Seven (7) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA; KOG With Five (5) Nice Wells

Active rigs:

	2/3/2014	02/03/2013	02/03/2012	02/03/2011	02/03/2010
Active Rigs	189	187	202	167	92

Seven (7) new permits --

• Operators: Oasis (3), Slawson (2), Whiting, XTO
• Fields: Missouri Ridge (Williams), Big Bend (Mountrail), Sanish (Mountrail), Temple (Williams)
• Comments:

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

Seven current wells listed as non-confidential were plugged: six Bakken wells either not economical or dry, and one Red River well that was dry.

Six (6) producing wells were completed:

• 23673, 895, KOG, Koala 2-2-11-14H3, Poe, Three Forks NFD, t11/13; cum 12K 12/13;
• 23672, 2,642, KOG, Koala 2-2-11-15H, Poe, t11/13; cum 35K 12/13;
• 25564, 1,985, KOG, P Evitt 154-98-13-12-19-14H, Truax, 4 secs, t11/13; cum 31K 12/13;
• 25581, 2,667, KOG, P Evitt 154-98-15-12-19-16H, Truax, 4 secs, t11/13; cum 37K 12/13;
• 25513, 1,810, KOG, P Evitt 154-98-15-12-1-2H3M,  Truax, Three Forks NFD; middle TR (11,188); target 11,218 feet); t11/13; cum 21K 12/13;
• 23993, 3,888, Statoil, Johnson 7-6 7H, Banks, t10/13; cum 7K 12/13;

Wells coming off confidential list Tuesday:

• 24839, drl, CLR, Dolezal 3-5H, Chimney Butte, no production data,
• 24862, 1,374, Whiting, Gregory Wright Federal 41-5-2H, Bully, t8/13; cum 39K 12/13;
• 24863, 1,305, Whiting, Gregory Wright Federal 41-5H, Bully, t8/13; cum 28K 12/13;
• 25106, 1,446, MRO, Darcy Dirkach 34-12H, Murphy Creek, t11/13; cum 23K 12/13;
• 25838, drl, XTO, Duke 34X-31A, Siverston, no production data,
• 25888, 2,970, BR, Blue Ridge 24-31TFH, Keene, t1/14; cum --
• 26086, 2,169, MRO, Chuck Quale USA 21-29H, Reunion Bay, t12/13; 20K 12/13;

Drudge Continues To Exaggerate: His Headline "Dow Down 300" -- In Fact, It's Only Down 292 At The Moment ...

... and not a particularly auspicious start on Janet Yellen's first day at work as Chairperson.

[Later: that's better. Now it's down more than 300 points. A great day for the new Fed chairperson.]

IPs For Wells Coming Off Confidential List Have Been Posted; HRC Has A "High IP" Well

Link here for IPs over the weekend.

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January: A Tough Month For Car Sales

Volkswagen sales down 19% y/y.
Ford sales down 7% y/y.

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For Investors Only

Dividends

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything your read here or anything you think you might have read here

Thirteen (13) companies announce increased dividends/distributions, including Polaris Industries and Time Warner Cable. Time Warner's increase was significant, from 65 cents to 75 cents.

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Outside The Bakken, More Natural Gas Processing Coming On Line

DCP Midstream adding half a Bcf/D of natural gas processing capacity in two key U.S. basins:

• In the DJ Basin, DCP Midstream is constructing the new 200 MMcf/d Lucerne 2 Plant. 
• Also in the DJ Basin, the recently started O'Connor Plant is increasing its throughput capacity from 110 MMcf/d to 160MMcf/d, up almost 50 percent. Both the Lucerne 2 and O'Connor plants are connecting to the Front Range NGL Pipeline, now in service. 
• In the Eagle Ford Shale, the 200 MMcf/d Goliad Plant is now in start-up.

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Things Have Changed

From print edition, BloombergBusinessweek: "Fewer than 30 companies have reached a market cap of $150 billion. Using the IPO date as the starting point, Facebook is on track to do it the fastest." 

Things Have Changed, Bob Dylan

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One Thing Hasn't Changed: ObamaCare Website

The Washington Post is reporting that the government and/or the website cannot fix tens of thousands of ObamaCare on-line enrollments that are alleged to be incorrect. Folks are complaining premiums are too high; that they were "directed" to the wrong insurance policy; etc., etc.. Sounds fishy to me. Folks are simply try to get out of an expensive contract. I think in real estate it's called "buyer's remorse."

Random Update Of North Dakota Oil And Gas Permits, 2013, Now That The Year Is Over

FOR THE ENTIRE CALENDAR YEAR - 2013

Permits by selected operator:

• American Eagle: 28
• BEXP: 35
• BR: 148
• CLR: 255
• Corinthian: 28
• Emerald: 35
• EOG: 94
• Fidelity: 42
• G3: 31
• Hess: 235
• HRC: 66
• KOG: 101
• MRO: 85
• Murex: 20
• Newfield: 61
• Oasis: 190
• OXY USA: 58
• Petro-Hunt: 82
• QEP: 132
• Samson Resources: 27
• Slawson: 68
• SM Energy: 33
• Statoil: 48
• Triangle: 44
• True Oil: 17
• Whiting: 244
• WPX: 56
• XTO: 153
• Zavanna: 31
• Zenergy: 14

Permits by selected counties:

• Divide: 169
• Dunn: 385
• McKenzie: 865
• Mountrail: 539
• Williams: 428

Permits by selected field:

• Grail: 75
• Sanish: 99
• Siverston: 61
• Stockyard: 28
• Van Hook: 50
• Westberg: 23

Despite All The Hand-Wringing: Rail Accidents Have Not Increased -- The Dickinson Press; Entire Southwest North Dakota Benefitting From Oil

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

So while crude-by-rail traffic out of North Dakota and across the nation has increased, “we have not seen a corresponding … increase in accidents,” said Brigham McCown, former administrator of the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. “That’s the good news.”

Of course that was buried so deep in the story, one had to practically read the entire story.

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The Dickinson Press is also reporting that the entire southwest region of North Dakota -- not just Dickinson, but the entire southwest -- is seeing benefits from the oil and gas industry:

The eight counties comprising the southwest corner — Adams, Billings, Bowman, Dunn, Golden Valley, Hettinger, Stark and Slope — all saw increases in taxable sales between 2008 and 2012.

The North Dakota Tax Department publishes the taxable sales and purchases for the 200 largest cities in the state. All of the southwest North Dakota cities that fall into that category experienced an increase in taxable sales and purchases between 2008 and 2012, and most had official population decreases.

Dickinson itself saw taxable sales and purchases increase 185% from $362 million to more than $1 billion between 2008 and 2012 -- due to the Bakken oil boom. The city's population is now estimated to be between 25,000 and 30,000, up from 18,000 in 2010, and 16,000 in 2000. In other words, the population of Dickinson has probably doubled between 2000 and 2012.

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By the way, if you have not seen it, this is a nice publication: the Drill.

Barges, Pipelines, Truck, And Rail

Regular readers of the blog know this story well through the wonderful posts by RBN Energy, now being reported in The Wall Street Journal: crude oil shipments by sea and inland waterways rise to supplement rail, pipelines. The oil boom is raising barge operators' fortunes. It's just a matter of time before we hear of more mishaps in the channels, especially as barges hit bridges.

The rising tide of North American oil is lifting a lot of barges, as energy companies increasingly turn to rivers and coastal waterways to get U.S. and Canadian crude to refineries.

Oil floating on barges from the Midwest down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico coast, for example, is up 13-fold since 2010, as companies find alternate routes where pipelines don't exist or have sufficient capacity. Nearly five million barrels of crude a month is being sent by barge south after companies pump it from North Dakota's Bakken Shale and, increasingly, Canada's oil sands, according to federal data.

Barge operators such as Houston-based Kirby Corp., which is the biggest by fleet size, are generating healthy profits. The company last week reported a record profit, $64.3 million, for the fourth quarter, on revenue of $568.4 million. Kirby is spending $90 million this year to add 37 inland barges to its fleet and another that can travel on the open sea. Kirby's stock shot up more than 58% last year.

I think the bigger story is this: the US mining and manufacturing sectors are back. Everyone is benefiting: trucking, pipeline operators, rail, barges.

I found it interesting that "North Dakota Bakken Shale" was mentioned and not the Texas Eagle Ford Shale.

Monday, The Morning After

Active rigs:

	2/3/2014	02/03/2013	02/03/2012	02/03/2011	02/03/2010
Active Rigs	192	187	202	167	92

RBN Energy: the Jones Act, cont'd:

Two companies that own Jones Act tankers went through bankruptcy in recent years as the charter business declined following the Great Recession. They are Overseas Shipping Group (OSG) that own two US flag tankers and manage another ten and the smaller US Shipping Corp that owns three Jones Act tankers. These days the surge in US crude production has created strong demand for Jones Act tankers and record charter rates for owners. Now tankers once dedicated to the Alaska trade between Valdez and the West Coast are being considered for crude shuttle duty around the Lower 48.  Today we continue our review of US Flag fleet owners.

The Wall Street Journal

Wouldn't this be interesting, if this starts to get reported by mainstream media other than The Wall Street Journal: the jobs report for January could very well show the US unemployment rate fellagain -- this time perhaps in part because federal jobless benefits have ended.

A year after Massachusetts set out to stop sheltering homeless families in motels, the population has surged. State data in late January showed 2,081 families in motels, near an all-time peak.

New farm bill likely to legalize cultivation of hemp -- needed desperately by the rope industry.

Super Bowl ad winners: RadioShack, Bud, Chrysler -- the Dylan-Chrysler ad was the best, but I have to admit -- "the 80's called. They want their store back" for RadioShack was very, very good. Actually quite remarkable. That one will play a lot over the next few months.

Samsung Electronics' mobile OS stumbles. Its efforts to roll out its own smartphone operating system is faltering as some major wireless carriers withdraw support. Just how many operating systems can developers handle?

Oil boom a boon to barges: the oil boom is giving a boost to barge operators as inland and coast waterways increasingly are used to get US and Canadian crude to refineries. Regular readers, through RBN Energy, are already well familiar with this story.

The canary at the Cleveland hub: United Continental plans to cut operations this spring at its loss-making Cleveland hub by about 36% based on seats offered, leading to a reduction of 470 jobs.

Heard on the street: investors shopping for natural gas should try the store -- an alternative play: gas-storage operators. Besides offering warehousing services for gas, storage is a tool for arbitrage. Gas can usually be bought cheaply in spring and sold for a profit in winter. Storage also is valuable when there are sudden dislocations in supply and demand -- during a polar vortex, for example.

The Los Angeles Times

Of course, the lead story will be the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, at age 46. Couldn't handle his heroin.

Peyton Manning's Super Bowl dream goes bad in a snap. Was it just me or did Peyton look really cold in close-ups? Elsewhere, Pete Carroll's Seahawks go all 'USC' on Broncos in 43-8 Super Bowl rout.

ObamaCare puts more people in Medi-Cal -- and some aren't happy. Who aren't happy? People who don't think of themselves as poor. By the way, Medi-Cal appears to be more confusing that ObamaCare -- at least according to the LA Times story.

The New York Times

This was reported elsewhere earlier last week: unexpectedly robust revenues from taxes and other sources are filling state coffers, prompting battles over what to do with newfound money.

I had the same thought -- op-ed in The NY Times -- talking about "fat cats"-- limit the earnings of top-paid federal contractors -- and Obama just raised the minimum wage for federal contractors. I thought this was an unusual group to support.

The NY Times runs a front page story criticizing ObamaCare.

Four to eight inches of snow forecast for New Yorkers today. Call it global warming.

Drug overdose? I'm beginning to wonder how one can call it an overdose if it's the prescribed and accepted dosage based on weight, past usage, tolerance, etc. It's simply a fact that heroin and cocaine do predictable things to arteriolar muscles -- like constriction (cocaine, not heroin, but often the two are administered simultaneously). There was probably an element of atherosclerosis involved also.  Autopsy report should simply say cardio-vascular infarct, due to multiple causes: genetic propensity, atherosclerosis, medication. Our time on earth is a flash. Make of it what we can.