New Post-Boom Low: 67 Active Rigs In North Dakota; Whiting With A Huge Well; 3/4 Wells To DUC Status -- September 17, 2015

Updates

Later, 9:37 p.m.: the richest man in North Dakota was behind the idea for a high-speed train between Lost Angeles and Las Vegas. This is absolutely incredible; I can't make this stuff up. A huge thanks to a reader for spotting this. 

Energy Media Group broke the story today about our long time friend, advocate and investor Gary Tharaldson securing a major deal with the Chinese today to build a high bullet train from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. This has been a vision that Gary has had for many years. We are so proud of his dedication to North Dakota and all the the amazing business seccess he has had over the years.

Tharaldson will be "putting up" the first $100 million.

Original Post 

Rail in California/Nevada: this is really, really cool. And unless someone's "blowing smoke" it sounds like it might be the "real deal." It certainly beats the "bullet train" from Los Angeles to the Bay Area. BloombergBusiness  is reporting:

A China Railway Group-led consortium and XpressWest Enterprises LLC will form a joint venture to build a high-speed railway linking Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the first Chinese-made bullet-train project in the U.S. 

Construction of the 370-kilometer (230-mile) Southwest Rail Network will begin as soon as next September, according to a statement from Shu Guozeng, an official with the Communist Party’s leading group on financial and economic affairs. The project comes after four years of negotiations and will be supported by $100 million in initial capital. The statement didn’t specify the project’s expected cost or completion date.

The agreement, signed days before President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the U.S., is a milestone in China’s efforts to market its high-speed rail technology in advanced economies. The country has been pushing the technology primarily in emerging markets -- often with a sales pitch from Premier Li Keqiang-- as a means to project political influence. A $567 million contract last October to supply trains for Boston’s subway system was China’s first rail-related deal in the U.S.

Such huge opportunities in this country for young people just starting out. I wonder what the energy source will be. I had forgotten or missed the Boston subway story. I suppose to some extent it's a sad commentary on our own US Railcar/GM/Ford/UAW industrial base that we can't "turn on a dime" and build subway cars. Can't be that difficult. Sounds like Washington or Boston or someone let the UAW workers down. My hunch is that if US Railcar/GM/Ford/UAW had bid on the project it would have come in two to three times higher than what China could do it for.

There seems to be a bit of irony that after the Chinese built the first transcontinental railway in the US back in the 1860's, some 150 years later, the Chinese are still building railways and rail rolling stock for the US.

I guess we've lost our technological edge in high-speed rail, but we sure can build damn-good wind turbines.

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Active rigs:

	9/17/2015	09/17/2014	09/17/2013	09/17/2012	09/17/2011
Active Rigs	67	198	180	196	199

Six (6) new permits --

• Operators: Hess (3), HRC (2), Whiting
• Fields: Capa (Williams), Antelope (McKenzie), Sanish (Mountrail)
• Comments: I see HRC is back to drilling -- or at least getting permits to drill

American Eagle and Petro-Hunt each renewed one permit: J. Adeline in Divide County and Farstad in Burke County, respectively

Four (4) producing wells completed:

• 30642, 3,572, Whiting, Two Shields Butte 13-22-33-16H, Heart Butte, t9/15; cum --
• 29258, 693, Newfield, Rolla Federal 153-96-29-12H, Sand Creek, t5/15; cum 21K 7/15;
• 29850, 1,249, Newfield, Rolla Federal 153-96-29-13H, Sand Creek, t5/15; cum 34K 7/15;
• 29257, 1,418, Newfield, Rolla Federal 153-96-29-4H, Sand Creek, t51/5; cum 34K 7/15; 

Wells coming off confidential list Friday:

• 29780, SI/NC, Abraxas, Ravin 8H, North Fork, no production data,
• 29795, SI/NC, BR, Morgan 24-21TFH, Pershing, no production data,
• 30100, 1,507, Hess, BB-Ole Anderson-151-95-3130H-7, Blue Buttes, t8/15; cum -- 
• 30669, SI/NC, XTO, Odegaard State 21X-16E, Midway, no production data,