Legacy Fund Update Through May, 2017 -- Almost $4 Billion In Total Deposits

Legacy Fund:

• Most recent deposit, May 19, 2017: $33,545,488
• Total historical deposits: $3,903,572,369

Note: these are deposits only, not asset value.

Link: http://www.nd.gov/treasurer/.

It seems, at least for me, it is hard to find the "net asset value" of the Legacy Fund. A quick google search revealed that, as of September 30, 2016:

Less than six years after North Dakota residents voted to sock away oil and gas tax collections for future generations, the Legacy Fund has topped $4 billion in value, a “phenomenal” feat the state’s chief investment officer said speaks to the state’s fiscal conservatism.

From an earlier post:

According to the state's annual budget report released June 30, 2016, data points for the Legacy Fund (and this is why the fund's investment strategy is not talked about much):

• fair value: $3,809,485,184
• rates of return (for fiscal year ending 6/30):
• 2016: 1.06%
• 2015: 3.31%
• 2014: 6.64%
• 2013: 1.15%
• 2012: --

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An Apple A Day ....

Four Producing Wells (DUCs) Reported As Completed; Seven New Permits; Six Permits Renewed; Active Rigs Up To 53 -- Almost Twice The Number One Year Ago -- June 12, 2017

Active rigs:

$46.15	6/12/2017	06/12/2016	06/12/2015	06/12/2014	06/12/2013
Active Rigs	53	28	76	185	187

Note: active rigs are almost twice what they were one year ago. In addition, 50 rigs "under Bakken 2.0" can easily produce what 200 rigs did "under Bakken 1.0."

Seven (7) new permits:

• Operators: Marathon Oil Company, Enerplus Resources
• Field: Reunion Bay (Mountrail), Spotted Horn (McKenzie)
• Comments: there appears to be an error on either Friday's daily activity report or today's daily activity report; the two Enerplus Resources permits (#33662, #33663) do not appear on either report, and by their numbers were granted before the MRO permits noted above; the MRO permits are for what appears to be a 5-well pad, straddling sections 1/2-150-93;

Six (6) permits renewed:

• Enerplus (3): one Copper permit; one Rocket permit; and, one Pluto permit, all in Dunn  County
• BR (2): one Glacier permit and one Glacierson permit, both in McKenzie County
• Slawson: a Serpent Federal permit in Mountrail County

Four (4) producing wells (DUCs) completed:

• 32094, 1,356, CLR, Kukla 7-16H, Chimney Butte, 4 sections, t5/17; cum --;(#17398 -- small production jump)
• 32093, 1,409, CLR, Candee 8-9H1, Chimney Butte, 4 sections, t5/17; cum --; (#29473 -- too far away? however, big production jump 9/16 -- API: 33-025-02665)
• 32635, 476, BR, Anderson Ranch 3A-MBH, Camel Butte, t5/17; cum --; (#16730 -- still off-line)
• 32628, 540, BR,Anderson Ranch 3B-TFH, Camel Butte, t5/17; cum --; (#16730 -- still off-line)

Saudi Nightmare -- June 12, 2017

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UN?

Updates

June 14, 2017: North Korea: how bad are things, really? From twitter: North Korea's oil consumption dropped from 76,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 1991 to an estimated 15,000 b/d in 2016. https://go.usa.gov/xXHAx.

Original Post

I Wish I Had Said That! Hey, I Did! -- Re-Fracks In The Bakken -- June 12, 2017

From The Bismarck Tribune, nothing new for regular readers of the blog: new technology could recover more oil from early Bakken wells. Data points:

• re-fracks
• targeting wells drilled between 2008 and 2010
• industry says currently recovery 5 to 15% of OOIP
• 140 wells in the Bakken have already been re-fracked
• generally, to be economical, re-fracking needs to produce an additional 200K to 250K of crude oil
• not all areas amenable to re-fracking

Comments:

• about 2,500 wells drilled per year back in 2008 - 2010
• economical at what price? $25/bbl? $50/bbl? $100/bbl?  
• when we first started blogging, the "word on the street" was that Bakken operators were recovering 1 - 3%; then Whiting made headlines when they suggested as much as 8%, and said they were targeting a much higher rate of recover
• I've never seen a figure as high as a 15% recovery rate in the Bakken
• Lynn Helms has said, in the past, what each 1% increase in recovery means in the Bakken
• if primary recovery rate goes from 3% to 6% -- that is a doubling of production

The Political Page, T+143 -- June 12, 2017 -- I Wish I Had Said That -- Hey, In Fact, I Did!

Over on the "daily note" I recently posted:

June 9, 2017, T+140: James Comey's testimony -- there was no there there. To coin a phrase. By the way, Tina Fey would say that her "gadar" was pinging during Comey's testimony: expressing his feelings: felt nauseous; felt discomfort; might have done things differently had he been "stronger". Didn't sound like a Washington lawyer; sounded like a man trying to come to terms with his feminine side. To quote Willie Nelson, "cowboys are frequently, secretly fond of each other."

Hold that thought.

Today, in The American Thinker:

Aside from revealing that President Trump is guilty of exactly nothing but winning an election, James Comey sure did reveal a lot about himself. His feelings are easily hurt, he gets scared in Trump's presence, he gets nauseated, is weak, gets confused and stunned. He is sorry his workforce had to hear what Trump said about the FBI, that it is in disarray. He sounded like a college snowflake on almost any American college campus in need of a safe space.

After a lifetime as a lawyer, U.S. attorney for the Southern District, U.S. deputy district attorney, and corporate lawyer, this is a man who never should have been appointed as director of the FBI. He does not have the temperament for the job.

We learned yesterday that he unlawfully leaked his own memo, property of the FBI, to the press to "spur a special prosecutor" and cover his own backside. Why not turn it over to acting director McCabe or the DOJ?

Because he's malicious. He likely leaked a whole lot more to the press that is so in love with anonymous sources. The guy was positively Machiavellian in his attempt to smear Trump and protect himself.

But Machiavelli would not be proud; Comey was too clever by half. He essentially admitted that Trump had done nothing wrong beyond making Comey uncomfortable, being a compassionate man regarding Michael Flynn, and not using the approved vernacular or prescribed handshake of the D.C. establishment. 

Much more at the link.

Death Spiral: Add Iowa To Kentucky -- June 12, 2017

On June 11, 2017, WSJ reported that Kentucky was "killing" ObamaCare.

Today, another state cries "uncle." Or better said, "cries for help from Uncle."

Bloomberg reports: Iowa asks US for ObamaCare help facing "collapse" of market. The lede:

Facing what it called a “collapse” of its Obamacare market next year, Iowa is asking the Trump administration to let it reallocate millions of dollars and create a stopgap program that would provide health insurance options for 72,000 Iowans covered by the Affordable Care Act.

Under the proposal made public on Monday, the state would use $352 million in federal money to provide backup funding for insurers and overhaul Obamacare’s subsidies for consumers next year. 

The state would also create a single standardized plan that insurers would offer.

So many story lines. 

The Market And Energy Page, T+143 -- June 12, 2017

Not unexpected:

Annual reports of 68 publicly traded oil companies indicated that their aggregate proved liquids reserves declined in 2016 for the second consecutive year.

The decline in proved reserves was heavily concentrated in a few companies that reduced their estimated reserves from Canadian oil sands projects.

Downward revisions of existing resources, relatively low extensions and discoveries, and relatively high production also contributed to a decline in proved reserves.

Collectively, their global crude oil and other liquids production averaged 24 million barrels per day during 2016, or about 25% of the global total. --- EIA

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See disclaimer this page and elsewhere on the blog.

TSLA: if the tech index continues to fall or remains sluggish, it could not come at a worse time for Tesla. Everything I've read suggests the company will need a huge amount of cash to "ramp up" -- which the company said they planned to do in July, 2017, although as recently as two weeks ago, I've heard analysts suggest the "ramp up" is moving to the right, as "July/August, 2017."

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Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Market: looks like another buying opportunity on the market today. We don't often get these opportunities. Again, remember, this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Stepping down: for the archives, GE's Immelt is stepping down.

Incredible timing: US approves GE-BHI merger; EC approved the merger earlier. Done deal. Stand-alone GE-BHI company wholly owned by GE. Will still have ticker symbol BHI. Folks talk about GE spinning off companies now that GE has a new CEO whose specialty at GE was "deal-making." 

Kennedys: they can still see snow! It's snowing in Hell Hole (Donner Summit), CA today. For the archives. The "Global Warming - 2016 - 2017" tag will advance to the "new year" on July 1, 2017.

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Note To The Granddaughters

Lots of moving parts, again, within the DFW families. Arianna begins an interesting camp this week, starting with a day at "golf camp" toay. I will be driving Olivia to Olympic Development Program -- Soccer (Plano) and staying in the area during the morning training. Grammy has just departed DFW for two weeks in Los Angeles. Sophia's schedule stays the same: Tutor Time every day and will be picked up by me every day at 4:00 p.m.

What Will Permian Operators Do With All That Produced Water? -- RBN Energy -- June 12, 2017

RBN Energy: what are "we" going to do with all that produced water?

Today most produced water moves off the lease in trucks, although producers are now increasing their investment in produced water-gathering and transportation systems to move the barrels to centralized facilities and disposal wells. But here’s the bottom line: it costs just about as much to move a barrel of water as it costs to move a barrel of oil.

And there is a lot more water than oil coming from a given well. The implication is that the largest single cost of operating a well — sometimes more than half of total operating cost — is produced-water disposal. That is a number that can impact producer economics and thus capex investment plans, drilling activity and production growth.

Worse yet, there is concern in some quarters that the sheer volume of produced water may eventually overwhelm the ability of the network of facilities and disposal wells to keep up with crude oil production, resulting in a constraint on growth in the Permian. In the next blog in this series we will examine the costs of produced water disposal and how those costs may affect Permian crude oil development over the next few years.

Active rigs:

$46.05	6/12/2017	06/12/2016	06/12/2015	06/12/2014	06/12/2013
Active Rigs	52	28	76	185	187