EOG's Incredible Hawkeye And West Clark Wells Have Been Updated -- August 10, 2016

Once these wells get back to full production, we're going to see some incredible wells: http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2016/05/eog-eor-in-clarks-creek-may-18-2016.html.

For example:

• 31247, conf, EOG, West Clark 103-0136H, Clarks Creek, spud 12/10/15; cease drilling 12/20/15; producing:  

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
6-2016	37118	83594
5-2016	16264	28547

Nine Permits Renewed; Four Producing Wells Completed; Two New Permits -- August 10, 2016

Active rigs:

	8/10/2016	08/10/2015	08/10/2014	08/10/2013	08/10/2012
Active Rigs	33	72	193	184	200

Wells coming off confidential list Thursday:

• 32303, SI/NC, XTO, Lund 41X-17G, Siverston, no production data,

Two new permits:

• Operator: Liberty Resources
• Field: McGregor (Williams)
• Comments:

Nine permits renewed:

• Petro-Hunt (6): four USA permits, and two Phelps Trust permits, all in McKenzie County
• Enerplus (2): a Terrier and a Pointer permit, both in McKenzie County
• Crescent Point: a CPEUSC Aldag permit in Divide County

Four producing wells completed:

• 31350, 1,176, EOG, Austin 53-3402H, Parshall, t7/16; cum --
• 31351, 1,241, EOG, Austin 54-3402H, Parshall, t7/16; cum --
• 31667, 418, EOG, Austin 434-3402H, Parshall, t7/16; cum --
• 31668, 823, EOG, Austin 435-3402H, Parshall, t7/16; cum --

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New Yorker Series: The Decades

I don't recall how I stumbled on the first in the series, The 40s: Story of a Decade, The New Yorker. But I'm glad I did; an incredible anthology. Then, I got the second in the series, The 50s and then kind of forgot all about  it. Now I see that the third installment will be released in October (2016). Wow. And on top of that, I will be getting an advanced copy to review in the next week or so. I can hardly wait.

Imagine. The 60s. I can't imagine a more eventful decade in my lifetime.

The #1 song of the 60s:

A Day in the Life, The Beatles
But among the top 100, among my favorites:

• To Love Someone, The Bee Gees
• Runway, Del Shannon
• Crazy, Patsy Cline
• House of the Rising Sun, The Animals
• Bad Moon Rising, CCR
• White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane
• Stand By Me, Ben E. King
• Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding
• California Dreamin', The Mamas and the Papas
• several songs by Velvet Underground
• several songs by Leonard Cohen
• and, interestingly, for the most part, neither the Beatles nor the Rolling Stones interest me much.

American Cyclist Wins Gold: 43 Years Old; Female; Beats Russian, Dutch Competitors -- August 10, 2016

From Yahoo:

On the eve of her 43rd birthday, American cyclist Kristin Armstrong captured her third straight Olympic gold medal in the women’s individual time trial on Wednesday morning.

Armstrong covered the 29.8-kilometer (about 18 miles) course in 44 minutes and 26.42 seconds, defeating Russia’s Olga Zabelinskaya (44:31.97) and Dutch competitor Anna van der Breggen (44:37.80). She also won the event at the Summer Olympics in 2008 and 2012 in Beijing and London, respectively.

Pretty cool. She beat her nearest competitor by almost six seconds, it appears.

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Great News For Wafflers

This is certainly coincidental. I've been having some fun with the "genuine" Mickey Mouse waffle maker my granddaughters got me for Father's Day earlier this year. I'm pretty much stuck in the same syrup rut I've been in since growing up in Williston: Aunt Jemima. I occasionally buy "genuine" maple syrup but it's always too expensive. I thought there was a "genuine" supply issue with regard to maple syrup. The "shortage" in maple syrup is a "manufactured" shortage also.

Bloomberg is reporting:

The cartel that produces 72 percent of the world’s maple syrup is starting to crack.

After eight years of tightly limiting output to keep prices high, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers next year will boost its quota by 12 percent for 13,500 sap farmers who operate in the Canadian province. The goal is twofold: Reclaim the 10 percent of market share lost to the U.S. over the last decade, and quell a rebellion by producers increasingly turning to black market sales for growth.

Boosting the quota now is “almost perfect timing” as farmers are seeing record output, according to Alan Bryson, 41, who drains sap from 45,000 taps on trees in Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci, Quebec. The prospect of more sales “outweighs the frustration” felt by farmers in the past, he said.

Bryson wants to add as many as 15,000 taps this year and seeks to expand to 75,000 eventually, he said. Overall, Quebec produced about 148.2 million pounds of maple syrup this year. Under the new quotas, output could grow by 15 million pounds, according to the federation.

Much more at the link.

By the way, the Mickey Mouse waffles are incredibly good. I mentioned that to my wife, wondering if it was a new recipe, or maybe it was simply because it's been a long time since I've had waffles. She says it has to do with the size of these waffles. They are very small, making the crispy surface / doughy inside ratio quite different, and for those who like "crunchiness", these waffles would taste better, all else being equal.

Closer And Closer To The 10 Million BOPD Threshhold; Weekly Energy Tweets -- August 10, 2016

When you run through the data points below, imagine what the price of oil / price of gasoline would be had it not been for the Bakken. 

From John Kemp:

• Implied US gasoline consumption averaged 9.8 million bopd over last four weeks
• PADD 1 gasoline imports running at one of the fastest rates this year; and, yet, US East Coast gasoline stocks are still almost 20% higher than 2015 with no sign of eroding surplus yet
• US gasoline stocks are still almost 20 million bbls higher than 2015 levels but surplus has shrunk from almost 26 million bbls two weeks ago
• Distillate stocks now "just" +3.4 million bbl (+2.3%) over 2015; +18.8 million bbls (+14%) over 10-yr median
• US distillate stock fell 2.0 million bbls last week; approaching 2015 level; a quite remarkable graph
• US crude oil imports have topped 8.4 million bopd in four of the last eight weeks; before that, imports had not hit this level since June, 2013 
• Crude oil inventories rose 1.1 million bbls last week

From Platts Oil:

• OPEC says it pumped 33.106 million bopd in July, up from 33.059 million bopd in June
• Saudi Arabia: record high of 10.673 million bopd in July; up 123,000 bopd from June
• Kuwait to raise price of September oil by 60 cents/bbl from August

From EIA:

• US ethanol plant capacity increases for third consecutive year

The market: opens flat; oil up slightly.

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Note For The Granddaughters

This may have been your most "intense" summer yet. I believe the "weeks" below are pretty much in the correct order.

• First week: computer coding ("apps") at University of Texas - Dallas.
• Long weekend: scuba certification
• Second two weeks: sailing camp on Lake Grapevine; learned to sail without any instructors on board
• Fourth week: leadership camp for the older, Houston; FC Dallas soccer competition for the younger
• Fifth week: with out-of-town grandparents, visiting
• Sixth week: National Junior Olympics Water Polo, San Jose, CA, for the older; soccer tournament for the younger
• Seventh - eighth weeks: summer camp with multiple activities (see below); note water skiing for Arianna; they both downhill snow ski; note diving for Olivia -- she wants to get as good as her sister; also, she loves the diving board at their pool.

Saudi Arabia, Facing Dwindling Oil Income, Raising Government Fees, Fines -- WSJ -- August 10, 2016

Active rigs:

	8/10/2016	08/10/2015	08/10/2014	08/10/2013	08/10/2012
Active Rigs	33	72	193	184	200

RBN Energy: important article on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG - propane and some butane) export cancellations.

Saudi Arabia raises government fees and fines to raise revenue -- The WSJ.

Saudi Arabia, faced with dwindling oil income, has sharply increased government fees such as visa charges as part of a range of measures aimed at raising revenue from non-oil sources.

Under the new rules approved by the Saudi government, foreigners will have to pay $800 for a six-month visa, six times the current cost.

The government also announced hefty fines for traffic violations that include drifting, a practice that involves intentionally skidding and spinning at high speed—a popular pastime for men in a country that notoriously lacks entertainment options. First-time violators will face fines of 20,000 Saudi riyals ($5,332). It also more than tripled the fees it charges to advertise on billboards.

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For The Archives

Nothing will come of this, but important for the archives. From Townhall on the recent DNC staffer deaths.

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The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt

William Nothdurft with Josh Smith

c. 2002

DD: 567.909 NOT  

The Bahariya Depression, western Egypt.
First explored by Ernst Stromer, 1910 - 1914
Stromer's isolated cone-shaped hill: Gebel el Dist

Geology

• Cretaceous Period: anywhere between 66 and 144 million years ago; really rich dinosaur deposits
• badlands of the western US and in Canada
• In Cretaceous times, many of these areas were on the shorelines of great shallow seas -- exactly what one sees when looking at geologic maps of Egypt's Western Desert

Dinosaur background

• Sir Richard Owen, 1842, coined the term "dinosaur"
• Vertebrates: fish and tetrapods (limbs)
• Tetrapods: amphibians and amniotes (former return to the water to reproduce; the latter figure out how to keep embryos moist on dry land)
• Amniotes: synapsids (led to mammals) and reptiles (led to dinosaurs) 
• Saurischchians would come to dominate the Bahariya 95 million years ago just as ornithischians would predominate in many other areas of the Northern Hemisphere during the Cretaceous Period
• Dinosaurs distinguished themselves from all other creatures on the Earth roughly 230 million years ago: by standing upright on two strong hind legs; their center of gravity in front of their hip junction; counterbalanced by a long and heavy tail
• The dinosaurs split into two groups: ornithischians and the saurischians; both names misleading
• Ornithischian: "bird-hipped"
• Saurischian: "lizard-hipped"
• Refers to orientation of one bone in the pelvis, the pubis
• Ornithischians: pubis points backward beneath the hip (as in modern birds)
• Saurischians, in most cases: pubis points forward (as it does in modern lizards)
• No one knows why the different orientation
• Ornithischians evolved into three broad groups: Thyreophora, Marginocephalia; and, Ornithopoda; all were herbivores
• Thyreophora: spikes and plates across their backs; stegosaurs
• Marginocephalia: thick, bony skulls and horns; Triceratops (which by the way --> birds)
• Ornithopoda: mostly bipedal beaked and duck-billed dinosaurs
• Saurischians: again, predominant form in western Egypt; two primary groups: the sauropods and the theropods
• Sauropods: like the ornithischians, herbivores; small heads, long necks, equally long tails; grew so big, they had to walk on all fours; the largest, the titanosaurs, may have weighed as much as a hundred tons
• Theropods: get all the attention; fearsome carnivores; feet with three functional toes; abundant throughout the Mesozoic Era; ranged in size from 43-foot-long Giganotosaurus to the pigeon-sized Microraptor
• Theropods: the only kind of dinosaur that survives today -- as birds
• "Our story": not the theropods, but the sauropods (look liked "brontosauraus")

The 1999 - 2000 expeditions

• Josh Smith, Jennifer Smith, and Robert Giegengack, University of Pennsylvania
• At el Dist
• bones everywhere
• no paleontologist had been there since Stromer
• everything Stromer had found had been lost in destroyed museum during WWII

Chapter 10: the importance of western Egypt; a a theory of why this particular dinosaur ended up here
Epilogue: the dinosaur found -- a tidal giant and a new genus and species of dinosaur, never before known

• second largest dinosaur to date: Paralititan stromeri (Argentino, among others, are larger)
• "Paralic": tidal (compare "riparian" -- a term I first learned of while blogging about the Bakken)
• "Titan": obvious (enormous beast)
• "Stromeri": obvious

Reader's Digest version in The New York Times
Bottom line

• Order: Saurischia
• Suborder: Sauropodomorpha
• Clade: Neosaurapoda
• Clade: Macronaria
• Clade: Titanosauria
• Genus: Paralititan