Is This Insane, Or What? WTI Hits $102; Twenty-Four (24) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA -- Twenty-Four May Not Be A Record, But It's Awful Close

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Saudis say $100 oil is "fair" price.

Libya protestors say that they will open the ports "tonight." Which means there should be more oil coming to market. Saudi, a month ago or so, said they were boosting production to record levels.

And yet, on a very quiet day, with not much news, WTI goes up well over 1% and closes over $102/bbl. (After hours, it dropped back a bit.) Is this insane or what? I never, yesterday, would have predicted that oil would have gone over $102 today on such quiet news. It must be all those speculators getting back into the market. LOL.

Anyway, it is what is.

The big story today, for investors: BHI raised its dividend, the first time the company has raised its dividend since 2008. Anadarko raised its dividend by 50%. Now, I look for an announcement that CVX or XOM or both to announce a 2-1 split. COP did the spin-off and raised dividends significantly in the last couple of years; CVX beat the Ecuador rap, and XOM is, well, XOM. So, we'll see.

The second big story, of course, is that North Dakota probably hit the one-million-bopd milestone in April, 2014 (i.e., 13 days ago) coming within 24,000 bbls by the end of March. It's hard to imagine that North Dakota did not produce an additional 24,000 bopd in the month of April, but we won't know until mid-June, will we? My hunch is that the NDIC is crunching the numbers as we speak and already has a pretty good idea one way or the other.

A third story, I suppose: according to the NDIC, there are 635 wells waiting to be fracked. That's a lot wells drilled total depth, now waiting to be completed. Two thousand truckloads in and two thousand truckloads out for water and sand for each well, or something like that. I've long forgotten the specifics.

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Active rigs:

	5/13/2014	05/13/2013	05/13/2012	05/13/2011	05/13/2010
Active Rigs	190	187	209	173	114

Twenty-four (24) new permits --

• Operators: BR (11), Hess (6), MRO (5), Enduro (2)
• Fields: Corral Creek (Dunn), Antelope (McKenzie), Bailey (Dunn), Mouse River Park (Renville),
• Comments: All eleven BR permits are in Corral Creek

Wells coming off the confidential list were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.

Three (3) producing wells completed:

• 25157, 314, CLR, Tallahassee 3-16H, 2 sections, Baker, t4/14; cum --
• 25158, 657, CLR, Tallahassee 2-16H, 4 sections, Baker, t4/14; cum --
• 26017, 2,727, MRO, Zimmerman 21-26TFH, Killdeer, t4/14; cum --  

Converted to injection:

• 22064, 110, Corinthiann Exploraiton, Corinthian Skarphol 8-33 1H, North Souris, a Spearfish well, t4/12; cum 48K 3/14;

Wells coming off confidential list Wednesday:

• 25037, 535, American Eagle, Lynda 15-32-164-101, Colgan, t2/14; cum 18K 3/14;
• 25782, 150, Fidelity, Justine 25-36H, Green River, t1/14; cum 21K 3/14;
• 26377, drl, KOG, P Vandeberg 154-99-1-1-12-15H, Stockyard Creek, no production data,
• 26436, drl, BR, CCU Powell 41-29MBH, Corral Creek, no production data,
• 26582, 255, Whiting, Maus 21-26, Camel Hump, a Red River well, t1/14; cum 12K 3/14;
• 26670, drl, Cornerstone, Martinsen D-3427-6191, Little Butte, no production data,
• 26977, A, CLR, Ellison 1-21AH1, Stoneview, just beginning to produce