Exelon Kicked Off Wind Board -- Advocated End of Government Wind Subsidies

Link here.

The American Wind Energy Association’s board voted last week to oust Exelon from the board and from the organization, specifically because of the company’s vocal opposition to extending the PTC.  

Exelon executives have made no bones about their desire to see the 2.2-cents-per-kilowatt-hour credit expire.  

Exelon owns around 900 megawatts of wind projects — nearly 2 percent of U.S. wind capacity. 

Still, Exelon’s primary focus is nuclear energy, in which it’s a powerhouse: Its 10 power plants and 17 reactors in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey represent roughly 20 percent of the U.S. nuclear industry’s total capacity. About 93 percent of the company’s total electricity generation comes from nuclear power.

Level the playing field.

Port of North Dakota

Updates

May 24, 2017: in default. 

Original Post

 

[Note: this was originally posted some time ago; when I added an update, somehow it got re-posted as a completely new post for this date; that has not happened to me before; not sure how it happened this time. Regardless: the post is an old post, but the flyer noted in the first paragraph below is new.]

For those of you who a) have nothing else to do; and, b) love to explore Google maps, here's a suggestion: look for the satellite view of the Port of North Dakota. [On September 11, Kent sent a link to a promotional flyer which shows how Port of North Dakota will be laid out.]

Hint: google map "55 Street East, Minot, North Dakota," and then move cursor to area west of 55 Street East, and just south of County Road 12. Then zoom in with satellite view to see the Burlington Northern yard to the east and the Port of North Dakota to the west.

Then, go to these two linked articles:

The Port of North Dakota became operational in 2008, shipping its first containers in 2010.

Also two years ago, North Dakota Port Services moved into a new building at the site, which company owner Greg Johnson said the port already has outgrown. Future development plans for the port include a new, larger headquarters building on property north of the existing site.

And, 

The port's 72 employees are far more than the 40 employees that officials figured the port would have four years into its operation. A year from now, Johnson estimated, the port could have in the neighborhood of 200 to 250 employees. As the proposed expansion gets built out, that number will grow. Future employment is unknown but could be as high as 2,000 workers.

Plans call for increasing the port's capacity to handle more business and larger trains. The port would add about 3,000 acres to the north of its existing, 139-acre site on Minot's east side, extending as far north as 46th Avenue Northeast. The existing site is south of Ward County Road 12 and west of Burlington Northern Santa Fe's Gavin Yard and 55th Street East.

From forty employees projected to more than 2,000. And regardless of what POTUS thinks about this, I think it's pretty spectacular.

What We Will Be Talking About Wednesday Morning

Trending Now: Top 10 (click on link)

Updates

September 12, 2012: wow, some folks are good at finding things and reading quickly. "Anon 1" found this bit of information regarding a new public-private project at the Port of Beaumont, paid for in part by Hurricane Ike funds, see comments. The description of the project is on page 5. As part of the project:

The Company anticipates that the Project will provide shippers, traders and refineries the opportunity to transport diesel fuel received by truck and barge for shipment by unit trains headed north, thereby creating a demand for emptied rail cars headed north. Diesel is used to provide power to drilling operations at the exporting oil fields. Likewise, crude oil from Canada is very heavy and does not flow through the pipeline without first being diluted. Diluents, which are essentially raw naphtha and comprise about 30% of the crude barrel assay, can be transloaded from truck or barge to the unit trains and delivered to the producers in the Canadian oil fields. Management does note that pipelines are one-directional, north to south, and do not present competition to rail for this part of the Business Plan. This comes from a pdf file, and this might be the link but if it doesn't work, google beaumont trainload; the pdf link will be near the top.

Original Post

This discussion began Tuesday afternoon; it's really quite an interesting development. It began with a single "throw-away" line in a press release and a similar "throw-away" line in a webcast. Another incredibly interesting development coming out of the crude-by-rail story. [Since the initial posting, this has received a fair number of comments.]

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From Yahoo! In-Play:

Halcon Resources announces underwritten secondary offering of 35 mln shares of its common stock by selling shareholder: Co announced the commencement of an underwritten secondary offering of 35 mln shares of its common stock offered by EnCap Energy Capital Fund VIII (the "Selling Shareholder"). On a fully diluted basis, the Selling Shareholder owns, as of the date hereof through its interest in HALRES LLC, 102,666,667 common shares representing in the aggregate approximately 32% of Halcon's diluted common shares. After giving effect to the offering on a fully diluted basis and assuming no exercise of the underwriter's option to purchase additional shares, the Selling Shareholder will own, through its interest in HALRES LLC, 67,666,667 shares of the Company's common stock, representing approximately 21% of Halcon's diluted share count.

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The following wells will be coming off the confidential list on Wednesday:

• 21690, 607, CLR, Wanner 1-15H, St Demetrius, t6/12; cum 23K 7/12; 
• 21969, 347, Whiting, Arndt 13-5TFX, Sanish, t3/12; cum 38K 7/12; 
• 22170, 551, Slawson, Athena 4-36TFH, Alger, t5/12; cum 16K 7/12; 
• 22257, 139, Corinthian, Corinthian Bowers 8-3-1H, North Souris, t4/12; cum 12K 7/12; a Spearfish well; 
• 22376, 1,423, SM Energy, Anderson 5X-14H, Croff, t7/12; cum 22K 7/12; 
• 21184, 1,738, KOG, SMokeky 16-20-32-16H3, Pembroke, t7/12; cum 23K 7/12; 

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Take the Bakken challenge! See if you can guess which companies are "A," "B," and "C" at the link.  One hint: the three companies are KOG, NOG, and OAS. I think it might surprise you. Steve Zachritz has done a very good job with this. Interestingly enough there are at least two observations that one could make from this data. Steve makes one. I have another.

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Wow! Carpe Diem has a nice long piece on "drilling pads." I'm sure a lot of operators will take credit for his development, but I remember the Eco-Pads being promoted by Harold Hamm a long, long time ago -- in the Bakken. 

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OPEC sees oil demand growing.

OPEC said oil demand should rise through next year, based on the outlook for global economic growth above 3 percent. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said its member countries produced 31.4 million barrels of oil per day in August. That's 254,000 per day more than in July. OPEC said global demand will rise by 900,000 barrels per day this year and another 800,000 barrels per day in 2013.

The numbers are interesting: almost identical to an earlier post which said current oil demand is growing by a million bbls a day and will grow by another million bbls next year.

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Primer on West Coast NGLs -- RBN Energy.

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Many years ago when I was in the USAF, fish oil was all the rage for lowering cholesterol. I always thought it was bogus and a fad. It seems that may be true based on recent data. 

Thirteen (13) New Permits; EOG With a Huge Well in the Van Hook -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Thirteen (13) new permits:

• Operators: BEXP (5), CLR (4), SM (3), Whiting
• Fields: Williston (Williams), North Tobacco Garden (McKenzie), East Fork (Williams), West Ambrose (Divide), Sanish (Mountrail)

One producing well completed:

• 19802, 1,215, EOG, Liberty LR 18-14H, Van Hook, t10/1l; cum 143K 7/12; 

Of note: the IP for CLR's Antelope 4-23H well, (21489) -- 8,231 bbls

Back-Haul of Diluent on CBR Cars to Mix With Heavy Oil: Question?

Updates

September 12, 2012: wow, some folks are good at finding things and reading quickly. "Anon 1" found this bit of information regarding a new public-private project at the Port of Beaumont, paid for in part by Hurricane Ike funds, see comments. The description of the project is on page 5. As part of the project:

The Company anticipates that the Project will provide shippers, traders and refineries theopportunity to transport diesel fuel received by truck and barge for shipment by unit trains headed north, thereby creating a demand for emptied rail cars headed north. Diesel is used to provide power to drilling operations at the exporting oil fields. Likewise, crude oil from Canada is very heavy and does not flow through the pipeline without first being diluted. Diluents, which are essentially raw naphtha and comprise about 30% of the crude barrel assay, can be transloaded from truck or barge to the unit trains and delivered to the producers in the Canadian oil fields. Management does note that pipelines are one-directional, north to south, and do not present competition to rail for this part of the Business Plan. This comes from a pdf file, and this might be the link but if it doesn't work, google beaumont trainload; the pdf link will be near the top.

Later, 9:20 pm: I haven't seen a specific answer to "anon 1's" question on whether Bakken CBR trains are returning with diluent, but it certainly sounds like it is very likely. 

Later, 9:20 pm: here's a long press release; posted July 9, 2012; buried in the press release is this one-liner:

In addition, Southern Pacific has the opportunity to utilize its empty rail cars to transport lower priced diluent from the Gulf Coast on their return to Canada.

And another press release here:

Rail shipment requires about 33% less process diluent than what is necessary to meet pipeline specifications, Southern Pacific said. And return-trip rail cars can supply the project with low-cost Gulf Coast diluent. 

Later, 6:30 pm: comments are starting to come in. Here is one. And then there is one below in the comments.

I'm in a hurry; can't comment much, but I remember the comment that said "railroads were the method of last resort for shipping oil." Isn't this an interesting turn of events; whether you ship oil south and then bring diluent north, or bring diluent north and then ship oil south, the results are the same. This is very, very interesting. I love capitalism; no central planning on this one.

Original Post

"anon 1" posted this as a comment, but in case folks don't read the comments:

Comment at Peters: http://extras.newswire.ca/peters20120911/

Crude-by-rail cars return with condensate - free backhaul for diluent to mix with heavy oil.
That is important. A very big deal.

Does anyone know: How much is happening? Is Bakken CBR involved?

Bakken Oil Changing the Dynamics For The Refiners in Texas, Louisiana

Link here.

This story has been posted/linked before, but it's a huge story. I didn't want to lose sight of it.

Two data points, the first:

About 300,000 barrels a day of Bakken oil is being shipped from North Dakota by rail, ... 

Some rail deliveries of Bakken are reaching Texas and Louisiana, ...

The Bakken formation, which stretches across parts of North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan, and the Eagle Ford formation in south Texas produce the majority of shale oil in the U.S., ahead of formations such as Niobrara in Wyoming and Colorado, Bone Spring in Texas and New Mexico and Monterey in California. Eagle Ford produced about 283,000 barrels a day this June, up from about 98,000 barrels a day in June 2011 and no barrels in April 2008, according to the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas regulator.

The second data point:

“Unconventional oils and gas are changing everything about our competitiveness in the United States,” Bill Klesse, Valero Energy Corp.’s chief executive officer, said yesterday at the Barclays CEO Energy/Power Conference in New York. “Before you know it, we’re going to have so much light, sweet crude that in the U.S. Gulf Coast we’re not going to be importing light, sweet crude, and we think that happens next year.”

Random Thought On the USPS and Other Ramblings; Eighteen Pages to Define "Employee"

"Twenty (20) percent of the teachers on strike in Chicago send their children to private schools." -- no link yet. But this link suggests it may be worse: 40 percent of Chicago's public school teachers send their children to private schools. They obviously know best.

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Full-Time: Now Defined as 30 Hours

From: ObamaCare's 2,700 Pages of Regulations -- It took eighteen (18) pages to define an "employee."

In the latest indication of how complicated putting the Affordable Care Act into action will be, the Department of Health and Human Services and Internal Revenue Service issued 18-pages of regulations just to describe what a "full-time employee" is.  

Of note, to the Feds a full-time employee works an average of just 30 hours a week, not the normally accepted 40 hours. The IRS rule is key because companies with more than 50 full-time employees must provide health insurance under Obamacare, or be fined. Business groups have been warning that small companies might try to replace full-time workers with part-time help to avoid being forced to offer health insurance in 2014, but the 30-hour full-time definition is likely to undermine those plans. 

The lengthy 18-page definition caught some in the business world by surprise. "It's scary," said Randy Johnson, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior vice president for labor, immigration, and employee benefits. "It's just a small example of two words under our healthcare law of 2,700-pages," he said, adding: "It says to me things are awfully complicated."

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Thinking of Steve Jobs/Apple and Wayne Gretzky (skating to where the puck will be), it's too late now, but one wonders why USPS didn't establish two divisions, or possibly even three. Certainly, these two: the traditional first class and junk mail; and, a package delivery system to compete directly with FedEx and UPS. The package delivery system could have competed internationally.

See WSJ, google FedEx, UPS Get a Toehold in China's Express Delivery.

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Speaking of Steve Jobs: it's interesting to watch the CEO leadership style of CEO Zuckerberg and then compare it to Jobs. Okay: no comparison.

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Earlier this week I posted a story about Plains Exploration and Production buying off-shore gulf assets from BP and Shell (actually the story posted just concerned Shell; but later the BP story came out). I posted it because "anon 1" sent it to me, and his links have a way of leading to bigger stories that folks like me miss. That's one of the problems with the internet: stories all seem to carry the same weight. When one clicks on a link, one gets the headline and the story, pretty much in the same font as any other story. It's not easy to see how it fits into the general news of the day: relevant, important, irrelevant, junk, really important, filler, etc. [Maybe I didn't post it and thought I did; if I didn't post it, it was an oversight; maybe I just left it as a comment; if so, my bad. I apologize.]

That's why I enjoy the print edition of the WSJ and don't read the on-line edition except for specific "research" -- a term used very loosely at this stage in my life.  The Plains E&P story is a huge story based on the context in which it is is published/sited in the WSJ and how it is presented:

• section B, Marketplace; specifically for investors
• page B5; not the front page, but not demoted to the back page either
• takes up a full half page of news on the page it is placed (though the accompanying ad is also big)
• it is only one of two stories on that page
• headline in large font; not as big as the story above it, but still jumps out at you
• two graphics

And then this lede:

Plains Exploration & Production Co. plunged into oil drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, committing to a $6 billion purchase of holdings from two energy giants, in a move that surprised investors and sent the Houston-based company's shares tumbling 11%.

This was a much bigger story than how it appeared on the internet.

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Speaking of "placement" of stories in the WSJ: it is said that A3 is the most important page of the Journal, after the front page. Today's story on A3 takes up the full page: ROTC Returns to Harvard, along with photos of ROTC cadets from Harvard, MIT, and Tufts taking part in exercises at Harvard yesterday. Pretty incredible story, and it's placement on page A3 says how big a story it is.

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On the other hand, buried on A5, is the story that the US Navy wins ruling in suit over endangered whales. The US Navy has been allowed to proceed with plans to build a $100 million offshore range for submarine warfare training, despite risks to cetaceans as argues by faux environmentalists.

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File under: Vote Early, Vote Often

Wendy Rosen.

Tuesday Morning Energy Links; Wells Coming Off Confidential List

Wells coming off the confidential list:

• 19856, 130, BR, CCU Meriwether 44-19MBH, Corral Creek, t7/12; cum 930 bbls (no typo) 110/12; off-line after the first ten days of production;
• 20656, 613, XTO, Vernon 11X-34G, Tioga; t5/12; cum 14K 7/12;
• 21276, 871, ERF, Duet 148-93-18C-07-1H, McGregory Buttes, t8/12; cum 45K 10/12;
• 21479, 1,753, MRO, MHA USA 11-4TFH, Reunion Bay, t6/05 (sic); cum 24K 7/12; 
• 22241, 553, Hess, GO-Grimson 158-98-3625H-1, Rainbow, t7/12; cum 15K 7/12; 
• 22409, 623, Slawson, Ann Nelson (Federal) 2-31-30H, Ross, t6/12; cum 8K 7/12 

The test date for the MRO well is obviously an error; probably 6/12; it was fracked in 30 stages with 2.2 million pounds (sand frack; specifics not provided)

Miscellaneous note re: 20656, from the geologist's narrative: "In addition to the primary Three Forks target, secondary zones of interest were the Tyler, Ratcliffe, and Mission Canyon Formations (Madison).  These formations were evaluated during the drilling of the vertical portion of the well. The Middle Bakken in these two sections is currently being produced by the Davidson 14X-34, which was originally drilled by Headington Oil Company and is now operated by XTO Energy, Inc." Later: "not oil or gas shows observed in the Tyler. In the Ratcliffe negligible amounts of natural gas; no oil. In the Mission Canyon, no oil and poor gas readings. Bottom line: Tyler, Ratcliffe, and Mission Canyon probably not productive here.  

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RBN Energy: Refining 101, Part II

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I've blogged several times how much I enjoy Amtrak (although recently, it seems its prices have become a bit steep compared to what I remember, but I could be wrong on that). A reader sent me this link regarding Amtrak. It's a "fun" article to read.

On a completely different note, I don't know how much ticket prices are subsidized by the government. But if the government is interested in changing Americans' habits and getting more of them to ride the train -- think California's bullet train -- additional subsidizing of Amtrak's tickets could be an option. That would be a nice presidential debate talking point: subsidizing ticket prices for rail.