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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Big Fire In Williston Overnight -- July 22, 2014

The Williston Herald is reporting:
A massive fire at an oil company shut down Highway 1804 near Scenic Sports early Tuesday morning.
Williston Police Officer Randy Haugeno said the fire broke out near Red River Supply just after midnight Tuesday morning. Flames rose up to 300 feet into the sky as firefighters and police officers worked to remove any workers and bystanders while trying to control the blaze.
Ray firefighter Jordan Perdue said Ray and Epping fire departments are standing by at the Williston Area Recreation Center to assist the Williston Fire Department.
The police have shut Highway 1804 and the fire department moved bystanders away from the facility, saying there were barrels exploding at the scene.
The Bismarck Tribune is also reporting the story.

I forgot to post this earlier; saw the report earlier this morning, but forgot all about it when we went to the science museum. 

This is barely in Williston, barely outside of Williston. This is on the main highway going east out of Williston, before you get to that little bridge that crosses the Little Muddy west of Halliburton/Sanjel. Since Red River Supply sits right on the highway, it's no wonder the road was shut down. I'm sure it will be open fairly quickly. There are a number of buildings on site. I hope no one was injured. Initial reports suggested no injuries.

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Piano vs Guitar

When I was last in Williston I struck up a conversation with "John from New Hampshire" who taught me a little about guitar playing. I can't play the guitar but always wanted to learn. I'm working with our younger granddaughter to learn to play the guitar (I did play piano, trumpet, and French horn growing up). "John from New Hampshire" mentioned that he could tell if songs were written for piano or guitar. I had never thought about that until then. A good example:

The Story of Riders On The Storm, Ray Manzarek

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A Note to the Grandparents

I will be the first to admit I have a love-hate relationship with California. Other than Williston, I'm not sure I have an emotional attachment to any geographical area any more. I used to have an emotional attachment to three geographical areas in addition to Williston; Los Angeles was one of the three (four), but no longer. I still love being out here for the weather. But that's about all, I suppose.

It's now a tradition to bring our granddaughters out to California every summer for about one month. We stay at the house where my wife's parents retired, in San Pedro. We call it a beach house, though it's a few miles from the beach. But in all respects, it feels like a beach house: small, one floor, front doors and back doors always open when we visit, bath and beach towels everywhere, ice chests full of drinks and ice everywhere, and two Weber grills on the patio, Japanese-style patio furniture made by our son-in-law last summer.

The house has that musty, moldy grandparent smell that such houses eventually get. The "smell" reminds me of my own maternal grandparents' home in Storm Lake, Iowa, the place we would visit every second or third year while growing up in Williston. It was too far and too expensive to go every year. That was one of the heartaches my mother knew but never talked about, only getting to see her parents one every other year or so. Now that I am a parent/grandparent, I know exactly what she must have felt. 

If I could live my life over, I would spend more summer vacations and school vacations with my maternal grandparents.

Our granddaughters love coming out here. They love the house: one floor, no steps, and when they step in the front door they can be in any room in just a few steps. It's a very small house. 

They have free rein in the house, much more than they would experience anywhere else. There is no bedtime, but they go to bed on time, but later than they otherwise might. They watch absolutely no television, though we've never said they couldn't. Part of the reason, I suppose, the remote controls are too confusing. Even I couldn't figure them out if my wife had not taped notes to them. Two television sets, two Blu-Ray players, and five remotes, all necessary, for some odd reason. One of the televisions requires one remote to turn it on/off, and a second remote to change stations. 

The granddaughters spend what little time they have at the house working on crafts. Right now they are folding origami. For the past two nights they have taken their origami foldings out to the front sidewalk to sell them. They sold $11 worth of origami the first night, and coincidentally, another $11 tonight. The material cost is exactly zero. They were given the origami paper by a friend. The younger granddaughter, age 8, is really the entrepreneur working this project. Tonight, her older sister, age 11, told us that she was happy she was getting paid by her (younger) sister to help out. The younger granddaughter, age 8, is going on 18, as they say. Everything comes easy for her. She is the one who finds $20 in small bills on the sidewalk when I find nickels.

We are so busy every day out here in southern California, tomorrow they look forward to staying home and getting caught up in math. Then a Japanese/Chinese food court for lunch, and then Costco to buy lamb for grilling in a day or two. We marinade lamb for at least 12 hours, preferably 24 hours.

Right now, I'm listening to Chris Isaac, May is out shopping, and the two granddaughters are in the other room working on crafts, and so quiet one would not know they are there. Periodically the younger one comes out to get some item: a few minutes ago she came out to get the yardstick, and then came back, putting it back where she found it. OCD.

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At the Science Museum, Los Angeles

But Does The Ignition Switch Work?

Yahoo!Finance is reporting:
This is not your daddy’s Caddy. As with most electric cars, the ELR’s acceleration was instantaneous — think the Millennium Falcon with wheels. It hugged the curves like it was never going to see them again. Driving the thing, I alternated between giddy exhilaration and sheer terror.
But while the ELR is indeed a Cadillac, it appears to be built for speed, not comfort. We could feel every bump in the road, and everything inside the cab felt cramped or in the wrong place. My 6-foot-3-inch son had to fold himself into origami to fit into the back seat. And with a base price of $75,000, the ELR was out of reach as a way to assuage my ongoing midlife crisis. It’s a fun ride, but these thrills ain’t cheap.

A few years ago, after we test drove a Chevy Volt for a week (the Volt shares a lot of tech with the ELR) and loved it, we vowed that our next car would not be a carbon-belching fossil-fuel-devouring beast. Even with the federal tax credit for purchasing an electric vehicle, though, the Volt was still just a bit too rich for our blood. And the Caddy is twice the price of the Volt.
More:
There are essentially three kinds of electric car, and they all come with gotchas.
Most plug-in electric hybrids like the Volt and the ELR can run for up to 40 miles on a single battery charge before they switch over to a gas-powered engine.
There are duel-fuel hybrids like the standard Toyota Prius and the Infiniti Q50, which use batteries and a motor to augment the gas engine while starting and idling, increasing your mileage by roughly 25 percent, but they’re still primarily internal combustion vehicles (there’s a plug-in version of the Prius, too).
Then there are all-electric vehicles like the Nissan LEAF and the Tesla Model S, which need to be recharged every 80 to 260 miles. They’re emission free on your commute, but you’ll need to plan your road trips carefully.
The inconvenient truth:
In 2015, car makers will be introducing more than 20 electric vehicles of one type or another. Yet they’re unlikely to have much of an impact on the environment, or the car market, says Gary Gauthier, director of transportation at NextEnergy, a nonprofit consortium created to promote alternative energy technologies and policies in the state of Michigan.
The reason? The total cost of ownership for a gas guzzler is far less than for an electric vehicle, he says. Unless some dramatic new technology emerges — or the price of gas hits $10 a gallon — that’s how it will remain for the foreseeable future.
“If not for government regulations, electric vehicles would not even exist,” says Gauthier, who says after 48 years in the auto industry he’s seen every possible alternative to gasoline but has yet to find one that’s actually viable. (He may also be the most cynical person I’ve ever interviewed; Gauthier prefers the term "realistic.") The media has overhyped EVs, he adds, but people vote with their pocketbooks — one reason why fewer than 5 percent of all cars sold in 2013 run on anything other than fossil fuels.
And the article simply gets worse from there. It's a must-read article. 

OXY USA Reports Another ... OXY USA Well; EOG, Newfield Will Each Report A Huge Well Wednesday -- July 22, 2014

Wells coming off confidential list Wednesday:
  • 21807, 1349, HRC, Fort Berthold 152-93-9C-10-6H, Four Bears, t5/14; cum 12K 5/14;
  • 24571, 823, EOG, Hardscrabble 23-21H, Lake Trenton, t2/14; cum 41K 5/14;
  • 25476, 332, CLR, Josephine 3-17H, Sauk, t4/14; cum 15K 5/14;
  • 25823, drl, Slawson, Diamondback 3-21H, Van Hook, no production data,
  • 26490, 1,305, Newfield, Wahus state 152-97-12-1-11H,  Westberg, t5/14; cum 17K 5/14;
  • 26601, 1,045, EOG, Liberty 27-23H, Parshall, t3/14; cum 56K 5/14;
  • 26602, 1,135, EOG, Liberty 28-23H, Parshall, t3/14; cum 26K 5/14;
  • 27119, drl, BR, Arches 24-35MBH, Keene, no production data,
  • 27120, drl, BR, Arches 24-35TFH, Keene, no production data,
  • 27177, 1,943, XTO, Cherry Creek State 44X-36C, Siverston, no production data,
  • 27313, drl, Hess, EN-Eva-156-94-1621H-1, Manitou, no production data,
  • 27472, drl, Hess, HA-Thompson-2560-152-95-2017-1918H-1, Hawkeye, no production data,
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26601, see above, EOG, Liberty 27-23H, Parshall:

DateOil RunsMCF Sold
5-20142363413753
4-20142078310555
3-20149975966
2-20142760

Active rigs:


7/22/201407/22/201207/22/201107/22/201007/22/2009
Active Rigs19620718213841

Nine (9) new permits --
  • Operators: CLR (5), XTO (4)
  • Fields: Noonan (Divide), Crazy Man Creek (Williams), Dollar Joe (Williams)
  • Comments:
Wells coming off confidential list were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.

Five (5) producing wells completed:
  • 22761, 50, OXY USA, Crosby Creek 1-19-18H-144-98, Little Knife, t2/14; cum 630 bbls 5/14;
  • 23671, 1,466, KOG, Koala 2-2-11-15H3, Poe, t6/14; cum --
  • 24324, 832, CLR, Topeka 4-12H, Brooklyn, t6/14; cum --
  • 24325, 966, CL$, Topeka 5-12H, Brooklyn, t6/14; cum --
  • 26770, 717, CLR, Winston 6-12H1, Long Creek, t7/14; cum --
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Earnings: July 23, 2014

ATT, at 68 cents beat consensus by 5 cents; a huge quarter, though after-market trading has not confirmed such; from the press release -- best-ever postpaid churn drives strongest postpaid net adds in nearly five years and continued U-verse gains highlight AT&T’s second quarter as business transformation continues. [When you get right down to it, there's not much choice when choosing a cellular plan if one does a lot of traveling.]

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Trading At New Highs Today

APA, BK, ENB, HAL, KOG, NOV, Newfield (NFX), UNP, WLL.
WTI crude oil back down to $102.
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Let's Think This Through

Let's say Canadian separatists started firing rockets that could reach New York City. The rockets necessitated that the FAA ban all flights into all airports into New York City. Any question what the US military would do? US government has banned all US flights into Tel Aviv. 

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How's That Again? Department

The most inane statement of the day:
A federal appeals court panel in the District of Columbia (i.e., Washington, DC, the federal capital) struck down a major part of the 2010 health-care law Tuesday, ruling that the tax subsidies that are central to the program may not be provided in at least half of the states. The ruling, if upheld, could potentially be more damaging to the law than last month’s Supreme Court decision on contraceptives.
Remember: Hobby Lobby provides 16 of 18 contraceptive options, or something like that. Hobby Lobby did not offer 2 of 18 options. The vast majority of folks working at Hobby Lobby do not need 18 contraceptive options. Comparing the Supreme Court opinion on ObamaCare contraceptives to illegal subsidies is a real stretch. Worthy of a blog. LOL.

It was in The Fiscal Times.

Idle Note On The Permian -- July 22, 2014

I've been blogging about the Bakken since 2007. I deleted all postings between 2007 and 2009, and started over, so this site only goes back to 2009. I am inappropriately bullish on the Bakken. Having said that, the Permian might be the next big story. I started noting that about a year ago, maybe earlier. The USGS estimates of the three major shale plays (the Bakken, the Eagle Ford, and the Permian) are not helpful.  I track the Permian elsewhere, but don't always link every post. But today we have yet another story coming out of the Permian. This is a press release from a company obviously looking for investors, so beware, but take it for what it's worth:
Crude Energy’s operations in the Permian Basin are part of the reason the region is making such a dramatic comeback. The Permian basin is now the most prolific oil producing region in the United States, with producers such as Devon Energy, Pioneer Natural Resources and Chevron leading the pack. That comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which took an in depth look at the impressive revival in oil and gas production in West Texas.

The Permian Basin has been producing oil and gas for around a century, but it went into a period of decline in the latter half of the 20th century. Over the last five years, however, oil and gas production in formations like the Sprayberry, Wolfcamp, Bone Spring, Glorieta and Yeso, and Delaware has surged. [I've mentioned the Bone Spring formation before.]

The numbers reflect this success. In 2007, the Permian basin only produced 850,000 barrels per day, which is not a trivial amount. But by 2013, oil production jumped to 1.35 million barrels per day. That is enough to put the Permian Basin in the top spot in terms of oil production across the country. Last year, the Permian accounted for 18% of total U.S. oil production.

Early flow rates in the Permian are comparable to the Eagle Ford in South Texas, and the Bakken in North Dakota –two regions that tend to get a lot more press coverage.

And the word is out on the Permian, which accounted for 50% of the additional rigs that entered into operation in the first quarter of 2014.

But it is not as if all of the formations within the Permian are proving to be so productive. The top three – the Sprayberry, the Wolfcamp, and the Bone Spring formations – alone account for almost three-quarters of the growth in the Permian Basin over the last several years.

And it is in the Wolfcamp that Crude Energy is making moves.
Disclaimer: 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. I had not heard of Crude Energy until I saw this story. I have no plans to invest in Crude Energy. The story is posted to keep me abreast of the Permian. 

What Have We Learned Overnight? July 22, 2014; North Dakota Has Another First; Apple Has Strongest Gain In Seven Quarters -- Doesn't Impress

COURT RULES OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES ILLEGAL - 'nuf said.

On the way into work this morning, listening to the news I realized things couldn't be too bad: President Obama flies into California this weekend to attend two fundraisers, one with Ms Pelosi in San Francisco, and then he gives a speech, one speech, on Iraq Afghanistan Ukraine shot-down Malaysian airliner Putin Israel Hamas global warming extreme weather hurricanes earthquakes the Bakken the US economy. LOL. Is anybody even listening? With all that is going on in the world, and POTUS talks about US economy in its fifth year of recovery, things can't be going too badly. I guess Wall Street agrees; the market is up another 100 points (almost). Oil is solidly above $104. This man isn't even talking to Mr Obama any more.

That $200 million MDU deal? Buyer was Lime Rock Resources. A big "thank you" for Don to solving this "mystery."  Link hereOriginal post here. "Anonymous source" wrong unless there is a connection between EOG and Lime Rock.

Recap so far:
North Dakota has another first: leads the US in economic well-being for children. It appears economic well-being for children correlates with parents (at least one) having a good-paying job.
Earnings: Reporting Tuesday
  • AAPL:
    Apple reported stronger-than-expected earnings growth late Tuesday, but fiscal Q3 sales of the iPhone and iPad lagged estimates as consumers and investors look ahead to the next smartphone models.
    Apple earned $1.28 a share in the quarter ended June 28, up 19.6% from a year earlier. That beat the consensus estimate of $1.23. It was the strongest gain in seven quarters, improving from 15%, 5%, -5% and -20% in the prior four periods.
  • AAPL, elsewhere:
    Apple today announced financial results for the second calendar quarter and third fiscal quarter of 2014. For the quarter, Apple posted revenue of $37.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $7.7 billion, or $1.28 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $35.3 billion and net quarterly profit of $6.9 billion, or $1.07 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter.

    Gross margin for the quarter was 39.4 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter, with international sales accounting for 59 percent of revenue. Apple also declared an upcoming dividend payment of $0.47 per share, payable on August 14 to shareholders of record as of August 11. The company currently holds $164.5 billion in cash and marketable securities.
  • CMCSA, beat expectations; 76 cents vs 72 cents; shares up over 1%;
  • MSFT, misses on earnings (58 cents vs 60 cents forecast); Nokia drags; Cloud helps
  • NBR, misses by 2 cents; 21 cents vs 23 cents
  • BTU, revenue up 2%, but reports a net loss of 27 cents/share; shares up almost 2%; Less than 914 days;
  • KO, beats by a penny at 64 cents/share but revenues declined 1%; shares down more than 3%;
  • VZ, beat by a penny at 91 cents/share, dramatic increase in customers; net wireless additions surged over 50%; shares up slightly;
  • XLNX, beats by 1 cent; revenues and guidance down; shares plunge
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

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ObamaCare In Four Sentences For Those Without Time To Read 2,700 Pages

1. In order to insure the uninsured, we first have to un-insure the insured.

2. Next, we require the newly un-insured to be re-insured.

3. To re-insure the newly un-insured, they are required to pay extra charges to be re-insured.

4. The extra charges are required so that the original insured, who became un-insured, and then became re-insured, can pay enough extra so that the original un-insured can be insured, free of charge to them. 

We'll See If It Holds -- WTI Crude Oil Futures Just Went Over $105 -- July 21, 2014; Is EOG Buying Fidelity Acreage In Mountrail County?

9:40 p.m. PDT, July 21, 2014: WTI crude oil futures up fifty cents, now over $105/bbl.

On another note, an "anonymous" source suggests it is EOG buying the acreage that MDU/Fidelity is selling. [Update: That $200 million MDU deal? Buyer was Lime Rock Resources. A big "thank you" for Don to solving this "mystery."  Link hereOriginal post here. "Anonymous source" wrong unless there is a connection between EOG and Lime Rock.]


Shadows In A Mirror, Chris Isaac