Crude-by-rail: this was posted a few days ago -- Burlington Northern shipping almost 40% of the Bakken production. Now, this month's director's cut:
Crude oil take away via pipeline is now 43% of daily production, but transportation by rail at 46%. I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E.Warren Buffett's home is in Nebraska. Warren Buffett owns Burlington Northern, one of the few companies he owns outright. Think he was happy to see the Keystone XL killed by his friend in the White House? Actually, it would have made little difference to the Bakken: operators found it more lucrative to send their light, sweet oil to the east coast, not to the gulf. Funny how things work out.
Unless you're one of the Geico cavemen living under a rock, you have known for a few days that the Bakken broke another production record, up almost 4% over the previous month, up to over 700,000 bopd.
And Bakken operators, like the folks over at The Oil Drum are fond of pointing out, are running hard to keep up, keep breaking records. Active wells also increased by 3 percent, from 7,467 to 7,701, a new all-time high.
701,134 bbs/7,701 wells --> 91 bbls/day/North Dakota well. Keep in mind, North Dakota produces more oil with its 7,700 wells than California does with its 60,000 wells.
And then look at this. July Bakken was down to $71/bbl; in September it was $85/bbl and today it was almost $90/bbl. The delta between July and September: $20. A well producing 100 bbl/day --> $2,000/day more; per annum --> $730,000.
The MDW has been pointing this out for quite some time now: the pace of permitting is increasing significantly: July permitting - 183; August permitting - 261; and now, in September, 273, a new all-time high. The old metric: active rigs. The new metric: new permits.
The usual comments were made by the Director, including concerns about federal regulation of fracking. If the president is re-elected, it's a no-brainer that fracking will be federally regulated, and it won't matter whether or not diesel is used. There is simply too much money pouring into four counties in fly-over country for the federal government not to be interested; too many folks loathe the oil and gas industry for fracking not to be federally regulated. So, both power and money --> federal regulation of fracking.
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