Biggest Story Of The Year For The Bakken? September 10, 2014; KOG, Whiting Report Several Big Wells; Nineteen (19) New Permits

Updates

Later, 6:41 p.m. CDT: see comments below. I mentioned this project a year ago in an earlier post. I had completely forgotten about it. I'm surprised no one wrote and asked for an update on this project. I have visited the Bakken three (or maybe four) times since September, 2013, and I have driven past that location every time, multiple times with my dad and never mentioned it to him, which means I had completely forgotten about it.

Original Post

This might be the biggest story of the year (so far): huge rail terminal to be built east of Williston. A reader sent the link. Thank you. The Bakken.com is reporting:

New Frontier LLC, a Williston, N.D.-based developer has announced plans for a $250 million transload facility called the East Valley Rail Project. Jason Everett, lead developer for the company, announced the project at the recently held Williston Economic Development Summit. Once complete, the facility will provide inbound storage and handling of several energy related products, ranging from frack sand to tubular goods.

The new facility, to be located east of Williston, will help centralize the oil activity in one location, says the company. The terminal will be located just east of the Halliburton-Sanjel complex east of Williston, just east of the 1804 Little Muddy Bridge, near the old salt mine.

“We looked at the location and determined that the rail only crosses the highway at four different spots between Montana and Minot, this [Williston] being one of the main areas that it crosses a major public road,” said Everett.

This project will be the first rail facility with public water and sewer and all utilities available to it. And according to Everett, designing the facility to be large enough to take on multiple tenants and with having most of the oil companies and oil field service companies having their main headquarters for the Bakken in Williston makes it “the opportune spot to be the logistical advantage from their home-base.”

The facility will be able to store about 160,000 tons of frack sand, will have a pipe and casing yard of about 30 acres, and will have an extra 90 additional acres of storage for things like large tanks or rail car storage.

I can't remember if I posted this or not, but I sent e-mail to another reader a few days ago: wit the problem they are having getting fracking sand to the Bakken, my hunch is we are going to see increased sand shipped during the relatively slower periods in the winter and then stored locally. This certainly looks what we might be seeing here.

More from the article:

This facility is the first unit train facility in western North Dakota approved by the BNSF, which allows them to land a full train and once those cars are needed, the facility will be able to switch cars internally verses waiting for the railroad to switch them.

“Right now, if you have 40 cars and can only get five cars switched per day, it takes eight days to unload them, but we’ll be able to do all of the 40 cars in about seven hours,” said Everett.

Eastern Valley Rail will be able to hold 18 to 20 tenants and Everett said they’ve already begun selecting clients for the facility.

Much more at the linked article including Google satellite map.

How fast could we see this? The company hopes to break ground this fall, and have first shipments by March, 2015 -- that's only about 7 months from now. And much of that construction during the legendary, frigid, North Dakota winter.

Daily Operations Report

Wells coming off the confidential list Thursday:

• 27578, drl, BR, Sequoia 31-4TFH, Hawkeye, no production data,
• 27618, drl, Slawson, Whirlwind 3-31H, Big Bend, producing,

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

Nineteen (19) new permits --

• Operators: CLR (6), MRO (5), Hess (4), QEP (3), Whiting
• Fields: Avoca (Williams), Brooklyn (Williams), Big Stick (Billings), Grail (McKenzie), Baskin (Mountrail), Bailey (Dunn)
• Comments:

Five (5) producing wells completed:

• 26763, 2,125, KOG, P Irgens 155-99-2-4-9-14H, Epping, t8/14; cum --
• 26765, 1,903, KOG, P Irgens 155-99-2-4-9-15H3A, Epping, t8/14; cum -- 
• 26767, 1,398, KOG, P Irgens 155-99-2-4-9-15H3, Epping, t8/14; cum --
• 28035, 1,199, Whiting, Ness 41-21-3XH, Sanish, t8/14; cum --
• 28343, 1,414, Whiting, Perry State 11-25-2H, Sanish, t8/14; cum -- 

Active rigs:

	9/10/2014	09/10/2013	09/10/2012	09/10/2011	09/10/2010
Active Rigs	199	184	192	199	141