Great Example Of MSM Journalists Not Understanding Change In Oil And Gas Industry; Update On FlexRigs In The Bakken -- H&P; Twenty (20) More FlexRigs For Texas

Don picked up on this; three story lines.

• first, the Permian is a very, very old field; most thought this field was "dead" a couple of years ago
• second, some mainstream media reporters still don't "get it" -- new, better, stronger rigs
• third, these more powerful rigs are being used more efficiently -- pad drilling

The Midland Reporter suggests the Texas boom could be slowing down. Why? "Because rig counts fell slightly" (I can't make this stuff up):

But rig counts in Texas fell slightly in the last three months of 2013, as did the number of jobs in oil field services. Drilling permits for 2013 also declined slightly from the previous year, Ingham noted.

We saw the same thing in the Bakken: rig counts came down slightly, and .... oil production went up anyway.

As Don noted, if the Texas boom shows signs of slowing down, why is H&P building 16 more FlexRigs for the Permian (and just 2 for the Bakken)? Twenty more FlexRigs for Texas; two for the Bakken. See the excerpt below from the H&P conference call.

From the conference call transcript:

As the U.S. land market improves, we are encouraged by increasing customer demand for new FlexRigs. We have announced 35 new AC drive FlexRigs since the beginning of our 2014 fiscal year, and 22 since our last earnings call in November.

The 35 new rigs were contracted with 9 exploration and production companies. Seven of the new rigs were delivered in the first fiscal quarter of 2014, 6 have been delivered in January and we expect the remaining 22 rigs to be delivered in fiscal 2014.

A few additional details on the 35 new builds: 23 are FlexRig3s, 11 Flex 5s and 1 Flex 4; 70% of the new FlexRigs have skid systems for pad drilling. The rigs are scheduled to work in the following basins: 16 in the Permian, 8 in Oklahoma, 4 in the Eagle Ford, 2 each in the Bakken and Utica, 1 each in the Haynesville, Niobrara and Woodbine.

Wow, there are so many story lines in this one post -- the three mentioned above plus several more if one thinks about it....

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Bureaucrats Don't Understand Human Nature, Either

This is a nice op-ed from The Wall Street Journal why Americans have not taken to ObamaCare.

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...and I don't understand this....

I do not understand this, a story in The Los Angeles Times. It is my understanding there is a loophole, or a clause, in this law that allows folks to NOT use gloves if they have specific training in food preparation ...