To make a very long story very short, I happened to come across a Japanese comedy, Tampopo. I knew nothing about the movie before watching it except that it was about Japanese food and Japanese culture surrounding food.
About a third of the way through I realized that had this been an American film, the lead actor and actress would have been John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn.
After the movie, I googled "Tampopo wiki" and this is what I found:
Tampopo (literally "dandelion") is a 1985 Japanese comedy film by director Juzo Itami, starring Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto, Kōji Yakusho, and Ken Watanabe. The publicity for the film calls it the first "ramen western", a play on the term Spaghetti Western (films about the American Old West made by Italian production studios).
June 26, 2017: Study: Fracing, saltwater disposal have limited seismic impact. From Oil & Gas Journal:
Research from a University of Alberta geophysicist suggests hydraulic fracturing and saltwater disposal have limited impact on seismic events.
A team of researchers led by Mirko Van der Baan found no state- or province-wide correlation between increased hydrocarbon production and seismicity after reviewing 30-50 years of earthquake rates from US states North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, and Canadian provinces Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.
They also discovered that human-induced seismicity is less likely in areas where fewer natural earthquakes occur.
The lone exception was Oklahoma, where seismicity rates have changed dramatically in the last 5 years, with strong correlation to saltwater disposal related to increased hydrocarbon production.
They need to study the Groningen. LOL.
Original Post
Had I not blogged, I doubt I ever would have ever even known about the Groningen. But here it is again, in the WSJ, and another reason why I love to blog.
For decades, the giant Groningen gas field beneath the flat, green farmland in the north of this country counted among the greatest prizes for Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM 0.65% and Royal Dutch Shell RDS.B 0.43% PLC.
Then the earthquakes started.
The exploitation of Groningen—the biggest gas field in Europe—has been causing tremors for over two decades, rattling a bucolic province with no previous history of quakes and exposing two of the world’s biggest energy companies to a criminal probe and rising reconstruction bills.
Amid a public outcry, the Dutch government has imposed increasingly strict limits that have more than halved Groningen’s gas production since 2013. Now, authorities are proposing another 10% cut in hopes of further reducing earthquakes. And a Dutch public prosecutor is preparing to open a criminal investigation into responsibility for the earthquakes.
Groningen was expected to be one of the world’s largest gas producers for decades to come. Last year, it made up almost 10% of both Exxon and Shell’s total gas production globally and its reserves are among the companies’ largest undeveloped resources.
Again, as usual, the comments are most interesting, though somewhat disappointing considering this is in the WSJ.
A huge "hat tip" to a reader for sending me this link to the WSJ article: "The Shale Revolution's Staggering Impact In Just One Word: Plastics: Petrochemicals, once simply a cheap byproduct, are powering a U.S. manufacturing boom and export bonanza."
If I could write, this is the article I would have written.
Carter: cardigan sweaters.
Obama: we can't just drill our way to cheaper gasoline.
Businesswomen and businessmen (Elon Musk, Aubrey McLendon, Harold Hamm): taking risks to make America great again.
From the linked article:
When new parents in Rio de Janeiro buy baby food in plastic containers, they are bringing home a little piece of the U.S. shale revolution.
That boom in drilling has expanded the output of oil and gas in the U.S. more than 57% in the past decade, lowering prices for the primary ingredients Dow Chemical Co. DOW -0.56% uses to make tiny plastic pellets. Some of the pellets are exported to Brazil, where they are reshaped into the plastic pouches filled with puréed fruits and vegetables.
Tons more will be shipping soon as Dow completes $8 billion in new and expanded U.S. petrochemical facilities mostly along the Gulf of Mexico over the next year, part of the industry’s largest transformation in a generation.
The scale of the sector’s investment is staggering: $185 billion in new U.S. petrochemical projects are in construction or planning.
Last year, expenditures on chemical plants alone accounted for half of all capital investment in U.S. manufacturing, up from less than 20% in 2009.
Integrated oil firms including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC are racing to take advantage of the cheap byproducts of the oil and gas being unlocked by shale drilling. The companies are expanding petrochemical units that produce the materials eventually used to fashion car fenders, smartphones, shampoo bottles and other plastic stuff being bought more and more by the world’s burgeoning middle classes.
Much, much more at the link.
Earlier today, another reader send me the link to this Bloomberg story: Trump to Call for U.S. ‘Dominance’ in Global Energy Production. After reading the article, I replied to the reader:
unlike Obama, Trump really will mean "all the above" -- not just intermittent energy like Obama
it will take many, many years, possibly decades but energy is going to separate the US from the rest of the world --- unless the US elects another "Obama" president
I'm still waiting for Keystone XL action
within the continental US, there will be winners and losers among states, and in most cases, the losers can blame it on self-inflicted policy mistakes. States like NY will suffer due to a) bad energy policies; and, b) bad tax policy
California is likely to accelerate self-inflicted injuries -- add the bullet train to bad energy policies and bad tax policy
winners: Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, Oklahoma, North Dakota
Colorado? Depends whether they take the road to California or the road to Texas
From the linked Bloomberg article:
With “Energy Week,” Trump is returning to familiar territory -- and to the coal, oil, and gas industries on which he’s already lavished attention. Trump’s first major policy speech on the campaign trail, delivered in the oil drilling hotbed of North Dakota in 2016, focused on his plans for unleashing domestic energy production.
The issue has also been a major focus during Trump’s first five months in office, as he set in motion the reversal of an array of Obama-era policies that discourage both the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
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Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie, a factory is its people, not its bricks
32440, 446, Nine Point Energy, Little Muddy 21H, Williston, fracked on 11/20/17; small frack: 3.2 million gallons of water; 13% proppant; t1/17; cum 76K 4/17;
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
31138, SI/NC, Newfield, Jorgenson Federal 148-96-10-15-4HLW, no production data,
32524, SI/NC, MRO, Reno USA 24-9TFH-2B, Antelope, no production data,
32918, SI/NC, XTO, Nygaard Federal 13X-5F2, no production data,
Monday, June 26, 2017
None.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
32525, SI/NC, MRO, Kermit USA 14-9H, Antelope, no production data,
Saturday, June 24, 2017
32526, SI/NC, MRO, Arden USA 14-9TFH, Antelope, no production data,
32919, SI/NC, XTO, Nygaard Federal 13X-5B, no production data,
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32440, see above, Nine Point Energy, Little Muddy 21H, Williston:
Drilling horizontal sidetracks from abandoned
wells in the Permian Basin is yielding a 91 percent internal rate of
return on a $7 million investment and delivering 1,500 barrels a day of
crude. He predicts large production increases from vertical wells in
previously produced areas in the Permian.
1,500 bopd = 45,000 bbls/month -- which some Bakken wells do, but generally, initial production for Bakken wells is in the range of 15,000 to 30,000 bbls/month for the first couple of months, and then drops off significantly.
Think of the cost savings when drilling from an abandoned well:
site surveys have already been done; only need to be reviewed, tweaked
possibly, up-front lease bonuses are not required
roads to site are in-place; pads in place but will need to be improved
OPEC bewildered -- Bloomberg. There are several things to focus on while reading this story:
rifts in OPEC; Prince Salman may have his sights on Iraq next (Iraq and Iran becoming a bit too friendly; Iraq exempt from production cuts and seems to be taking advantage of the situation)
phony OPEC stories suggesting without $100 oil to finance infrastructure, oil shortages will occur
light, sweet oil glut in the US; OPEC does not produce light, sweet oil --not mentioned in the article
majority of US refineries optimized for heavy oil (Canadian oil sands - Keystone XL; Venezuela - imploding) -- not mentioned in the article
but this is most interesting:
OPEC has completely misjudged the North American shale industry and seems not to understand how it is still evolving rapidly. It's a little like trying to explain the internet to my 85-year-old mother, or my 12-year-old daughter trying to explain social media to me. As consultant Morten Frisch tells me, drilling horizontal sidetracks from abandoned wells in the Permian Basin is yielding a 91 percent internal rate of return on a $7 million investment and delivering 1,500 barrels a day of crude. He predicts large production increases from vertical wells in previously produced areas in the Permian.