Glendive, Dawson County, Montana

I posted a story about Glendive just a day or so ago, about the oil activity in the area, and the question arose, whether it was local oil activity or spill-over effect from the Bakken along the Montana-North Dakota border.

A reader alerted me to a RMOJ story about Petro-Hunt targeting the Red River formation with a vertical wildcat about 13 miles northwest of Glendive. This is near a successful Petro-Hunt Red River with an IP of 200 bopd.

In addition, a Petro-Hunt well in the same area has produced 38,000 bbls of oil between November, 2010, and Jnuary, 2012, from a vertical well that targeted the Ordovician.

According to the RMOJ, Petro-Hunt has been drilling vertical and horizontal  Red River wells in Dawson County for the past two years "with varied success."

So, that answers one of the questions regarding the Glendive area.

Makoshikah State Park, near Glendive. Montana's largest state park

Fracking --> Natural Gas --> Lower CO2 --> Decreased Global Warming

Updates

October 8, 2012: technologies opposed by faux-environmentalists -- fracking and genetically modified crops -- have lowered CO2 emissions -- at CarpeDiem.com

Original Post

Link here to Bloomberg. For those who believe in anthropogenic global warming, this is an interesting story.

The boom in American natural-gas production is doing what international negotiations and legislation couldn’t: reducing U.S. carbon-dioxide pollution.

With decade-low prices, natural gas is easing out coal in power generation, a change that cuts greenhouse gases by half at the smokestack. That shift, combined with state programs to encourage renewable energy and new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency that could come as early as today, has put the country on course to cut domestic greenhouse-gas emissions 12 percent by 2020, on par with what the failed cap-and-trade legislation aimed to achieve.

And so it goes.

US Coal Exports to Asia Surge

Link here to Yahoo!News.

It may be the beginning of the end for coal in this country, but there's plenty of folks who still want it, as in Asia.

Some data points (some numbers rounded):

• U.S. coal exports reached their highest level in two decades due to strong demand in Asia
• coal exports topped 107 million tons of fuel ($16 billion) last year (2011); highest level since 1991; double the export volume from 2006
• "global coal super cycle" according to Peabody Energy
• exports to South Korea: up 80 percent; 10 million tons
• exports to Japan: up 119 percent; 7 million tons (shut down 53 of 54 nuclear reactors)
• exports to India: up 65%; 5 million tons

Williston Wireline -- 10K More Jobs; New Hotels; Grain Terminal; Billings Activity -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Williston wireline; headlines only; no links.

• The Bakken formation could create another 10,000 jobs in 2012. 
• Secretary of State Al Jaeger: the monthly number of business registrations has jumped 63 percent since June 2010; the backlog is at about 1,500 applications. Paperwork that used to take a week now takes five weeks.
• Two landowners recently made a joint application for a zoning change for a multi-million dollar grain terminal near Noonan. 
• Bakken Gold Suites opened its doors recently in Tioga.  The 98-room, three-story building was constructed over the past six months.  "It's amazing how much work gets done in a day here," said Ray Cody.
• The Best Western Golden Prairie Inn opened its doors April 1 in Sidney.  The four-story, $6.5 million project has 72 rooms and 17 suites, featuring high ceilings and 37-inch TVs.
• Gov. Jack Dalrymple plans to write a letter to President Barack Obama to ask for help addressing the housing needs on North Dakota reservations. During a news conference, Dalrymple said the FEMA trailers brought in to help Minot families after last summer's flooding could be put to additional use in North Dakota after those families move out.
• Like many businesses in Billings, when the economic recession hit in 2008, Sanderson Stewart Engineers looked around for new opportunities. "We looked to the east," said Rick Leuthold, an engineer and one of the firm's principals.  Leuthold's company found enough business in Williston, N.D., to establish an office a year and a half ago, and their business continues to grow, as does one of the largest oil and gas developments in the U.S. - perhaps the largest in the country's history.  

Have the Williston Wireline sent to your e-mail address: willistonwire@willistonnd.com

Four (4) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Daily activity report, April 10, 2012 --

Operators: BEXP (2), Slawson, Hess

Fields: Wheelock (Williams), Alger (Mountrail), Baker (McKenzie)

Nineteen (19) wells released from "tight hole" status; 8 were completed/fracked, including:

• 20243, 37 (no typo), EOG, Horse Camp 3-16H, Dunn,
• 20307, 1,328, EOG, Clarks Creek 103-17H, McKenzie,
• 20464, 1,202, Zenergy, Rolfson 29-32H, McKenzie,
• 20826, 2,432, Whiting, Ness 41-21XH, Mountrail,
• 21208, 1,652, Denbury, Jore 34-22NWH, McKenzie,

Three producing wells were completed, including,

• 19413,1,260, Oasis, Moore 5304 13-1H, Williams,
• 20134, 1,467, XTO, Stromme Federal 14X-10, Dunn,

Dimock -- 2nd Set of Tests Also "Clean" -- Nothing About the Bakken, But About Fracking

Link here to PennEnergy.

The US Environmental Protection Agency completed a second set of samples at 20 private drinking water wells in Dimock, Pa., and did not find contaminant levels which warrant immediate action, EPA’s Region 3 office in Philadelphia said on Apr. 6.

The announcement followed one on Mar. 15 reporting similar findings from tests of the first 11 of 60 private water wells which EPA has agreed to study.

A spokesman for Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., which operates several natural gas wells in the area, said EPA’s findings were consistent “with literally thousands of pages of water quality data accumulated by state and local authorities and by Cabot.”

Click on "Dimock" at the bottom of the blog for additional posts on this subject, if interested.

Just A Reminder: Half of East Coast Refining Capacity About To Disappear

Huge story

Go to the link

Many, many data points including cost of Nigerian oil

Explains why these East Coast refineries closing

My hunch: cost of gasoline on East Coast to rise significantly -- by Memorial Day

Link here to FT.com.

Half the refining capacity on the populous US east coast is set to disappear. Sunoco has pulled the plug on two refineries already and warns that another in Philadelphia will close in July if no buyer steps forward. ConocoPhillips is trying to sell a refinery in Pennsylvania, idle since last year. On May 1, it will spin off its refining business. More than 3m barrels of daily refinery capacity have closed in western countries, since the financial crisis.... 

Emerging economies have meanwhile added 4.2m b/d in capacity, with another 1.8m b/d coming this year.

I've blogged about this several times already including an interesting dot connecting the Bakken. Search "Preferred Sands." 

Let's see: if North Dakota gets the three new diesel refineries and the additional capacity at Tesoro/Mandan, does that make North Dakota part of the world's "emerging economies" that have added refining capacity in the past year or so?

New Player in the Williston Basin: X-Change/Cress Oil -- Hip-Hop comes to The Bakken

Updates

April 27, 2012: it's a bit hard to sort out exactly what is being said here. It doesn't sound like new (additional) acreage, but assets necessary to develop existing acreage.

...through its subsidiary Cress Oil, Inc., an independent exploration and production company based in Houston, Texas that it plans to close on $75 million for working interest and additional expenditures to initiate drilling projects planned for their acreage position in the Bakken Shale and Three Forks formation. 

That is correct; later in the press release, a spokesman said that the overall acreage had not changed: 109,000 mineral acres, and does not state whether this is gross or net.

April 17, 2012: X-Change/Cress teamed up with Nomad in the Bakken, at Rigzone. 

X-Change Corporation announced through its subsidiary, Cress Oil, Inc. a joint venture with Nomad Energy, Inc. to provide drilling, and well services in the newly acquired 109,000 mineral acreage position in the Bakken Shale and Three Forks formation [note mineral acreage in original press release]. Cress Oil expects to lay out more than $200 million in capital expenditures to explore and produce on the newly acquired mineral acreage throughout the next five years.

Later: I'm slipping. In the "old" days I would have done the quick research to find this information before posting, but "anon 1" pointed me in the right direction. Cress Oil is a wholly-owned subsidiary of X-Change Corporation. X-Change announced the formation of Cress Oil on March 14, 2012.

According to the Yahoo profile:

The X-Change Corporation, through its subsidiary, Old West Entertainment Corp., focuses on hip-hop entertainment businesses in the United States. It specializes in various aspects of entertainment, such as music, developing new artists, movies, TV shows, and concert, as well as event promotion activities. The company also operates a Sunday night drive radio show. The X-Change Corporation was incorporated in 1969 and is based in Dallas, Texas. 

Sounds like Yahoo needs to update the X-Change profile.

Original Post

Link here to PennEnergy.

Press release data points:

• X-Change Corporation, through subsidiary Cress Oil, Inc (Houston, TX)
• Cress Oil; wholly owned subsidiary of X-Change; new company announced March 14, 2012
• acquired > 44,000 net acres in Bakken and Three Forks formation; North Dakota and Montana
• $31 million/44,000 --> $700/acre
• will drill 2 - 4 wells/year for first three years
• 30 - 40 years of drilling for the region as a whole
• CEO says 6 to 24 billion recoverable bbls in the Bakken/Three Forks

This was the most important data point, and I quote verbatim:

While there is more total oil available in the Bakken, a greater percentage can be recovered from the Three Forks formation, which is now considered a separate formation from the Bakken. The Three Forks area is below the upper Bakken shale zone and opens up for new opportunities for resource plays. The Bakken shale continues to expand into areas like Three Forks causing total Bakken oil reserve estimates to go up.

CARBO's Gladstone Proppant Distribution Center Update -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

CARBO's largest distribution center in the universe

Link to Dickinson Press here.

Diata points:

• CARBO's Gladstone, North Dakota, distribution center with capacity to hold about 100 million pounds
• could be completed as early as next year
• $25 million projects; CARBO's largest distribution center
• CARBO will not purchase the land until the governing authority rezones it

Again, just another news story coming out of the Bakken? Hardly. Again, note: it's CARBO's largest distribution center. It should give folks pause to think just how huge the Bakken is, and its potential.

For investors, one word: railroads.

RBN Energy Blog

The other day I mentioned the RBN Energy blog. I am now getting oil stories pushed to me on my e-mail. I am very, very impressed.

One of several stories pushed today has to do with storage at Cushing. You may need to sign in or have an account to get to the link.

In addition, their graphics are better than other sources. They appear to be optimized for mobile devices. The new ONEOK pipeline graphic is an example, crystal clear and easily enlarged.

It turns out that recent construction at Cushing will meet all storage capacity for new oil coming out of Texas, North Dakota, and the Bakken. Earlier this year, tanks at Cushing were less than half full, and most recently reported to be at 65% capacity. RBN Energy says there is a long way to go before there are storage problems at Cushing.

It's an excellent resource, the blog site.

Basin Electric: Two New Power Plants, New Transmission Line, Nearly $500 Million in New Projects

Link here to Williston Herald.

Data points:

• Lonesome Creek Station
• 45-megawatt power plant, natural gas fuel
• $65 million
• completion date: summer 2013
• similar plant is planned, 20 miles northwest of Williston
• power plants will kick in only when needed
• 200-mile transmission line north of Beulah to Tioga, $350 million
• will provide power for areas around Killdeer, Williston
• several new substations will need to be built
• begin construction in 2014; completed by 2016