Sunday, January 1, 2012

Top Stories for 2011 -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Top Story of the Year:
The world
The nation
Most exciting operator in the Bakken in 2011: KOG
Most surprising story of 2011:  
Best well:
Most exciting production prediction:
Bakken oil field story of the year:
Most surprising formation of the year:
Biggest story in takeaway capacity (3):
Investment Story of the Year:
Record bonus paid per acre:
Most hypocritical story of the year:

Expanded List of Top Stories of 2011
The Short List
Weeks 34 - 52

The Bakken: production
The Bakken: fields
The Bakken: formations
The Bakken: wells
The Bakken: operators
The Bakken: crude by rail
The Bakken: takeaway capacity
The Bakken: investments
The Bakken: taxable sales receipts
The Bakken: fracking
The Bakken: miscellaneous records
Hypocritical Stories Cited on the Blog
Other top ten lists coming out of the Bakken

The Williston Herald: a very, very disappointing list (mostly negatives, and mostly trivial)
  • 1. Rising rent raises anger 
  • 2. Parks and Recreation sales tax increase
  • 3. "The Storm": white out causes black out
  • 4. Legislature approves $1 billion for oil patch infrastructure
  • 5. Spring and summer flooding
  • 6. ND oil field deaths; injuries up in 2011 (any denominators; any analysis?)
  • 7. Booming western North Dakota receives national attention
  • 8. Williston Basin Energy Fest
  • 9. Rig count hits 200
  • 10. Fire west of town (no reports of hazardous material; no deaths; impressive fire, but not even in my top 1,000)
With this list, the local newspaper should have put the passing of Williston's renowned band leader Virgil Syverson as one of the top ten stories, perhaps replacing #10 and moving it nearer the top

9 comments:

  1. About a year ago, I predicted that CHK would be the top story of 2012.

    A year from now you can grade my paper.

    anon 1

    ReplyDelete
  2. RE: Williston Herald Top 10.....how about instead of the fire west of town the passing of Don Skadeland or Menards plans or Granite Peaks plans or ND producing nearly 500K bbls per day or the mancamp explosion. The Herald is a joke. All doom and gloom.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are so correct: of all the things happening in Williston --- taxable sales receipts exceeding Fargo's; $300 million in new building permits; population doubling (or nearly); the number of new hotels going up in the past year; the man-camp stories? The list goes on, along with yours.

    An outsider reading the Herald would never know that Williston is sitting in the middle of the biggest story of the decade, and perhaps the century.

    The activity in the Williston Basin is not having an effect on only North Dakota, but economically it is impacting the entire US, and as a research lab, it is impacting the entire world. Hardly a week goes by when I can't find an article about an overseas oil site that compares itself to the Bakken.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The US was a net exporter of refined petroleum not "oil".
    To achieve this status required the US to IMPORT more CRUDE than needed to satisfy US consumption. The only story here seems to be that US refiners were able to utilize their excess capacity to increase profit margins. Not sure what makes this the top story of 2011.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is the quote from PennEnergy (cut and paste):

    The United States could be making strides toward being a net exporter of petroleum for the first time in over six decades, based on trends in the first quarter of 2011.

    So, yes, I might have jumped the gun a bit in my exuberance, but for me, having just celebrated my 60th birthday, this is huge.

    If the US does become a net exporter of oil as the data suggests and reported by MSNBC, US EIA, and PennEnergy, it will be something never reported in my sixty years of life. Yeah, I think that's huge.

    Since then, there have been other such stories talking about this totally unexpected phenomenon. And that's one of the criteria for a "top story" of the year: something occurring that is totally unexpected. Would anyone have expected to see the US on the road to being a net exporter of oil? I sure didn't see that coming.

    Within the oil patch, I certainly do not see a bigger story.

    By the way, oil and oil-related products will be the #1 export (measured in dollars) of the US, and will almost double that of pharmaceutical which is in second place. Yeah, it's a big story.

    ReplyDelete
  6. With regard to "anon 1" and CHK: I am hoping that CHK is a top story for 2012 and hoping that the Bakken plays a big role for CHK in 2012 (or any formation in the Williston Basin).

    ReplyDelete
  7. I made a mistake in a comment up above when I said:

    By the way, oil and oil-related products will be the #1 export (measured in dollars) of the US, and will almost double that of pharmaceutical which is in second place.

    In fact, oil-related exports will more than double pharmaceuticals which is in second place:

    #1 oil: $88 billion
    #2 pharmaceuticals: $38 billion
    #3 industrial machines: $37 billion
    #4 semiconductors: $37 billion
    #5 chemicals: $33 billion

    http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-age-of-americas-energy-abundance-no.html

    So, yes, this is the #1 story for me for 2011. I never saw it coming.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Greetings Bruce,

    Long knives continue to be out on fracking, and are reaching for every angle. See article at link below.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/01/04/the-latest-rumblings-arent-good-for-shale-drilling.aspx

    Boise 1-24

    ReplyDelete
  9. I agree; thank you for the timely reminder.

    ReplyDelete

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