Oasis Fined For Not Paying Royalties -- September 22, 2015; Replace Good-Paying Union Jobs With $15/Hour Flipping Hamburger Jobs

Hey, You Can Always Move To Minneapolis And Flip Hamburgers

Becker To Minneapolis: 50  Miles -- Single Charge For An EV

Ya gotta love the governor: supports $15/hour to flip hamburgers but will shut down good-paying union jobs. Whatever. And the governor thought it was only his neighbor to the west that had "a coal problem." Midwestern Energy News is reporting:

The debate over the fate of Minnesota's largest -- and most polluting -- coal fired power plant has intensified as state policy makers begin creating a roadmap to meet goals set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.

On Monday House Job Growth and Energy Affordability (JGEA) Committee Chair Rep. Pat Garofalo led a tour of the Sherburne County Generating Station (Sherco) along with Rep. Jim Newberger, who represents the town of Becker, where the plant is located. A hearing afterward focused on the plant's importance to the community.

Importance to the community?  Becker, population, 5,000. Hello. The plant is the community. Close the plant and the community ....

The Sherburne County Generating Station, also known as Sherco, is a massive coal-fired power plant in Becker, Minnesota, which is in Sherburne County. Its three units have a combined capacity of 2,400 megawatts, making it the largest power plant in the state.

To replace 2,400 megawatts with wind, at $2.5 million /MW = $6,000 million or $6 billion. Solar would be significantly higher. The typical wind farm is about 240 MW, so we are talking at least ten (10) wind farms in North Dakota to make up the loss of this coal plant. And intermittent energy needs back-up natural gas plants. North Dakota, I would say, is sitting in the sweet spot for energy. Ten more wind farms around West Fargo, and a new natural gas plant in Tioga. Wow, the possibilities are endless.

The state can use UND / Grand Forks drones to inspect everything.

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Chesapeake Bookkeeping

The Dickinson Press is reporting: 

Oasis Petroleum has been assessed a $72,438 fine for failing to make royalty payments on oil production on the Fort Berthold Reservation, the Department of Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue announced Monday.

The civil penalty was for failing to make royalty payments on production from an American Indian lease between February 2013 and June 2014, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue said.

The company eventually paid the royalties in July 2014.

Learning from Chesapeake? 

It would be nice to see the fine distributed among the mineral owners. In a perfect world, any fine would be doubled: a matching amount would be paid the mineral owners.

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Transparency

Compare the disclosure rules of Idaho with North Dakota. Here are the rules of Idaho has reported by The SF Gate: 

The new rule approved by the Idaho Legislature last spring requires companies to turn over production records six months after a well starts producing. Six months after that, the state is required to make those records public.

In other words, insiders inside the state government have access to private information for six months before it is released to the public. Gee, I wonder....

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Setting Us Up For $200 Oil

EIA "energy cookie":

In response to the decline in crude oil prices since mid-2014, the number of active offshore rigs has declined worldwide, dropping close to 20%—304 offshore rigs were operating in August 2015, down from 377 in August 2014.

During this period, the number of active offshore rigs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico dropped more rapidly, falling by 46%.

Over the past 15 years, the U.S. GOM's share of active offshore rigs worldwide has declined significantly—from almost half of all active offshore rigs worldwide in 2000 to less than 20% since 2008. --- EIA 

It looks like the number of rigs in the Mideast has dropped from around 400 at the peak to about 300.