the Permian already produces more oil per day than Venezuela
So, that's what a million bopd means.
On a side note: Bernie Sanders advocates the Venezuela model of government.
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For Newbies
All things being equal (and they are not), the price of WTI will drop as the dollar gets stronger. The US dollar gets stronger when the "Fed" raises rates. Right now, 10:31 p.m. CDT, crude oil futures show crude oil down almost 2%; down another $1.28, trading below $64, now trading at $63.78.
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For All That Angst ...
... the S&P 500 is still closing in on 2800 which would be another all-time high. Good luck to a..
Somehow, this Tesla ad is not reassuring: "Our cars catch fire less often than the average car on the road."
It almost sounds like a perfect Geico commercial or a State Farm commercial: "We know a thing or two. We covered it." LOL.
By the way, when did you last see an "average" car in your neighborhood spontaneously combust? LOL.
Link here. I hope the link never breaks. "Thank God, it was only my husband that could have been burned alive. I can always find another husband, but the girls ..."
This is being re-posted for newbies to help them understand the Bakken a bit better. There is nothing new here; it has been posted before. I'm not sure all the links still work. I now know a lot more about the Bakken than when I first started, so some of this may be "out of date," or very wrong, But it is what it is. Or more accurately, it is what it was some years ago.
At the very end of this re-posting, I have posted a little nugget that might be new for all of us. Previously posted:
When I first came across this information, I about
fell off my chair: the Bakken has a TOC average of 11 percent, compared
to Saudi with varying reports of 2 - 5 percent. Wow.
So, that was from the earlier post, back in 2011.
Did the USGS 2013 Survey of the Bakken-Three Forks have anything to say
about the TOC of the Bakken? Yes, based on new information, and I quote
from the first page:
"The upper and lower shale members are the primary source rocks for
the Bakken TPS, with present-day total organic carbon (TOC) values from
less than 1 weight percent to 35 weight percent (Lillis, 2013)."
A TOC of 35% is the highest I have ever seen reported for the Bakken.
As noted above, the 30-second sound bite: the average TOC for the
Bakken is 11 percent. Most sources quote TOC as high as 16 percent in
the Bakken, and there is one source that quotes a TOC as high as 20%.
Again, more recent data suggests the TOC in the Bakken can be as high as 35%. That must be some kind of record.
The four-page USGS 2013 assessment does not provide more detail
regarding TOC. It does not matter. But it does put the Bakken into
perspective for some folks. Like me. [Ryder Scott, June-August 2011, Vol
14, No 2, states that "a total organic carbon (TOC) of 2 percent is
considered a sufficient screening criterion for oil shale plays.
However, both the Bakken and Arthur Creek ["Northern Territory,
Australia] have been reported to contain much higher TOCs. Greater TOC
and shale thicknesses are correlated to higher production." -- Ryder
Scott. See comments below.]
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And It Might Be Better Than We Think
Now, something new. First of all, repeating:
"The upper and lower shale members are the primary source rocks for
the Bakken TPS, with present-day total organic carbon (TOC) values from
less than 1 weight percent to 35 weight percent (Lillis, 2013)."
I recently received a personal note from a Bakken operator who suggests that someday operators will "crack the code" how to economically exploit the source rock, the upper and lower shale members.
If that happens, "Katie, bar the door."
The Dreadnoughts
Oil tanker coming up the Missouri -- setting sail for the Confluence!
With regard to the Dreadnoughts over at YouTube, one of the comments:
If anything the band was named after the song, not saying it was... But
"The Dreadnought" was a sea shanty most probably written and sung by
sailors upon a packet ship named; (yep) "The Dreadnought".
Given that
the ship sank in 1869 off of Cape Horn, I would argue that the song was
around long before the band and their cover of it.
Having read twice Gavin Menzies' first book and now reading for the second time his second book, I have great respect for the Dreadnought sailors (and all sailors who have doubled Cape Horn, including Captain Magellan). I also feel I "know" Cape Horn" a whole lot better and it's no surprise that the Dreadnought sunk of Cape Horn (assuming, of course, that's accurate).
For an upcoming post, I was looking to see how the national media was reporting the Bakken now that it is on the verge of setting new all-time records.
I put in a very, very "generic" search over at google.
See screenshots. Despite the incredibly "generic" search, lo and behold, "themilliondollarway" was actually a hit on the very first page.
The number of overall results for that rather "generic" search: over 569,000. The blog was #11.
"themilliondollarway"? #11
I had to take two screenshots because I could not capture the full page with one screenshot:
Another example of a writer who has no clue. Link here.
This article was posted in December, 2014. This was just after Saudi Arabia announced a surge in crude oil production to crush US shale operators. The surge lasted two years when Saudi Arabia realized its "trillion-dollar mistake" and cut production hoping to raise prices.
The writer apparently does not understand the importance of E & P companies managing their resources.
We've talked about this many, many times. IPs are but one metric. There are many, many other (and better) metric points.
North Dakota oil production jumped 5.4 percent in April to
more than 1.2 million barrels per day, coming in just shy of the state’s
record.
Director of Mineral Resources Lynn Helms called
it a big surprise to see production levels within 2,500 barrels of the
all-time high of nearly 1.23 million barrels per day.
“We
were not expecting that kind of a surge until late May, early June,”
Helms said Friday while discussing the preliminary figures.
Natural gas production increased 7.4 percent in April, setting another record at more than 2.24 billion cubic feet per day.
But other than that things seem okay with the world.
Which reminds me, I better check my twitter feed. I can only imagine what President Trump is tweeting this morning. Actually I cannot.
I see the number of "Twitter followers" has increased. Thank you. As the Bakken hits new production records, I suspect that to continue (the number of Twitter followers) as well as the number of hits on the blog.
The top international energy story: Venezuela starts importing oil. And on the same day that is announced, the price of WTI and Brent fall 2.5% to 3.5%, respectively. Just one more example, Venezuela doesn't matter any more with regard to global oil supply. Venezuela joins that list which includes Libya, Iran, Iraq, the North Sea, and Brazil. The only oil-producing countries that matter are Saudi Arabia, the US, and Putinstan.
Germany's Merkel could be "out" by the end of this next week
Technology:
Apple does what Nextel could not do: make a viable Dick Tracy wrist-TV / walkie-talkie; was that not incredibly prescient of a cartoonist to predict that decades ago?
Most ludicrous data point post this week:
the IEA estimates that global oil supplies are down to 58 days, four hours, and forty-eight minutes. I can't make this stuff up. But then again, we know that the earth will be 0.2 degrees warmer 100 years from now. By the way, did anyone note the huge Japanese volcano that erupted over the weekend? Lots of CO2 in that cloud, and lots of sunlight going to be lost. Could be a very cool summer.
