Idle Chatter On BR's CCU "Railroad" Wells -- January 13, 2017

Record high for the NASDAQ, according to a CNBC crawler. About 60 points from 20,000 over on the Dow. Won't happen today.

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Add Denmark To The List

Over at "the big stories," under US Energy Revolution, I update US LNG export stories. Add another customer to the list: Denmark.

This is really quite a story. Denmark already has an incredibly bad energy story going forward (highest utility rates in Europe due to all their wind energy) and now add one more problem: Denmark's largest gas field will close by the end of ... next year. Not 20 years from now. Not 10 years from now. Not even five years from now. Less than two years from now Denmark's largest gas field to close.  

UPI is reporting that the operator, Maersk Oil says it has not found an economic solution to continue production from the Tyra field. Wow.

This is not simply the largest gas field supplying Denmark, it's about the only gas field supplying Denmark (it supplies 90% of the nation's gas production).

Maersk Oil operates the Tyra natural gas field on behalf of a broader consortium that includes partnerships with energy majors like Royal Dutch Shell. Maersk said that, even after spending more than $140 million on reinforcing structures associated with production over the past 15 years, safety is becoming a clear factor.

The company said in a statement decommissioning of Tyra will proceed with the aim of ending production by October 2018. Starting next month, any resources now targeting reconstruction will go toward shutting the field down.

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Rugby, Out; Center, In

Geographical Center of North America

I first heard about this "controversy" some weeks ago; didn't post it. A couple days ago a reader sent me a long note on his thoughts on this issue. Now The Bismarck Tribune covers it:

CENTER -- In the debate for the title Geographical Center of North America, a new contender has risen, and the namesake may be more literal than originally intended.

Center, an Oliver County town of roughly 600 located 40 miles northwest of Bismarck, is the center of North America, at least according to the calculations of Peter Rogerson, a professor of geography and biostatistics for the University of Buffalo in New York.

“It was a great sort of serendipitous surprise when (the geographical center of North America) came out when it was plotted out on the map,” he said. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh, it is called Center.’ ”

The professor has done work determining important points, including centers of population in the U.S. He said he is more interested in determining geographical points, including the geographical center of North America.

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Notes To The Granddaughters

I was probably seven or eight years old when I got my first "train set." We were living in Williston, North Dakota. My parents must have had "no" money at that time, and four children. How my mother was able to find gifts for all her children in those days still amazes me. We never had a "bad" Christmas; it was amazing how many presents she could find for all four children (later, the family grew to six children).

My first "train set" was a Lionel train set. I still have the set; it's in storage somewhere: a locomotive, a coal car, a caboose, and two boxcars.

I was curious where BR came up with the "railroad" names for some of their CCU wells in Corral Creek.

"Mainstreeter"? It's a railroad magazine. Other CCU railroad-related names: Boxcar, Burner, Alantic Express, Pacific Express, Zephyr, Pullman, Olympian (Hiawatha).

Lionel Northern Pacific Round Roof Box Car
The videographer re-did this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuiYGSYJTos&t=72s.

I never added to that Lionel train set, and never did anything will trains after my childhood years until some decades later when we moved to Germany where/when I became an avid collector of Marklin. Huge, huge collection of Marklin. In storage. Will be handed down to great-grandsons some day.