Ten (10) New Permits On A Very Slow Friday -- July 25, 2014; NDIC Not Reporting Historical Rig Counts Consistently; The Big Story -- Why Is North Korea So Quiet?

NOTE: The NDIC is intermittently not including various years (most notably 2013 and 2009) when reporting the number of active rigs. I had not noticed that, but scrolling through the active rigs data, this started happening over the past week or so. Note, for example, today: 2013 and 2009 data is not included. An alert reader caught this. I don't know the reason.

Active rigs:

	7/25/2014	07/25/2012	07/25/2011	07/25/2010	07/25/2008
Active Rigs	193	208	179	138	76

Ten (10) new permits --

• Operators: Oasis (4), Petro-Hunt (2), Statoil, Whiting, Crescent Point, Samson Resources
• Fields: Foothills (Burke), Baker (McKenzie), North Tioga (Burke), Stony Creek (Williams) Sanish (mountrail), Ellisville (Williams), Blooming Prairie (Divide)
• Comments:

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

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New North Dakota Refinery Almost Complete

BillingsGazett is reporting:

Construction of an oil refinery near Dickinson is about three-fourths complete, and most of the jobs that will be created there have already been filled.

Bismarck-based MDU Resources Group Inc. and Indianapolis-based Calumet Specialty Products Partners are building the $350 million Dakota Prairie Refinery. Construction started in March 2013. The facility is slated to be operating late this year.

The refinery will employ about 90 workers. About 70 of the positions already have been filled by people with a lot of experience in the industry, according to MDU.

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ONEOK To Invest $450 Million In SCOOP

TulsaWorld is reporting:

ONEOK Partners LP announced Thursday that it plans to invest between $365 million to $470 million on natural gas projects in the emerging South Central Oklahoma Oil Province (SCOOP) over the next two years.

The Tulsa-based energy infrastructure firm will build a new natural gas processing plant in Grady and Stephens counties. The planned Knox plant will eventually process up to 200 million cubic feet in natural gas per day, according to the ONEOK release.

The "average" ONEOK natural gas processing plant in the North Dakota Bakken is rated at 100 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

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When Is A Cease-Fire Not A Cease-Fire? When Israel Is Involved

Fox News is reporting:

Israel and Hamas announced a 12-hour humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza for Saturday, only hours after Israel's security cabinet unanimously rejected U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's proposal for a temporary cease-fire to allow indirect talks.

In announcing late Friday that it would observe the "humanitarian window" from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Israel said that during that time "we'll continue to locate and neutralize terror tunnels."

It also warned the military "shall respond if terrorists choose to exploit" the lull to attack Israeli troops "or fire at Israeli civilians."

A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said earlier Friday that the group had agreed to a 12-hour lull, starting at 8 a.m.

Any bets how long this 12-hour cease fire between modern-day Hatfields and McCoys will last? I give it six hours. [Apparently the cease fire did not last an hour: "Israeli-Hamas forces continue to fight despite cease fire."]

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The Obama Legacy: Household Net Worth Plummets

The New York Times is reporting:

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially. 

No, the entire "loss" did not happen under the Obama administration, but the expectations that his administration would turn "this" around.

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The Obama Legacy: No More Oil From Libya

Fox News is reporting:

The United States shut down its embassy in Libya Saturday and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said. 

"Due to the ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias in the immediate vicinity of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, we have temporarily relocated all of our personnel out of Libya," spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

The withdrawal underscored the Obama administration's concern about the heightened risk to American diplomats abroad, particularly in Libya where memories of the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in the eastern city of Benghazi are still vivid and the political uproar over it remain fresh ahead of a new congressional investigation into the incident. A senior military official told Fox News the Pentagon has been advising the State Department leave the post for weeks. 

Wow, talk about dithering. Never learns. It will be interesting to see the new definition of "temporarily."

President Obama will leave office with the world significantly worse off than the found it when he assumed the presidency.  

The big story: why is North Korea so quiet?