Saturday, March 2, 2013

Week 9: February 24, 2013 -- March 2, 2013

Mergers and deals
Chesapeake to sell Bakken acreage -- unconfirmed 
Chesapeake to sell 50% interest in its Oklahoma play -- confirmed

Bakken operations
Oasis with four huge wells
Bakken wells taken off-line due to flaring
Well density patterns; fan-shaped
Anticipating the gusher

Media attention
The Bakken is a beast

Rail
RBN series on Bakken crude-by-rail terminals: part II
RBN series on Bakken crude-by-rail terminals: part I

Economic development
Midwest Motor Express expands in Rapid City, SD
MDU-Calumet ready to start construction; received air quality permit
Six-million-dollar hotel almost complete in coal country, North Dakota

Politics
Obama promises to expedite oil production in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota if his idea to sequester is killed

Odds and Ends

While looking for something else -- which if I find, I will post -- I came across this November 16, 2011, post. In hindsight, it's a pretty interesting, if not an entertaining, note. At the time I did not know it would become the story it is has become. Unless the president enjoys this sort of thing, and a narcissist might, the president has really seemed to box himself into a corner.

A rational individual might look back on this story and conclude that the president failed to read his far-left, faux environmental base correctly, when he nixed the Keystone XL permit.  He failed to see that the Keystone XL would become the "line-in-the-sand" for that fringe element. We haven't seen the phrase "throwing 'someone' under the bus" lately, but the tea leaves suggest the president is about to throw the last group along the parade route under the bus when he approves the Keystone.

ObamaCare will be the legacy of the president's first term. Approving Keystone XL 2.0 will be the domestic legacy of his second term.

Recessions come and go, so even if "we" fall back into recession, it won't amount to much more than an historical footnote.

I am unaware of anything that would yet qualify for a foreign policy legacy in his first term, and, of course, the second term is not even two months old.

Speaking of which (recessions), if "we" do fall back into a recession due to $5 gasoline (and I'm not saying we will see $5 gasoline again; "been there, done that," as some predicted), one might be able to trace the dots back to killing the Keystone. Such irony. [Had the Keystone been approved back in late November, 2011, and had TransCanada stayed on schedule, the pipeline would now be on-line. Canadian oil sands oil is trading for about $60/bbl; Venezuelan/OPEC oil is trading for about $110. ]

Google Rank: "Bakken blogs"
Saturday morning, March 2, 2013; 9:48 am
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