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Friday, March 3, 2017

Week 9: February 26, 2017 -- March 4, 2017

Groundhog day / groundhog week -- is anything changing? It all seems to be the same week-to-week.

It looked like WTI might actually break out of its trading range, going over $55. But it was not to be. On Thursday, WTI dropped below $53, but it got a bit of traction back and settled above $53 by Friday. Other than that, what can one say. A pretty quiet week.

Nationally, the EPA will halt inquiries into oil and gas industry emissions of methane

Operations
The Bakken is not dead -- Mike Filloon
Number of active rigs hits 45; compared to 35 one year ago
Is BR getting ready to frack some great wells in Croff oil field? 
A staggering production profile of a well still not on a pump, a CLR Holstein Federal well
Oasis with three rigs in close proximity
Why production/rig is increasing -- RBN Energy
A QEP re-entry well in the Blue Buttes oil field
Petro-Hunt looking to put five wells in a 640-acre drilling unit 
March, 2017, NDIC hearing dockets posted; highlights here
ND mineral acres bought for about $7,000/acre

Fracking
Random update of MRO re-fracking program; a Pennington well
Random update of MRO re-fracking program: a Bottleson well
MRO re-fracks 
Two more MRO re-entered, re-fracked wells
Random update of a Hess re-frack: HA-Mogen 
Hi-Crush acquires Permian Basin Sand

Post-Shut-In Jump In Production
Whiting, Tarpon Federal, #22361
Whiting, Frank wells in Stark County
EOG, Bear Den
EOG's Paul well in Parshall oil field
CLR, Gudmunson wells 
CLR's Ryden well in Jim Creek oil field
Petro-Hunt in the Charlson
A BR CCU Corral Creek well  
A QEP well killed too soon? 
An Abraxas Lillibridge well

Pipeline
DAPL protest camps shutting down
Here come de judge --- again 

Reminiscing On A Friday Night; Nothing About The Bakken -- March 3, 2017

 The Katie Ledecky Page

Sets another American record; the 19-year-old went faster in the 500-yard freestyle than Ryan Lochte ever did before the age of 22 -- February 24, 2017.

Wins two races by a combined 48 seconds at a dual meet with USC -- January 30, 2017.
Ledecky took the 1,000-yard freestyle in 9:12.32. Runner-up Megan Byrnes, also a Stanford freshman, touched 36 seconds later in 9:48.68. Ledecky lapped everyone in the seven-swimmer race and was seven seconds from lapping the last-place finisher twice.
It’s easier to lap swimmers in NCAA races than at the Olympics. NCAA pools are 25 yards long. Olympic pools are 50 meters.
About 53 minutes later, Ledecky won the 500-yard freestyle in 4:34.98. Another Stanford freshman, Katie Drabot, took second in 4:47.00.
Both of Ledecky’s times Saturday were slower than her NCAA records of 9:08.4 and 4:26.46 set in November, 2016.
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Reminiscing

The linked article below is so incredibly good. Our younger daughter sent it to me. She said it explains why she collects Lego sets and Monopoly games.

Over at the Huntington Post.

Our younger daughter:
  • born in North Dakota, Grand Forks AFB
  • at six months of age, to Bitburg AB, Germany
  • at three years of age, to RAF Lakenheath, England, attends British pre-school
  • at six years of age, to Bitburg AB, Germany (again); attends German school
  • at nine years of age, to Rhein-Main AB, Germany; American school
  • at ten years of age, to Incirlik, Turkey; American school on Turkish base
  • at twelve years of age, to Alabama (southern US); to public school
  • at fourteen years of age, to Virginia (southern US); to private school
  • at sixteen years of age, to San Antonio (paradise)
  • at eighteen years of age, South Dakota, university
The things that connected her to all those places: Lego sets and Monopoly games

Stuff in the house:
  • lots of Germany stuff
  • Decci dolls from Sardinia, Italy
  • porcelain / china from England
  • pottery from Suffolk, England
  • coins from most countries in Europe, Japan
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Maybe, Later

Kashagan
California bullet train: small, initial, "easy" segment needs another $300 million 

Wow! How Does This Affect EUR, Decline Rate? -- March 3, 2017

Background: We've talked about these Flatland Federal wells many times and I track them here. I was updating their production data today when I noted this one. Re-fracked; paperwork yet to show up?

The well:
  • 22361, 4,971, Whiting, Tarpon Federal 21-4-3H, t12/12; cum 531K 1/17;
FracFocus shows this well has been fracked once: 12/19/ 2012 -- a one-day frack.

Sundry forms:
  • received February 6, 2017: an inconsequential spill report (3 bbls contained on pad)
  • received September 21, 2015: pump put on
  • various: gas capture
  • received February 1, 2013: completion report; 4,971, 30 stages; 2.73 million lbs
Production update: note jump in production in red; as far as I can tell, this well was fracked once. I could be wrong, but don't see documentation for re-frack

Monthly Production Data:

PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN1-2017281299213166267247099453841661
BAKKEN12-2016311889018619390560345522808005
BAKKEN11-2016302271022443601154512454658988
BAKKEN10-20162119472196077581333631744615876
BAKKEN9-201611493107799823561742180
BAKKEN8-20160000000
BAKKEN7-201681543162938637183560144
BAKKEN6-20163066746624187816056159960
BAKKEN5-2016112500261990442823537728
BAKKEN4-2016244763464212661404013228764
BAKKEN3-2016316618686016501881418542210
BAKKEN2-20162972377278166518816187580
BAKKEN1-2016318287798120272213321630441
BAKKEN12-2015311006010528261824289242270
BAKKEN11-20151576127356181917521149562535
BAKKEN10-2015124331406018201043374003011
BAKKEN9-20157136716901773107299796
BAKKEN8-20152757815651602112011106489
BAKKEN7-201523453945595041073610017674
BAKKEN6-201530707871727421572815347321
BAKKEN5-201531709870398101716616962142
BAKKEN4-201530730572347901700516772174
BAKKEN3-201531710270898621725116895294
BAKKEN2-201528670866848481610815832220
BAKKEN1-20153180458094117618163145333568
BAKKEN12-20143199299900161120821124468313
BAKKEN11-2014281110511506138520222230217864
BAKKEN10-201422112841077766619804300316759
BAKKEN9-20140000000
BAKKEN8-201419468847006301128110990255
BAKKEN7-2014318257833931320234190861086
BAKKEN6-2014308204815232620321167073554
BAKKEN5-2014318013802237422733209171754
BAKKEN4-201430897189624332537124510801
BAKKEN3-2014319764104123232879627739995
BAKKEN2-201428136811318958833346316661624
BAKKEN1-2014436183420189708258521222
BAKKEN12-201321778678236391774717103606
BAKKEN11-201330105771058724027384243442980
BAKKEN10-201331117871232029433841303663413
BAKKEN9-20133013315130231583423133838333
BAKKEN8-201331138191378034936758355661130
BAKKEN7-201331147261486336539524380241438
BAKKEN6-2013301618816151153440191350735058
BAKKEN5-2013271767217395230340334373482934
BAKKEN4-201326172281736617995014049772316
BAKKEN3-2013312520625462328372683711371484
BAKKEN2-2013273049430626289971454675863815
BAKKEN1-201331467654722847321054787734828069
BAKKEN12-2012617644164841281157243956947663

Active Rigs Today: 45; One Year Ago: 35; Pad Update In Croff Oil Field -- March 3, 2017

Croff oil field update: yesterday I posted a note and a graphic regarding activity on the Croff oil field. A reader provided a very, very nice update.  Link here.


Active Rigs:


3/3/201703/03/201603/03/201503/03/201403/03/2013
Active Rigs4535116189184

Five (5) new permits:
  • Operator: WPX
  • Field: Reunion Bay (Mountrail)
  • Comments:
Two permits renewed:
  • Petro-Hunt (2): two USA 153-95-23C-14 permits, McKenzie County
One permit canceled:
  • Oasis: Spratley, #30959, Mountrail County
Dry well:
  • Newfield: Jorgenson Federal, #29858, Dunn County
Operator transfer, from Taqa North USA, Inc, to Taqa USA, Inc: about 85 wells, mostly in Burke and Renville counties, but across many counties

Unemployment Rate, LIke Real Estate And Politics, Is Local -- March 3, 2017

A reader suggested comparing the unemployment rates of New York state and Pennsylvania and tying the data with fracking.

This is how I did it:

FRED MSA: NYC-NJ-PA -- unemployment rate of 4.1% currently and often (and recently) as high as 9+ percent.

Then I googled unemployment rates for western Pennsylvania and upstate New York. This was the first hit:
The Economic Effects of Hydrofracturing On Local Economies, from "research" center for the state of New York, dated May 6, 2013. The findings of their study:
  • Pennsylvania counties with hydrofractured gas wells have performed better across economic indicators than those that have no wells.
  • The more wells a county contains, the better it performed.
  • Between 2007 and 2011, per-capita income rose by 19 percent in Pennsylvania counties with more than 200 wells, by 14 percent in counties with between 20 and 200 wells, and by 12 percent in counties with fewer than 20 wells. 
  • In counties without any hydrofractured wells, income went up by only 8 percent. 
  • Counties with the lowest per-capita incomes experienced the most rapid growth. 
  • Counties with more than 200 wells added jobs at a 7 percent annual rate over the same time period. 
  • Where there was no drilling, or only a few wells, the number of county jobs shrank by 3 percent. 
  • Using the Pennsylvania data to project hydrofracking’s effect on New York counties, we find that the income of residents in the 28 New York counties above the Marcellus Shale has the potential to expand by 15 percent or more over the next four years—if the state’s moratorium is lifted. 
  • Our data also suggest that had New York allowed its counties to fully exploit the Marcellus Shale, those counties would have seen income-growth rates of up to 15 percent for a given four-year period, or as much as 6 percent more than they are experiencing. 
The governor apparently never got the memo.

Some counties in upstate New York state are considering "seceding" from New York and "becoming part" of Pennsylvania.

Finally, some non-fake news from The New York Times: New York's southern tier is struggling, September 29, 2015:
This town of roughly 5,500 residents looks alarmingly like dozens of other towns and cities in New York’s Southern Tier, a vast part of the state that runs parallel to Pennsylvania. Years ago, the region was a manufacturing powerhouse, a place where firms like General Electric and Westinghouse thrived. But over time companies have downsized, or left altogether, lured abroad or to states with lower taxes and fewer regulations.
The state has pumped tens of millions of dollars of economic aid into the Southern Tier, hoping private-sector money would follow. In 2015, for example, the state’s Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council awarded $80.8 million to area projects. Still, the state’s commitment to the area, both in dollars and in rhetoric, has lagged other regions. In western New York, for example, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, pledged $1 billion in 2012 to support economic development. Since then, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into numerous Buffalo-area projects.
The Southern Tier has proved to be a harder fix. It is predominantly rural and lacks a significant population core that typically attracts the private sector.
The region is resource rich, but landowners are angry the government will not let them capitalize on it. Some had pinned their hopes of an economic revival on the prospect of the state’s authorizing hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking; many of them can recite the payment formula gas companies were proposing: $500 a month per acre.
Unemployment rates, like politics, and real estate is local. But I think I get the picture. New Yorkers like Senator Schumer and Andrew Cuomo because they like Hillary.

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Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes
Svante Paabo
c. 2014
DDS: 569.986 PAA

Chapter 8: page 93, an illustration of the tree of humans and great apes. Five end species, or groups, or forms, left to right:
  • orangutans, the gorilla, human, bonobo (pygmy chimpanzee), the "common" chimpanzee
  • the trunk first splits about 14 million years ago: the orangutan splits off from the rest
  • the next branch, the gorilla split off from the common ancestor to the last three about 8 million years ago
  • around 4 - 7 million years go, the last common ancestor to the last three (human and two chimps) disappears
  • around 4 - 7 million years ago, two branches end in two groups (human and chimps)
  • the "super-group" of chimps subsequently separates into two end forms: the bonobo (the pygmy chimpanzee) and the common chimpanzee
From the book, page 94:
There are two species of chimpanzees, both living in Africa. The "common" chimpanzee lives in equatorial forests and savannahs in a patchy distribution stretching from Tanzania in the east to Guinea in the west, while the bonobo, sometimes called the "pygmy chimpanzee," lives only south of the Congo River, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Comparisons of DNA sequences had shown that the two chimpanzee species are the closest living relatives of humans, our lineages having split perhaps some 4 million to 7 million years ago. A bit further back, perhaps 7 million to 8 million years ago, humans and chimpanzees shared an ancestor with the other African great ape, the gorilla. Orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra share with the other great apes and humans an ancestor who lived perhaps 12 million to 14 million years ago.
The branch that ends in "human" does not show any further division in this particular illustration. My hunch is that in time, the thick "human" branch will be seen to break off into three smaller branches: a) humans as we generally know "them" today; b) Neanderthal; and, c) alt-left New Yorkers. The Neanderthals have disappeared, but the other two species are extant. The Ur-alt-left New Yorker was most likely the last common ancestor to Schumer, Hillary, Cuomo, and Bloomberg. The jury is still out with regard to exactly where Anthony Weiner fits in.

Birdbear Wells In The News This Week -- March 3, 2017

Two Birdbear wells in the news this week:
  • 32937, drl, Hess, RS-Nelson Farms-156-92-24V-1, Ross, a Birdbear well, no production data,
  • 32938, SI/NC, Hess, RS-Nelson Farms-156-92-24V-2, Ross, a Birdbear well; no production data
I track the Birdbear formation here, but it has not been updated in a long, long time.

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The Literature Page
The Villanelle

First, this from an earlier post from a different blog:
The villanelle, from Middlebrook's biography of Anne Sexton, p. 80 - 81.
I first encountered the villanelle when I was in my "Sylvia Plath phase." I had another blog then and wrote extensively about Sylvia Plath. Unfortunately I deleted that entire blog and lost all I had on Sylvia. Maybe I will start again someday; here's a nice link regarding Sylvia Plath and villanelles. I'm sure there are many more.
I thought about that after reading Claudia Roth Pierpont's essay on Elizabeth Bishop in the current issue of The New Yorker. Near the end of that long essay:
By October, Alice had delivered the news, and his name was Peter. Bishop went to Florida in December (Alice drove her to the airport) and in mid-January took an overdose of pills with alcohol. Discovered by neighbors, she survived. Being Elizabeth Bishop, she apologized, aghast at having almost caused the kind of pain she’d always known.
Poetry had failed her this time. She’d fought to master the loss, writing seventeen quickly successive drafts of an exactingly structured villanelle, a form with origins in the French Baroque. The result is her most famous poem, a mixture of a higher Dorothy Parker with (in the commanding aside to herself, as she struggles to write) Gerard Manley Hopkins, the neat summing up of a life, titled “One Art.”
The poem is at the link.

Information on the villanelle can be found everywhere; here is one link.

A snippet from my own journal:
July 25, 2008: While reading Sylvia Plath’s Journals I came across “villanelles.” I think I had heard of that term before but now that I saw the word again I was curious what villanelles were. I went to wiki, found a short definition, and in the process of “cutting and pasting” that definition on my “Storytelling” chapter, I noted that I had not completed a sentence regarding a newly discovered poem by Sylvia Plath. 
 I “googled” a phrase from the incomplete sentence which took me directly to solving the nano-mystery: the lost Plathian poem was Ennui which then took me to Blackbird: An Online Journal of Literature and the Arts where I found the background of Ennui.
Blackbird appears to be a free site maintained by the Department of English at the Virginia Commonwealth University. This site apparently owns the copyright or has access to much of Sylvia Plath’s works. The site includes the text of Ennui as well as scanned copies of the original typewritten page of Plath’s.

Whiting Reports Two Nice Frank Wells In Stark County; Halo Effect Noted -- March 3, 2017

Graphics to follow if the spirit moves me. 

Wells reported today:
  • 31571, 1,293, Whiting, Frank 24-7PH, Bell, t9/16; cum 99K 1/17; 
  • 31947, 871, Whiting, Frank 34-7-2PH, Bell, t9/16; cum 68K 1/17;
Neighboring, older, producing wells:

23420, Frank 14-7PH
Monthly Production Data

PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN1-201731687768812867707270100
BAKKEN12-201631556554482750525851960
BAKKEN11-201630581058844536495848980
BAKKEN10-201631872686545003798779250
BAKKEN9-20162220632042393275027080
BAKKEN8-20169494532558888700
BAKKEN7-201631276527744944492441515

28674, Koch 34-19PH
Monthly Production Data
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN1-20173172677625623712033119710
BAKKEN12-20163167216353751910882108200
BAKKEN11-201630560855848826891788570
BAKKEN10-2016315172516612478730372410
BAKKEN9-2016293243317414706389338390
BAKKEN8-201619412741873481798479480
BAKKEN7-20163168766886711512532124700
BAKKEN6-20163065046478913710907108480
BAKKEN5-201623243924604370339333490
BAKKEN4-201630268126486790337533150
BAKKEN3-201631198019907482213920770

22167, Frank 44-7PH
Monthly Production Data
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN1-201731568957034484689668340
BAKKEN12-201631502449114999524451820
BAKKEN11-201628406241454244442043640
BAKKEN10-201631853785679942987598130
BAKKEN9-201623695968369470862685800
BAKKEN8-2016843746236102810120
BAKKEN7-201631201720134314855477716
BAKKEN6-20163015021517413367236140

Is BR Getting Ready To Frack Some Great Wells In Croff Oil Field? -- March 3, 2017

Link here.

March 3, 2017: a reader provided an very nice update regarding all the pad activity in this area. Go to the link. 

The Political Page, T+42 -- March 3, 2017

Woke: new (?) urban slang word of which I was unaware until today.

Trump lives rent-free in the mind of David Remnick: I canceled my decades-long off-and-on subscription to The New Yorker sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. It was clearly nothing more than another mouthpiece for Hillary. The editor (and its readers, no doubt) have not yet gone through the seven stages of grief, but a few weeks ago I actually thought the "corner had been turned." (I read TNY at the library.) But nope, it's still all about Trump and what might have been. Even so, this is so much better than an "I Love Hillary" weekly magazine which it would have been had Hillary campaigned in Wisconsin.

Bar Tab: even the little filler on cocktails has now become fixated on Trump. Page 19:
Back outside, a sign denotes the spot where Drinking Liberally, "an informal, inclusive, progressive social group for like-minded left-leaning individuals," was founded. There are now similar meet-ups in cities across the country. Below the sign, a student said good night to a blond songwriter who'd given him her number. He pulled his coat over a T-shirt depicting a cat firing lasers from its eyes. "Rex Tillerson, he's so anti the environment," he offered, as a parting thought. "yeah," she replied. "I mean, do you want the whole world to just be like Bermuda?"
-- now that's a liberal blond with whom I could share a martini. Or three.
EV car sales for February, 2017, have been posted.
  • Chevrolet Volt, leads the pack; up to 1,800 from 1,600.
  • Tesla Model S, jumped to second place, with 1,750 vs only 900 the month before
  • Toyota Prius Prime dropped back to third place with 1,362 vs 1,366 the month before
  • Nissan Leaf at 1,037
  • Chevrolet Bolt EV at 952.

Update On US LNG Liquefaction Capacity -- Staggering! The Market And Energy Page, T+42 -- March 3, 2017

Four counties in North Dakota produce about 10% of the amount of crude oil that the entire country of Russia produces. One million bbsl for the former; 11 million bbls for the latter.  And, oh, by the way, it's only a small area in those four counties -- we're talking maybe 75 miles x 75 miles. It is staggering. And I'm probably exaggerating. But not by much.

LNG: staggering. For the week ending March 1, 2017, a dynamic link --  US liquefaction capacity keeps growing. This is really quite staggering. See below.

Dow Futures: now turn green; WTI up slightly; still well below $53.

Who wudda thought? Canada's GDP doubled America's. No wonder Trump thinks we can do better.
Canada’s indefatigable households and a sharp drop in imports kept the country’s economy growing at a 2.6 percent annualized pace in the final quarter of 2016, helping offset what looks to be a deepening slump in business investment.
Statistics Canada also raised its third-quarter growth estimate to 3.8 percent, from 3.5 percent, showing the nation’s economy had its best half-year performance since the final six months of 2013, or before the collapse of oil prices.
The confirmation that Canada is emerging from the commodity slump should come as a relief to policy makers who struggled to cope with a near-stagnant economy, as the nation dealt with the impact of an oil price shock and faltering export sector.
Boeing cutting 1,800 jobs in Seattle area? Heard it on Fox Business News.

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Liquefaction In The News

Updates

March 5, 2017: Kinder Morgan sells 49% stake in Elba Island LNG, Savannah, Georgia.
  • looks like an old-fashioned real-estate "flip"
  • buyer: EIG Global Energy Partners; US offices in Houston and Washington, DC
  • $385 million in cash up front 
  • ELC will own 10 liquefaction units and other ancillary equipment
  • KMI's Southern LNG Company LLC owns the Elba Island terminal
  • project to cost about $1.3 billion; construction to begin November 1, 2017
  • KMI has already owned 51% of the project when it acquired the remaining 49% from Shell, summer, 2015
Original Post 

From the link above:
Elba Island LNG, Georgia, USA, one of the six U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities currently under construction ... to begin installation of liquefaction units at its project site by March 10.
The project will be using a new technology, developed by Shell, called Movable Modular Liquefaction System. It will consist of ten small-scale liquefaction units (called trains), constructed in two phases. Each train has a capacity to liquefy approximately 33 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), for a total project capacity of 0.35 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d).
Elba Island LNG is the latest of six U.S. LNG export facilities to start construction in the last four years in the lower 48 states.
The Elba Island export facility is being developed at the site of the existing regasification facility and will therefore benefit from extensive existing infrastructure, including pipelines, storage tanks, and two berths for the docking of vessels
Elba Island LNG is being developed by Kinder Morgan, and will operate as a tolling facility, with the full off-take volume contracted by Royal Dutch Shell under a 20-year contract. As a tolling customer, Shell will be responsible for procuring natural gas feedstock for the facility, and will pay a flat tolling liquefaction fee to the facility owners Kinder Morgan and EIG Global Energy Partners (which own 51% and 49% of the project, respectively).
The other five liquefaction projects in the United States are in various construction stages.
Sabine Pass LNG, which began operations in February of last year, currently has three fully operational trains and two more trains under construction. The fourth train at Sabine Pass is expected to be in service by summer 2017 and the fifth train by the third quarter of 2019. The sixth train at Sabine Pass has been fully authorized, but is not yet under construction.
Cove Point LNG, like Elba Island, is also a brownfield facility developed at the site of the existing regasification terminal in Maryland. Cove Point is expected to come online by the end of this year.
Three other liquefaction projects—Freeport, Cameron, and Corpus Christi—have multiple trains under construction.
Liquefaction capacity from all projects currently under construction is projected to expand by 1.4 Bcf/d in 2017, 1.9 Bcf/d in 2018, and 3.8 Bcf/d in 2019.
Once all of these liquefaction projects become operational, the United States is projected to have the third largest liquefaction capacity in the world at 9.4 Bcf/d, after Australia and Qatar.