new permits --
- Operators: OXY USA (2), Statoil (2), EOG (2), Corinthian Exploration
- Fields: Willmen (Dunn), North Souris (Bottineau), Alexander (McKenzie), Parshall (Mountrail)
- Comments: Nice to see OXY USA is still drilling in the Bakken.
The rule proposed Thursday relies on an online database used by Colorado and 10 other states to track the chemicals used in fracking operations. FracFocus.org is a website formed by industry and intergovernmental groups in 2011 that allows users to gather well-specific data on thousands of sites.Perfect.
US Interior expected to release new version of fracking rule for federal and Indian lands at 3 p.m. EDT.No link provided.
More Americans than projected filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, which may raise concern the slowdown in economic growth is prompting an increase in firings.
Jobless claims jumped by 32,000 to 360,000 in the week ended May 11, exceeding all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists and the most since the end of March, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. A Labor Department spokesman said no state provided information explaining the surge in applications which was the biggest since the aftermath of superstorm Sandy in November.
Job dismissals need to keep declining to lay the ground for a pickup in hiring once companies see growth in sales. The lack of bigger gains in employment, at a time Americans are faced with a higher payroll tax, will make it harder for households to sustain spending, the biggest part of the economy.This confirms my feeling that despite occasional good stories regarding jobs, overall things are not good. Horrible might not be too strong a word.
Enbridge Energy Partners said it may be forced to shut down an 80,000 bopd oil-loading rail terminal in North Dakota unless the amount of potentially deadly hydrogen sulfide in crude oil delivered to the facility can be reduced.
Last week, Enbridge asked for a ruling in one day from the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to restrict the amount of hydrogen sulfide in the delivered crude. That request came after a very large concentration of the gas was discovered in a tank at Berthold, North Dakota, on May 5.I track CBR terminals here.
Retailers including Inc. and clothing manufacturers like Carhartt Inc. say they are seeing an increased demand for sturdy shoes and fire-resistant clothing that oil and gas workers can wear to protect themselves from fires and explosions.
The appetite for fracking gear is leading clothes makers to send research and development teams to consult with oil-field workers in Texas and North Dakota, in the same way Nike Inc. taps elite athletes to test out its track shoes and football cleats.
VF Corp., the maker of Timberland boots, Wrangler jeans and North Face jackets, says it is pulling research teams from malls and placing them alongside workers in muddy oil fields. Their task: Figuring out how to turn the historically firefighter-like gear into lighter, more breathable clothing.
"It's deep consumer ethnography," said Steve Rendle, VF's president of outdoor and action sports.Also:
The U.S. military has also played a role in the safe-clothing expansion by pushing U.S. textile mills to create flame-resistant fabrics cool enough that soldiers can wear them in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. In turn, the textile mills plunged the research and technology into fabrics they make for frackwear manufacturers.When I was up there -- a long time ago, now -- it was Carhartt at Home of Economy. I can't imagine anything other than Carhartt for cold North Dakota winters.
Companies' pursuit of "big data"—collecting and crunching ever larger amounts of information—is often thought of as another way to figure out exactly what customers want. But big data is also a means of measuring millions of little things in factories, such as how many times each screw is turned.That is what Raytheon Co. is doing at a new missile plant in Huntsville, Ala. If a screw is supposed to be turned 13 times after it is inserted but is instead turned only 12 times, an error message flashes and production of the missile or component halts, says Randy Stevenson, a missile-systems executive at Raytheon. Improvising with a defective screw or the wrong size screw isn't an option, he says. "It's either right or it's not right."
Deming is probably turning in his grave; he was doing this in Japan after WWII. Jack Welch six sigma over at GE has probably been doing this for awhile also.