Continental Resources Announces Plans to Triple Production by 2017

Press release here.

• CLR projects producing 36 million boe for calendar year 2012 --> almost 100,00 boepd
• CLR plans to grow that production to 108 million boe by 2017 --> almost 300,000 boepd
• CLR plans to triple proved reserves from year-end 2011 to year-end 2017
• CLR's estimated proved reserves at mid-2012: 610 million boe

For 2013, CLR plans:

• production growth of 30 to 35 percent yoy
• CAPEX: $3.4 billion
• 738 gross wells; 300 net wells

CLR three areas:

• Williston Basin Bakken, North Dakota
• Williston Basin Bakken, Montana
• Anadarko Woodford, Oklahoma (315,675 net leased acres)

Just how big is 300,000 boepd by 2017?

For comparison, XOM is pushing for 1 million boepd by 2016. There's a huge delta between 1 million and 300,000 but they're (almost) in the same ballpark. Depends, I suppose, on big your ballpark is. My ballpark is pretty big. 

National Grasslands, Wilderness Areas, Roadatoriums, and Permitoriums

From wiki:

National Grasslands are authorized by Title III of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act. 

For administrative purposes, they are essentially identical to U.S. National Forests, except that grasslands are areas primarily consisting of prairie.

Like National Forests, National Grasslands may be open for hunting, grazing, mineral extraction, recreation and other uses. Various National Grasslands are typically administered in conjunction with nearby National Forests.

All but three National Grasslands are on or at the edge of the Great Plains. Those three are in southeastern Idaho, northeastern California, and central Oregon.

The three National Grasslands in North Dakota, together with one in northwestern South Dakota, are administered jointly as the Dakota Prairie Grasslands. National Grasslands are generally much smaller than National Forests.

From wiki, a wilderness area:

A wilderness area is a region where the land is in a natural state; where impacts from human activities are minimal—that is, as a wilderness. It might also be called a wild or natural area. Especially in wealthier, industrialized nations, it has a specific legal meaning as well: as land where development is prohibited by law. Many nations have designated Wilderness Areas, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States.

From the Dickinson Press/InsideClimate News:

A legal battle is intensifying to decide if roads can be built in areas of the Little Missouri National Grasslands now managed as roadless and eligible to be protected as wilderness. 

The dispute started this summer when four North Dakota counties sued the federal government, asserting they have the legal right to build roads along section lines.

My understanding is that we have a "roadatorium" now in that area of North Dakota, which is just one step away from a permitorium on development if the area is declared a wilderness area.