Same Town, Same Council, Same Developer, Same Post

Oil workers: no. Construction workers: yes. Oblates: ?

October 11, 2011: city council bans man-camps

"Our community just can't support a massive amount of people moving into it," Jacobson said. "It's not that we don't want people moving into our community – we do," she said. "We just don't want to be inundated with oil workers."

"We really don't want a bunch of men living in a building all together." - City Auditor, Lynne Jacobson.

November 23, 2011: city council okays "man-camp": -- for construction workers

A tiny North Dakota town that banned dormitory-style housing for oilfield workers will allow a Colorado company to lodge homebuilders in an old school house.

Feland says it made no difference to the city or its residents whether it was oil workers or construction workers occupying the building. She said the issue was the number of workers. 

Yup.

"We really don't want a bunch of men living in a building all together."

Link here. Christmas Open House hosted by a bunch of men living in a building all together, 50 miles down the road from Almont.

Oil Futures: Up $1.33 Sunday Evening -- Idle Rambling in the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

"We've" been at $100 oil for quite some time.


Old Rivers, Walter Brennan
Before you young'uns laugh at this, WB's "Old Rivers" became a top 5 hit on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot C&W Sides just two months after release (1962 -- I was 11 years old; very impressionable).

Walter Brennan holds the record for most Oscars for a supporting actor: three.

I will be returning to Boston in a few days,just a few miles south of Lynn. We pass through Lynn every weekend when we drive up to Queen Anne capt. According to wiki, Walter was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, less than two miles from his family's home in Swampscott. Walter Andrew Brennan was the second of three children born to Irish immigrants, William John Brennan and Margaret Elizabeth Flanagan. The elder Brennan was an engineer and inventor, and young Walter studied engineering at Rindge Technical High School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I knew "Old Rivers." Where he is now, there ain't no fields to plow.

************************

It was a gift to be able to spend the last several months in the Bakken. I depart this week. One of the high points during this visit were the activities I participated in that brought me closer to the North Dakota farmers. I took a lot of photographs, most of which will not be seen by anyone other than me.

I talked to a lot of farmers: most seemed to take the oil companies in stride but complained about them like they complain about the weather. It was a "good" complaint: like the weather, they complained about the boom, but knowing there was nothing they could do about it anyway, they get on with their lives.

I have read that some farmers absolutely detest the oil companies; I never ran into any of those farmers.

I learned a lot about hay and grazing. I certainly learned a lot about the various sizes of farms, and the various sizes of fields.

I will definitely miss the farmers I met.

Fracking and The EPA -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Two silver linings in that "EPA-bans-fracking" cloud:

1. Oil wells will get a lot less expensive to drill. They say fracking doubles the cost of a Bakken well.

2. Affordable housing in Williston will no longer be an issue.

For Archival Purposes Only -- I've Lost Interest in Man-Camp Stories

Link here.

As one of my correspondents noted: it appears that the editor(s) of the New York Times finally bought a Rand McNally map of fly-over country and discovered Tioga, North Dakota. As that correspondent asked: where has the NYT been for the past two years?

It will be the height of irony if after finally discovering Tioga, the EPA shuts down fracking and the man-camp story just discovered by the NYT will be a non-story.

BEXP and Fracking

Some folks wonder why BEXP sold out to Statoil.

Can those folks spell "fracking?" Or is it "fraccing?"

E.P.A.

There is a shareholder lawsuit against BEXP:

The plaintiff alleges that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties arising out of the attempt to sell Brigham Exploration Company too cheaply via an unfair process to Statoil ASA. 

If the EPA bans fracking before the BEXP - Statoil deal is closed, the shares of BEXP will plummet, Statoil will back out, and the shareholders will wonder about that old adage, "be careful what you ask for."

EPA's View for Our Energy Future

Nuclear --> coal --> natural gas --> trees.

Well, So Much for Natural Gas to Replace Coal -- You Have To Wonder if Gazprom Has Infiltrated the EPA

The EPA is poised to shut down hundreds of coal-fired utility plants. That is old news and most folks were not concerned about it. Yes, it would cost utilities billions of dollars which would be passed down to consumers, but spread across a large consumer base, making monthly utility increases manageable for most folks. Closing down the coal-fired utility plants would also destroy tens of thousands of jobs, but job creation/stability is not one of the EPA's mandates.

Most folks were not concerned about the ban on coal because they knew the utilities could switch to natural gas. Now that the EPA is on the cusp to ban fracking in the US, that option (switching to natural gas) is dead. Banning fracking will destroy the domestic natural gas industry, and, of course, make the closure of coal-fired utility plants that much more problematic for consumers.

So, if things go as planned for the environmentalists and the EPA, by July, 2012, there will no longer be talk of adequate natural gas for the US, the domestic natural gas industry will be destroyed, the Bakken boom will be over, the Williston Basin will implode, and the domestic oil industry will be destroyed.

Some folks think a moratorium on fracking would allow "us" to "catch our breath." Folks, it doesn't work that way. A moratorium on  fracking will last a minimum of two years, and in the meantime the oil companies that can will move overseas. The others will go away, literally and figuratively.

The good news: there will be more than enough affordable housing in Williston and the man-camps will be a thing of the past.

I am waiting for T. Boone Pickens, the #1 proponent of natural gas as the America's energy bridge to a renewable energy future, to weigh in on this. The fact that he hasn't suggested that a) I have overstated the case; or, b) TBP is going to be blindsided.

My concern is that TBP sees EPA regulations/federal fracking permits simply as a bureaucratic exercise. If so, he doesn't understand the Bakken boom. Ask the Louisiana folks how that Gulf moratorium worked out for them.

Britain to Slip Back Into Recession in 2012 -- OECD

Link here.

Probability the US will slide into another recession:

If Britain does not; US probability: 10%

If Britain slides into recession; US probability of same: 50%

If Obama halts fracking; probability of US slipping into recession: guaranteed.

This May Be The Only Post for the Day -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

Fracking moratorium could very well be announced sometime in early 2012 -- Lynn Helms.

Comments not necessary.

The Party's Over, Willie Nelson 

It was with this post that I disabled comments for the first time ever on this blog. I also removed all of my other blogs from the net. I will enable comments once we get a clearer picture on what the EPA plans to do.