The Rainbow Oil Field

Permits: Kraken Operating currently has two permits for Rainbow-Bakken oilfield:

• 28457, 489, Kraken Operating, Gladys 1-20H, Rainbow, 40 stages; 8 million lbs, t9/14; cum 177K 8/18;
• 21736, 508, Kraken Operating, Stevenson 1-31H, Rainbow, 30 stages; 2.8 million lbs, t5/12; cum 143K 8/18;

The graphic:

Hearing dockets with Kraken / Rainbow-Bakken, case numbers (not permit numbers):

• 26801, Kraken Operating, Ellisville-Bakken, establish two overlapping 2560-acre units; one well each, Williams County
• 26802, Kraken Operating, Ellisville and/or Rainbow-Bakken, establish an overlapping 2560-acre unit; one well; Williams
• 26803, Kraken Operating, Rainbow-Bakken, establish an overlapping 2560-acre unit; one well, Williams County

Other posts mentioning Kraken / Rainbow-Bakken (not all inclusive):

• Samson Oil & Gas, 2013
• Samson Oil & Gas, 2015
• CLR, 2016
• CLR, 2016

Consolidating Bakken Links From Last Week -- October 14, 2018

A reader noted that I may have missed reporting some new permits last week (if so, it was because I was traveling). I was thrilled the reader notified me. I think this may be the best way to do this; provide links of recent Bakken posts. I did this quickly. If the links are incorrect, I will correct them later.

Because I was traveling, my Bakken updates may have gotten a bit out of order. Here are recent posts regarding the Bakken:

• wells coming off the confidential list this next week;
• results of wells coming off the confidential list this past week (at the linked site, scroll down);
• new permits; daily activity reports for the last two days of this week, Thursday and Friday;
• new permits, daily activity report for Wednesday, last week, down below;
• new permits, daily activity report for Tuesday, last week; 
• new permits, daily activity report for Monday, last week; there were eight new permits for two operators -- I just updated where those two 4-well pads will be placed;
• Director's Cut, August, 2018, data;
• top stories for the past week, week 41;

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Daily activity report for Wednesday, October 10, 2018, did not get posted. Here is that data:

Six new permits, Wednesday, October 10, 2018:

• Operators: Liberty Resources (3); Oasis Petroleum (3)
• Fields: Northwest McGregor (Williams); Squires (Williams)
• Comments: Oasis has permits for a 3-well Bobby pad in lot 1, section 2-155-102; and, Liberty Resources has permits for a 3-well McGinnity E pad in lot 1, section 6-158-95;

Six permits renewed, Wednesday, October 10, 2018:

• EOG (3): three Burke permits in Mountrail County
• Petro-Hunt: three Clark Griswold Federal permits in McKenzie County

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 24234, 1,335, Enerplus, Hyena 149-93-30A-31H-TF, Mandaree, t9/18; bcum --

Chevron Quits Norway -- I'll Be Missing You -- October 14, 2018

From Bloomberg via Rigzone:

Chevron Corp. is selling its last remaining oil exploration license in Norway, putting it one step closer to a full retreat from the aging North Sea basin as the U.S. major seeks higher returns elsewhere.

Chevron’s activity off Norway has been limited for years, but the decision to relinquish its last asset there again shows its reluctance to bet on mature regions such as northern Europe. The company is seeking to sell most of its U.K. fields -- it agreed to divest its stake in the Rosebank project to Equinor ASA [Statoil] last week -- and offloaded its only asset in Denmark in September.

Now Chevron has agreed to transfer its 20 percent stake in the PL859 license in the Barents Sea, off Norway’s northern tip, to DNO ASA. The deal, first reported by Upstream, “implies that Chevron Norge AS shuts down its operations in Norway and leaves the Norwegian shelf permanently,” the ministry said in the letter.

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I'll Be Missing You

From the official Norwegian chart list: reached number one in Norway on July 14, 1997, and stayed there for ten weeks.

I'll Be Missing You, Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112

Russia Natural Gas Discovery -- 11 TCF -- Arctic LNG -- October 14, 2018

This is a huge story, on several levels. It was reported under the Obama administration that the US would relinquish oil and gas reserves in the Arctic to Russia and five other countries. The US would not participate in Arctic exploration under President Obama.

It is now being reported that Russia has made an important Arctic discovery. 

See this post from August 5, 2018: US remains the "natural gas king."

October 8, 2019: new USGS assessment sets new records. 

Highlights from that post:

Reserves:

• Middle East: 2.8 quadrillion cubic feet = 2,080 trillion cubic feet (quadrillion is 10^15; trillion is 10^12)
• US: 309 trillion cubic feet (but see below)

I've long lost the bubble on global natural gas reserves (and I'm sure the reserves are currently way under-estimated) but back in 2016, this post:

Disclaimer: I often make simple arithmetic errors. Numbers rounded. Natural gas reserves according to BP/wiki, 2013 - 2014 (US estimate as of December 2013). Top five countries:

Russia: 6,000 trillion cubic feet

add another 11 TCF from the Arctic discovery announcement, 2018

Iran: 1,000 trillion cubic feet

Qatar: 900 trillion cubic feet

Turkmenistan: 600 trillion cubic feet

US: 350 trillion cubic feet

see first comment: add another 11 TCF from Pennsylvania alone in 2019

#11: Australia: 152 trillion cubic feet (as of January, 2014). (See this post.) 

Pakistan: 10,000 trillion cubic feet (highly unlikely, something tells me we are mixing apples and oranges, reserves vs technically recoverable

Now, today, this from the Rigzone staff: Russia makes 11 TCF natural gas discovery. Link here.

PJSC Novatek has announced the discovery of a new gas field in the Ob Bay area, which is estimated to hold natural gas reserves of more than 11 trillion cubic feet. The discovery was made via an exploration well in the North-Obsk license area.

“The discovery of a new field is an important starting point for the start of one of our future Arctic LNG projects,” Leonid Mikhelson, chairman of the board of Novatek, said in a company statement posted on Novatek’s website, which was translated into English.

Now, let's go back and re-run the numbers that were posted earlier:

• that recent huge Mediterranean natural gas find: 30 trillion cubic feet
• Barnett, revised USGS figures: 53 trillion cubic feet
• Utica, newly revised figures: 782 trillion cubic feet; USGS official figure: 117 TCF, September, 2019
• Marcellus, EIA revised estimates: 65 trillion cubic feet, "proved" reserves; revised to 84 - 97 in 2019;
• Bakken/Three Forks, USGS estimate: 7 trillion cubic feet (2013 estimate)
• Qatar: 800 trillion cubic feet, wiki, conversion
• Mozambique, from the story above (see link above): 85 trillion cubic feet

Idle Rambling On A Sunday Afternoon -- Nothing About The Bakken -- October 14, 2018

Fun with photos.

At this site, scroll down to "Tower Arch 360."

At that photograph, in the lower left-hand corner, you can move the "marker" to zoom in / zoom out of the photograph. But even more fun, to the far left in the lower left-hand corner is a spherical icon with an arrow on the equator: click on that arrow and watch the panoramic view of the tower arch.

Lots of fun.

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Not So Much Fun

Tesla bonds. If there was a question the other day whether Tesla bonds were at an all-time low, it is no longer a question now. Clearly, Tesla bonds at an all-time low:

Portland. "Law and order march": no law, no order, no march. A bloody brawl.

Saudi Arabia: threatens "sanctions" if anyone takes action against the Saudi family for the alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It will be interesting if Scott Adams offers any advice to the Saudis regarding "persuasion." I think the Saudis would have been better off by offering to help with the investigation; round up the usual suspects; clear the royal family of any wrong-doing; and, then set up a multi-billion-dollar fund for journalists around the world, for health care and retirement.

Saudi Arabia: Vision 2030 -- Saudi Aramco IPO -- petrochemical behemoth -- down the tubes?

Honduran march: if this all works out, hundreds of Hondurans will hit the US southern border during the week leading up to the US mid-term elections. I think the Roberto (pro "open borders") and Ted Cruz (pro "law and order") -- Texas US Senate race -- debate -- their last debate -- is scheduled this week. I'm hoping the network that covers the debate has a split screen with Beto's call for "open borders" on the left, and the Honduran march on the right.

Iran sanctions: I thought sanctions had already gone into effect, but Oilprice.com is reporting that "in less than a month, US energy sanctions will come into effect, and Tehran is desperately looking for a solution to move its oil." Wow, things move slowly in the world of diplomacy.

Wishes she could take that back: Hillary defends Weinstein; doesn't understand definition of abuse of power. DOD does not accept this, either. From Fox News reporting on Hillary's interview with CBS today:

Hillary Clinton, who went on to be elected to the Senate and served as President Obama’s secretary of state, said the relationship [between President Clinton and the intern] was not an abuse of power because Lewinsky “was an adult.” At the time of the affair, Lewinsky was 22.

Speaking Of Zombies -- October 14, 2018

If you go to "google winds" right now and scan over to the north Atlantic, somewhere between Spain and Great Britain, you will see what looks like a hurricane.

In fact, it is a hurricane. It's a zombie hurricane. Zombie Hurricane Leslie. It developed before Hurricane Michael and is still hanging around.

The hurricane has been labelled a “zombie” because it has been meandering a huge stretch of the sea since forming on September 23, but that all could change in time for Halloween.

Leslie has stayed between 30 and 65 degrees west longitude - so far well away from any land or inland seas - surviving on warm waters and moisture over the middle of the Atlantic.

The latest tropical storm has been moved around by weather systems over the Atlantic Ocean but there hasn’t been a system strong enough to push the storm towards land.
But a non-tropical feature is now forecast to drag Hurricane Leslie in that direction, enabling it to break free from the central Atlantic region.

AccuWeather meteorologist Tyler Roys said: "The strong front moving through the United Kingdom could pull Leslie towards Europe by early next week.”

As Hurricane Leslie approaches, the weather forecaster warned waves will build in size and strength, firstly around the Canary Islands, Azores and the Island of Madeira.

Leslie is coming into contact with some wind shear, which could drop it down to a tropical storm category on Saturday as it pushes just north of Madeira, but heavy wind and rain are still forecast across Madeira.

Your weather lesson for the day. Don't ever let anyone tell you that "themilliondollarway" doesn't have any useful information. LOL.

I'm not aware that Algore has mentioned this "zombie" hurricane. Had this hurricane developed in the early 1490's, the story of Christopher Columbus could have ended significantly differently.

From Fortune magazine, July 5, 2018, by the way: the 2018 hurricane season was forecast not to be as bad as originally forecast. And so far, 2018 has been a bust as far as the number of hurricanes that have hit the US so far. Officially, there have been two this year, but the first one is / remains controversial. It may not have been a hurricane at all when it hit landfall; there are some suggestions that NOAA is measuring the winds differently. Yes, don't get me started.

If true, there has been only one hurricane that hit landfall in the US this year -- but it was a doozy.

By the way, speaking of Algore, he and the UN have given us another twelve years to ward off global warming. Back in 1994, we only had ten years, but in the most recent UN-Algore announcement, we now have twelve years to save ourselves. And actually, it appears that we really have until 2050, as long as "we plant a billion trees and phase out coal completely by 2050." That's what they say. I can't make this stuff up. A billion trees and no coal. That sounds easier than flying us all to Mars.

By the way, if we all do have to evacuate to Mars, the good news is this: Tesla is already sending EVs to the red planet. That means we won't have to walk to the local 7-11. I wonder if fracking will be allowed on Mars?

Algore. Wow, what a doofus. But a really, really wealthy doofus.

And that's why I love to blog. I had no idea that I would start this page talking about zombies and end up talking about Algore.

What Condition My Condition Is In -- Images / Screenshots Of Google Searches -- October 14, 2018

Bakken oil blog images. The first four images of thousands of images are from "themilliondollaryway":

By the way, that fourth of five images in the top row is also an image from "themilliondollarway" but was taken from a site called "graphy.grafiti," very likely a "robo-site." Pretty cool.

The third one in the second row was taken from ndoiljobs.com, and also another one I posted. The latter site seems to have more ads than content. Whatever.

Bakken oil blogs. A subtle shift is noted:

Buy Oasis Oil Right Now -- Zacks -- October 14, 2018

Zacks: buy Oasis right now.

Before I forget -- 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. To continue, check one:

___ understand and agree;
___ understand and don't agree;
___ don't understand but agree so I can continue;
___ don't understand but will check this block because that's what I always do;
___ don't understand but will check this block because it looks like this is the last option

Now back to that Zacks article in which you are told to buy Oasis Oil right now. It's Sunday so you may not be able to buy Oasis Oil right now. The writer probably meant that metaphorically, or figuratively, and not literally. Sort of like a Trump tweet. From the linked article:

Over the past 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s 2018 earnings per share has been revised from 45 cents to 47 cents. The same for 2019 earnings moved up to 98 cents from 92 cents over the same time frame. Moreover, the upstream energy player managed to beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in each of the prior four quarters, the average positive earnings surprise being 81.4%.

Oasis Petroleum is among the leading oil and natural gas explorers and producers with focus primarily on the Bakken shale play and Three Forks formations. With significant acreage positions in those unconventional resources along with huge inventory of drilling locations, the company is well positioned to boost oil and gas production.

More, but not much more at the link.

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Word of the Day

I'm not sure whether this is a "word" or a "phrase."

Mutatis mutandis.

But I'm teaching Sophia to say it. And she's doing pretty well.

From wiki:

Mutatis mutandis is a Medieval Latin phrase meaning "the necessary changes having been made" or "once the necessary changes have been made".

It remains unnaturalized in English and is therefore usually italicized in writing.

It is used in many countries to acknowledge that a comparison being made requires certain obvious alterations, which are left unstated.

It is not to be confused with the similar ceteris paribus, which excludes any changes other than those explicitly mentioned.

Mutatis mutandis is increasingly replaced by non-Latin equivalents, such as "without loss of generality," but is still used in law, economics, mathematics, linguistics, and philosophy. In particular, in logic, it is encountered when discussing counterfactuals, as a shorthand for all the initial and derived changes which have been previously discussed.

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For Dinner Tonight

Shrimp cocktail; grilled octopus; and, lamb burger sliders.

Every Saturday noon, after Sophia's gymnastic lessons and swimming lessons, we all go to Central Market (Southlake, TX) for lunch; and, then we explore the store. Not often, but as a treat, our older daughter and I will buy an octopus. She will boil it and give me a tentacle or two for an hors d'oeuvre. She says she was told that boiling lobster with a cork makes the octopus more tender.

Yesterday, Central Market was offering something I had not seen before: lamb burger. The butcher said it was Texas grass-fed lamb, of a variety that was bred especially for its meat. (I guess other breeds are bred for their milk?) I thought he said it was "Norbert" or something to that effect. I can't find it on the internet, but there are a lot of sites for Texas grass-fed lamb. So, we will have lamb sliders tonight.

I don't know if octopus and lamb go together, but it is what is is. I don't drink alcohol any more -- stopped completely about six months ago -- May, 2018, or thereabouts. Not saying I won't go ever have wine or Scotch or a martini again some day,  but for the past six months or so, nada, nothing, zilch. Okay, to be honest, one beer about two weeks ago.

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The Book Page

More on particle physics.

I'm really enjoying Jeremy Bernstein's 2013 A Palette of Particles. It's due back at the library in a week or so; I might have to buy a copy for myself (from Amazon); it's that good. I think any layperson who has an interest in particle physics and has sort of kept up with the subject over the last ten years might enjoy it. It's a small book. It's footprint is about 5 inches by 8 inches, and it's only 212 pages including the index.

I hate books on physics that start with Aristotle and the Greeks. Bernstein jumps right into modern physics; I don't think there's even much about Einstein. 

Note: I generally understand less than 1% of anything I read about particle physics itself, but I feel quite comfortable with the language, the words, and to some extent, the concepts. To put that into context, I probably understand about 2% of everything I read about drilling for oil, and about 4% of what I read about the Bakken.

Bernstein likes only to talk about "facts," or at least what almost physicists agree upon and not get into speculation. Interestingly enough he does not include a graphic of the Standard Model. There may be a reason why he chose not to include a graphic of the Standard Model. I assume a graphic could easily go out of date which would immediately decrease the value of the book; and, some might argue that whatever graphic he chose for the Standard Model, he could have chosen another.

This is the one I like:

There's at least one "aha" moment on every page, and often two or three or four. The one that caught my eye today is on page 188, Appendix 2. The author is talking about coupling constants. It's much more complicated than this, but for me, an example of a coupling constant is the charge of the proton (+1) and the charge of the electron (-1).

From page 188:

Moreover, there is no explanation for these constants. For example, why is the magnitude of the proton charge (1) the same as that of the electron (1) even though the electron was probably produced by the Big Bang while the proton was created from bound quarks later? 

Wow. That is interesting.

I am reading Howard Bloom's 2016 The God Problem at the same time. The latter is a book on metaphysics and takes off where Bernstein ends. As noted, Bernstein does not want to get into speculation, but that's what Bloom's book is all about.

It appears (in foreshadowing) that Bloom has some trouble with the second law of thermodynamics.

• thermo: heat
• dynamics: energy
• thermodynamics: the way energy and heat are related

From livescience.com:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is about the quality of energy. It states that as energy is transferred or transformed, more and more of it is wasted. The Second Law also states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state. 

Bloom notes that out of the chaos following the Big Bang, the universe did not become more chaotic; it became more ordered. And that was without the need for a "theory of evolution."

Wells Coming Off The Confidential List This Next Week -- October 14, 2018 -- WPX Will Report Two Huge Behr Wells

The WPX Behr wells are tracked here.

Six months ago in North Dakota -- spring was in the air.


Monday, October 22, 2018:
34668, conf, MRO, Drake 44-16H, Jim Creek, no production data,
34074, conf, XTO, Ravin 21X-15F, Siverston, no production data,

Sunday, October 21, 2018:
34687, conf, XTO, FBIR Yellowwolf 31X-10DXA, Heart Butte, no production data,
34220, conf, Hess, RS-Howell-LW-156-91-1107H-2, Ross, no production data,
34075, conf, XTO, Ravin 21X-15B, Siverston, no production data,
30824, conf, WPX, Behr 19-18H1, Reunion Bay, huge well, 100K in less than 2 months:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
8-2018	43958	28140
7-2018	57765	10089

Saturday, October 20, 2018:
34688, conf, XTO, FBIR Yellowwolf 31X-10G, Heart Butte, no production data,
34219, conf, Hess, RS-Howell-LW-156-91-1107H-2, Ross, no production data,
34076, conf, XTO, Ravin 21X-15EXF, Siverston, no production data,
33557, conf, CLR, Mountain Gap 3-10H, Rattlesnake Point, huge well;

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
8-2018	44888	48687
7-2018	32184	21497
4-2018	1722	0

31859, conf, WPX, Behr 19-18HUL, Reunion Bay, huge well, 100K in less than 2 months:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
8-2018	45259	26805
7-2018	55212	1018

Friday, October 19, 2018:
34218, conf, Hess, RS-Howell-LW-156-91-1107H-3, Ross, no production data,
34077, conf, XTO, Ravin 21X-15AXB, Siverston, no production data,
33559, conf, CLR, Mountain Gap 5-10H, Rattlesnake Point, huge well:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
8-2018	17042	14851
7-2018	40057	31859
6-2018	6102	5677
4-2018	1137	0

Thursday, October 18, 2018:
34689, conf, Hunt Oil, Austin 154-90-27-22H-2, Parshall, producing nicely,
34078, conf, XTO, Ravin 21X-15E, Siverston, no production data,
29776, conf, Slawson, Gobbler Federal 6-35-26TFH, Big Bend, no production data

Wednesday, October 17, 2018:
34685, conf, XTO, FBIR Yellowwolf 31X-10C,  Heart Butte, no production data,
34217, conf, Hess, RS-Howell-LW-156-91-1107H-4, Ross, no production data,

Tuesday, October 16, 2018:
34686, conf, XTO, FBIR Yellowwolf 31X-10D, Heart Butte, no production data,
34474, conf, XTO, FBIR Ironwoman 31X-10D, Heart Butte, no production data,
34079, conf, XTO, Ravin 21X-15A, Siverston, no production data,
29774, conf, Slawson, Gobbler Federal 3-35-26H, Big Bend, some production,

Monday, October 15, 2018:
34473, conf,  XTO, FBIR Ironwoman 31X-10G, Heart Butte, no production data, 
34140, conf, WPX, Raptor 13-24HEL, Reunion Bay, no production data,
29773, conf, Slawson, Gobbler Federal 3-35-26TFH, Big Bend, no presidential pardon for this one, just in time for Thanksgiving;

Sunday, October 14, 2018:
34472, conf,  XTO, FBIR Ironwoman 31X-10C, Heart Butte, no production data, 
33821, conf,  Oasis, Lite 5393 11-11 3BX, Sanish, big well;  
33454, conf, Equinor Energy, Weisz 11-14 6H, Painted Woods, producing, albeit not that great;

Saturday, October 13, 2018:
34418, conf, Krakkne Operating, Michelle Lauren 1H, New Home, a nice well;
34417, conf,  Kraken Operating, Ellie Rose 11TFH, New Home, a nice well;
33820, conf,  Oasis, Lite 5393 11-11 4TX, Sanish, a nice well; 
33558, conf,  CLR, Mountain Gap 4-10H2, Rattlesnake Point, a huge well;
32019, conf,  Hess, CA-Stangeland-155-95-2128H-7, Capa, no production data,