, slide 4.

This trend will hold true for most producers in the Bakken, although certainly not to this extent.

If current North Dakota production is 385,000 boepd, could we see a minimum of 500,000 boepd for the state by the end of the year?

Production across the board would have to increase 20,000 boepd (5%) each month. It will be tough, but doable.

Alaska, number 2, currently at 550,000 boepd.

California, number 3, currently at 540,000 boepd.