Three Stories
The Bismarck Tribune/Bakken.com
The Wall Street Journal
In case the first link breaks, here's the article regarding Minnesota an the federal judge:
A federal judge has blocked restrictions set by the state of Minnesota that tried to limit businesses in North Dakota and other states from building coal-fired power plants and selling the electricity in Minnesota.
The ruling issued Friday found that Minnesota's Next Generation Energy Act, which barred new out-of-state fossil fuel power plants from transporting energy into Minnesota, violated the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The law was passed to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and the creation of fossil fuel energy production by barring any utility in Minnesota from importing energy from an out-of-state fossil-fuel-powered plant built after Jan. 1, 2007.
“In this case, North Dakota operators propose to build new, coal-fired power-generating plants without offsetting emission reductions. Prevailing winds will carry those toxic emissions directly into Minnesota. That shameful practice should not be permitted by either the state or federal government.”-- the nutty governor.
The technological breakthroughs of the past half-decade have made the plains near Odessa and Midland, Texas, — long considered past their prime — some of the most coveted land in the nation. Pioneer Natural Resources, an Irving-based independent producer that has been active in the region for decades, estimates the Permian Basin holds 50 billion barrels of oil in stacked stone wedges.
“We have six Bakkens sitting on top of each other,” Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield said recently, referring to North Dakota’s prolific Bakken Shale.
But the same North American oil patches that have lifted Pioneer and other independent oil producers to an unprecedented status in the energy industry haven’t come up gushers for major integrated oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell and BP. While big companies dominate the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and frontiers overseas, their smaller counterparts have claimed the most lucrative territory in the Bakken, the Permian and the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Pioneer amassed hundreds of thousands of acres in West Texas. Only in recent years, however, have producers begun to corral wells closer together, sometimes as close as 350 feet, to tap into the separate layers of oil. Pioneer alone is pumping from 7,000 wells.
After research last year, including 3-D seismic scanning and a small program to fracture the elusive formations called “stacked intervals,” Pioneer plans to spend $2.2 billion to set up 16 horizontal rigs in the play this year. It will be more expensive than drilling vertically, but the economics make sense, Sheffield said.
Top story: US weapons flow to Syrian rebels
Obama extends review of Keystone pipeline project (LOL)
Reagonatti: Italy cuts income taxes in effort to boost economy; first time in more than a decade, giving up to 80 euros/month in extra cash to three-quarters of the workforce
The Los Angeles Times
An excellent article on UC admission squeeze for California students; some of this might surprise you
The Dickinson Press
Lead story on SLB and BHI -- earnings report; North Dakota connection
ND congressional leaders frustrated, disappointed over fact that Obama delayed keystone XL decision again (it could be worse; he could have denied it)
FAA administrator to visit Grand Forks, Williston, next week
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