Twelve (12) New Permits, The Williston Basin, North Dakota; July 18, 2014

Active rigs:

	7/18/2014	07/18/2013	07/18/2012	07/18/2011	07/18/2010
Active Rigs	195	189	208	180	132

Twelve (12) new permits --

• Operators: Hess (7), KOG (4), Triangle, 
• Fields: Alkali Creek (Mountrail), Blue Buttes (McKenzie), Truax (Williams), Rawson (McKenzie)
• Comments:

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

Two (2) producing wells completed:

• 24507, 679, CLR, Norfolk 5-1H, North Tobacco Garden, t7/14; cum --
• 25753, 1,093, Statoil, Margaret 5-8 3TFH-R, Spring Creek, t6/14; cum --

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All But Eight (8) States At Risk For Earthquakes

All But Eight (8) States Ban Fracking

FoxNews is reporting:

A new study by the U.S. geological society suggests 42 states have a reasonable chance of experiencing damaging ground shaking from an earthquake in the next 50 years.
The 8 states that did not have significant hazard levels are Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

The 16 states at highest risk are Alaska, Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

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Another Inversion

Reuters is reporting:

U.S. drugmaker AbbVie Inc bought Dublin-based Shire Plc on Friday in a 32 billion pound ($54.7 billion) deal that will allow it to slash its tax bill by relocating to Britain.

The London-listed company, which makes expensive medicines to treat rare diseases, fought off four earlier bids from AbbVie until the U.S. firm raised its price to 52.48 pounds per share - made up of 24.44 pounds in cash and 0.8960 new AbbVie shares.

Chicago-based AbbVie is buying Shire to cut both its U.S. tax bill and its reliance on arthritis drug Humira, the world's top selling medicine which loses U.S. patent protection in 2016.

AbbVie, which generates nearly 60 percent of its revenue from Humira, had until Friday to announce a firm offer for Shire, extend the deadline or walk away under UK takeover rules.

It now plans to create a company listed in New York, incorporated in Jersey, the Channel Islands, and tax-domiciled in Britain, which will pay an effective tax of about 13 percent by 2016, sharply lower than its current rate of about 22 percent, making the deal one of the biggest driven by the tactic known as tax inversion.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, I find it fascinating that the guys with the green eye shades thought of this.