Nine (9) New Permits -- New Operator in the Bakken -- Liberty Resources, LLC -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Daily activity report, August 30, 2011 --

Operators: Slawson (2), Hess (2), CLR (2), EOG, BEXP, Liberty Resources

Fields: Big Bend, Blue Buttes, Clear Water, Ragged Butte, Brooklyn and two wildcats.

CLR and Liberty Resources each have a wildcat.

This is a new operator in North Dakota: Liberty Resources. This is their first permit. And they are in a great area, just west of the Arnegard oil field. If one is familiar with the area, one follows US Highway 2 south from Williston toward Watford City; just south of Alexander, instead of swinging east, head straight south as if you were going to Sather Dam/Lake. The Liberty Resources site will be about three miles south of that junction, and on the east side of the road, maybe half a mile off to the east.

There were no wells that came off the confidential list today, and no completed producing wells. Zilch. Nada. None. Goose egg. Zero.

North Dakota Envy -- Minnesota -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

You'd never get a Minnesotan to acknowledge it, but there's a lot of North Dakota envy going around these days.

Here was an August 19, 2011, headline on the New York Times website: "The North Dakota Miracle." And then, just three days later, this one, also on the Times site: "The Happiest States of America: North Dakota on the Rise."

These two paragraphs caught my eye:

No doubt, some will seize on North Dakota's lower individual and income tax rates as proof that Minnesota needs to do the same in order to compete. But if that's all it took this column would be about South Dakota, which has no individual or corporate income taxes and usually appears at or near the top of most "business friendly" rankings.
Geology, not tax policy, explains North Dakota's incredible run. They've been drilling for oil in the Williston Basin since the early 1950s, but new horizontal drilling technologies have allowed prospectors to tap into the rich Bakken Formation. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the region holds about 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable reserves of oil, larger than all other current oil assessments in the lower 48 states.

In fact, the natural resources in this country is not limited to North Dakota: oil, natural gas, timber, coal, rare earths, etc., but there are some areas of the country where environmentalists and pro-growth folks somehow make it work. But a permitorium in the Gulf -- ask Louisianas if it's geology or taxes or government regulations that make you or break you.

If fracking was banned in North Dakota; if the state banned any more pipeline; if the state raised taxes on oil companies, things would be a lot different.

I beg to differ with the folks in Minnesota who think it's all about geology in North Dakota. It's all about taxes and government regulations.

The boom has been very, very difficult on folks living in the middle of it, but somehow the folks are getting along and doing their best to keep it moving along smoothly.

No, it's a lot more than geology. Texas, Lousisiana, Oklahoma, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Alaska have their fair share of  oil, too, and some of  them have a nicer (weather) climate in which to work. Oregon and Washington have the potential for some of the best transportation / harbor networks in the world but anti-growth folks are doing their best to put a stop to that. I don't want to get into it, but two of the nation's largest ports, both located in California, are feeling pressured by ports in Mexico, again due to business climate and not geology or geography.

Adding support to my argument is the story about ExxonMobil signing a $3.2 billion deal with a Russian company to develop the Arctic. If "you" can't get anything done wtih the Obama adminsitration, there's always others with whom to deal. Both the US and Russia have the "geology" but Exxon has to work with the Russians to get anything done.

NY Times Bicyclist-Reporter -- Blogs On North Dakota -- Great Story -- References the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

I crossed the border from Montana on I-94. It’s legal to ride on the Interstate in these parts, though not especially enjoyable, and I got off at Exit 1, Beach (how does such a landlocked place get such a name?), and stopped at the visitor information bureau. The attendant, a woman named Jan, not only set me onto old Highway 10 — a scenic, rolling byway that runs west to east, essentially traffic-free through the western half of the state — but also offered me cough drops.

I was on my way to Medora, the entrance to Theodore Roosevelt National Park about 25 miles away, and I asked if there were any services on Route 10 between Beach and the park, places I might stop for a cold drink or a meal. She said there was just one, a tiny little burg about seven miles down the road called Sentinel Butte. The gas station there is a hangout, she said, where people stop in and shoot the breeze.

“It’ll be a good stop for you,” she said.

And so it was. A lot of speck-on-the-map towns I’ve ridden through are pretty desolate and rundown, but Sentinel Butte is an attractive little place set in the middle of seemingly nowhere, surrounded by miles and miles of wheat fields and prairie. The lawns are green and the homes are neatly kept and the whole place — you can take it in with one sweep of the eyes — gives off an unlikely whiff of prosperity.

As it turned out, no one was hanging out in the gas station, except the owner, Rick Olson, who is also the mayor. We sat at a card table inside the station, enjoying the air-conditioning on a hot day. A voluble fellow (maybe you’d be, too, if you lived there), he explained the the town was flush even though its property taxes amounted to less than $2,000 a year — “Not even enough to pay the electric bill,” he said — because it sells water to the oil companies that are exploring much of western North Dakota these days. Right on cue, two huge tankers rolled past the station, full, on their way out of town.

Nice story to read.

Slow Day -- Only Four (4) New Permits -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

As a reminder: "we" hit a new record yesterday  -- 201 active drilling rigs in North Dakota. The previous record was set ... drum roll ... the day before, or the previous business day, I guess, at 200. 

Daily activity report, August 29, 2011 --

Operators: Denbury Onshore (3), and OXY USA.

Fields: Murphy Creek, Vanville, and one wildcat.

OXY USA had the wildcat; Denbury has a two-well pad in Murphy Creek.

In addition, the state reported 15 more wells that were either "plugged or producing." In the current boom, there are "no" dry holes, so one can assume all 15 of these wells are producing; data will be released once they are off the confidential list and have been completed. 

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Of the six wells that came off the confidential list, two were not yet completed, so that was a better ratio than usual:

• 18980, 1,587, Zenergy, Berquist 33-28H, Banks, Bakken,
• 19744, DRL, Samson Resources, Blazer 2-11-163-98H, Wildcat, Bakken, 
• 19797, 729, CLR, Pittsburgh 1-19H, Banks, Bakken,
• 20056, DRL, North Plains Energy, A. Cvancara 9-7H, Wilcat, Bakken, 
• 19743, 1,002, MRO, Hartman 14-32H, Murphy Creek, Bakken,
• 19402, 433, CLR, Rehak 1-25H, Alkali Creek, Bakken, 

MRO has consistently been reporting better wells in the past six months, as I have posted before.

And recently I noted that the Banks oil field looks exciting with the Berquist twins.