Guns ... and Hollywood --- Nothing About The Bakken

Tonight I'm watching the Vikings-Green Bay Packers playoff game. And then the trailer for the new Stallone movie, "Bullet To The Head" comes on. I assume there are not a trivial number of middle school boys watching the game with their dad, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe NFL football has an advisory ... if so, I missed it.

But the "Bullet to the Head" trailer made me recall the recent YouTube video of the Hollywood "A" list telling America the gun violence has to stop.

Hollywood "A" List: Demand A Plan
Somehow, "Bullet To The Head" seen by middle school boys watching a football game doesn't seem appropriate. I wonder if the commercial is playing in Newtown, CT?

Another Look At Mike Filloon's Most Recent Article on The Bakken...

... I linked it on December 5, 2012, but completely forgot about it. Mike's article was posted December 3, 2012. I highlighted CLR's December, 2012, corporate presentation a few days ago. 

Here is the SeekingAlpha/Mike Filloon article, again:

Continental Resources  is levered to the Williston Basin. With approximately one million acres in North Dakota and Montana, it offers exposure to virtually all areas of the Bakken/Three Forks. Going forward, Continental has upside on both the top and bottom lines. 2012 drilling and completion improvements have decreased costs and increased production. Proppant and water costs continue to decline allowing for increased usage per well. This is improving recoveries. Eco-Pad development is expanding at a fast rate. Oil transportation to the east and west coasts provide realized pricing equivalent to Brent.

A couple of interesting data points from Mike:

• increasing interest in the McKenzie County (wow, that was my prediction in 2011, that the interest would move from Mountrail to McKenzie County)
• and, a new EUR in Croff and the "Helis Grail": 1.5 million bbls --- can you believe that? Huge. Onepointfivemilllion bbls. Simply incredible. For newbies: early in the boom "we" were talking about EURs of 300- to 400,000 bbls; then 600,000 bbls, and folks thought 900,000 bbls was outrageous. Now 1.5 million bbls in some areas of the Bakken from a single well, and they will put in as many as 14 wells in some spacing units.

Mike continues:

This is important, as interest in NE McKenzie has grown significantly over the past two years. QEP Resources' acquisition of Helis's acreage in Croff and Grail fields proves this value. The best wells in this area targeted the upper Three Forks, with consistent EURs of 1000 MBoe. Wells have modeled to a maximum EUR of 1500 MBoe. This area is inconsistent with the rest of the basin, as the upper Three Forks outperforms the middle Bakken in this field. In the general vicinity of this field, the upper Three Forks has produced 10 wells with more than 1101-1500 Mboe. The middle Bakken has produced 8 within this range.

Wow, that's an incredible article by Mike. He hit every "hot button." Very, very nice.

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I must have been overwhelmed with data at the time Mike's article was posted on December 3, 2012, that it didn't sink in until tonight when I was reviewing Bakken data.

EURs of 1.5 million bbls. That is absolutely huge. I was blown away a year ago or so when "they" were talking about EURs of one million bbls in the Bakken, but now, to see 1.5 million bbls in some areas of the Bakken, this early in the boom is quite incredible. Maybe I'll remember this time: Croff. "Helis Grail." KOG. QEP. Onepointfivemillioneurs.

USA Today Has Noted The Same Thing -- The Price of Gasoline Is Going Up (USA Today Notes That Oil Has Risen About $10/Gallon In The Past Month)

From the MDW yesterday, Friday, January 4, 2013:

I see gold took quite a tumble yesterday [Thursday); didn't know why; then saw articles today [Friday] about Fed wanting to end "QE" by the end of this year. Regardless of the reason for gold falling in price, I would have expected oil to have followed. Before the market open, I saw that oil had fallen $1.10 according to the TV crawler, but on Yahoo, now, it's only down about 25 cents. I don't know if Yahoo and CNBC track "the same oil" quotes. Be that as it may, it appears that the price of oil is holding, despite a) fall in gold; b) slow driving season; c) lousy jobs report. For oil investors, that all seems bullish.

Now today, in USA Today:

That early winter break you've been getting at the gasoline pump? It's beginning to show signs of cracking.

Gasoline prices remain below $3 a gallon in at least 50% or more outlets in 14 states. But the national average has crept up three cents to $3.30 a gallon the past week and 8 cents since hitting a 2012 low of $3.22 in mid-December.

It's likely to get worse in the coming weeks. Crude oil prices are up about $10 a gallon the past month (sic), with benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude closing at $93.09 a barrel Friday, finishing the week up 2.5%. 

On Friday, writing about the price of gold tumbling, I expected oil to follow suit; I was surprised it did not, as noted above. USA Today blames it on limited refinery capacity. Possibly, but that explanation certainly seems weak. I think RBN Energy has provided nice hints why we are seeing this rise in the price of oil despite decreased demand.

By the way, note the phrase in bold from USA Today: Crude oil prices are up about $10 a gallon the past month (sic), ... if crude oil prices are up about $10/gallon, that would be about $420/barrel, considering there are 42 gallons in a barrel. But I digress. I assume it's a typographical unless there is some conversion factor I am missing. (I won't recheck the story; if they correct it, readers might let me know.)

East Fork Oil Field Has Been Updated -- The Bakken, The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

The East Fork oil field has been updated.

I was going to update the "Epping-Ray corridor" but looking at the NDIC GIS map, it appeared the East Fork oil field might be more interesting. I was not disappointed.

Back in September, 2011, BEXP announced a record TFS well in this field at the time it was drilled:

• 20640, 2,597, BEXP, Irgens 27-34 2H, Three Forks well, t9/11; cum 103K 11/12

This is an area in which Newfield had a lot of acreage at one time but sold to CLR; in addition, BTA held some acreage here which they sold to KOG.

The wells are  phenomenal. Willistonites have driven by this field innumerable times on their way to Minot; the field is about 10 miles west of Ray. US Highway 2 borders it on the north.

The East Fork field is just northwest of the very interesting CLR Brooklyn field which still has three rigs working it. 

There is still a lot of flaring in this field; even where wells are hooked up to natural gas lines, it appears there is not enough capacity to handle all the natural gas from this field.

There are two rigs sited in this field at the moment. Petro-Hunt is drilling (#22719) and a BEXP rig is on the southern edge, but the well will go south into Stony Creek oil field. It looks like, with the exception of two or sections, every section is held by production. There is certainly no urgency to drill this field; the players know what they have; the leases are held by production; and, they need to get natural gas pipelines in before drilling more. Speaking of which, let's check the Brooklyn oil field for flaring. Nope: even the most recent wells are not flaring; CLR has natural gas pipelines in. That explains part of the reason that CLR can afford three rigs in this field; nothing is being wasted. Very, very interested.

When you go to the link (the East Fork field), note:

• the huge IPs for KOG and BEXP
• the number of Three Forks wells (along with the middle Bakken, of course)
•  the number of wells that will produce in excess of 100K bbls of oil in the first year or so
• 21 permits in 2012 in this field, but 2 canceled
• 22 permits in 2011, but 3 canceled
• only one permit issued for this field in 2010; that well was drilled late last year and will exceed 100,000 boe in the first year;
• so, all these wells have been drilled in the past two years; and there are still 19 wells on the confidential list in this field

Also: note that there are a lot of old and several active vertical Madison wells on 160-acre spacing. For example, this one is still active, having produced more than 365K bbls to date, and it's only been producing for 26 years, so it still has another 20 years of useful life:

• 11949, 408, Citation, Christopherson 14-30, East Fork, Madison, s4/86; t5/86; cum 364,510 10/11

The Global Warming Stories Coming Out of Russia, China, Alaska Generating A Lot of Interest

Interest in the global warming stories coming out of China, Russia, and Alaska this winter was not expected, but quite a few folks have written in.

So, a bit more. It looks like "global warming" is "so yesterday."

Back on September 17, 2009, Time magazine: ships finding a shortcut through the Northeast Passage, off Russia's northern coast, from Siberia to the Bering Strait.

Plenty [of ships] have tried [to find a shortcut]. For centuries, sailors have searched for a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the icy waters off Russia's northern coast. Otherwise known as the Northern Sea Route, the passage — from Siberia to the Bering Strait — promised a speedy sea route between Europe and Asia for anyone who could make it. But caked in ice during winter and pretty much inhospitable because of floating ice in summer, the route has remained largely off-limits. Global warming may change that.

"The Northeast Passage offers unmatched chances for efficient sea traffic," Beluga CEO Niels Stolberg wrote in an e-mail to Time, and "plenty [of] trade potential."
Sailing from Korea to the Netherlands via the Northeast Passage could shave 3,500 miles (5,500 km) and 10 days off the traditional 12,500-mile (20,000 km) route via the Suez Canal. Other routes could offer even bigger time savings. For Beluga, quicker trips and reduced fuel costs has saved the firm some $300,000 per ship. The company plans to sail even bigger ships through the passage next summer and expects to save about $600,000 on those voyages.

But fast forward two or three years, NASA is now reporting the Bering Sea is choked with record amounts of ice:

For most of the winter of 2011–2012, the Bering Sea has been choking with sea ice. Though ice obviously forms there every year, the cover has been unusually extensive this season. [This was last winter.] In fact, the past several months have included the second highest ice extent in the satellite record for the Bering Sea region, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The natural-color image above shows the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska and northeastern Siberia on March 19, 2012. The image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite. Black lines mark the coastlines, many of which have ice shelves or frozen bays extending beyond the land borders.

NSIDC data indicate that ice extent in the Bering Sea for most of this winter has been between 20 to 30 percent above the 1979 to 2000 average. February 2012 had the highest ice extent for the area since satellite records started. As of March 16, National Weather Service forecasters noted that all of the ice cover in the Bering Sea was first year ice, much of it new and thin—which is typical in the Bering Sea.

It's too early to sort out what the Arctic winter of 2012 - 2013 (this year) will be; presently the data is mixed, but this from the National Snow and Ice Data Center is of note:

Extent can increase quickly during November because there is little solar energy and the ocean is rapidly losing the heat that it gained in summer. For the Arctic as a whole, ice growth for November 2012 was faster than average, increasing at an average rate of 98,600 square kilometers (38,100 square miles) per day. After remaining lower than levels observed in 2007 for most of the month, by November 30 ice extent matched or exceeded extent seen in 2007, 2006, and 2010. 

Most Incredible Time-Lapse Photography That Will Be Posted Today

Link here to LA Times. At the link, at the very top what appears to be a huge photo is actually a video; click on the arrow to start the video.

This is the space shuttle Endeavor being moved from LAX to its "resting place" at the Los Angeles Science Museum. It is now available for viewing even as the display continues to be built around it. It is free to visit/view, but time-stamped tickets are required.

Notice how they raised the space ship a few inches so that it could clear a tree by a few inches. Just one of the most spectacular images.

The best part: seeing all the people from windows yelling, smiling, waiving, enjoying this once-in-a-lifetime view. What a great country.

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By the way, I now know where NASCAR drivers go when they retire: out to Beale Air Force Base near Sacramento, CA, to help U-2's land.  In case, the link is broken, this is a story about the USAF replacing its chase vehicles with Chevy Camaros.

Random Update of Fayette Field -- The Bakken, The Williston Basin

Fayette oil field has been updated.

Despite all the grief given to OXY USA in the Bakken, they do have some good wells. This is a stand-out, to say the least; not much of a decline rate, yet:

18610, 877, OXY USA, Harry Stroh 1-8-5H-143-96, t10/11; cum 283K 11/12; in addition to >15,000 bbls oil per month, it is also producing >1,000 boe natural gas (no longer flared); > 300K boe in one year; two months with < 15 days production each.

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	11-2012	30	17517	17865	2510	8421	8421	0
BAKKEN	10-2012	25	10468	10187	2189	5017	5017	0
BAKKEN	9-2012	29	7800	7401	601	2989	2989	0
BAKKEN	8-2012	31	14543	15127	1840	5549	5549	0
BAKKEN	7-2012	31	17745	17394	2471	6145	6145	0
BAKKEN	6-2012	30	16080	16151	2470	7776	7776	0
BAKKEN	5-2012	31	13677	14748	1630	5881	5881	0
BAKKEN	4-2012	30	13945	12712	1535	4587	4587	0
BAKKEN	3-2012	31	17557	18302	2094	4786	4786	0
BAKKEN	2-2012	29	19565	19383	2137	7613	0	7613
BAKKEN	1-2012	30	22302	22341	2345	7606	0	7606
BAKKEN	12-2011	31	25961	25986	3161	9140	0	9140
BAKKEN	11-2011	30	30588	30584	3853	9816	0	9816
BAKKEN	10-2011	14	33295	32577	13622	14282	0	14282
BAKKEN	9-2011	28	11659	12051	3802	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2011	14	9904	9322	25	4504	0	4504

Hyatt House To Open in Minot This Spring

Link here to Minot Daily News.

• 130 suites
• upscale
• only Hyatt House in North Dakota
• 30 motels/hotels in Minot now
• twelve have opened in past twelve months; the Hyatt House is the twelfth
• two more motels/hotels under construction in Minot

Calling All Faux Environmentalists: A Bakken Story

Updates

Later, 12:03 pm est: someone just pointed out that this 60-football-field-long waste pit could be a landing site for migratory birds. Two comments: this is a solid waste landfill so this won't be a problem for birds, but if I'm wrong, the promoter should erect one wind turbine and call it a wind farm: wind farms have 100% immunity when slicing and dicing migratory birds. For oil companies, one dead duck is a criminal act. Daffy.

Original Post

Link to The Dickinson Press.

Billings County could be home to an oil field special waste landfill site that could house a waste pit the equivalent size of about 60 football fields by spring.

The 145-acre landfill site, which would be located north of Fairfield, would be one of a handful of oil field special waste sites in North Dakota, though more are in the planning stages.

Billings County officials approved plans for the landfill site, contingent upon North Dakota Department of Heath clearance, last year. A public hearing is tentatively scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Jan. 15 at the Medora Community Center.

If there is not “sufficient public interest” in having a hearing brought forth by Friday, however, a hearing will not be conducted, according to a public notice.

“As of right now, we haven’t had anybody come forward with any concerns,” DH Division of Waste Management director Scott Radig said. “If there is no hearing, people can also send in written comments on the proposal until Jan. 26.”

Something tells me no one knew about it until now. Calling for all faux environmentalists to show up. See flash mob. Now. Beforeitstoolate.

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Speaking of faux environmentalists, why does this story not surprise me. The faux-environmentalist-in-chief "Cash for Clunkers" program actually harmed the environment. And so it goes.

First Russia, Now China: Coldest Winter in Decades; Forecasts For That One Degree Rise in Global Temperature Over The Next Century Look a Bit Shaky Right Now

Link here to the AP News.

The data just keeps coming in.

China is experiencing unusual chills this winter with its national average temperature hitting the lowest in 28 years, and snow and ice have closed highways, canceled flights, stranded tourists and knocked out power in several provinces.

China Meteorological Administration on Friday said the national average was -3.8 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit) since late November, the coldest in nearly three decades.

Russia, too, is experiencing its coldest winter in seventy years.

Alaska is going rogue, also, with coldest winter in two decades.

The forecast for a one degree rise in global temperatures over the next century looks a bit shaky right now.

Beating A Dead Horse -- Parsing One Paragraph In One Story -- Nothing About the Bakken

First, the "cut and paste" from an earlier post this morning:

Op-ed: The Kyoto Scorecard. The UN's anti-carbon scheme didn't work out as planned. Well, duh. Did you know that The Kyoto Protocol expired four or five days ago, on January 1, 2013? Expired. As in dead.

Now, from another source: what happens when the Kyoto protocol expires? This paragraph caught my attention:

Of the 37 developed nations, one never ratified it. Ratification makes a country legally bound to the commitment it made when it signed the document. That one country is the United States, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. But many countries that did make commitments are failing to live up to them.

That paragraph failed to note:

• the one country that failed to sign the protocol, lived up to the intent of the signatories
• Canada withdrew, after being one of the earlier signers of the protocol
• China and India, huge CO2 emitters, were given a pass; no requirement to cut emissions
• the US and Germany were the only two major industrial countries to decrease their emissions
• repeat: the US decreased its emissions
• US CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low; the US saw an 8% drop q/q in the first quarter 2012 (NY Times)

 But I was surprised. I was not aware that the Kyoto Protocol expired in 2012.