| 9/24/2014 | 09/24/2013 | 09/24/2012 | 09/24/2011 | 09/24/2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 193 | 187 | 188 | 195 | 141 |
Comment: When I see the number of active rigs drop from 200 to 193 in just a few days, I at least have to ask the question: is there a particular reason? Probably not. Just one of those things. But remember, it's the best time of the year in North Dakota to be drilling. Why would the operators be stacking rigs? What has changed in the past few weeks? Two things: price of oil and new flaring rules are about to go into effect.
It is my impression that the price of oil, in the short term (less than 6 months), has no effect on CAPEX or the drilling plans for operators.
[Later: see comments below.]
RBN Energy: this is a must-read essay today. I remember talking about EOR, primary production, secondary production, tertiary production when I first started blogging. I did not understand the jargon. Since then I feel comfortable with it. But RBN Energy has done a great job putting it all together. RBN Energy posts will quickly disappear, available to subscribers only.
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Crying Wolf Once Too Often
Bloomberg is reporting:
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen says she wants investors to be prepared for the possibility that the Fed will raise interest rates sooner than they currently project. Her words are going unheeded.
Volatility across stocks, bonds and currencies worldwide is close to record or multi-year lows, even after Yellen cautioned last week that the Fed's commitment to keep interest rates near zero for a "considerable time" could change if U.S. economic performance continues to exceed expectations.If she wants to keep her job, she won't be raising rates before the 2016 election. If she wants to have any kind of legacy, she will be very, very careful about raising rates. Ever.
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. Some "stuff" I post does not seem related to the Bakken, but trust me, it does.
Yesterday it was reported that you can now invest your money into US Treasury bonds and get a "negative yield." Put $1,000 into US Treasury bonds now, and when they mature in 10 years, collect your $999. I see the market is up about a 100 points today.
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Jobs Report
"From the beginning" I have never wavered in my thoughts about the media spin following every weekly jobs report.
It appears the media is starting to walk back that spin. The WSJ is reporting:
If they were judging the economy by the monthly jobs report, working Americans would be popping champagne corks. Total employment has risen every month for more than four years. According to the Current Population Survey, more than eight million jobs have been created since the trough, while the number of unemployed has been cut by nearly six million. The unemployment rate has declined to 6.1% from 10%, and the number of Americans enduring long-term unemployment (27 weeks or more) has fallen to three million from 4.3 million in the past 12 months.
Yet average Americans remain gloomy about the current economy and anxious about its future. According to a Pew Research Center report released this month, only 21% rate current conditions as excellent or good, versus 79% fair or poor. Only 33% say that jobs are readily available in their communities; when asked about good jobs, that figure falls to 26%. Only 22% believe the economy will be better a year from now; 22% think it will be worse, while fully 54% think it will be the same.
Like CO2 ppm and global warming, there seems to be no linkage between the "jobs reports" and the economy. I did not say there is no linkage between "jobs" and the economy. I said there is no linkage between "jobs reports" and the economy. Big difference.
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Getting His War Footing
George W. Bush took his case to the UN before he started bombing. The "latte" president took his case to the UN after he started bombing. And that's the way it should be. Why tell your enemies what you plan to do? Good for the war president. Finally getting his war footing. I never understood why Bush tryed to get the support of the UN, giving his enemies time to prepare. Mr Obama is a voracious reader and an intellect. Somewhere along the line, I am sure, perhaps as a community organizer, he read "Machiavelli" or The Art of War by Sun Tzu; on the other hand George W. Bush was said to have never been intellectually curious and probably never read either. I never understood why George W. Bush embedded media into the Army ground troops. My hunch is that President Obama will not be embedding any of the press in single-seat fighter squadrons or be placing them on cruise missiles (though he might wish he could in some cases).
What the peace president has unleashed (and, no, this footage won't be seen on NBC tonight):
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Californians Growing Weary Of ObamaCare
Wait Until ObamaCare Actually Kicks In
Most Of ObamaCare Law Is Waived Or Delayed Until 2016
The Sacramento Bee is reporting:
The Affordable Care Act continues to divide Californians, who remain skeptical four years after its passage despite the state’s relatively smooth launch in which more than 1.2 million people enrolled in health insurance coverage.
A new survey released late Tuesday found some 42 percent of state residents generally view the law favorably, while 46 percent harbor unfavorable opinions. Support is down somewhat since May, before a wave of targeted TV ads began in a handful of competitive congressional districts.My generation was very familiar with the Edsel and what the "Edsel" has come to represent, as The Washington Post put it awhile back, "the flop heard around the world." The article begins:
Fifty years ago today, Don Mazzella skipped out of school to see the hot new car that everybody was talking about, the hot new car that almost nobody had actually seen.
Ford Motor Co. had proclaimed it "E-Day," and Mazzella and two buddies sneaked out of East Side High School in Newark, N.J., and hiked 13 blocks to Foley Ford so they could cast their gaze upon the much-ballyhooed new car that had been kept secret from the American public until its release that day.
It was called the Edsel.My hunch is that if Jay Leno did his famous "Jay Walk," he would find hardly anyone under the age of 35 who would be able to talk intelligently about "the Edsel."
My hunch is that, for the younger generation, "the Edsel" will be replaced by "ObamaCare." People will recall Nancy Pelosi's famous comment, that like the Edsel, no one has seen it (the ObamaCare law) and they won't know what's in it until it is passed by Congress.
I can't make this stuff up.
The drop in rig numbers has some to do with surface or spud rigs. Most of these move every two or three days, and start on Sunday, so by Wednesday they are moving and usually fall off the list in that time. There are a few rigs that are close to the Montana border that moved to Montana as well.
ReplyDeleteConsidering it all I don't know if there will ever be a completely accurate count. It seems they miss rigs or list them twice a lot too
Very interesting. Especially that they "all" start on Sunday... the Bakken never fails to fascinate me.
DeleteI am tracking rigs (albet painfully) in a spreadsheet and I agree w/the comment above about rig movement. Two things, first there are some rigs that actually may spud 3 wells in a week--so they are moving constantly even if just on a pad and often on Saturday and Sunday.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I can see where 8 rigs that were active on 9/15 are off the list as of 9/23. But when I look back most of them were active in August. The one exception is Craig 8 owned by Zavanna--it was around on June 1 then disappeared until 9/15 (note: I don't check the active rigs every day) showed up in my list and then was not on the list 9/23 but is on the list today. Craig 8 may be one of the ones that zips in and out as the other reader pointed out.
That is why I found your discussion on the different strategies being used by various companies to be so interesting. I am a data person and I look for logical patterns and it is hard to find that in the rig movement. But, your comments actually have gotten me thinking about the other factors that might influence rig movement. It is all very fascinating.
I find it all very fascinating. Your comment about a surface rig spudding as many as three (3) wells in a week -- thus active all week), suggests to me that there may be more to the story than simply typical mid-week variation that has brought the rig count to 193, down from 200.
DeleteWith that single data point (about most spuds beginning on Sunday), it appears that Monday's or Tuesday's rig count may be the most important rig count for any given week.