Everything Holding Stable -- March 6, 2018

Statoil, room to run in the Bakken: from Reuters --

Statoil ASA, the Norwegian state-controlled oil producer, has plenty of growth opportunities left in North Dakota's Bakken shale formation, an executive said on Tuesday.

"We have quite a lot of running room" in North Dakota, Torgrim Reitan, head of Statoil's U.S. operations, said in an interview on the sidelines of CERAWeek in Houston, one of the world's largest gathering of energy executives.

Oil development has spiked in recent years in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico. Concern has spread about a maturation of operations in North Dakota, the second-largest oil-producing U.S. state where Statoil is one of the largest producers.

The company does not see its North Dakota operations slowing down and it using new technologies and other process improvements to suck more oil from the Bakken, Reitan said.

Comment: based on what little I know about the Bakken, it appears the "big names" drilling in the Bakken have ten to fourteen years of drilling inventory left in the best of the Bakken; extending out to the better Bakken but not to the fringe, the "big names" drilling in North Dakota have fourteen to twenty years of drilling inventory. This doesn't necessarily mean anything for investors in equity, but it does mean something for those actually working in the field. The Bakken, like the Permian and the Eagle Ford, is a multi-generational play, regardless of what ....

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Daily Activity Report

"Arctic rigs":

$62.60→	3/6/2018	03/06/2017	03/06/2016	03/06/2015	03/06/2014
Active Rigs	60	44	35	114	191

Six new permits

• Operators: WPX (4); Petro-Hunt (2)
• Fields: South Fork (Dunn County); Charlson (McKenzie)
• Comments:

Three permits canceled:

• Lime Rock Resources: three Schneider permits in Dunn County

Five permits renewed:

• Whiting (3): two P Lynch permits and one Sue permit, all in Williams County
• EOG: one Hardscrabble permit in Williams County
• Thunderbird Resources: one Watson permit in McKenzie County

Two producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 32589, 1,412, Whiting, Koala 21-2TFHU, Poe, 4 sections, t2/18; cum -- (#19961, #20383, #23673, #23671, #23672)
• 32590, 978, Whiting, Koala 21-2TFH, Poe, t2/18; cum -- (#19961, #20383, #23673, #23671, #23672)