Saturday, November 16, 2013

Sven's Reading List

On the sidebar at the right, I have linked a handful of blogs that, for some reason or another, have caught my interest. I don't want to forget to check in on them once in awhile, so I keep them at the sidebar. I used to have a much longer list but in an effort to shorten the sidebar, I have minimized the "blog list." Two of the blogs are by folks living and working in western North Dakota.

Tonight, I happened to take a bit of time to look at Sven's reading list. The list is very, very eclectic. His list reminds me of my early library of about 30 books that I read during short periods of "temporary duty" to a remote air base in northern England over the course of four years.

I am very, very impressed with Sven's list. There are some challenging books on that list, particularly the Russian novels, that I have in my library. Although I have often wanted to start reading them, I've never had "whatever it takes" to actually get started.

Interestingly, there are some books on Sven's list that are also in my library, and books that I put near the top of my reading list, to include:
  • Beowulf (a different translation than the one Sven has)
  • The Sagas of the Icelanders (one of my favorites)
  • The Sorrows of Young Werther -- Goethe (how this ended up on both our lists, I have no idea)
  • Asimov's Guide to the Bible
  • The Hidden Reality -- Brian Greene (actually I have a different book by this author)
It is very likely I would not have posted this note had it not been for this book on his list:
  • Better Living Through Plastic Explosives – Zsuzsi Gartner
That one caught my interest. I will definitely have to obtain a copy. I hate to pay full price, so I will see if "Half-Price Books" has a copy before ordering from Amazon.com. Check out the reviews at Amazon.com to see what this book is all about.  Something tells me it would fit right in there with the Russian novels, though much shorter and much easier to read.

CarpeDiem Provides Update Of Bakken Production In North Dakota

Link here to Carpe Diem.

Two data points from the linked article:
  • The Bakken region in western North Dakota produced more than 800,000 bpd in September for the third straight month, and established a new all-time monthly output record of 867,242 bpd, which represented a new record-high 93.0% of the state’s monthly oil production. In contrast, the Bakken region produced less than 9% of the state’s oil output at the beginning of 2007, before breakthrough drilling techniques (hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling) were able to tap into a bonanza of unconventional oil in the shale-rich areas of western North Dakota.
  • North Dakota’s natural gas output in September increased 33% from a year earlier to exceed 30 billion cubic feet of production for the third month in a row, and established a new monthly record high at 31.81 billion cubic feet. Amazingly, natural gas output in the Peace Garden state has more doubled in less than two years, from 15.78 billion cubic feet in November of 2011 to more than 31 billion cubic feet in September this year, which represents an increase of 101.6% in just 22 months.

For Investors Only: It Looks Like Warren Buffett Wasn't The Only One Buying Oil And Gas This Past Quarter

John Vincent over at SeekingAlpha provides a quarterly update of changes in George Soros' portfolio.

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. 

This is only a partial listing. There may be typographic errors. There are definitely omissions. For complete listing, go to the linked article:

George Soros took new positions in:
  • Schlumberger
  • Halliburton
  • Microsoft
  • FedEx
George Soros closed out positions in:
  • Delta Airlines
  • United Continental
  • NRG Energy
George Soros increased his stakes in:
  • Chevron
  • Baker Hughes
  • Energen
George Soros decreased his stakes in:
  • JC Penney
  • Google (a trading stock for Soros; history of "in and out")

How Big A Deal Is The Apple iPad? Yes, It's A Bakken Story

Platts is reporting:
If [the American Airlines-US Airways merger]  had not been allowed to proceed, American likely would have aggressively added routes and flights in a bid to grow as big as United and Delta, but any sudden rise in fuel costs may have put American back into the bankruptcy court it is still trying to exit, sources said. 
It’s a perilous, cost-heavy industry that in total had lost money since the dawn of aviation until just a few years ago. Even now, US airlines can only tout profit margins of 2% or less.
Fuel buyers had expressed little doubt that the merger would be allowed to proceed, with some divestitures. But they said the industry was already doing all it could to contain fuel costs, from exchanging smaller planes for larger ones to rerouting into more efficient flight patterns.
How intense is the weight management / fuel use issue?

Look at this:
Simple weight-control measures like swapping heavy flight books for tablets [for example Apple iPads] are saving millions of dollars. “Those are real deals. It’s pretty significant dollar savings. And it reduces fuel demand,” the fuel buyer said.
If switching from heavy flight books to iPads can make that much difference, imagine what it means to Delta to own its own refinery running on Bakken crude selling at $15 discount to the US benchmark.

[Update: see first comment -- there is so much in that first comment, I have brought it up here to the post itself. Comments are not generally "searchable" through search engines. And some readers may not read comments. Here is that first comment:
I fly for the first airline to adopt the iPad.
The cost saving in fuel were not just to eliminate two 35 pound flight bags but also included several other savings.
Compliance with publication currency was an issue during FAA inspections. Now there are just two buttons that need to be selected and a wi-fi connection that will up date company manuals and flight charts.
Previously, updates were done manually and involved adding and deleting a couple thousand pages annually. Additionally, there is the issue worker comp claims, every year several pilots would injure their backs from placing their 35 pound flight bag in the cockpit which involves a bending, twisting and reaching motion. Lastly, there is the additional benefit of remote training. We have eliminated two days of annual ground school that can now be done on the iPad. We still get paid but having remote training has other cost savings to the company.
All of the above savings are part of a “green effort” by the company which reduces paper usage. Besides the paper saving related to manuals each flight generates about 30 to 40 pages of paper, (flight plans, weather, weight and balance, passenger loads) this can now be pushed to the iPad or other tablet device. For compliance each item is given an electronic stamp of what was sent and time received and the document is retained on the sending server.
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For the airlines: tracking every last drop of aviation fuel. (A pdf file).  Note the iPad in the presentation. (Don sent me the PDF.)

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TabTimes is reporting, April 30, 2013:
All 16,000 of American’s crew members worldwide have been given Galaxy Notes. “We’re the first airline to give a tablet to every single crew member,” said O’Keeffe.
The other American “first” goes back to the iPad. American got on the iPad bandwagon early and has since, in partnership with Apple, lobbied the FAA for broader use in flight.
More at idownloadblog.com, June 25, 2013:
American Airlines is now using Apple’s iPad in all its flights, the tablet replacing millions of pages and pounds of documents pilots previously had to carry into the cockpit. In a Monday announcement, the airline said switching to the tablet will save the company more than $1 million in fuel costs every year.
In addition,
... American Eagle will become the first regional airline to adopt the iPad flight bags starting July 10.

Update On The Sandpiper

Duluth News Tribune is reporting:
Enbridge Energy officials said Tuesday that they want to drop part of a proposed new pipeline route in Carlton County that had farmers and rural residents upset.
Company officials said they will ask the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to consider a revised route for about 1.5 miles of the proposed Sandpiper pipeline that would have crossed undisturbed farm and woods in Carlton County.
Enbridge wants the PUC to consider a new alignment that will follow existing pipelines and then follow electric and gas-utility corridors for that portion of the pipeline.
The news came after the Carlton County Board voted 4-0 Tuesday morning to ask the PUC to back existing utility lines as state regulators consider approving the proposed pipeline and where it will go.
A reminder: Enbridge is getting ready to announce the "open season" on the Sandpiper.

Update On Pricing; Bakken Crude Trading At Almost $15 Under US Benchmarks

It's frustrating that Bloomberg quit posting Bakken spot some time ago. I still have the link on my "data links" page, but the data is no longer there. One can get it by subscription.

But, occasionally one finds an update. Clearbrook Newswire is reporting:
Oil production in North Dakota, home to the giant Bakken shale oil formation, rose to 932,000 barrels per a day (bpd) in September, data from the state's Department of Mineral Resources showed on Friday.
Bakken crude at the Clearbrook, Minnesota, hub traded at $13.75 under the benchmark U.S. crude futures on Friday.

So, if NYMEX/WTI was trading for about $93.75 yesterday, I guess Bakken at Clearbrook was trading for $80.  
If one can find it, "Bakken spot" is the price at Clearbrook. There has been talk of a new "Bakken spot" in the Philadelphia area with the "new" refineries there taking Bakken crude (previously posted; reported by RBN Energy).

Here are the numbers for November 13, 2013:
Sweets:
  • Light Louisiana Sweet (LLS): $2.70 to $3.50 over the benchmarck (I assume NYMEX/WTI)
  • Heavy Louisiana Sweet (HLS): $3.15 over
  • West Texas Intermediate/Midland (WTM): $4.50 over
  • Bakken/Clearbrook: $13.50 under
Sours:
  • West Texas Sour (WTS)/Midland: $6 under
  • Mars sour (MRS): $2 under
  • Eugene Island sour (EUI): even
  • Bonito sour (BS): even
  • Southern Green Canyon sour (SGC): $5.50 under
  • Thunder Horse sour (THH): $1.40 over
Reuters also noted:
U.S. cash crude differentials did not receive a boost from the wider spread between Brent and U.S. crude futures. In recent years, the differentials, especially for LLS and other sweet grades on the Gulf Coast, would strengthen as Brent's premium to U.S. futures gained. Brent's premium to U.S. crude futures increased to $13.24 a barrel on Wednesday.
The US benchmark is determined at Cushing. The WTI-Bakken differential is the Cushing-Clearbrook differential.

Eleven (11) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

I was delayed in posting Friday's daily activity report due to a family outing last night.

Active rigs: 183

Eleven (11) new permits -- 
  • Operators: Slawson (4), Oasis (4), Whiting (2), Hunt
  • Fields: Tobacco Garden (McKenzie), Bully (McKenzie), Cottonwood (Mountrail), Ray (Williams), Sioux Trail (Divide), Sanish (Mountrail)
  • Comments:
Wells coming off the confidential list were reported earlier; see sidebar at the right.

Prima Exploration canceled two permits:
  • 19519, PNC, Prima, Gunnison 31-20H, Northeast Foothills, a Bakken permit, this permit first issued in 2010; renewed twice;
  • 19870, PNC, Prima, Gunnison 31-21H, Northeast Foothills, a Bakken permit, 
Also, Hess canceled three HA-Nelson wells. 

Keystone XL's Southern Leg: An Update; Not Good News

I thought the Keystone XL southern leg (Cushing to the gulf coast) was to be on-line the first week in November, but then I had not seen anything.

Finally, Platts has an update: the once-southern leg of Keystone XL won't be at 100% next year.
TransCanada’s Cushing, Oklahoma, to Port Arthur-Nederland, Texas, and Gulf Coast Pipeline project is expected to operate at an average of 550,000 b/d in 2014, despite having a capacity of 700,000 b/d. The line is the southern tail of the original Keystone XL proposal.
Alex Pourbaix, the President for Energy and Oil Pipelines at TransCanada, said in the company’s third quarter conference call that because of the relative newness of the line, it won’t be able to operate at full capacity initially. Officials also said though that a “significant majority” of the barrels that are going to be moving down the line were under contractual commitments, rather than being planned spot barrels.
TransCanada officials also said that the first oil from the Cushing-Port Arthur-Nederland pipeline would reach the Gulf Coast before the end of this year, but they’ve been saying that all along.
But then this shocker:
“So when TransCanada says they expect 2014 throughput to be about 550,000 b/d, there should be no surprises,” said a Gulf Coast refiner. “More surprising is that the Gulf Coast Pipeline project [another project in addition to the Keystone XL southern leg] is not fully subscribed.”
This helps explain the WTI-Bakken spread. 

Week 46: November 10, 2013 -- November 16, 2013

Operations
Another North Dakota Bakken record: oil production/rig
North Dakota Bakken to hit million-bopd milestone soon
Zavanna adding six new wells to one in Lone Creek; first well, Almost 200K in First Year
The Director's Cut; observations on the director's comments 
GMXR renews a permit in Stark County
A random look at a fairly busy location in the Bakken: Clear Creek
Propane and the Bakken -- RBN Energy
A closer look at early EOG wells; periods of production variability
A little bit of reminiscing: the early history of the Bakken
Update on QEP's plans in the Helis Grail

Economy
Fuddruckers opens in Williston; other Williston Wire stories
Sushi in Williston
Update on the reservation refinery

Miscellaneous
North Dakota second only to Australia: lignite reserves
Wind: largest North Dakota wind project to date approved
Vern Whitten Photography provides new photos
A new metric: bbls/$ spent on drilling
Baker Hughes to report well counts alongside rig counts
Bakken: we've not seen anything yet!
Richard Zeits on the Bakken

Book Review: Sydney And Violet, The Wall Street Journal

Wow, this is exceptional. I generally don't do this, but it's so nice to see. Awhile back I read the book and posted some notes on Sydney and Violet, by Stephen Klaidman, and provided a nice (?) review over at Amazon.com.

Today, this is one of the featured reviews in The Wall Street Journal.
There is no entry for Sydney Schiff in the Oxford Companion to English Literature; none either for his wife, Violet. Her elder sister, though, is remembered: Ada Leverson, author of half a dozen witty novels and the woman who bravely gave hospitality to Oscar Wilde between his trials and welcomed him when he was released from prison.
Yet the Schiffs were prominent figures in the London literary world between the wars, and Sydney's novels were well regarded in their time. The couple were friends of Marcel Proust, and, as Stephen Hudson, Sydney translated the last volume of "Remembrance of Things Past" into English. They also hosted the famous dinner in May 1922, at the Majestic Hotel in Paris, that marked the only meeting between Proust and James Joyce.
Reports of the conversation between the two are various, and all unreliable. But, according to Ford Madox Ford's fanciful version, they found common ground only in discussing their ailments.
It says something for the Schiffs' standing that they were able to organize such an occasion—other guests included Diaghilev, Stravinsky and Picasso. So who were they?
Both were rich. Both belonged to the Jewish haute bourgeoisie that had settled in London in the 19th century. Sydney (1868-1944) had known an aimless and unsatisfying life till he was 40, having been dispatched to America in 1887 after he refused to join the family merchant bank, failing to make good there and contracting an unhappy marriage to a woman who came soon to despise him and then cuckolded him. "I think I was born to be solitary," he wrote. Meeting Violet Beddington (1874-1962) in 1909 saved him from this fate. She was old to be still unmarried, but intelligent, musical and well read.
They seem to have fallen in love almost at once, but Violet insisted that they should not see each other till he had secured a divorce.  
I found it a very, very fascinating book. Highly recommend it for folks who are interested in this sort of thing.

Saturday: ObamaCare Spiraling Out Of Control; Constitutional Questions; Millions Lose Policies; Now -- Thousands Of Doctors Culled From Insurance Plans

The Wall Street Journal

In all my years of reading The Wall Street Journal I don't recall so many stories on one issue in the front section. I don't even recall this much coverage of some of the major military movements, such as the various wars in the Mideast.

With regard to the constitutional question: I think the GOP realizes that the president's popularity would rise if he took on the GOP in an impeachment challenge; let him use his own rope.

On a personal note, back on October 21, 2013, I was one of the first to blog/report/say that ObamaCare was in a death spiral. When I wrote that, I had a bit of concern that was a bit of hyperbole. In early November, I saw someone else say that ObamaCare had entered a death spiral. Now even Peggy Noonan says ObamaCare is in a death spiral. See linked article below. Even today, there are relatively few google hits for "ObamaCare 'death spiral'" at 283,000 (0.21 seconds). It will be interesting to track this metric. I will, if I remember.

This is the tsunami that will hit in late 2014, not yet being reported. I've blogged about it several times: businesses will cost-shift employees over to ObamaCare giving their employees a monthly stipend to, as Mr Obama said, "shop around. Look for a good health plan." Today in Starbucks, high end health plan -- an employee says he just received a letter that his monthly health care premium will increase 40%. He currently pays $300/month; his boss pays $600/month. I assume his boss also got a note that his premium will also rise 40%. Next year the boss, if he follows IBM, Time Warner, others, will give his employees $500 to find their own ObamaCare health plan. Five hundred dollars seems like a lot of money but it's far less than what will be needed. The fact that there is so little written about this, and very rarely discussed by the public, suggests folks are in for a rude shock. The question is whether the tsunami will hit before or after the November, 2014, elections.

Democrats defect on health rules is the lead story. Peggy Noonan has a great op-ed, also. The only question is whether the issue has reached a tipping point. [I was disappointed in the comments to her op-ed; from the few I read, the comments seemed juvenile; partisan when they did not need to be. ObamaCare is n longer about politics. The analogy is this: even atheists get religion in the fox hole. Even diehard partisans see the debacle called ObamaCare, and it starts with the $12,000 annual deductibles.]

White House soul-searches as errors mount
The White House has begun a quiet self-assessment in the wake of the troubled health-law launch, recognizing that administration officials missed warning signs and put too much trust in their management practices in implementing a program that is the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's domestic legacy. 
White House officials want to learn how the rollout flopped [LOL], despite what they believed had been sufficient planning, preparation and attention to the issue [LOL]. 
Although not a full-bore "forensic" inquiry into what went wrong, the administration aims to organize itself so that "going forward, we don't have these problems," a senior White House official said in an interview [LOL].
Finally: constitutional questions being asked -- a president changing "the law of the land" with a speech.
President Barack Obama's health-care fix may salvage a political promise to let Americans keep cheaper health plans if they like them. Whether he has the legal authority to do so, however, could be a tougher question.
While the Affordable Care Act grandfathers some existing policies as written, it also sets new requirements for policies issued on or after Jan. 1, 2014. That spurred carriers to inform millions of consumers with plans that fell short of the new rules that their policies couldn't be renewed after they expire.
The White House argues that the chief executive has some discretion in implementing laws. Administration lawyers point to a 1985 Supreme Court decision, Heckler v. Chaney, which dismissed a lawsuit seeking to compel the Food and Drug Administration to exercise its enforcement powers.
The circumstances, however, were substantially different. The suit was filed by condemned inmates who argued that the FDA was required by federal law to review the drugs state officials had chosen for their execution by lethal injection.
Small firms caught in health-policy limbo
Davidson Goldin was disappointed when he learned in September that his small business's health-care plan was being discontinued. Now it's possible he'll be able to keep it after all. President Barack Obama on Thursday said he would allow insurers to extend by one year those policies they had canceled for failing to meet the health-care law's requirements. Such policies include small-group plans, which apply to employers with fewer than 50 or 100 employees, depending on the state.
Retreat on health-care leaves doubt over Obama's relevance in the Democratic Party.
That was fewer defections than there would have been if Mr. Obama hadn't acted Thursday, but it was still a sign Mr. Obama is losing pull within his own party. After standing together against Republican demands for changes to the law during the government shutdown, some Democrats have been losing confidence in the administration's ability to manage problems with the law.
The defections go beyond House Democrats. Centrist Democratic senators up for re-election in GOP-leaning states, among them Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, have signed on to legislation to help people keep canceled plans. Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), who doesn't face voters next year, said she backed the legislation.
Echoes of 2010: 39 Dems defect.
Now we know why President Obama was in such a hurry to announce his Affordable Care Act nonfix insurance fix on Thursday.
On Friday, 39 Democrats voted with 222 House Republicans to pass Michigan Congressman Fred Upton's bill to revive the individual insurance market. Imagine how many more Democrats would have defected without Mr. Obama's offer of political cover.
The 39 defectors decided not to take any chances, perhaps figuring the latest White House fig leaf might get blown away if the cancellations keep coming. They abandoned the White House despite the promise of a Presidential veto and pressure from Democratic House leaders to stay united and not give the GOP a political victory.
United Health culling doctors from Medicare plans. All of this is becoming part of the Obama Legacy.
The nation's largest provider of privately managed Medicare Advantage plans, has dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks—spurring protest from lawmakers and physician groups and leaving many elderly patients unsure about whether they need to switch plans to keep seeing their doctors.
Doctors in at least 10 states have received termination letters, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the health-care environment."
The notices also tell doctors they can appeal within 30 days. That means many physicians and patients won't know for sure who is in or out of UnitedHealth's Medicare Advantage networks before the open-enrollment period to switch Medicare plans ends on Dec. 7.
UnitedHealth said its provider networks are always changing and that it expects its Medicare Advantage network "to be 85% to 90% of its current size by the end of 2014," although it declined to say how many doctors are being cut in individual states or what criteria it is using.
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Finally: hitting the brake on ethanol.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed for the first time to ease an annual requirement for ethanol in gasoline, saying that levels mandated in a 2007 law are difficult, if not impossible, to meet.
The move represents one of the biggest setbacks to date for ethanol, long seen as a promising way for the U.S. to reduce dependence on imported oil. Most U.S. ethanol comes from corn, and the move came despite a heavy lobbying push from corn-producing states.
Under a 2007 law, refiners were supposed to blend more than 14 billion gallons of ethanol into the nation's gasoline supply in 2014, representing more than 10% of the gasoline motorists pump annually.
Although the ethanol story has nothing to do with ObamaCare, some folks might see some connecting dots.

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It's no accident that English-speaking countries are the ones most devoted to law and individual rights. Fascinating.
Asked, early in his presidency, whether he believed in American exceptionalism, Barack Obama gave a telling reply. "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
The first part of that answer is fascinating (we'll come back to the Greeks in a bit). Most Brits do indeed believe in British exceptionalism.
But here's the thing: They define it in almost exactly the same way that Americans do. British exceptionalism, like its American cousin, has traditionally been held to reside in a series of values and institutions: personal liberty, free contract, jury trials, uncensored newspapers, regular elections, habeas corpus, open competition, secure property, religious pluralism.
The conceit of our era is to assume that these ideals are somehow the natural condition of an advanced society—that all nations will get around to them once they become rich enough and educated enough. In fact, these ideals were developed overwhelmingly in the language in which you are reading these words.
You don't have to go back very far to find a time when freedom under the law was more or less confined to the Anglosphere: the community of English-speaking democracies.

Rig Effectiveness In The Bakken: Another North Dakota Record For All The Skeptics

The EIA is reporting:
Oil production from an average Bakken rig is expected to rise from 481 bopd this month to 496 bopd in December, the most of any of the six U.S. shale regions that EIA tracks in the report.

Also Being Reported Over At Rigzone: A Million BOPD By December -- The Bakken

The Rigzone is reporting:
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that total Bakken crude oil well output will pass the 1 million barrel of oil per day (mark in December. 
Bakken oil production is expected to rise by 26,000 barrels of oil per day from 976,000 bopd this month to just over 1 million-bopd in December, EIA reported Friday. 
Once its production surpasses the 1 million-bopd mark, it will become the fourth U.S. region producing over 1 million-bopd in the United States. These other regions include the Gulf of Mexico, Eagle Ford and Permian basins. The growth in Bakken oil production is part of the longer-term trend in drilling efficiency gains; as a result, North Dakota now ranks second behind Texas in U.S. oil production, EIA reported Friday.
The production gains have also bolstered the state’s gross domestic product and electricity demand. Oil production from an average Bakken rig is expected to rise from 481 bopd this month to 496 bopd in December, the most of any of the six U.S. shale regions that EIA tracks in the report.
These regions account for over 90 percent of domestic U.S. oil production growth and virtually all domestic U.S. gas production growth from 2011 to 2012.
The entire US Williston Basin has already hit the one-million bopd milestone. The Dickinson Press is reporting:
The entire U.S. Williston Basin produced more than 1 million barrels of oil per day in September, driven by another record month of North Dakota oil production.

The U.S. Williston Basin also includes portions of South Dakota, which produced 5,017 barrels per day in September, and Montana, which produced 75,460 barrels per day in August, according to figures provided by Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority.
“That’s what our rail and pipeline system is having to handle now,” Kringstad said of the record production.
Although a September production figure for Montana is not yet available, Kringstad said he anticipates it held steady at about 75,000 barrels.
Bakken oil production in North Dakota and Montana is projected to top 1 million barrels of oil per day in December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
That estimate does not include production from other formations, said Kringstad, who talked to the EIA about the report.

Global Fracking On The Horizon; UK Lifts The Ban; Fracking Should Begin In Britain Next Year

Bloomberg is reporting:
The hydraulic fracturing of shale in search of oil and gas has hardly started outside the U.S., but that’s changing.
A record 400 shale wells may be drilled beyond U.S. borders in 2014, with most in China and Russia, according to energy consultants Wood Mackenzie Ltd. While that’s a fraction of the thousands of shale wells drilled in the U.S., the number of rigs used onshore in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region has increased 10 percent over the past year, data compiled by oil services company Baker Hughes Inc. show. Most of those rigs are meant for shale, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Nov. 18 issue. 
Fracking in the U.K. will start next year, after the government lifted an 18-month moratorium imposed when a drilling company found it had accidentally caused earthquakes. Two utilities -- Centrica Plc of Britain and GDF Suez of France - - have bought stakes in the country’s drilling licenses to help bankroll the drillers and win a cut of any profit. 
Natural gas:
China has the largest shale gas reserves, estimated at 1,115 trillion cubic feet, followed by Argentina at 802 trillion cubic feet. In shale oil, Russia tops the list with about 75 billion barrels, according to a report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Australia, Poland, and Algeria all have big potential. 

For The Archives: The MIllion-Bbls-Of-Oil-Per-Day Club

November 16, 2013: wow -- huge story in The Wall Street Journal. According to the EIA, "oil companies in the Bakken will reach the million-barrel milestone in December, 2013." A long article. Fun to read. Another U.S. oil field, the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, hit the million-barrels-a-day milestone in May of this year, according to the EIA data. The Permian Basin — the massive field in Texas that’s been the foundation for U.S. oil production for decades – got there in May 2011.

The Williston Wire: Fuddruckers Opens In Williston

The Williston Wire is easy to subscribe to, so mostly just headlines here.

Fuddruckers opens in Williston: along US Highway "2 & 85" north, adjacent to the Brroks Hotel. The co-owners of Fuddruckers hope to break ground on another restaurant in Minot next month.

Williston churches seek to house homeless. Regular readers know the background to the story

Seniors still struggle with rising rents.

The Bakken is soon to join the million-bopd club. The EIA says the state should reach that milestone by the end of December. Of course, the Montana-North Dakota Bakken has broken the one million boepd milestone. I track projections here.

Many, many other stories at The Williston Wire, but for the most part theyhave been previously posted on the blog.