Dore, North Dakota -- Between Trenton, North Dakota, and Fairview, Montana on Highway 58

I keep forgetting about Dore, North Dakota. I have posted notes about Dore a couple times and now it pops up again.

In my quest to learn more about proppants, "anonymous" sent me a link to Pioneer Oil LLC which has its own supply link to China for proppants. That will take you to my stand-along post; this will take you to Pioneer Oil/Proppant. When you get there, note where Pioneer has a proppant storage facility. You guessed it: Dore, North Dakota.

I drove through Dore this evening and did not realized it. Dore is on state highway 58 between Trenton, North Dakota, and Fairview, Montana. But there is no sign of Dore. Nothing. But, wow, was there a long line of oil tanker cars. Yup, Dore is also home to a crude-by-rail loading facility.

Someone last week accused me of being in a time warp when I mentioned that the stock market had gone below 11,000 -- and said that was the first time in "quite some time" that the market had dropped below 11,000. "Anonymous" pointed out that it was less than 30 days ago, and not all that long ago. I replied that things are happening so fast in the Bakken, it often feels like a time warp.

Indeed, the Williams County Commission has just announced a 6-month moratorium on man-camps, just to catch so the members can catch their breath.

Who would have ever guessed that Dore would rise again?

Department of Numbers: Another Interesting Site to Check Out

Link here.

I have it linked on the sidebar at the right, near the bottom.

Hey, Shovel-Ready Projects -- Natural Gas Pipelines

Link here.

Three of California's largest utilities are asking customers to help pay for nearly $4 billion in pipeline safety projects needed after last year's deadly San Bruno disaster.

Power companies and private operators across the nation are racing to improve the safety of about 150,000 miles of natural gas pipelines built before 1970 — about half of all gas transmission lines in the United States.

And increased utility costs to pay for more expensive and redundant wind power, and to some extent, solar power. 

For Investors: Another Bakken Metric -- Cash Margins on the Rise -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

Each month we update the Bakken Players piece for current events, repricing of the group versus cash flow estimates, and adding a few new graphs. In between we occasionally like to focus on sections of the larger piece. Last week we had brief comments on production growth per share and you can see that piece here. This week’s topic: unit costs and cash margins.

Note as usual that WLL and CLR are not pure Williston Basin plays but we include them since the Bakken and to a lessor the Three Forks are largely driving the fundamentals and the stories at present. As production rises the normal mode you want to see in your growthy E&P companies is rising absolute costs but flat or falling per unit costs with the passage of time. In unconventional resource plays we often experience this in two or three phases where you see rapid production growth lead to a decline in per unit production costs, followed by a bump up in per unit costs as firms bulk out their staff to handle the shift from delineation mode to development mode, followed by continued per unit cost declines. 

See also, an earlier Z-Man link (same as above).

Predicting Oil Prices

I haven't had a chance to read this article yet, but don't want to lose it.

This appears to be the bottom line, and something with which I agree:

But while the analysts at Goldman enjoy their success, a careful look at the whole range of price forecasts reveals worrying problems with the whole process. Forecasts appear to be backward-looking, and have little predictive power, even over quite short periods of time. Forecasts react to events rather than anticipate them, limiting their value to longer-term investors and hedgers.

Goldman Sachs Predicts New President in 2013 --

Oh, never mind, I misread the headline: Goldman Sachs predicts that US will be the world's leading producer of oil in 2017. For that to happen, we need to have an energy-independent-friendly administration and that's what confused me about the headline -- sorry to mislead folks. The entire story:

The U.S. will soon become the world's top oil producer, The Sunday Times reported Goldman Sachs as forecasting.

U.S. oil production should reach 10.9 million barrels a day by 2017, a third higher than 8.3 million barrels currently, the newspaper reported the investment bank as saying.

Russia, now the top oil producer, should see production increase only 100,000 barrels in the same period, for an output of 10.7 million barrels a day, the report said.

Maybe we don't need the Keystone XL after all. 

OPEC Cuts Production -- I Thought Saudi Liked $80 - $90 Oil -- More To This Than Meets The Eye

OPEC cut production and Libya hasn't even come back on line yet (Libya won't be to pre-war production levels for 15 months).

The headline, by the way, is a bit misleading: OPEC expects to gradually increase production, just not as much as originally forecast.

In a monthly report, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it expected demand growth to drop to 1.1 million barrels per day -- 150,000 barrels per day fewer than its earlier forecasts.

OPEC also trimmed back its oil production outlook, saying it still expects output to increase, but by a slightly smaller 500,000 barrels per day in 2011 -- 80,000 barrels below its prior forecast.

It should be noted that the Bakken alone would cut into this delta (80,000 bopd) significantly, and then throw in the Eagle Ford, and Saudi's announcement to cut oil production is a non-story.

Having said that, the real story is the terrorist attack on a nuclear facility -- or whatever it was -- in France today (some confusion in early stories exactly what type of "nuclear facility" was hit, and I've been too busy to read more of that story).

Let's see: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Japanese tsunami, and now a French nuclear site. One would have to have some pretty bad news in a coal mine to top those stories and that ain't gonna happen.  Is Germany still on track to shut down all their nuclear reactors? As far as I know, yes.

Meanwhile, PEMEX will stay the course; it will not cut production.

The Bakken Is The Real Deal -- Moratorium on Man-Camps -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I was out in the Bakken today and hope to have more pictures posted by the end of the week.

If anyone doubts the "reality" of the Bakken, he/she needs to take a drive around the area. The unit trains themselves are incredibly impressive, and they haven't even built all the crude-by-rail loading facilities. My dad could not believe the number of tank cars -- stretching a long, long way, and often side-by-side on sidings. Even in the areas that are "slow" -- like the area around Sidney, Montana -- is busy, busy, busy.

I was told that Harold Hamm, CLR/CEO bought almost 100,000 shares of CLR stock last week (September 8 - 9, 2011); I haven't had time to find the link, but it's a very credible source. Trust me.

It is so busy in the Bakken, Williams County commissioners finally had to put a moratorium on man-camps. I have mixed feelings on that, but I'm not going to wade into this issue. There are issues on all sides.

Back to Tying the Record: 201 Active Drilling Rigs in North Dakota -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

The subject line says it all.

Looking to set a new record by the end of next week.

And while North Dakota ties its record, the US overall dropped 10 rigs in most recent reporting period. 

This Is A Rarity: A Page Full of Permits and No New Wells Reporting -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

tiThis is very, very unusual -- a page full of new permits and not one bit of other news: something tells me NDIC got behind a bit and will be playing catch up during the week. In addition, permits for two 4-well pads.

Daily activity report -- September 12, 2011 --

Operators: Burlington Resources (4), CLR (4), Hess (3)

Fields: Murphy Creek, Elm Tree and Ray

BR has permits for a 4-well pad in Murphy Creek; CLR has permits for a 4-well pad in Elm Tree.

Hess has two permits in Ray oil field, and one in Murphy Creek.

There was absolutely nothing else in today's daily activity report.

Huge Apology -- I Was So Busy in the Bakken Today -- No Chance To Post Until Now

This is a huge apology. I was so busy in the Bakken today that I was unable to get to any new posts today.

I really apologize for not warning folks ahead of time. It may be much the same during the week. I never knew I would be so busy after coming back to the Bakken.

I will spend the next couple of hours catching up.

Be patient.

Analysis of the Cost of Regulation and Tax Policy on the US Domestic Energy Program

Wood Mackenzie released an analysis of the cost of government regulation on the US energy industry.

There is nothing in the general sense that "we" did not already know, but the specifics are very helpful.

It will remain linked at the "Data Link" page.