Four New Permits; Sixteen Permits Renewed -- November 20, 2019

Active rigs:

$57.03	11/20/2019	11/20/2018	11/20/2017	11/20/2016	11/20/2015
Active Rigs	55	62	56	39	65

Four new permits, #37200 - #37203, inclusive:

• Operators: Hess (2); Crescent Point Energy (2)
• Fields: Tioga (Mountrail), Lone Tree Lake (Williams), Dublin (Williams)
• Comments:
• Hess has permits for a 2-well Bokn/Fossaa pad in section 7-158-94, Tioga oil field;
• Crescent Point Energy has a permit for a CPEUSC Jean well in section 9-157-99, Lone Tree Lake oil field 
• Crescent Point Energy also has a permit for a CPEUSC Tami well in section 8-157-99, Dublin oil field

Sixteen permits renewed:

• CLR (6): six Sodbuster permits in Williams County
• EOG (5): one Clearwater permit in Mountrail County; four Austin permits in Mountrail cCounty
• RimRock (2): one Moccasin Creek permit in Dunn County; one Two Shields Butte permit in Dunn County
• Petro-Hunt (2): two Noonan Federal permits in McKenzie County
• NP Resources: one Mosser Federal permit in Billings County

One permit reinstated:

• 31392, Slawson, Mauser (Federal) 2-18-17H,

MRO Reports A Huge Completed DUC -- On The Reservation -- Yesenko USA -- November 20, 2019

These wells are on the Fort Berthold reservation; west side of the lake, all run under the water.

The well:

• 36393, 5,281, MRO, Yesenko USA 11-21TFH, Four Bears, t9/19; cum 25K over first 30 days; FracFocus, 9/5/2019 - 9/20/2019; moderate frack of 8.3 million gallons of water; 88.9% water by mass; NDIC has not yet scanned in frack data:
  

  Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
  BAKKEN	9-2019	30	24796	24333	27874	26982	0	25327

Other wells on this pad:

• 36394, 3,822, MRO, Yellow Bull USA 14-16H, Four Bears, t9/19; cum 8K over 30 days;
• 19251, IA/406, MRO, Quale USA 31-20H, Four Bears, t2/11; cum 222K 6/19; came off line 6/19; remains off line 9/19; a moderately good well; drilled in 2011; a pretty good well for a "2011" well but would definitely benefit from a major re-frack;

Of the three parallel wells just to the north, this one is closest to #36393:

• 26575, IA/2,152, MRO, Cheetah USA 14-16TFH, Four Bears, t4/14; cum 321K 8/19; came off line 8/19; remains off line 9/19; a moderately good well; drilled in 2014;

The other two wells on this 3-well pad:

• 26576, IA/1,812, MRO, Flicka USA 13-16TFH, Four Bears, t4/14; cum 321K 7/19; came off line 7/19; remains off line 9/19; a moderately good well; drilled in 2014;
• 23799, 1,132, MRO, Darrel Quale USA 14-16H, Four Bears, t12/12; cum 270K 7/19; came off line 2/19; returned to production, 6/19; a moderately good well for a "2012" well; would benefit from a major re-frack;

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Sailing Lesson

Quick: the origin / etymology of the sailing term, "starboard"?

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Brilliant Drum Solo

(I Know) I'm Losing You, The Faces

When It Rains, It Pours -- Unable To Keep Up -- And Why I Can Never Take A Break From Blogging -- November 20, 2019 -- 1:07 P.M. CT

Is everyone paying attention? Are you catching all this?

From twitter, more to follow:

I doubt anyone in Ottawa is all that concerned about Alberta. Do Ottawans even speak the same language as Albertans?

CLR Does It Again; Another Huge Cedar Coulee Carus Well -- November 20, 2019

Updates

November 18, 2021: #35577 production updated --35577, 2,017, CLR, Carus 9-28H, 42 stages; 12.75 million lbs; Three Forks first bench, Cedar Coulee, t8/19; cum 113K 9/19; cum 402K 3/21; recent production: cum 439K 9/21;

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	9-2021	30	6561	7053	8292	29039	27967	742
BAKKEN	8-2021	31	10787	10253	12164	54040	53228	293
BAKKEN	7-2021	26	4078	3951	6316	19433	18843	88
BAKKEN	6-2021	30	4937	4908	6255	23610	23172	108
BAKKEN	5-2021	31	5121	5145	5014	27413	26742	370
BAKKEN	4-2021	30	6290	6271	6185	29480	29192	156
BAKKEN	3-2021	31	6606	6598	7180	26002	25453	412
BAKKEN	2-2021	28	6062	6063	4540	23574	22991	461
BAKKEN	1-2021	31	7627	7674	7225	36046	35824	48
BAKKEN	12-2020	31	9813	9701	8217	41833	41584	104
BAKKEN	11-2020	30	11693	11685	10486	36742	33888	2718
BAKKEN	10-2020	11	4307	4464	3998	10932	10567	311
BAKKEN	9-2020	30	13739	13678	11962	37598	36871	586
BAKKEN	8-2020	31	14721	14558	14074	27012	26593	277
BAKKEN	7-2020	2	1545	1642	1401	2559	2508	32

  Original Post

This post won't be updated; the CLR Carus wells are tracked here.

• 35577, 2,017, CLR, Carus 10-28H1, 9-28H, Cedar Coulee, within the "Rocket prospect," t8/19; cum 113K 9/19; cum 402K 3/21;
  
• 35550, 1,063, CLR, Carus 4-28H1, Cedar Coulee, t10/19; cum 5K after 7 days; cum 226K 3/21;
  

Production and data from the file report for this well:

• 35577, 2,017, CLR, Carus 9-28H, 42 stages; 12.75 million lbs; Three Forks first bench, Cedar Coulee, t8/19; cum 113K 9/19; cum 402K 3/21;
  

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	9-2019	28	36673	36597	27570	46643	43949	2694
BAKKEN	8-2019	31	50301	50464	42142	61761	59629	2132
BAKKEN	7-2019	20	24467	23970	22539	26312	24989	1323
BAKKEN	6-2019	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2019	5	1955	1955	4235	965	0	965

From the file report:

• spud date: December 15, 2018; drilling operations begat at midnight of December 15, 2018 (sic -- no typo -- from the file report); H&P rig 535; normally takes about three days for the vertical section; 12 hours for the curve; no explanation for delay from December 18, 2018 to January 14, 2018; perhaps Christmas break; weather;
  
• TD date: January 18, 2019
• KOP: target of 11,438'; data (Upper Bakken Shale) suggested lowering it to 11,440' TVD; the change was communicated to the directional hands; the final ideal target at the Three Forks ended up being 11,439' TVD
• collapse issues have been encountered in this region (previously posted, by the way)
• discussion about best way to enter the shale
• no shale collapse issues occurred
• drilled out of the shoe early on January 14, 2019
• discussion regarding drilling rates; geologist thought they were in ideal seam
• gases extremely high; shoutout to the roughnecks preventing a blowout
• background gases initially averaged 500 - 1,500 units; a couple of peaks exceeding 4,000 units, which brought in the gasbuster;
• at 16,120' MD, gas increased to 1,500 - 2,000 units;
• at 17,700' MD, gas levels rose to exceed 3,000 units and slowly built to 8,000 to 8,500 units from 20,000 - 21,000' MD
• after this point, gas faded to a range of 4,500 - 6,000 units of background gas through to TD
• further discussion regarding the seam and drilling rates
• Markers:
• base of last salt: 9,766'
• Mission Canyon: 9,950'
• Lodgepole: 10,474'
• upper Bakken shale: 11,340'
• middle Baken shale: 11,356' (so about 37' thick)
• lower Bakken shale: 11,393'
• Three Forks: 11,417'
• KOP: 11,439' (so the curve about 341' in length)
• horizontal segment, began at 11,780' MD
• horizontal segment, TVD: 11,434.11 feet to 11,446.57 feet
• assuming the wellbore was about mid-seam, the First Bench must have been about 12 feet thick;

EIA Dashboards For November, 2019, Posted

The November, 2019, dashboards have been posted, with projected data through December, 2019.

A lot of takeaways here:

• Bakken: 
• new wells, oil/well continues to increase month-over-month
• new wells: 1,542 bopd, greatly exceeds that of the Permian
• Oasis using these incredible Bakken wells to fund their Permian operations (previously reported)
• new wells: natural gas production continues to increase month-over-month; exceeds that of the Permian
• by the end of the year, North Dakota production will come very close to 1.5 million bopd; data will be released in February, 2020
• Permian:
• new wells, oil/well month-over-month, flat 
• new wells: 793 bopd (51% that of the Bakken)
• that 793 is so low, I needed to triple check it
• new wells: natural gas production flat month-over-month
• Eagle Ford:
• all that talk about the demise of this field appears to be premature

The links:

• EIA pdf, Bakken: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/bakken.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Permian: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/permian.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Eagle Ford: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/eagleford.pdf

Bakken:

Permian:

Eagle Ford:

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The Vocabulary Page

Marches.

Years and years ago I began a very, very intense reading program, chronologically from Homer through Ovid to the great female writers of the 18th century and culminating with Virginia Woolf. It a while to move onto the great 20th century male writers to include Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and Ernest Hemingway.

Along the way I read George Eliot's Middlemarch. It was there that I followed the history and etymology of "marches." Had I not spent so much time on "marches" during and after reading that book, it is likely I would have completely skipped over this sentence (bel0w(, not thinking much about it.

From The Vikings: A History, by Robert Ferguson, c. 2009:

Charlemagne's authority, and that of the Christian Church, reached its limits at the Saxon marches, in the northeast of the Frankish kingdom. Beyond lay the territories of the Ganes and the ...

Marches: another word to add to the list of vocabulary words I have developed for Arianna.

If DAPL Expansion Denied -- This Is Not Rocket Science -- November 20, 2019

I posted this data yesterday.

This may be the big story coming out of the Director's Cut for September, 2019, data: the number of wells off line for operational reasons (DUCs and "inactive" wells):

• Wells that were off line, at the end of September, 2019: 3,020 -- this may be an all-time high since this data was first reported for the Bakken; this is amazing; due to a very, very wet September; wettest on record, some say

• DUCs: 916 (down 14 from the 930 in August)
• inactive well count: 2,104 (up 429 from 1,675 in August)
• wells off line for operational reasons are tracked here; 

Others are now posting it, including The Williston Herald and The Bismarck Tribune:

North Dakota saw a jump of more than 400 wells idled from August to September. Now the state has 2,100 inactive wells, a number that’s concerning to Helms as the state is trying to put in place greater safeguards surrounding idle wells to prevent companies from abandoning them and shirking their cleanup responsibilities.

“Inactive wells tend to turn into abandoned wells, which tend to turn into orphaned wells,” he said. “It’s the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, that could potentially be a large liability for companies.”

Helms attributed the change, in part, to the wet weather and producers shutting in some lower-producing, less-profitable wells ahead of winter. He said some of the idle wells could also be the result of companies that handle the pipeline and processing side of the natural gas industry moving away from accepting what’s known as “sour” gas. Sour gas contains higher concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, which can be poisonous to humans who breathe it.

Older oil wells that have been operating for decades tend to have more hydrogen sulfide than newer wells, given the geologic makeup of the rock formations they target, Helms said. But even some newer wells in western North Dakota are showing higher concentrations as companies experiment with larger hydraulic fracturing treatments.

“They started sometimes fracking out of zone into neighboring formations that have hydrogen sulfide in them,” Helms said.

Not mentioned: North Dakota's seemingly ambiguous support for more takeaway capacity. 

If the DAPL expansion is denied, operators in the Bakken will see just how serious North Dakota is about promoting the oil sector. 

 

EIA Weekly Petroleum Report -- November 20, 2019

Updates

Later, 10:01 p.m. CT: a reader sheds a bit of light on the "increase" in storage -- see first comment --

There was a net withdrawal of crude from storage...did anyone report that?
The 85,000 barrel per day net withdrawal from our total crude inventories was due to a withdrawal of 282,000 barrels per day from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was only partially offset by a 197,000 barrel per day addition to our commercially available stocks of crude oil. 

Original Post

Link here.

• US crude oil in storage: increased by 1.4 million bbls
• US crude oil in storage: at 450.4 million bbls is about 3% above the five-year average which continues to increase (the 5-year average continues to increase)
• WTI up slightly on the news; still below $57/bbls
• crude oil imports are averaging 18% less than same four-week period a year ago
• would be lower except that California legislators prefer Saudi crude to their own crude -- let's tak about the CO2 emissions from very large crude carriers -- LOL -- but at least we're getting a handle on those plastic straws
• refineries are operating at 89.5% of their capacity; gradually increasing over the past six weeks, but still historically very, very low

Re-balancing (note: some weeks are hidden to make the spreadsheet manageable):

Week	Week Ending	Change	Million Bbls Storage
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5
Week 2	December 6, 2018	-7.3	443.2
Week 3	December 12, 2018	-1.2	442.0
Week 4	December 19, 2018	-0.5	441.5
Week 5	December 28, 2018	0.0	441.4
Week 43	September 18, 2019	1.1	417.1
Week 44	September 26, 2019	2.4	419.5
Week 45	October 2, 2019	3.1	422.6
Week 46	October 9, 2019	2.9	425.6
Week 47	October 17, 2019	9.3	434.9
Week 48	October 23, 2019	-1.7	433.2
Week 49	October 30, 2019	5.7	438.9
Week 50	November 6, 2019	7.9	446.8
Week 51	November 14, 2019	2.2	449.0
Week 52	November 20, 2019	1.4	450.4

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The Viking Age: Heathendom

From The Vikings: A History, Robert Ferguson, c. 2009, pages 47 - 48:

On the question of why raiding on northern Britain began in 793, and not fifty years earlier or forty years later, Norwegian historians and archaeologists have been increasingly attracted in recent years to an idea that looks outside Scandinavia for an explanation and takes into account the political tensions in northern Europe at the close of the eighth century.

The three major political powers in the world at that time were the Byzantine empire in the east, which had survived the break-up of the Roman empire and its disappearance in the west; the Muslims, whose expansion during the years 660 to 830 under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates had taken them eastward as far as Turkistan and Asia Minor to create an Islamic barrier between the northern and southern hemispheres; and the Franks, who had established themselves as the dominant tribe among the successor states after the fall of the Roman empire in the west.

The Byzantine empire, with its capital Constantinople, was remote from the Sandinavian lands and would be more or less able to dictate the terms of its encounters with the Viking phenomenon.

The Islamic expansion into Europe via the Iberian peninsula in the first half of the eighth century pushed European trade routes northwards, a developement which increased trading opportunities for the Scandinavian lands and also created ideal conditions for piracy in the North Sea area.

Of tth three major powers it was the Franks who would be most profoundly involved with the Vikings.

It was entirely coincidental to have picked up the history of Constantinople at the very time I picked up the history of the Vikings. Wow. I can't wait to talk to Arianna about this, but my hunch: she already knows. LOL.

And, although it's a stretch, if one connects enough dots, one will end up here:

Denis, Blondie

Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- November 20, 2019

US shale rocks! US shale will keep breaking records -- oilprice. 

Europe, not dead yet. European car sales up almost 9% in October, 2019.

California to Texas migration continues. Apple starts construction on its $1-billion Austin campus.

Mark Perry talked about this years ago. Do we have another nominee for the Geico Rock Award? Jimmy Sengenberger enlightens us: how US student debt became such a big issue.

9:24 a.m. CT: daily activity report from yesterday still not posted. 

Graphic panic. This is a keeper. Warren Buffett probably has a copy hanging in his bedroom. Screenshot to follow.

End of an era. Re-posting. From Bloomberg via Rigzone --

California is one step away from banning drilling for oil in their state. Meanwhile, the state has commissioned a multi-million dollar study to find out why gasoline prices are so high (a study that is undertaken every several years, usually when a new governor takes office). I find the whole thing fascinating, if not bizarre.

Big plans: COP unveils its 10-year operational plan. From Rigzone.

• average annual CAPEX: less than $7 billion
• free cash flow of $50 billion
• anticipates annual production growth of three percent
• plans to seel 25% of its Alaska assets
• question: do they hold any "dead" assets in California; most likely

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

4% is not nearly enough. From Rigzone, update on Encana's proposed plan to flee Canada --

• one of its largest investors will vote against the producer's plan to moves its headquarters to the US
• this is the "Ovintiv" story -- previously posted
• moving to Denver, CO, if I recall correctly
• Canada has declared itself a "no-growth" country 

Only one piece missing: names of speakers. LOL. 

Maybe The Bakken Really Is Shut Down -- Daily Report From Yesterday Still Not Posted -- November 20, 2019

NDIC still reporting 55 active rigs in the Bakken, so apparently someone is working.

$55.73	11/20/2019	11/20/2018	11/20/2017	11/20/2016	11/20/2015
Active Rigs	55	62	56	39	65

RBN Energy: rising baseload demand for natural gas means more price spikes, volatility.

U.S. natural gas prices are increasingly susceptible to periodic spikes and volatility as baseload demand for gas — or the minimum level of demand that must be met on a daily basis — specifically from power generators and liquefaction plants, has rapidly climbed in recent years, and is still rising. The power sector has upped the ante on its gas consumption, with gas replacing coal as the most cost-effective go-to fuel for meeting baseload electricity demand. On top of that, feedgas deliveries to LNG export terminals have added 7 Bcf/d of demand to the gas market in the past three years, much of which is flowing at high, baseload-like rates, and that demand is set to increase further as more liquefaction projects are completed. These two market components together — LNG exports and gas-fired power generation — will take a bigger slice of domestic gas supplies, making the gas market ever more sensitive to weather, maintenance and other factors that disrupt that baseload level of demand or the supplies that serve it. We’ve already begun to see the effects of this phenomenon on Henry Hub and other regional gas prices. Today, we delve into this fundamental shift and what it could mean for the gas market.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019: 67 for the month; 162 for the quarter:

• 35577, 2,017, CLR, Carus 9-28H, Cedar Coulee, t8/19; cum 113K 9/19;
• 35550, 1,063, CLR, Carus 4-28H1, Cedar Coulee, t10/19; cum 5K after 7 days;
• 34772, SI/NC, XTO, Lonnie Federal 31X-3G2, Hofflunc, no production data,
• 31967, SI/NC, Petro-Hunt, Klevmoen Trust 153-95-17D-7-3H, Charlson, no production data,