Monday, March 31, 2014 -- The Last Day Of 1Q14

Top story in North Dakota today? Watch for weather-related announcements and area school cancellations due to more global warming. 2014: the year without spring. The entire southwest north Dakota is under a blizzard warming. Local readers tell me "everything" west of the Missouri River is "closed" today in North Dakota.

Active rigs:

	3/31/2014	03/31/2013	03/31/2012	03/31/2011	03/31/2010
Active Rigs	194	188	206	168	103

RBN Energy: RBN Energy's school of energy goes on-line.

The Wall Street Journal

Top story: talks fail to ease crisis in the Crimean. 

The Kashagan debacle: I've blogged about this story often; this will probably be a stand-alone post later

Something odd happened this year when the Federal Reserve started easing back on the policies that keep interest rates low: interest rates moved lower.

I saw this story earlier; not impressed. But it is what it is. "Rig count" offers new clues on natural gas.

Heard on the street: playing Russian roulette with sanctions and oil prices.

Enacting sanctions against a country supplying 12% of the world's oil sounds like a one-way ticket to a price spike. But that ignores Russia's other role as an oil consumer.

Over the past five years, Russia has accounted for 11% of the world's growth in oil consumption. And sanctions look more likely to affect that than the supply side.

The Los Angeles Times

9.5 million are newly covered by ObamaCare.  I didn't read the article. All I know is that the number was 6 million three days ago, and it took six months to get to the first 6 million and only two weekend days to add another 3.5 million. Oh, I guess I knew this also: most of "newly" insured had insurance prior to ObamaCare, at least when the number was 6 million. Regardless, this is great news for corporate America, cost shifting health care from the CEO to the employee.

"Frozen" passes "Toy Story 3" as top grossing animated movie.

The Dickinson Press

"Regulators" say oil companies have been withholding information on data regarding crude oil shipments out of North Dakota. I sort of doubt that. My hunch is the operators provide the information they are required to report. The big question is this: if this is accurate -- that operators have been withholding information where have the regulators been since 1951 when oil was first discovered in North Dakota, and or certainly in 2007 when the boom began? The regulators need to take a page from Ronald Reagan's playbook: trust but verify.

Glad to see the Richardton folks burning a food source to make fuel for Rush Limbaugh's SUV.  Not only that, they're using genetically-modified corn for corn by-products which are then sold as feed to cattle which is then consumed by humans. The company currently runs on coal to produce the ethanol, but plans to switch to natural gas to be more politically correct. The energy balance? 1 unit of energy input equals 1.3 energy units of corn ethanol energy -- the most optimum estimates; others say it is closer to 1:1. Some say it is as low as 1:1.06. Whatever. It makes us all feel good. Unless you live in the Sudan and wonder why America burns corn to make fuel for SUVs. Sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil is much more favorable, 1:8. And so it goes.