A Feel-Good Story On The Bakken From The Minot Daily News

A feel-good story from The Minot Daily News: 

Some excerpts:

Sandstrom said with the current technology, each well is expected to produce for about 30 years, and each one will produce about 550,000 barrels of oil.

"It costs approximately $10 million to drill a well, according to our last economic impact survey," she said. "Each one garners about $20 million net profit. It pays about $4.4 million in taxes, $7.6 million in royalties, $1.6 million in salaries and wages and considering that we have 8,500 wells operating, those numbers add up."

When the group did its first economic impact study in 2005, she said it showed about a $4.4 million impact on North Dakota's economy. She said that has increased now by almost 600 percent to $34.4 billion.

There are about 40,856 industry jobs in North Dakota, she said. Along with the roughnecks, truckers and others working with the drilling and other operations in the oil patch, she said it includes legal services, administrative, communication professionals, human resources everything that might be supporting the oil and gas industry.

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A Note To the Granddaughters

Don alerted me to this story in CNN about the quick reaction force to be stationed at Moron Air Base, Spain.

This quick reaction force at Moron AFB, Spain, is really, really interesting.

I am quite familiar with Moron Air Base. It was one of several poor step-children of the US military when we were assigned overseas. The base became less and less vital as the Cold War wound down.

I visited the base once. It is near the home of famous Seville steel. I think their workmanship deteriorated over the centuries (or others got better). I think the USAF Academy swords come from Germany now; at least at one time they did.

I threw almost all my USAF memorabilia away when I retired. I had moved on, never wanted to look back at the USAF. Pretty much lost all contact. Not that I disliked the Air Force. I loved it. But I didn't want to look back; I only wanted to look forward.

But I did keep a few things. The two pieces of memorabilia that I treasure most I will give to my younger daughter (who has asked from them). They are: a) my F-15 helmet; and, b) my USAF sword. Technically it's not a USAF sword. It was not made for the Air Force. A German secretary had it made especially for me at the German factory when I was stationed there. I knew nothing about it until I was reassigned and she gave it to me as a going-away present. It is engraved with my name, etc., and is a spectacular piece of workmanship. I can't even begin to imagine how much hospital personnel must have contributed to acquire it in the first place.

But I digress.

This article is really about the US military had a quick response team in southern Spain to cover northern Africa. The article noted that the US Marines can respond without getting okay from any government (including Spain, I assume), and that has to be huge. I'm sure Spain has some close friends in northern Africa and to allow US to base out of Spain .... a big deal.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Spanish economy made it easier for the Spaniards to say "si" to the American proposal. The Americans will spend a lot of money in that area.