For Investors Only -- Statoil On The Move

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or anything you think you may have read here.

I don't invest or trade in Statoil (never have, probably never will) but Statoil really seems to be a company on the move. Today, two stories to show how big it is getting. Look who Statoil is partnering with.

Both stories come from Rigzone.

First, Statoil and Rosneft:

Russian energy firm Rosneft and Norway's Statoil agreed to set up a joint venture to assess the viability of shale oil production in Russia's Samara region, the firms said on Friday.

Second, Statoil and Exxon:

Statoil ASA and Exxon Mobil Corp. have announced a fifth gas discovery in Block 2 offshore Tanzania.

The discovery is of between 2 and 3 trillion cubic feet of gas in place in the Mronge-1 well. The firms said that the discovery brings total in-place volumes in Block 2 to between 17 and 20 Tcf. Mronge-1 was drilled by the Discoverer Americas (DW drillship). The site is located some 13 miles north of the Zafarani discovery and is at 8,200 feet.

***************************************

Idle chatter. I don't know a billion dollars in one-dollar bills would look like. Likewise, I don't know what a trillion cubic feet of natural gas means. I don't know what the recovery rate is and I don't know how much natural gas is used by the United States in any given year.

But just for grins, ONEOK will have natural gas processing capacity of about 800 million cubic feet per day in North Dakota with their recent announcement. Let's see what twenty trillion cubic feet means.

20,000,000,000,000 / 800,000,000 = 25,000 days = almost 70 years of activity for the ONEOK facilities in North Dakota.