BLM Land In North Dakota Center Of Bloomberg's Attention On Flaring

Bloomberg is reporting, from the reservation in North Dakota:

Drillers flared 340 million cubic feet, or 30 percent, of the 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas produced per day in January, about twice as much as the 184 million cubic feet burned per day two years ago, said Marcus Stewart, an analyst at Denver-based Bentek Energy. The lost revenue adds up to $1.4 million each day, he added.

Energy executives say economic realities force them to start producing oil from wells before infrastructure is in place to haul away less-valuable natural gas. Bakken oil fetched $98.14 on April 4, while natural gas for May delivery fell to $4.439 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange the same day.

“We absolutely don’t want to flare the gas, that’s lost revenue,” said Russell Rankin, a regional manager for Norway-based Statoil, at a well site near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers.

“But if we drill a $10 million well, we’ve got lots of investors and they can’t wait to get that revenue back,” said Rankin, as a gas flare rose over land where the Lewis and Clark Expedition forged a new path through the American West. 

This whole article is a blend of op-ed and news. Actually, no news. This is all well-known.

It is interesting to compare this article with a Bloomberg article on wind and nothing, not one thing, was said about slicing and dicing migratory birds, and bats. 

On another note, talk about a disconnect. I must be missing something. I just posted a link to a Bloomberg article saying wind no longer needs subsidies or certainly implied that ... now this article, also from Bloomberg, suggesting that wind can't compete with wind .... well, which is it? Bloomberg is reporting:

The $14 billion industry, the world’s second-largest buyer of wind turbines, is reeling from a double blow -- cheap natural gas unleashed by the hydraulic fracturing revolution and the death last year of federal subsidies that made wind the most competitive of all renewable energy sources in the U.S.

Without restoration of subsidies, worth $23 per megawatt hour to turbine owners, the industry may not recover, and the U.S. may lose ground in its race to reduce dependence on the fossil fuels driving global warming, say wind-power advocates.

They place the subsidy argument in the context of fairness, pointing out that wind’s chief fossil-fuel rival, the gas industry, is aided by the ability to form master limited partnerships that allow pipeline operators to avoid paying income tax. This helps drive down the cost of natural gas. 

But here, Bloomberg says wind is doing just fine. So, which is it? 

By the way, why don't wind farms form master limited partnerships? I don't think there's any law against anyone forming master limited partnerships but I don't know. If there is a law, Congress could change it. But the inconvenient little fact: wind lucrative to a few corporations needing tax losses to offset other profits, and/or to meet state mandates, but investors aren't making much money on wind, yet. At least that's my spin. Which may be wrong. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.