Why I Love To Blog -- Reason #23 -- March 4, 2017

I have a tag: Bakken_2.0.

I believe I first started using the "Bakken_2.0" tag last October (2016).

Today of all things, over at Bloomberg via Rigzone: Leaner, Fitter, Faster: US Shale 2.0 Challenges OPEC Again.

I can't make this stuff up.

From the linked article:

After a two-year downturn spurred by oil’s plunge to $26 from $100, U.S. production is on the rise once again, opening the door for another showdown with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The number of U.S. drilling rigs has grown 91 percent to 602 in just over nine months. Meanwhile, production has gained more than 550,000 barrels a day since the summer, rising above 9 million barrels a day for the first time since April.

And as shale returns with a vengeance, it’s not just the pioneer cowboys that dominated the first phase of the revolution in the Bakken of North Dakota. This time, Exxon Mobil Corp. and other major oil groups are joining the rush. It’s a new reality that OPEC and Russia -- the main forces behind the production cuts approved last year as a solution to re-balance the global market -- are starting to acknowledge.

"With $55 a barrel, we see everyone very happy in the U.S.," said Didier Casimiro, a senior executive at Moscow-based Rosneft PJSC.

Long a world leader in multi-billion dollar oil developments that take years to build and even longer to profit, Exxon is diverting about one-third of its drilling budget this year to shale fields that will deliver cash flow in as little as three years, Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said this week. In January, Exxon agreed to pay as much as $6.6 billion in an acquisition designed to more than double the company’s footprint in the Permian basin of west Texas and New Mexico, the most fertile U.S. shale field.

Much more at the link. 

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Reminiscing

A reader sent me the link to an article regarding the "top" grossing neurosurgeon in Oregon, and asked for my comment. My comment:

Early in my "career" --- decades ago .. at the University of Southern California (USC, Los Angeles):

My first clinical rotation in medical school was neurosurgery. It was a 3-week rotation. It taught me all I needed to know about the personalities in that profession (neurosurgery) -- and not one thing in that article surprises me -- not even the fact that prior to Delashaw, Oregon state's highest pensioner was a football coach -- what a great county, huh? 

I have incredible respect for neurosurgeons; my hunch is there is enough in this story for two or three books.