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Most exciting operator in the Bakken in 2011: KOG
- In-depth look at one of the most exciting oil companies in the Bakken: KOG.
- The KOG/BTA deal
- KOG: acquires 50,000 net acres; to raise almost $1 billion
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
Weeks 34 - 52
The Bakken: production
- Tesoro to increase diesel production: big headline, little increase.
- Six great Oasis wells.
- Six great Oasis wells.
- EURs of 1,000,000 possible in the Bakken
- Three notable wells reported in past ten days: Charlotte, Tarpon, and Hagen
- 75,000 more wells to be drilled in the Bakken
The Bakken: formations
- The Sanish vs the Pronghorn (formations).
- Taking another look at the Madison
- The Madison
- Three additional pay zones below the upper Three Forks
- The new Hagen/Madison well in Red Wing Creek; near Watford City
- Four-well pad approved for inside Williston city limits
- Huge Harry Stroh well; Fayette field update.
- Petro-Hunt with cluster of six wells in Four Bears
- Slawson's Armada well -- 120,000 bbls in one year
- Whiting's Record TFS well
- The first 2560-acre unit well -- MRO
- BEXP: 10 wells on a spacing unit coming
- WMB well: 20,000 bbls in 14 days; not fracked
- Biggest news story of the week: pipeline company to invest $145 million in new rail transport
- Triangle Petroleum getting more active; sits in the core Bakken
- Hess getting its mojo back: another 6-well pad
- Statoil/BEXP report great IPs on a 3-well pad in the bull's eye of the Bakken; Statoil buys BEXP
- Six-stage frack results in huge Bakken Whiting well
- BEXP's 5-well pad
- Continental Resources Drilling Deeper into the Three Forks
- Bakken boom fuels rail boom
- Tesoro to ship oil to the west coast; $50 million+ project
- Crude-by-rail; Louisiana sweet crude prices
- Crude-by-rail, update; Reuters factbox on CBR; Railroad hub at Zap; Update of crude-by-rail
- Dickinson crude-by-rail update
- Focus on Enbridge
- Enbridge to increase pipeline capacity
- Enbridge to reverse flow of oil from Cushing; Keystone XL killed
- $3 billion in natural gas infrastructure in North Dakota
- $1.5 to $2 billion/month going into the Bakken
- Oil industry pouring $2 billion/month into western ND.
- Another hotel (Value Place) breaks ground in Williston
- Motel 6 opens in Williston, December 2, 2011.
- Whiting to build operations center in Watford City; Power Fuels doing same
- Missouri Basin Well Service to build headquarters in Watford City
- New Oasis complex west of Williston
- Update on ONEOK's Garden Creek, Stateline I and II; more on ONEOK in North Dakota; expansion of the Hess natural gas plant in Tioga; update on LNG industry in western North Dakota;
- $1.2 billion for western ND roads.
- Industrial park update, Williston, North Dakota ; and here.
- Photos of the new Baker Hughes "SuperSite" going up west of Williston
- Peter Kiewit subdivision breaks ground; 2,500 new units; 289 acres
The Bakken: fracking
- New fracking company in town: Liberty Liberty Oilfield Services
- One inch of water from Lake Sakakawea will provide enough water for fracking for two years in the Bakken
- Halliburton's clean fracking
- Case study in re-fracs
- Halliburton to add 11,000 workers
- $14,000/acre in southwestern North Dakota -- a new record; full auction results here
- Longest EOG horizontal in the Bakken?
- Almost, North Dakota: We Don't Want A Bunch of Men Living in a Building All Together -- Unless They're Monks or Construction Workers.
- BLM fast-tracks golden eagle and whooping crane killing. Wind turbines: license to kill
- Minnesota's dirty oil industry.
- Minnesota: no qualms about destroying golden eagle, hawk habitat
- Federal govenment to okay killing of whooping cranes
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)
About a year ago, I predicted that CHK would be the top story of 2012.
ReplyDeleteA year from now you can grade my paper.
anon 1
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.
ReplyDeleteYou 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.
ReplyDeleteAn 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.
The US was a net exporter of refined petroleum not "oil".
ReplyDeleteTo 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.
This is the quote from PennEnergy (cut and paste):
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
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).
ReplyDeleteI made a mistake in a comment up above when I said:
ReplyDeleteBy 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.
Greetings Bruce,
ReplyDeleteLong 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
I agree; thank you for the timely reminder.
ReplyDelete