Week 11: March 11, 2018 -- March 17, 2018

For an "incredibly" quiet week, there were certainly some huge stories, not least of which was the huge upset in the NCAA men's basketball tournament Friday night. In the first round #16 (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) defeated -- and soundly defeated -- the #1 seed in that bracket, Virginia. Not only #1 in their bracket, but Virginia was the #1 seed overall.  "Everybody" thought the tournament would end with Villanova and Virginia in the finals. In fact, Virginia's tournament ended last night.

For me, the biggest story of the week, and possibly the year: ExxonMobil is betting big on light, sweet oil.

Where small town America is thriving: Another big story, closer to home, of course, was the article in Forbes magazine ranking small towns in America based on their economies, or something to that effect. Williston ranked #1. Williston, Dickinson, and Minot were all in the top six. Two cities in west Texas, including Midland, also made the top five or six. There are a number of story lines there but I simply don't have time.

Other big stories:

• US crude oil inventories continue to build; most recent EIA report "stunned" oil bulls
• the saga of Enbridge Line-3 is one step closer to being approved
• TransCanada received approval for their all-important natural gas pipeline in Louisiana -- Cameron Access
• the heavy oil "issue" -- several stories making the rounds regarding this issue 
• Canadian heavy oil selling at US$30.55 / bbl
• many, many stories on the Saudi Aramco IPO and another delay; here; here; here;
• clearly, the LNG story -- not to be confused with the other big story, NGLs -- is getting bigger and bigger every day; here; here; 
• negative decline rate -- another nail in the coffin of Peak Oil

There were a number of Bakken stories I missed; someone sent me a  link of some of those stories; I will post it later.

Operations
An old Slawson Pike Federal well shows jump in production; this is not something one sees in conventional fields
CLR puts a well that has been completed/reported back on the confidential list; again, something we don't see in conventional plays
North Dakota still producing more than one million bopd
Another huge re-fracked MRO well
Huge jump in production in an old WPX well 

Bakken economy
Williston's fire safety rating: jumps to top 2% of the nation 
Boomtown is back -- Bloomberg

Miscellaneous
A look back at Bakken projections, from 2013, Mike Fitzsimmons