Pages

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Billions Being Invested Into The Permian; Production More Important Than Rig Count

A huge "thank you" to Don for this upbeat article: mywestTexas is reporting billions of dollars being invested in the Permian.

I didn't know whether to post the article until I read this:
Investment, though, may not mean more rigs. What producers can net through individual rigs is a more important measure of the health of the Permian Basin’s oil and gas industry than the rig count, Leach said. Case in point: The rig count peaked last year at more than 500 rigs in West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico and now stands around 430 as operators shift from drilling vertical to horizontal wells.
I've opined for at least a year that stacking rigs in North Dakota is not a sign that the Bakken boom is ending. The number of rigs is an important data point but cannot stand alone. As the drilling gets more efficient AND more effective, fewer rigs are needed for the same production. And, of course, there is the problem that production is outrunning takeaway capacity. 

Again, it is not just the rig count, but a) the type of rigs; b) well design to include completion (fracking); c) location; d) location; e) location; f) pad drilling; g) infrastructure support/takeaway capacity; h) favorable business/tax environment; i) favorable/reasonable environmental/regulatory impact.

All things being equal, of course, the more rigs, the more production but all things are never equal.

By the way, how long has the Permian been producing oil? If you said "since 1971" you would be only 5ifty years off. The Permian has been producing oil since 1921.

*********************
A Note To The Granddaughters

Nothing to do with the Bakken, but #3 in 1960, almost forty years after the Permian started producing oil:

Sixteen Reasons, Connie Stevens


.... and David Lynch's iconic use of the soundtrack, forty-some years later:



Clip From Mulholland Drive, David Lynch

7 comments:

  1. Songs for the Permian:

    The boom is on in wink.

    Orbison would later describe the major components of life in Wink as "Football, oil fields, oil, grease and sand"

    " In West Texas, however, he was exposed to many forms of music: "sepia"—a euphemism for what became known as rhythm and blues (R&B); Tex-Mex; orchestral Mantovani, and zydeco. The zydeco favorite "Joli Blon" was one of the first songs Orbison sang in public. At eight, Orbison began appearing on a local radio show. By the late 1940s, he was the host.[11]
    In high school, Orbison and some friends formed The Wink Westerners, an informal band that played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks, and had a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit.[12] When they were offered $400 to play at a dance, Orbison realized that he could make a living in music. Following high school, he enrolled at North Texas State College, planning to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay.[13] He formed another band called The Teen Kings, and sang at night while working in the oil fields or studying during the day. Orbison saw classmate Pat Boone get signed for a record deal, further strengthening his resolve to become a professional musician. His geology grades dropping, he switched to Odessa Junior College to consider becoming a teacher.
    While living in Odessa, Orbison drove to Dallas to be shocked at the on-stage antics of Elvis Presley, who was only a year older and a rising star in the music scene.[14] Johnny Cash toured the area in 1955, playing on the same local radio show as the Teen Kings and suggested that Orbison approach Sam Phillips at Sun Records, home of rockabilly stars including Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Cash. In their conversation, Phillips told Orbison curtly, "Johnny Cash doesn't run my record company!"[note 3] but he was convinced to listen to a song composed by Dick Penner and Wade Moore in mere minutes atop a fraternity house at North Texas State, named "Ooby Dooby", that the Teen Kings had recorded on the Odessa-based Je–Wel record label.[6] Phillips was impressed and offered the Teen Kings a contract in 1956."


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Orbison

    anon 1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My reply won't do justice to your long, nice note. I'm trying to catch up this evening.

      Either I have posted this before, or you know me well: Roy Orbison is probably #1 on my list. Because I played his early stuff so much, I now enjoy his last albums the best.

      Barbara (?) did a great job with his legacy, I believe.

      Delete
  2. For Jamestown, Norma:

    http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/she-gives-him-fever

    "My first Peggy album was a 1972 release entitled—are you sitting down?—Norma Deloris Egstrom from Jamestown, North Dakota. I was 17. The record's epic showpiece is "Just for a Thrill." Hearing Peggy sing, in breathtaking control of her storied wooziness, "You made my heart stand still/And it was just for a thrill," produced the same effect as the poppers that were cracked under my young nose in the same period at Le Jardin, the first-generation Manhattan disco I patronized, resplendent in platform Kork-Ease. The point is that dance palaces, shoe fashions, and recreational drugs come and go. But Peggy Lee is forever."

    anon 1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Peggy Lee -- Jamestown -- I did not know that. Close to Lawrence Welk's hometown, I suppose.

      "Gives him fever."

      In a different lifetime, in a place far away, and long ago, I took dancing lessons at the request of my first love -- one of the songs I remember well was "Fever." Little did I know, at the time, how big a song that one was.

      And then the very strange, "Is that all there is?"

      Delete
  3. Bruce, I had a thing for Connie in junior high. Nice to hear her again.

    John--Tioga HS class of '70

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We probably listened to much of the same music; and probably the same television shows. WHS, class of 69.

      Delete
  4. When posting the video earlier today, I got to thinking about the cover of the new issue of "Sports Illustrated" that is in the news. I enjoy(ed) watching Connie Stevens a whole more than the swimming suit issues.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.