Monday Coming -- August 17, 2014; 9/18 Wells To DRL Status; KOG With A "High-IP" Well; US Corn Harvest To Set New Records

Monday, August 18, 2014

• 26200, drl, Zavanna, Beagle 32-29 3H, Springbrook, no production data,
• 26394, drl, CLR, Limousin 4-3H1, Sanish, no production data,
• 26418, 572, Fidelity, Ben 19-20H,  Dutch Henry Butte, t3/14; cum 36K 6/14;
• 26447, 383, Fidelity, Mary P 19-20H, Dutch Henry Butte, t4/14; cum 20K 6/14;
• 27059, drl, BR, Denali 21-4TFH 2NH, Johnson Corner, no production data,
• 27254, 671, Hess, En-Hanson A-155-94-0607H-3, Manitou, t7/14; cum --
• 27326, 2,430, KOG, Skunk Creek 4-8-17-13H, South Fork, t7/14; cum --
• 27539, 228, Sinclair, Nelson 1-36H, Kittleson Slough, t4/14; cum 12K 6/14;

Sunday, August 17, 2014

• 26398, drl, CLR, Limousin 8-3H1, Sanish, no production data,
• 27052, 155, Corinthian, Corinthian Backman 12-35 2H, North Souris, Spearfish well, t4/14; cum 7K 6/14;
• 27452, drl, CLR, Hartman 10-28H, Chimney Butte, no production data,

Saturday, August 16, 2014

• 26199, drl, Zavanna, Beagle 32-29 2TFH, Springbrook, no production data, 
• 26391, drl, CLR, Limousin 1-3H, Sanish, no production data,
• 27253, drl, Hess, EN-Hanson A-155-94-0607H-4, Manitou, no production data,
• 27357, drl, XTO, Franchuk 24X-19E, Murphy Creek, no production data,

Active rigs:

	8/17/2014	08/17/2013	08/17/2012	08/17/2011	08/17/2010
Active Rigs	194	183	199	191	138

RBN Energy: Houston storage; the series continues. 

The Wall Street Journal

This global warming stuff --> more rain --> more corn --> more ethanol --> what's not to like. The Journal is reporting:

"We're going to drown in corn this year."

The assessment, from Jeff Brown, 45 years old, a fifth-generation farmer outside Decatur, IL, sums up the view of most people who grow, trade or process corn as they brace for another record U.S. harvest.

Months of wet weather have fueled expectations for a corn crop so large that mounds of the grain will be a common sight across the Midwest after the harvest, which starts next month.

The U.S. Agriculture Department projected last week that production will exceed 14 billion bushels, topping last year's historic harvest. Many analysts think this week's closely watched Pro Farmer crop tour will offer further evidence of a remarkably healthy crop, and that demand isn't likely to rise enough to offset the sharp increase in supply.

The drop in corn prices could benefit consumers by curbing inflation in grocery-store products that contain the ingredient, like cereals and cookies, though analysts expect few packaged-food companies to make significant price cuts.

The packaged-food companies will pocket the profit.

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This is not good: that unarmed man in Ferguson was shot six times, including two to the head. A couple of days ago I asked when the National Guard would be called in; that happened overnight.
I thought the general consensus was less police/military presence was needed.

Baraq widened the air campaign in northern Iraq.

Pre-season college football: Florida State, Alabama, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Ohio State.

Little League Baseball: 13 y/o Mo'ne Davis is a 70-mph ace; one of the best sports stories of the summer.

Global cooling: natural gas prices falling -- temperatures this summer have been tepid, with weather forecasts through the end of August turning cool. Ah, yes, global cooling. Nineteen years now without any warming. Or, maybe the rate of warming has just slowed. Depends.

Related. Heard on the Street: 

Can you hear that? It's the deafening silence of New Yorkers not switching on their air conditioning units.

Easier to hear are muffled sobs from natural-gas traders.

Having started 2014 with cheers as the polar vortex revived the price of their favorite commodity, they now see the same weather dynamic flooding the eastern U.S. with cooler air when the region should be stifling. That cuts demand for air conditioning, electricity and gas.

Front-month futures, which poked above $6 per million British thermal units in February, are now below $3.80.

Even worse: Unless winter is ferocious for the second year running, 2015 is shaping up to be another washout. Natural-gas stocks were depleted by last winter, leading many to conclude that the need to rebuild them heralded a turn, finally, in the market's fortunes.

By late March, inventories were 55% below their five-year average. But stocks have been catching up. In the week ending Aug. 8, they rose by 78 billion cubic feet. This caused a flurry of optimism as it was below estimates—but it was still way above what is normal at this time of year.

Not to worry: it's gonna be a very, very cold winter. 

The Los Angeles Times

Top story: Ferguson -- governor calls in National Guard.

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The 18-Year Pause That Refreshes

It's Just Too Complex To Predict The Climate

Too complex:

A new paper published in Nature Geoscience finds excuse #32 for the 18 year "pause" in global warming that sophisticated IPCC climate models failed to predict. According to the paper, the IPCC models didn't predict the pause because they are too complex, but if a model with "reduced complexity" and the already known changes of natural variability is used, all is well. 

The simpler model uses observations of ENSO, solar activity, and stratospheric aerosols to retrospectively predict the known climate change, not nearly as challenging as making a true prospective prediction of climate change before the natural variability is known. 

I can't make this stuff up.  My hunch is the paper is too complex for Algore to read.

GMXR And Thunderbird Resources LP -- For The Archives -- Effective February 3, 2014 -- Belated Post August 17, 2014

This is simply some bookkeeping for the archives; it's possible I've posted it before.

The source is at GlobeNewsWire, dated February 3, 2014.

Update on "plan of reorganization" for GMXR (modified/go to linked source for full statement).

The company announces today that its confirmed Plan of Reorganization has become effective. The Plan, which was confirmed by a Bankruptcy Court order dated January 22, 2014, reorganizes the Debtors into privately held entities that will not be listed on any national securities exchange.

The Company expects to formally terminate the registration of its securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission early this week.

The reorganization of the Debtors' capital structure under the Plan reduces the total amount of outstanding indebtedness by approximately $505,000,000 under four separate indentures.

Secured claims under the senior-most indenture, allowed by the Bankruptcy Court in the amount of $338,000,000 have been exchanged for equity interests in Thunderbird Resources Equity Inc. ("Reorganized GMXR") and/or Thunderbird Resources LP ("New GMXR").

All priority non-tax claims have been paid off today or will be paid as soon as reasonably practical. General unsecured creditors received a pro rata share of (1) interests in a creditor trust created as of the Effective Date; and (2) $1.5 million in cash. At the option of the Debtors (with certain required consents), intercompany claims were either reinstated or eliminated, in full or in part. As of the Effective Date, all rights and interests of holders of the Company's common and preferred stock have been terminated. Finally, equity interests in the debtor subsidiaries are now held directly by Reorganized GMXR for the benefit of the holders of Reorganized GMXR common stock.

With regard to the Bakken and this blog, one will see Thunderbird Resources LP "replacing" GMXR.

Random Note On New "400-Series" EOG Wells In The Parshall -- August 17, 2014

Updates

August 23, 2014: another "400-series" well:

• 29190, SI/NC --> TATD --> 622, EOG, Parshall 406-34H, Parshall. The well file is still accessible -- proposed "objective horizon": Bakken; spacing unit: 640 acres, TVD, 9,320 feet; TD, 14,968 feet. EOG estimates the top of the middle Bakken (which is listed as the target) at 9,303 feet; the lower Bakken shale at 9,341 feet; and the Three Forks at 9,374 feet; spud October 14, 2014; FTD, October 21, 2014; 5,263 feet in the middle Bakken target; in zone, 100%); 21 stages; 5.1 million lbs; t11/16; cum 47K 5/17; 

Original Note

[Note, unrelated to this post: St Demetrius oil field has been updated.]

At the bottom of the blog, there is a large section of "tags." One of the tags is "nomenclature." I haven't caught all the posts that have to do with "nomenclature" or the naming of wells in the Bakken, but I have several, at least enough to get started for those interested.

Some operators name their wells so that we know which formations are being targeted. When the Bakken boom began, all "H" wells were horizontal wells (that's what the "H" stood for and most of the wells were targeting the middle Bakken); if you saw an "H" in a name for a permit after 2007 in North Dakota, you could be pretty comfortable knowing it was in the "Bakken Pool."

When operators started targeting the Three Forks, many of them preceded the "H" with "TF" --> TFH or a Three Forks Horizontal. (Subsequently, Whiting uses "PH" for Pronghorn formation in the southwest part of the state, similar to Sanish in Mountrail County.)

Generally speaking, any well permitted/drilled before the end of 2012 with a TFH designation and/or any well drilled prior to the end of 2012 in which the geology report/file report says Three Forks, one can assume the target was the "upper" Three Forks.

Some time after 2011 or 2012 (I've long forgotten when this all evolved), we started hearing CLR and Whiting discuss lower benches of the Three Forks. The shorthand is now TF1 for the upper Three Forks; TF2 for the second bench, TF3, for the third bench, and TF4, for the fourth bench (I think I'm correct on that -- but I could be wrong).

Be that as it may, some operators stay with the single letter "H" for horizontal and do not use letters to suggest which formation will be targeted.

For example, this Hess well will target the Lodgepole:

• 26738, TA-->A-->103, Hess, Ti-Wao-157-95-14H-1, Tioga, this is a Lodgepole well, t7/14; cum 27K 5/17;  

Another example: EOG.

EOG wells are fairly standard in the Bakken:

township/location/family name -- one, two, or three digit number -- dash -- two or four digit number -- H

So, a typical EOG well name looks like this:

West Clark 1-2413H

Pretty simple.

The "1" is simply a chronological number which I will return to later.

The "2413" number is the area under which the horizontal will run; in this case the well is sited in section 24 and will end in section 13.

Another well:

Parshall 13-26H

The "13" is the chronological number; the well is a short lateral, running under section 26.

Now back to that chronological number, "1" in the first example, and "13" in the second example. I discussed this a long, long time ago, and I could be wrong, but generally, it appears, for EOG, a chronological number in that location (coming right after the township/location/name) suggests which formation the original permit application provided:

• 1 - 99: middle Bakken (up to 99 middle Bakken wells in one spacing unit)
• 101 - 199: upper Three Forks (up to 99 upper Three Forks wells in one spacing unit)

This generally holds true for EOG, but exceptions can be found, where a "1-99" well ended up being a Three Forks well, and a "101-199" well ends up being a middle Bakken well. One generally needs to go back to the original permit and things generally line up correctly; it appears that on occasion the target changes between the time of the permit and the completed well.

The reason for all this is that in the last week or so, EOG has introduced a new three-digit number, what I call the "400-series":

• 29127, TATD--> 1,584, EOG, Parshall 401-3534H, Parshall, sections 35/34 - T152N-R90W, 1280-acre spacing, TVD of 9,300; TD of 15,717; 340 FSL; 1410 FEL; "Bakken," azimuth, 319.6; a "grass-roots horizontal"; middle Bakken; spud date, December 3, 2014; FTD date, December 12 2014; middle Bakken target - 100%; t11/16; cum 49K 5/17;
• 29126, TATD --> 955, EOG, Parshall 402-3534H, Parshall, sections 35/34 - T152N-R90W, 1280-acre spacing, TVD of 9,300; TD of 16,119; 340 FSL; 1460 FEL; "Bakken," azimuth, 320.5; t11/16; cum 72K 5/17;
• 29105, TATD--> 953, EOG, Parshall 405-3534H, Parshall, sections 35/34 - T152N-R90W, 1280-acre spacing, TVD of 9,335; TD of 15,189; 650 FSL; 2050 FWL; "Bakken," azimuth, 320.1; t11/16; cum 56K 5/17;
• 29104, TATD--> 1,221, EOG, Parshall 404-3534H, Parshall, sections 35/34 - T152N-R90W, 1280-acre spacing, TVD of 9,335; TD of 15,773; 650 FSL; 2000 FWL; "Bakken," azimuth, 320.0; 22 stages; 5.8 million lbs;  t11/16; cum 50K 5/17;
• 29103, TATD--> 780, EOG, Parshall 403-3534H, Parshall, sections 35/34 - T152N-R90W, 1280-acre spacing, TVD of 9,335; TD of 16,569; 650 FSL; 1950 FWL; "Bakken," azimuth, 320.0;  t11/16; cum 51K 5/17;

I don't believe #29126 and #29127 are yet plotted on the NDIC GIS map (August 17, 2014). 

So a couple of things.

First, the new three-digit number designating the formation, a new series, the "400-series." Looking at two other EOG wells in the immediate region provides no clue: the two nearby short-lateral wells targeting the middle Bakken have similar TVDs and TDs. The thickness of the various formations in the Bakken Pool (MB, TF1, TF2, TF3, and TF4) are very thin so even 50 feet makes a difference, but I certainly can't sort this out based on this information.

All five of these wells have almost identical azimuths of 320 degrees, making them all parallel with each other. The hypotenuse of a one-mile square section is 7,467 feet; the longest horizontal is about 6,800 feet (TD - TVD), which suggests that these horizontals will all parallel each other, start in section 35, and end in section 35, but they will be spaced at 1280-acre spacing (sections 35 and 34).

This is way beyond my comfort zone; and, I may be misreading something, but that's how I see it right now: a new "400-series"; depths that aren't helpful to figure out which formation might be targeted; and all appear to be short laterals in "long-lateral" spacing (if that makes sense.).

So, I will throw that out there, and see if anyone has any thoughts. Perhaps it's obvious to everyone else, and it's just me missing the obvious.

There is another "408" well out there:

• 27850, dry - a monitoring well, EOG, Parshall 408-15M, Duperow; it is located in 15-152-90, 3.5 miles almost due north (NNW) of the five locations in section 35-152-90, but the application says this "408" well is simply a monitoring well that will monitor two middle Bakken wells located in section 15 (#27291, #27292) and will not produce any oil.

Certainly the "400-series" wells in section 35 are going to be producing wells. It's hard to believe that "400-series" wells are Duperow wells. First, the forms for those wells say "Bakken"; second, it would seem unusual to place five Duperow wells all at one time in one section? And I think the Duperow, being deeper than the Three Forks, might mean a deeper TVD, even though that's much more difficult to sort out.

There are good Duperow wells, for example this one, about three-quarters of a million bbls since 2008:

• 7141, 521, Wesco, Hamre 1-14, Cherry Creek, Duperow;  s8/79; t2/80; cum 824K 5/17;

So, there you have it. That's all I know. Something tells me it's going to be a simple explanation and I wrote this long post for nothing.

Lodgepole? Lodgepole is part of the Bakken pool. Oasis has drilled Lodgepole wells using standard Oasis nomenclature.

Top 50 Oil Producers In North Dakota -- As Of December, 2013

I can't recall if I've posted this before. Regardless here it is again at Petroleum News. When you get to the link, it's a PDF, scroll down to page 10. The "bopd" is from the linked source; the estimated acreage is the company's acreage in North Dakota only and comes from my "snapshot" page. Here are the numbers as of December, 2013 (there may be typographical errors; check the source if any questions)(the estimated acreage is from my data base and may be very, very wrong in some cases):

Company / bopd -- estimated net acreage in North Dakota Bakken

1. Hess: 82,108 -- 640,000
2. CLR: 74,332 -- 1.2 million
3. Whiting: 73,132  -- 685,000
4. EOG: 58,842 -- 580,000
5. XTO: 48,141 -- 600,000
6. MRO: 45,156 -- 370,000
7. Statoil: 43,797 -- 258,000 (378,000 in ND and MT)
8. Oasis: 37,981 -- 500,000 (may be slightly more/less; recently sold some non-core acreage)
9. KOG: 37,219 (will be acquired by Whiting by end of 2014) -- 183,0000
10. BR: 35,858 -- 620,000
11. QEP: 31,925 -- maybe 118,000
12. HRC (Halcon): 26,470 -- 131,000
13. WPX: 26,210 -- maybe 85,800
14. Slawson: 23,254 -- at one time reported to be about 100,000
15. SM Energy: 20,688 -- about 159,000
16. OXY USA: 16,864 -- ~ 300,000
17. Petro-Hunt: 16,176
18. Newfield: 14,024 -- hard to say; maybe 60K in ND Bakken; 40K in Elm Coulee (MT)
19. Enerplus: 12,020 -- 215,000 + (ND, MT, and Saskatchewan)
20. Fidelity (MDU): 11,200 -- 124,000 (ND, MT)
21. Hunt: 9,152
22. Murex: 7,298 --
23. Triangle: 7,201 -- 190,450
24. Zavanna: 6,800
25. Samson Resources: 6,503 -- no idea; sold 20,000 acres to Magnum Hunter; sold 120,000 acres to CLR
26. Baytex: 4,973 -- maybe 70,000 (had 126,000 acres prior to selling 50,000 acres to Magnum Hunter)
27. Sequel: 4,840 -- 65,000 (2011, company website)
28. Abraxas: 4,449 -- acreage in ND Bakken hard to determine; 21,000 back in 2011, but sold 13,500 net acres in 2013
29. American Eagle: 2,966 -- 11,000 perhaps
30. Crescent Point Energy: 2,414
31. Sinclair: 1,959
32. Emerald: 1,812 -- maybe around 70,000 net acres after acquiring 20,800 net acres in early 2014
33. Arsenal: 1,073
34. Denbury: 991 -- sold most of their Bakken position to XOM in 2012
35. Cornerstone: 804 -- maybe 89,000 net acres in ND (21,000 net acres in Sheridan County, MT)
36. True Oil: 767
37. Mountain Divide: 698
38. Armstrong Operating: 539
39. GMX Resources: 427 -- maybe 35,000 (2012 corporate presentation)
40. Bakken Hunter: 388 -- a subsidiary of Magnum Hunter; 97,000 (ND)
41. Gadeco: 249
42. Windsor Energy Group: 227
43. Rim Operating:  151
44. Resource Drilling: 147
45. Legacy Reserves Operating: 82
46. North Plains Energy: 81 -- sold to KOG some time ago; kept some wells?
47: SHD Oil & Gas: 75
48. Texakot: 46
49: Resolute Natural Resources: 44
50: Petro Harvester Operating: 19

Random Note On New Flaring Restrictions -- August 17, 2014

I may have been a bit harsh with regard to the effort by the state to reduce natural gas flaring with my comments following the release of the most recent Director's Cut. As of June, 2014, flaring in North Dakota had been reduced from a high of 36% to 28%.

What is the goal and what are the new rules? From an earlier post:

More restrictive regulations covering flaring on existing wells were passed by the North Dakota Industrial Commission – the state’s regulating entity for oil and gas – July 1. 

The goal of the commission is to reduce flaring to 26 percent by the fourth quarter of 2014, 23 percent by the first quarter of 2016, and 10 percent – with the potential of 5 percent – by the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the commission’s website. 

Operators will be restricted to producing 200 barrels a day if they do not collect at least 60 percent of their natural gas. There will be a 90-day grace period for an operator not meeting the new rules to produce at a maximum rate before being subject to a penalty.

The new regulations on existing wells fall on the heels of more restrictive regulations covering flaring on new gas wells, which were approved and went into effect June 1.

Except for the really, really big wells (some like the ones EOG is reporting) the Bakken decline rate is such that 6,000 bbls of oil per month is actually fairly common by the end of the first six months, if not sooner.

**************************************

Warning: with all this data being transcribed, there are likely to be typographical errors. I did not double-check or triple-check every entry. I do this for my personal interest. If something seems wrong, it probably is. Go to the NDIC source if there are any questions. The goal is not to be 100% correct; the goal is to get a feeling for what is going on in the Bakken. 

Down below, I have posted the results of all the wells that came off the confidential list the first seven days after the new rules went into effect. It's a limited number of wells, and not yet a good representative sample, but it's a start.

First the raw data: the first number is the number of bbls of oil produced in the first month of June; the second number is the percent of natural gas flared. Based on the article above, those flaring more than 60% of the natural gas produced at the well will be limited to 200 bopd. So, when you scroll through the numbers below, if the production is 6,000 bbls or less in the month of June, ignore the amount of natural gas being flared. The well is already under 200 bopd.

The second thing to look at is whether a well that exceeds the restrictions is hooked up to a natural gas line; if any amount of natural gas is being sold, then it tells me that at least the well is hooked into the natural gas processing system, and it's a matter of the system's capacity to process the natural gas, but at least the line is in.

• 15K/17%
• 18K/100% -- BR, Corral Creek, but the field is tied into natural gas processing
• 6K/0%
• 7K/0%  
• 9K/0%
• 8K/0%
• 14K/60% -- rounded up, actually slightly less than 60%
• 13K/100% (first 10 days) - remember the 90-day grace period when bringing a new well on line
• 7K/0%
• 8K/0%
• 5K/0%
• 5K/0%
• 7K/0%
• 14K/100% (but 0% previous two months)
• 5K/67% (but well below 60% previous two months)
• 2K/79%
• 0/9%
• 14K/19%
• 3K/0%
• 38K/99% -- the big EOG wells
• 40K/99% -- the big EOG wells
• 3K/100%
• 9K/27%
• 5K/43%
• 11K/44%
• 3K/100%
• 6K/45%
• 9K/0%
• 0/6%
• 1K/100%
• 0/0%
• 9K/100% -- Petro-Hunt, North Tioga field
• 5K/100% 
• 9K/19%
• 14K/14%
• 17K/12%
• 6K/100%

Now some observations:

• of the 38 wells, only a couple exceeded 6K bbls/month and 60% flared natural gas; I believe they were all the incredible EOG wells; EOG has the ability to manage this problem; for me, EOG is a non-issue when it comes to flaring
• a couple of the wells that exceeded the restrictions, had no problem in the earlier months, suggesting this was a non-issue; the wells are hooked up to a natural gas line and processing 100% in most months
• obviously any well flaring right at 60% now will be cut back easily to 59.9% or less; in fact, all of the wells above at 60% flaring -- that was rounded up; they were all about 59.9% (coincidence? I doubt it.)
• Spearfish wells will never meet the 6,000 bbl threshhold
• OXY USA will never meet the 6,000 bbl threshhold
• all numbers were rounded; thus, if you see "6K" you can be assured that the actual number was less than 6,000 bbls, and in a 31-day month, the threshhold is up to 6,200 bbls (in other words, ignore wells with production at 6K or less)
• Oasis appears to be fully on-line; at least with their big wells
• not enough data with regard to KOG to make much comment but soon KOG will be Whiting's problem
• pad drilling will be a big help; generally operators are not producing from any wells on a pad until all wells are completed; this provides a lot of time to get the natural gas pipelines in place

So, unless I'm misreading the rules, or there are other rules in small print, it seems things will be fine in the Bakken with regard to flaring.

Up above, the numbers were just the bbls of oi/percent of natural gas flared; below is the actual list of wells.

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These are all of the new wells that were reported in the first seven days when the rule went into effect, June 1, 2014 - June 7, 2014. In front of each file number, I've put the production for that well for the month of June, 2014, followed by percent flared:

Saturday, June 7, 2014
15K/17%: 23013, 876, CLR, Sacramento Federal 4-10H, Brooklyn, t4/14; cum 16K 4/14;
No Data yet: 26614, 36, Enduro Operating, MRPSU 29-13, a Madison well, t1/14; cum 2K 4/14;
18K/100%: 26681, 1,844, BR, CCU North Coast 11-25TFH, Corral Creek, t5/14; cum --
No Data yet: 26871, drl, XTO, Cindy Blikre 41X-2C, Lindahl, no production data,

Friday, June 6, 2014
6K/0%: 24927, 1,760, Oasis, Wayne Zumhof Federal 5300 44-15T, Willow Creek
7K/0%: 25221, 2,074, Oasis, Aspen Federal 5300 24-15B, Willow Creek,
9K/0%: 25393, 2,614, Oasis, Augusta 5200 11-28B,  Camp, t1/14; cum 53K 3/14;
8K/0%: 25577, 3,134, Oasis, Ida 5200 21-28B, Camp, t1/14; cum 63K 4/14;
14K/60%:25689, 1,992, Oasis, Crawford 5493 44-7T, Robinson Lake, t12/13; cum 35K 4/14; 
13K/100% (first 10 days): 25693, drl, Hess, BW-Johnson 149-99-1003H-2, Cherry Creek
7K/0%: 25725, 1,468, Oasis, Jase 5892 21-30T, Enget Lake, t2/14; cum 25K 4/14;
8K/0%: 25726, 1,450, Oasis, Mahaila 5892 21-30H, Enget Lake, t2/14; cum 32K 4/14;
5K/0%: 25740, 810, Oasis, Fairfax 6093 12-26B, Gros Ventre, middle Bakken,
5K/0%: 26057, 1,593, Oasis, Montague 5602 42-34 5B, Cow Creek, t2/14; cum 17K 4/14;
7K/0%: 26124, 1,041, Oasis, Lefty 5200 14-30 2T, Camp, t4/14; cum 13K 4/14;
14K/100% (but 0% previous two months): 26178, 1,391, Oasis, Satsuma 5693 44-35B, Alger  
No Data yet: 26179, drl, Oasis, Clementine 5693 44-35T, Alger, no production data,
5K/67% (way below 60% previous two months): 26182, 140, Oasis, Morgan 6093 12-6 1H,
No Data yet: 26738, TA, Hess, Ti-Wao-157-95-14H-1, Tioga, this is a Lodgepole well

Thursday, June 5, 2014
2K/79%: 26474, 52, Corinthian, Corinthian LIndstrom 5-34-1H, Souris, a Spearfish/Madison well 0/9%: 26680, 2,664, BR, CCU Burner 41-26MBH, Corral Creek, t4/14; cum 7K 4/14;

Wednesday, June 4, 2014
14K/19%: 20258, 2,399, KOG, Skunk Creek 3-24-25-13H, Mandaree, t4/14; cum 16K 4/14;
No Data yet: 24758, drl, Statoil, Melissa 31-30 6H, East Fork, no production data,
3K/0%: 25075, 523, OXY USA, Charles Rand 1-6-7H-143-97, Crooked Creek,
No Data yet: 25691, drl, Hess, BW-Johnson 149-99-1003H-3, Cherry Creek, no production data,
38K/99%: 25757, 989, EOG, Wayzetta 35-1920H, Parshall, t1/14; cum 113K 4/14;
40K/99%: 25785, 1,682, EOG, Wayzetta 36-1920H, Parshall, t1/14; cum 126K 4/14;
3K/100%: 26271, 1,346, Emerald, Pirate 6-2-11H, Foreman Butte, t12/13; cum 42K 4/14;
9K/27%: 26472, 1,667, Newfield, Rolfsrud State 152-96-21-16-12H, Westberg, t2/14;
No Data yet: 26629, drl, CLR, Mack 12-2H2, Antelope, a Sanish pool well, no production data,
No Data yet: 26872, drl, XTO, Cindy Blikre 41X-2G, Lindahl, no production data,
No Data yet: 26880, drl, CLR, Lawrence 6-24H1, North Tioga, no production data,

Tuesday, June 3, 2014
25677, drl, Statoil, Lucy Hanson 15-22 6H, Catwalk, no production data,
5K/43%: 25860, 2,716, QEP, Zorro 4-35-26BH, Grail, t1/14; cum 65K 4/14;
11K/44%: 25861, 2,655, QEP, Zorro 3-35-26BH, Grail, t1/14; cum 63K 4/14;
3K/100%: 25893, conf, Hunt, Writing Rock 161-101-30-31H-1, Writing Rock, producing,
6K/45%: 26060, 2,323, QEP, Zorro 27-34-26-35LL, Grail, t1/14; cum 47K 4/14;
9K/0%: 26537, A, Sinclair, Martens 5-5XH, Sanish, no IP or production data,
0/6%: 26679, 1,776, BR, CCU Burner 41-26TFH, Corral Creek, t3/14; cum 4K 4/14;

Monday, June 2, 2014
1K/100%: 26036, 45, Corinthian, Corinthian Skarphol 8-33 2H, North Souris, a Spearfish well No Data yet: 26630, drl, CLR, Mack 22-2H1, Antelope, no production data,
No Data yet: 26873, drl, CLR, Lawrence 7-24H2, North Tioga, no production data,
0/0%: 26928, 1,363, BR, Craterlands 11-14TFH-R, Hawkeye, t3/14; cum 9K 4/14;
9K/100%: 26979, 714, Petro-Hunt, MM Wold 160-94-31A-6-1HS, North Tioga, t4/14; cum 5K 4/14;
5K/100%: 27071, drl, Mountain Divide, Reistad 26-35S-1H, Fortuna, no production data,

Sunday, June 1, 2014
No Data yet: 24754, drl, Statoil, Melissa 31-30 2H, East Fork, no production data,
No Data yet: 24759, drl, Statoil, Melissa 31-30 7TFH, East Fork, no production data,
No Data yet: 25675, drl, Statoil, Lucy Hanson 15-22 5TFH, Catwalk, no production data, 
9K/19%: 26473, 959, Newfield, Rolfsrud State 152-96-21-16-12H, Westberg, t3/14; cum 33K 4/14;
14K/14%: 26510, 1,420, WPX, Mabel Levings 14-23HX, Mandaree, t5/14; cum 2K 4/14;
17K/12%: 26511, 1,64, WPX, Mabel Levings 14-23HB, Mandaree, t5/14; ;cum 3K 4/14;
6K/100%: 26569, 305, KOG, W Nystuen 159-98-15-9-4-2H3, Big Stone, t2/14; cum 9K 4/14;
No Data yet: 26789, drl, Hess, BB-Belquist-150-95-1110H-3, Blue Buttes, no production data,

***********************************

Trivial Observation

I was looking for the 2013 summary of the top oil producers in North Dakota for calendar year 2013, so googled:

top ten producers oil "North Dakota" 2014

I did not immediately find the site I was looking for but in the process I was surprised to see my blog was the #2 hit for that particular google search. The #1 hit: Keystone XL at wikipedia.

Of course, google search is dynamic and results may vary later.

Bakken Hits A New Milestone: 1 Million BOPD From The Bakken Alone, June, 2014 -- Carpe Diem -- August 17, 2014

I completely missed this one: the North Dakota Bakken his another milestone in June, 2014, passing the one-million-bopd mark. This is being reported by Carpe Diem:

Oil drillers in North Dakota pumped out 1.09 million barrels of oil per day (bopd) in June, setting another new monthly all-time record high for the state’s crude oil production, according to oil production data released today by North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources.

It was the third straight month that daily oil production in the Peace Garden State exceeded one million barrels.

Another important production milestone was reached in June, as crude oil output from the state’s shale-rich Bakken oil fields topped one million bopd for the first time, joining an elite group of only ten oil fields in world history whose daily output exceeded one million barrels at peak production.

Much, much more at the linked article. 

This is the other statistic that jumped out at me in the Carpe Diem post:

The daily oil produced from each well in North Dakota averaged 102 barrels in June. In 2009, the daily oil per well was only 52 barrels, so the productivity of oil extraction in the state has doubled in only five years.

The data can be seen at the NDIC website. At that link, click on the fifth link from the top: Historical monthly oil production statistics.

It also appears the NDIC has added another link (it may have been there for quite some time, and I simply missed it: Historical monthly Bakken oil production statistics. Currently, the average production for Bakken wells on a daily average is 131 bopd.

By the way, another bit of trivia. "They've" been drilling Madison wells in North Dakota from the very beginning and to date about 2,000 Madison wells have been drilled. The Bakken boom began in 2007 in North Dakota. There are currently more than 7,000 Bakken wells drilled.

A Wind Farm Requires 725 Times More Land Than A Fracking Site To Produce Same Amount Of Energy -- Carpe Diem

Yesterday I wrote:

I have talked about this progression in the past: the transmission / energy / electricity grid will gradually be improved because of the emphasis on wind and solar energy. Several generations from now, the solar and wind farms can be replaced by small nuclear electricity-generating sites, taking up a fraction (like 1%) of the land that is required by wind/solar.  By then, perhaps even the shale revolution will have run its course and close to 100% of electricity will be generated by nuclear energy. 

It turns out that there is a similar story, and a very interesting story, over at Carpe Diem on the same subject: the amount of land tied up / made unproductive by wind and solar farms. Carpe Diem is writing: Inconvenient fact: To produce the same energy, a windfarm requires 725X more land than a fracking site.

• For the “land area of the whole facility,” a wind farm requires 725 times more land than a fracking site to produce the same energy (9.5 TWh) — about 3,500 acres/5.6 square miles for a wind farm with 87 328-foot tall turbines vs. about 5 acres.
• A solar park requires 462 times more land area than a fracking site: about 2,290 acres or about 3.5 square miles.

But the real answer to US energy goes even farther: small nuclear power reactors. There is a long, long article summarizing progress to date over at the World Nuclear Organization blog:

A 2009 assessment by the IAEA under its Innovative Nuclear Power Reactors & Fuel Cycle (INPRO) program concluded that there could be 96 small modular reactors (SMRs) in operation around the world by 2030 in its 'high' case, and 43 units in the 'low' case, none of them in the USA. (In 2011 there were 125 small and medium units – up to 700 MWe – in operation and 17 under construction, in 28 countries, totaling 57 GWe capacity.)

In January 2012 the DOE called for applications from industry to support the development of one or two US light-water reactor designs, allocating $452 million over five years. Four applications were made, from Westinghouse, Babcock & Wilcox, Holtec, and NuScale Power, the units ranging from 225 down to 45 MWe.

DOE announced its decision in November 2012 to support the B&W 180 MWe mPower design, to be developed with Bechtel and TVA. Through the five-year cost-share agreement, the DOE will invest up to half of the total project cost, with the project's industry partners at least matching this. The total will be negotiated between DOE and B&W, up to $226 million. 

In March 2013 the DOE called for applications for second-round funding, and proposals were made by Westinghouse, Holtec, NuScale, General Atomics, and Hybrid Power Technologies, the last two being for EM2 and Hybrid SMR, not PWRs. Other (non-PWR) small reactor designs will have modest support through the Reactor Concepts RD&D program. A late application ‘from left field’ was from National Project Management Corporation (NPMC) which includes a cluster of regional partners in the state of New York, South Africa’s PBMR company, and National Grid, the UK-based grid operator with 3.3 million customers in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

By the way, another great article from Matt Ridley via Carpet Diem on the idiocy surrounding wind and solar power.  From Matt Ridley, from Great Britain:

Despite the best efforts of the Conservatives to rein in their Lib Dem colleagues, the renewable-energy bandwagon careens onward, costing ever more money and doing real environmental harm, while producing trivial quantities of energy and risking blackouts next winter. People keep telling me it’s no good being rude about all renewables: some must be better than others. Well, I’m still looking:

Tidal power remains a (literal) non-starter; if you ask ministers why nothing has been built, they say it’s not for want of proffering ludicrously generous subsidies on our behalf. Yet still no takers.

Wave power: again, the sky’s the limit for what the government will pay if you can figure out how to make dynamos and generators survive the buffeting of waves, corrosion of salt and encrustation of barnacles. Nothing doing.

Geothermal: perhaps great potential in the future for heating homes through district heating schemes, though expensive here compared with Iceland, but not much use for electricity. Air-source and ground-source heat pumps, all the rage a few years ago, have generally proved more costly and less effective than advertised, but they are getting better. Trivial contribution so far.

Solar power: one day soon it will make a big impact in sunny countries, and the price is falling fast, but generating for the grid in cloudy Britain where most power is needed on dark winter evenings will probably never make economic sense. Covering fields in Devon with solar panels today is just ecological and economic vandalism. Solar provides about a third of one per cent of world energy.

Offshore wind: Britain is the world leader, meaning we are the only ones foolish enough to pay the huge subsidies (treble the going rate for electricity) to lure foreign companies into tackling the challenge of erecting and maintaining 700-ft metal towers in stormy seas. The good news is that the budget for subsidising offshore wind has almost run out. The bad news is that it is already costing us billions a year and ruining coastal views.

And so it goes.  Algore is suing Aljazeera.