Sven -- Welcome Back!

Be sure to catch Sven's blog. Exactly what I love to read; travel notes, brief, quick look.

I feel the same way when visiting big cities: very, very energizing, but I woudn't want to live there.

I don't know if folks remember my story of buying a 2012 Honda Civic in Williston because I was unable to get out of the city that late autumn in 2011 -- flooding stopped Amtrak in its tracks; impossible to catch a flight; got a great deal on a 2012 Honda Civic on 2nd Street West, Williston, and drove it back to Boston to see the granddaughters.

Sven bought himself an F-250 -- he must have gotten a great deal in Virginia!

Anyway, that blog and a couple others are linked at the sidebar at the right.

The Montana folks will like this, from Sven's rumor mill. 

Wells Coming Off Confidential List Over The Weekend, Monday; Baytex With Two Surprisingly Nice Wells; CLR With A Nice Well

Monday, July 29, 2013

• 21820, 83, Legacy, Legacy Et Al Berge 13-6H, North Souris, t3/13, cum 3K 5/13;
• 24071, 349, Whiting, Oukrop 34-34PH, St Anthony, t2/13; cum 14K 5/13;
• 24246, drl, BR, CCU Meriwether 14-19TFH, Corral Creek, no data,
• 24638, 1,592, XTO, Emma 31X-30D, Alkali Creek, t6/13; cum --
• 24834, 214, CLR, Durham 3X-2H, North Tobacco Garden, t5/13; cum 16K 5/13;

Sunday, July 28, 2013

• 23214, 784, Whiting, Froehlich 21-13PH, Zenith, t2/13; cum 25K 5/13;
• 23407, 746, Baytex, Marilyn Nelson 20-17-162-98H 1XB, Blooming Prairie, t1/13; cum 65K 5/13;
• 23409, 625, Baytex, Burton Olson 28-33-162-98H 1XP, Whiteaker, t1/13; cum 51K 5/13;
• 23921, 432, Samson Resources, Border Farms 3130-5TFH, West Ambrose, t5/13; cum 10K 5/13;
• 24085, drl, Statoil, Sax 25-36 3H, Banks, no data,
• 24503, drl, Hess, BB-State 151-96-3625H-2, Blue Buttes, no data, 

Saturday, July 27, 2013

• 22991, 1,056, Zenergy, Reidle 18-7HTF, Nohly Lake, t5/13; cum 6K 5/13;
• 23555, drl, HRC Operating, Fort Berthold 152-94-14D-11-3H, Antelope, no data,
• 23663, drl, CLR, Zimmerman 2-13H, Stoneview, no data,
• 24033, drl, CLR, Dover 2-30H, Dollar Joe, no data,
• 24316, 394, MRO, Hopkins USA 15-2H, McGregory Buttes, t3/13; ;cum 12K 5/13;

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

24834, see above, CLR, Durham 3X-2H, North Tobacco Garden:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
5-2013	12422	20331
4-2013	2948	5750

23214, see above, Whiting, Froehlich 21-13PH, Zenith:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
5-2013	4968	4067
4-2013	6358	5439
3-2013	3548	3482
2-2013	10292	8448

23407, see above, Baytex, Marilyn Nelson 20-17-162-98H 1XB, Blooming Prairie:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
5-2013	6734	0
4-2013	6403	0
3-2013	7165	0
2-2013	12844	0
1-2013	19068	0

 23409, see above, Baytex, Burton Olson 28-33-162-98H 1XP, Whiteaker:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
5-2013	3413	0
4-2013	7248	0
3-2013	8494	0
2-2013	12369	0
1-2013	12728	0

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

Notes To The Granddaughters

A Japanese-style summer vacation. -- The WSJ

May and I have moved fifteen times since 1977 when I started my post-graduate training, the same year we were married. I guess the average works out to two or three years at each address; the shortest time at one address was 10 months in Frankfurt (Rhein-Main AB), Germany. I believe the longest was four years at Bitburg AB, Germany.  Our time in San Antonio would be the longest, but we moved three times in the San Antonio area.

Many of those moves were overseas (Germany, England, Turkey, and Alabama).

We are now settled, or settling, I hope into our last address, somewhere northwest of Dallas, almost within walking distance of DFW airport.

It is a small apartment. Graham Greene might have described it in Heart of the Matter:

"The main room -- thirty by twelve -- to a stranger would have appeared a bare uncomfortable room but to Scobie it was home. Other men slowly build up the sense of home by accumulation … Scobie built his home by a process of reduction."   -- Graham Greene, Heart of the Matter, p. 91 (in my copy)

I am surrounded by books, but that is about all that separates me from Scobie, I suppose, in terms of tangibles (oh, yes, three bicycles, and Apple computers and an iPad).

I re-read a lot of my books, or at least portions of them. I keep coming back to some of the same ones. I never tire of the editor's note introducing Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, Volume II, 1968 - 1976.

It is difficult to find one paragraph from that introductory note to capture HST, but for now, this will have to do:

"As critic Richard Elman noted in The New Republic, Thompson was asserting "a kind of Rimbaud delirium of spirit" in his writing, which "only the rarest of geniuses" could pull off. Such well-known American chroniclers as Studs Terkel, Tom Wolfe, William Kennedy, and Charles Kuralt were the first reporters to recognize that Thompson was a masterful prose stylist, imbued with a strange gift for comic despair and sledgehammer humor. They saw him as a hilarious schemer, an attack dog like H. L.Mencken, an outrageous outsider like novelist J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfied. Meanwhile, mainstream editors also learned to respect Thompson's well-honed instinct for accurately reporting on the fringe characters of the tumultuous 1960s." -- p. xv in the book noted above.

I write these notes to remind myself of the literature I will be studying with my granddaughters during our summer school. With the little time left this summer, we will be studying electronics, molecular biology, astronomy, ornithology, geometry and trigonometry, and "history" of literature.

We do about ten minutes of each subject, mostly just introducing the words, the language, the names, some concepts. Gradually, over time, as they develop an agenda, we will increase the amount of time per subject, but fewer subjects each day. See linked story above. My wife is one-half Japanese; one-half Hispanic, so the granddaughters can claim some Japanese ancestry.

By 10:00 a.m. before the day is really beginning we get everything done, and then we can explore our surroundings. They flew into Dallas for the first time in their lives yesterday; last night was their first night in their new home in Texas. We have a lot of exploring to do. Maybe we can start with the Texas Motor Speedway; the speedway is thirty minutes to the west.

US Temps Will Be 20 Degrees Than Usual -- Not Reported In Mainstream Media

A record (?) low temperature was set at Indianapolis today during the NASCAR race -- it if didn't set a record low, it was awful close. Not reported in mainstream media; one has to really look for these things when Mother Nature refuses to follow the script.

MailOnline is reporting: What happened to the heatwave? Temperatures will drop 20 degrees below July averages.

Many Americans are reaching for their jackets less than a week after a sweltering heat wave pushed temperatures to record highs, as a cold front sweeps across the country that's expected to last up to two weeks.

The cooler weather, which will sink temperatures between 5 and 20 degrees lower than July averages, will primarily affect the Upper Midwest, causing thunderstorms from Michigan to Illinois to eastern Missouri on Friday. Temperatures on Friday will average 75 degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago, 70 degrees in Boston and 86 degrees in Charlotte, N.C. Saturday looks to be a little cooler than Friday.

I assume the president has a global warming speech he will be giving this next week. Timing is everything.

But don't let the facts stand in your way. Congress just approved new "stronger-than-ever" EPA head, Ms McCarthy, reported in today's New York Times: 

The president told Ms. McCarthy that his environmental and presidential legacy would be incomplete without a serious effort to address climate change.

“I’m so glad he said that, because if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have wanted this job,” she said. “It’s an issue I’ve worked on for so many years, and it just can’t wait.”

Mr. Obama’s decision to nominate Ms. McCarthy, 59, was an act of defiance to Congressional and industry opponents of meaningful action on climate change. It was also a sign of his determination to at least begin to put in place rules to reduce carbon pollution. 

Ms. McCarthy, an earthy, tough-talking New Englander who drew criticism as the head of the agency’s air and radiation office during Mr. Obama’s first term, then ticked off a list of controversial air pollution regulations she had helped write: tough greenhouse gas standards for vehicles, a tighter ozone limit that the White House rejected, the first rule on mercury emissions from power plants, and a regulation on smokestack pollution that crosses state lines, which has been blocked by a federal court. She warned that earning confirmation from the Senate might be difficult and that safer choices were available.  

So, if you like in-your-face politics, it should be a rewarding three years.

Are They Kidding?

I don't know if folks remember that Great Britain came within six hours of literally running out of natural gas this past winter -- had the country run out of natural gas during that freezing spell, it would have been devastating.

It looks like Germany and France may be facing the same thing this winter. I don't know about anyone else, but I find this incredible, considering the relative glut of natural gas in this country.

Reuters is reporting:

Germany's largest gas grid company, Open Grid Europe, warned customers on Friday that Europe could face a gas supply crunch this winter if storage sites are not filled more quickly.

The German grid operator, which makes money from traders transporting storage gas through its pipelines, echoed a warning made by its French counterpart last week. "If an extremely cold snap then occurs again (...) one cannot rule out the possibility of supply restrictions occurring," Open Grid Europe said in a letter to customers.

Gas storage levels across Europe are currently around 20 percent below the same time last year, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data, following a drawn-out cold winter which depleted Europe's storage tanks.

Open Grid Europe was last year sold by Germany's largest utility E.ON to a consortium led by Australian bank Macquarie.

Its French counterpart, GRTgaz gave a similar warning last week, saying a winter gas supply problem would affect consumers across Europe. The French grid operator is majority owned by utility GDF Suez.

Analysts blew off the warnings. 

Off The Net Until Later This Evening

... if I made any typographical errors, factual errors, arithmetic errors, etc., I will correct them later.

As I say in my "welcome" and "disclaimer" if something I post doesn't look right, it probably is not right. I make a lot of mistakes. That's why I try to link everything on which I comment. I advise folks to read the links and not read what I write. I write for my own benefit to a) make sure I truly read the articles and not just skim through them; and, b) to help me remember what was written.

The links are all important. The comments are worth .... whatever.

But off to see NASCAR.

Good luck to all.

OOIP, Recovery Rates -- Legacy's Data

This all goes back to the discussion that was started with regard to recovery rates, what naysayers were saying, what the industry in general was saying, and what Whiting was reporting.  I think some of the recovery-rate data fed to us in the past was being low-balled by different folks, all with different agendas.

Don sent me the link to Legacy's corporate presentation and directed me to slide #37.

I don't have the notes to that slide (nor the narrative, obviously), and it is beyond my expertise, but if I understand the slide, here is what I see:

Legacy's working interest in their Spearfish play in southern Saskatchewan/northern North Dakota:

OOIP: 494,953 mbbls
Recoverable:

• 27,539 (low estimate) - 5.6%
• 39,556 (best estimate) - 8.0%
• 60,978 (high estimate)  - 12.3%

Legacy's working interest in their Bakken play in southern Saskatchewan/northern North Dakota:

OOIP: 240,052 mboe
Recoverable:

• 18,417 (low estimate) - 7.7%
• 36,412 (best estimate) - 15% (no typo -- checked twice)
• 54,355 (high estimate)  - 22.6% (ditto)

There are some other interesting data points at that presentation but they will have to wait. I'm on my way to the Sports Bar to watch NASCAR.

Good luck to all.

Grasping For Straws, They Never Give Up

For some very odd reason, this story made the front page of the Los Angeles Times today:

One year ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finished testing drinking water in Dimock, PA, after years of complaints by residents who suspected that nearby natural gas production had fouled their wells. The EPA said that for nearly all the 64 homes whose wells it sampled, the water was safe to drink.

Yet as the regulator moved to close its investigation, the staff at the mid-Atlantic EPA office in Philadelphia, which had been sampling the Dimock water, argued for continuing the assessment.

The article then goes on to summarize three cases (Dimock, PA; Wyoming; and, Texas) -- all of which were closed by the EPA. 

So, what gives?

"Someone" refuses to let these stories die. If the story was about UFOs, these would be considered "conspiracy theory stories" and written off as "junk science."

But folks are not wasting their time with "conspiracy theories" and "junk science" when it comes to fracking. Something else is needed to explain this.

My hunch: there is some big money behind this movement (conspiracy theory, yes, I know; LOL). Most likely: big money in the form of campaign contributions for politicians and/or political movements. Some speaker who gets $50,000/speech needed an "LA Times" story to give some credibility to his speeches; some rationale for his speaking fee. In the case of researchers, they need federal grant money to survive. My hunch is this article will be attached to the boiler plate application Mr Jackson will use to request more federal money for more "research." It would not surprise me at all if this front page story began as a press release. The whole story does not ring true.

But this is the good news:

• after literally decades of drilling and fracking, and tens of thousands of fracked wells, the conspiracty theorists can only come up with three "controversial" wells, and two of them are non-stories; the EPA officially closed all three
• even if there was an iota of truth, it sounds like the ppm is so low as to be unmeasurable, and perhaps less than what nature puts there (don't quote me out of context)
• so many untruths (the biggest of course when it is stated that methane does not naturally occur in water -- it does)
• not one of these three wells was in the Bakken or the Eagle Ford
• every alledged "problem" was actually a drilling/casing problem and NOT a fracking problem; folks are confusing drilling with fracking.

Literally grasping at straws.

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

I need a bit of music to rest my soul --

Yellow River, Christie

Way Off Topic

A reader wrote to ask me what my experience has been, or the experience of others, with regard to cellular providers asking for more personal information ever since the NSA story broke.

Specifically, while at Best Buy, the reader tells me he was eligible for a fairly substantial mail-in rebate for a Samsung smart phone. To get the mail-in rebate, he had to provide some identifying data like his/her name, and an address where to send the check.

Okay.

But then, the form also asked for height and weight. Huh?

The Best Buy clerk said that a fingerprint would also be needed.

The reader said he was being asked this information so that Best Buy could truly verify that he was who he said he was when requesting the rebate.

I trust my readers. But this sounds beyond the pale. (For newbies, I will provide the etymology for "beyond the pale" if anyone asks.)

Can anyone verify that Best Buy is, in fact, asking for height, weight, finger print, etc, when completing a mail-in rebate for a smart phone?

If accurate, the NSA/Best Buy requires more identification when buying a phone than when voting.

Poll: Which Would You Prefer? Sand, Ceramics, Or A Mixture

Before responding to this poll, please read this post or go directly to Mike's article at SeekingAlpha.

The poll asks a simple question: if "your" Bakken operator was going to drill "your" well, and you could offer advice, would you want the well completed (fracked) with:

• all sand
• all ceramics
• a mixture

Poll: Which Is Your "Favorite" Bakken Operator

I am leaving up the current poll until the end of next week, asking about the number of active rigs.

However, per a suggestion from a reader, I'm going to try to do something new. It will be difficult. It would be best for folks to reply with comments explaining their choice.

Over the next few weeks, I will be asking which Bakken operator readers "like." I am not talking about any specific reason for like a Bakken operator. Some readers are mineral owners (I am not); some are surface owners (I am not); some are both. Some readers are investors in Bakken operators through the stock market (I am). Some dislike the oil industry; some love the oil industry (I love the oil industry).

I will be asking the question different ways, and I will be adjusting the response choices based on comments and poll results.

I don't know if this will work. It might get too confusing. But we will see where it goes.

So, the first poll in this series, very generic: which is your favorite "Bakken" operator: BEXP (STO), CLR, EOG, Hess, or Whiting.

After a period of time, I will take the top two or three and ask the question again, adding two more Bakken operators, and so on, and so on.

Starbucks: More Than 10% Of Transactions Done With "The" Phone

I post a lot of stories about Startucks.

This was from November 5, 2012, why I switched to Starbucks.  

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. I do not invest in Starbucks, never have, never will. But I love the company.

With that linked article as prologue, here's an update:

Mr. Brotman said Starbucks passed the 4-million-follower mark on Twitter earlier this month, and now more than 10% of its transactions in the U.S. are made with a phone. Starbucks’s loyalty cards in North America booked 30% year-over-year growth in dollars loaded. And Starbucks is installing wireless charging mats in more stores, its next big step in technological advancement.

Starbucks welcomes the mobile device user. McDonald's does not.

The Gap Will Widen

Updates

July 31, 2013: Yes, the gap has widened. An inconvenient truth.


Later, 10:35 CDT: wow. It just keeps getting better. I forgot how I got started on "the gap will widen."

Oh, that's right -- about divesting one's portfolio of XOM. After posting that subject line, "the gap will widen," it appears that is the White House talking point for the week. Wow. The gap will widen. Wait until they grant amnesty to 11 million Americans who are allegedly here illegally. Wait until more workers are moved from full-time work to part-time work due to ObamaCare.

The New York Times is taking up the White House talking points:

For decades after, Mr. Obama said, in places like Galesburg people “who wanted to find a job — they could go get a job.”

“They could go get it at the Maytag plant,” he said. “They could go get it with the railroad. It might be hard work, it might be tough work, but they could buy a house with it.” 

But now with ObamaCare, he could have added, Maytag won't be hiring, and the railroads won't be hiring. And if they do hire, they will do so with temps and part-time worker. Remember: the second largest employer, behind Wal-Mart, in the US is Kelly Services, a temporary work provider. 

It is very, very possible that with a new man / woman at the Fed, Obama can change course on ObamaCare and delay the individual mandate for one year. He has delayed the corporate mandate; he had to do that early so corporations could plan. But there is more time with the individual mandate. Enrollment starts in October, but penalties won't be assessed until next year, April 15, 2014, and even then the penalties are inconsequential. The decision to delay the individual mandate will be entirely political, not economic.

Moments later: it is absolutely amazing. I posted the note below just minutes ago. Returning to my mail, I received a link to this story: the gap is widening in The StarTribune: 

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

This is such an "important" story or such a "huge" story, the AP calls this an "exclusive." Wow. One has to have lived under a Geico rock not to have surmised this. And guys like McKibben are hoping to widen that gap: telling folks to divest of their very safe, high-yielding, value (and some growth) companies just to "feel good." 

Yes, the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" will widen. Cue up Connie Francis.

McKibben reminds me of Coleman Young. Devil's night.

Separately, the linked article spends a lot of time on Irene's plight. Read the story again, and then consider whether Irene's plight will be better or worse when 11 million "Americans" here allegedly illegally are given amnesty overnight. Just asking. 

Original Post

 

Bloomberg is reporting:

Activist Bill McKibben, who helped turn an obscure oil pipeline project into a high-profile political fight, has a new target for his effort to curb global warming: energy companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. 

McKibben’s group, 350.org, is asking colleges, cities and churches to divest their financial holdings from a group of 200 companies that produce coal, oil or natural gas. So far six schools, 16 cities and 11 religious institutions have agreed to divest from those companies, according to his group.

“We know we can’t bankrupt Exxon,” McKibben said in a meeting with Bloomberg News in Washington. “But we think we can politically bankrupt them.”

McKibben’s group has modeled its campaign after the 1980s divestment effort aimed at companies working with the apartheid regime in South Africa. Unless these companies can be persuaded to leave 80 percent of the available fossil fuels in the ground, climate change will proceed at a pace that would be catastrophic for the planet, they say.

I think "power" has gone to his head (Keystone XL and now XOM). This is his problem. He was making money off his "stop Keystone" movement. Now that that movement is dead one way or the other, he had to come up with something else.

I believe there have been groups in the past who recommended divesting XOM, etc.

As one reader would say, "fool's errand." These church groups, universities, and feel-good investors are going to divest themselves of some good companies.

I wonder where they came up with the "leave 80% of their fossil fuels in the ground" statistic. 80%. Why not 90%. Why not 65%. What science did they use to come up with such a nice round number of 80%. 

For me, I will stick with XOM. The gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" will widen. I'm sticking with the "haves."

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

Going Rogue -- Nothing To Do With The Bakken

I am in the mood to post today without much filtering. Earlier I posted my reaction to a Mike Filloon article in an essay that was not ready for prime time.

Here's another post, not ready for prime time, and even worse, nothing to do with the Bakken.

I do not have television (which reminds me, memo to self -- Sports Bar, NASCAR this afternoon) so I don't see the news, etc., but a reader sent me this note:

Treasury Sec LEW was on NBC "Meet The Press" 15 minutes ago. Gregory was commenting on how many jobs President Obama had created (none). Mr Lew became very defensive when the reporter pushed back on the fact of NO work....

This was my reply:

Maybe the mainstream media will finally go after this: jobs are not coming back. And it's not all Mr Obama's fault.

Under the best of circumstances, a lot of jobs won't be coming back (technology and all the other usual reasons and arguments). But mainstream media is missing the BIG STORY:

There is a new 800-lb gorilla in the very small living room: OBAMACARE.

If employers were looking at reasons to cut hours and employees, they now have an even more urgent reason: OBAMACARE.

Whether one supports the president or not, whether ObamaCare is the socially right thing to do or not, whether ObamaCare will work or won't work, no matter what side of the argument you fall on, the fact is: employers are not going to increase hiring with the Damocles sword of O'BamaScare hanging over their heads.

One can even argue that ObamaCare won't increase costs for the employee. That's not the issue. The issue is UNCERTAINTY. Employers don't know if costs will increase under ObamaCare .... my hunch is that most employers think costs will increase. (Wal-Mart may be ahead of this game if it follows through with its plans to "push" its employees off its health care program over to the Federal government. It is very, very likely, some of the bigger employers might actually save money. That's what the unions are concerned about. But I digress.)

The irony is that if the mainstream media even BEGINS to talk about this, it's the end of ObamaCare. And that's why the mainstream media -- especially MSNBC, NBC, and to a lesser extent, CBS, and ABC are afraid to go there. I didn't see the Mr Gregory and Mr Lew but it sounds like Mr Gregory did not even mention ObamaCare and jobs.

Ceramics

This post is not ready for prime time. It has not been edited (much). It has not been formatted (well). It may be way too early to post this article, but in keeping with the spirit of the mission statement of the blog (see "Wecome") I will post it:

This is an incredible article Mike Filloon has posted at SeekingAlpha. Mike is providing, incredibly, an amazing amount of analysis that many folks would charge "huge bucks" to provide.

I have not read the article ll the way through, and when I do, I will need to re-read it at least twice more.

This is a key paragraph:

The most pressing issue I have begun to see in horizontal applications within the United States are a switching to all sand fracs. From 2006 to 2008, operators had started using ceramic proppant leaseholds targeting formation deeper than 8000 feet. Due to the expense, many decided to use a mix of sand and ceramic proppant. In 2010 and 2011, wells were using sixty to seventy percent sand and the remainder in ceramic proppant. Newer frac technologies are beginning to stimulate the source rock with shorter, wider fractures. It was initially thought a well would perform better with long thin fracs. The idea was to reach as deep into the formation as possible trying to connect with natural fracturing increasing the flow of overall resource. The shorter, wider fractures have brought about a different mix of proppant. EOG Resources was the first to successfully use this tech. By focusing the hydraulic horsepower closer to the well bore, the shale is pulverized. Greater surface area is fracced, and in turn needs larger volumes of proppant. More importantly, these wells use no ceramic proppant.

Here are just a few of the story lines:

1. Mike Filloon seems somewhat surprised by this switch to all sand. He may or may not be surprised; it does not matter. I am surprised, and I would bet that half the industry is surprised.

2. Mike was one of the first, outside the industry, to note that EOG  was going all out with huge amounts of proppant and water -- much more than ever previously used -- but Mike did not say much about whether all sand, half-half, or all ceramics was the best.

3. I don't know if readers recall, but when QEP bought HELIS, QEP said it was going to go to ALL-SAND fracks. I don't know if they did. At that time, there were a lot of articles discussing sand vs ceramics. Regular readers will remember all that. I did not follow up on QEP to see if they stuck to their word, about using all sand.  Somewhere at the link below, there might be more of the discussion (I will continue to look for the exact post that mentioned QEP and all-sand -- it was in a earnings transcript by QEP or a transcript in which QEP talked about their Helis acquisition).

http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-you-will-be-discussing-friday.html

4. Now, with regard to investing in Carbo Ceramics, this article would make me nervous. If it turns out that new methods work, and sand is just as good (or better) than ceramics, that's a huge, huge story. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or what you think you might have read here.

5. The best story line, of course, is this: the operators are not sitting around, resting on their laurels. They continue to experiment, looking for the best method to complete a well. They have come a long way in the drilling aspect: reaching total depth in less than 20 days (when the Bakken started, 60 days); pad drilling, which saves all kinds of time; bigger, more powerful rigs; and, they will continue to work on the drilling.

But it's the completion technique, fracking, that will get most of their attention right now.

This was a very, very good article.