Just Released -- Saudi Arabia Foreign Exchange Reserves -- July, 2019

About a 2% decrease month-over-month.

Link here.

US Oil Production Stays Flat 1H19

From SeekingAlpha contributor, HFIR:

• EIA 914 came out today and US oil production for June 2019 came in at 12.082 mb/d
• US oil production for the first 6-months of 2019 was flat versus exit December 2018 figures
• But production growth will be heavily weighted in the 2nd half of the year
• We have US oil production exiting 2019 at 12.95 mb/d
• US oil production is at ~12.45 mb/d today and 12.6 mb/d in September

Archived. A must-read. It will disappear behind a paywall soon.

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The Grilling Page

Today I will be grilling flank steak directly on the charcoal.

From wiki:

Skirt steak is a thin, long cut of beef from the diaphragm muscles of the cow.

• Flavor and texture: Skirt steak has even more intense beefy flavor than flank steak. It does contain more tough muscles than flank steak, though, so should only be cooked to rare or medium rare for the most tender texture.

Flank Steak is from the bottom abdominal area of the cow, so it contains a lot of hard-working muscles.

• The meat has a lot of tough fibers running through it and is fairly lean.
• It’s a thicker, wider cut of meat than skirt steak. 
• Flank steak has tons of intense beefy flavor but can be a little tough. Eat it thinly sliced and cut against the grain for maximum tenderness. 
• Flanks steaks take to marinades very well, and some marinades can help to tenderize the meat. High heat and quick cooking is the best way to cook flank steak. It can be stuffed, grilled, or seared.

North Dakota's General Fund Revenues Exceeded Forecast; 2017 - 2019 Biennium Closed Out

From The Bismarck Tribune: general fund revenues exceed North Dakota legislature's forecast. Data points:

• last two-year budget cycle came in at 5.4% over the forecast adopted in March, 2019
• most of the overage due to an excess of earnings from the Legacy Fund 
• that's how Warren Buffett describes his Berkshire earnings: as an excess ... LOL
• the 2017 - 2019 biennium ended June 30, 2019, with $250 million in general fund revenues
• $250 million / 800,000 = $300/person
• total collected in the biennium: $4.91 billion
• actual general fund revenues exceeded the 2017 forecast by 13.5%.

See Kiplinger's negative report about North Dakota, January, 2019. It gets tedious.

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The Apple Page

Six years ago, or thereabouts, I decided it was time to buy a new iPad. I was still using an old iPad version 2. I think Apple is well into version 6 or greater, and now with many, many different versions.

Version 2 became available in 2011. Version 3, which we did not buy, became available in 2012. 

I finally bought one -- at Costco. The 12.9" iPad Pro -- the largest available.

I made the decision after my son-in-law commented on how incredible he found the iPad Pro.

Wow, it is incredible. Set-up was 20 seconds; about three steps. Connected seamlessly to remote speakers. Synced automatically with all other Apple devices we have.

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The Book Page

For the weekend, a small little hardcover:

• The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit Of The Unknown, Karen Olsson, c. 2019.

Bought unseen after reading a review in WSJ a few weeks ago.

The author:

• author of novels Waterloo; and, All The Houses
• has written for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Bookforum, and, Texas Monthly
• former editor of the Texas Observer
• graduate of Harvard University with a degree in mathematics
• lives in Austin, TX

Jacket synopsis begins: Karen Olsson's stirring and unusual third book, The Weil Conjectures, tells the story of the brilliant Weil siblings -- Simone, a philosopher, mystic and social activist, and André, an influential mathematician -- while also recalling the years Olsson spent studying math.

Week 35: August 25, 2019 -- August 31, 2019

Top international non-energy story:

• One step closer to a "no-deal" Brexit; the Queen supports PM's plan to "suspend" Parliament

Top international energy story:

•  US gasoline demand set an all-time record;

 Top national non-energy story:

• US economy
• US consumer confidence at 19-year high
• Starbucks quits selling newspapers nationwide 

Top national energy story:

• US gasoline demand set an all-time record;
• US oil inventory: colossal draw; by end of week, little effect on price of crude oil

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

• General fund revenues exceed ND Legislature's forecast

Top North Dakota energy story: 

• "Rich gas" EOR; and, here: Liberty Resources; and, here;
• TENORM proposal for Williston, ND
  

Geoff Simon's top ND stories: 

• NDIC approves $250,000 grant to support "wise roads" initiative; aimed at improving movement of heavy truck traffic in western North Dakota; will better identify only those gravel roads impacted by rain events leading to weight restrictions
• ND optimistic about CBR to Washington state

Operations:

• Nine Point Energy with five nice Little Muddy wells;
• First CLR LCU well is being drilled
• Update on the CLR Elm Tree unit; and, here; 
• Twenty-two permits renewed; seven new permits; 
• Slawson's River Rat Federal wells in Big Bend updated; 
• Oasis' Nordeng wells updated;
• Huge Patsy well reported by Oasis
• True Oil well in Red Wing Creek updated
• Cedar Creek Unit 8B 14X-2A-8 celebrated 58 years of production

Halo effect:

• WPX Sweet Grass Woman, Spotted Horn

Pipeline:

• Nebraska Supreme Court upholds routing for Keystone XL

Bakken 101:

• Sweet spots in the Bakken; and, here; and, here;
• The Bakken is expanding: Tier 2 becoming Tier 1
• Re-fracks
• Rigs, DUCs, completed wells;
  

Sweet Spots In The Bakken -- August 31, 2019

The other day -- I guess it was yesterday -- I was thinking about / writing about "sweet spots" in the Bakken.

A reader sent me this, probably considered by many to be the "Bible" for geologists as far as "memoirs" are concerned.

Giant Fields of the Decade 2000 2010, R. K. Merrill; C. A. Sternbach, AAPG Volume 113, c. 2017. Chapter 6: The Giant Continuous Oil Accumulation in the Bakken Petroleum System, US Williston Basin, Stephen A. Sonnenberg, Cosima Theloy, Hui Jin, January 1, 2017.

From GeoScienceWorld:

The Williston Basin Bakken petroleum system is a giant continuous accumulation. The petroleum system is characterized by low-porosity and -permeability reservoirs, organic-rich source rocks, and regional hydrocarbon charge. Total Bakken and Three Forks production to December 2014 was 1.289 billion barrels (bbl) of oil and 1.3 trillion cubic feet of gas (TCFG) from 12,051 wells. U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) (Gaswirth et al., 2013) mean technologically recoverable resource estimates for the Bakken petroleum system are 7.375 billion barrels of oil, 6.7 tcf of gas, and 527 million barrels of natural gas liquids.

The Bakken Formation regionally in the Williston Basin consists of four members: upper and lower organic-rich black shale, a middle member (silty dolostone or limestone to sandstone lithology), and a basal member recently named the Pronghorn. The Bakken Formation ranges in thickness from a wedge edge to over 140 ft (43 m) with the thickest area in the Bakken located in northwest North Dakota, east of the Nesson anticline.

The Three Forks is a silty dolostone throughout much of its stratigraphic interval. The Three Forks ranges in thickness from less than 25 ft (8 m) to over 250 ft (76 m) in the mapped area. Thickness patterns are controlled by paleostructural features such as the Poplar Dome, Nesson, Antelope, Cedar Creek, and Bottineau anticlines. Thinning and/or truncation occurs over the crest of the highs, and thickening of strata occurs on the flanks of the highs. The Three Forks can be subdivided into three units (up to six by some authors; e.g., Webster, 1984; Gutierrez, 2014; Gantyno, 2011). Most of the development activity in the Three Forks targets the upper Three Forks.

The upper Three Forks is dominated by silt-sized quartz and dolomite and some very fine-grained sandstones and has low permeabilities and porosities. The upper Three Forks ranges in thickness from a wedge edge to over 40 ft (12 m) in areas east of the Nesson anticline. The unit thins toward the margins of the depositional basin because of erosional truncation.

The upper and lower shale members are potential source rocks and are lithologically similar throughout much of the basin. The shales are regarded as dominantly type II kerogens. The shales average 11 wt.% total organic carbon.

Measured core porosity and permeability are very low in the Bakken, Sanish, and Three Forks reservoirs. Reservoir pressure in the Bakken is regarded as overpressured with pressure gradients exceeding 0.5 psi/ft.

A new pressure map for the Bakken petroleum system was generated. The map is based on 92 BHP (bottom-hole pressure) and DFIT (diagnostic fracture injection test) data points, including six additional hydrostatic points at the eastern margin as well as six data points for the Sanish–Parshall area.

High overpressures are found in large parts of the central basin and the Parshall area in the east, where gradients exceed 0.7 psi/ft. Elm Coulee has a pressure gradient around 0.55 psi/ft. Parshall is reported to have a gradient of 0.74 psi/ft. The area west of the Nesson anticline has pressure gradients of 0.6 to 0.7 psi/ft. Pressure gradients in Montana are generally in the 0.51 psi/ft range. 

One can buy this book or read more about it at Amazon.  This particular book was the fifth in a series of "memoirs" that began "nearly 50 years ago."

From FAQs, link here:

82a. What do you mean by Bakken 2.0? See this post. Two important data points:

• I set October 19, 2016, as the beginning of Bakken 2.0
• the event that triggered the Bakken 2.0 designation: the SM Energy announcement that it was selling some Bakken acreage/assets to Oasis
• it appears Permian Shale 2.0 began with the WPX, Noble, and XOM announcements regarding acquisitions in the Permian -- late 2016/early 2017

82b. What do you mean by Bakken 2.5? See this post.

• Bakken 1.0: began in the summer of 2007; it was originally tagged "Bakken101" and I continue to use the "Bakken101" tag 
• Bakken 2.0: October 19, 2016
• Bakken 2.5: April 10, 2018 -- correlates/corresponds with CLR's new completion strategies; North Dakota crude oil production to set new records; increased focus on the Permian vs the Bakken
• Bakken 3.0: when the new USGS Bakken survey is released