Reason #1 Why I Love To Blog -- Reader's Comments On Two Recent Posts -- July 20, 2020

Earlier I posted this:

• 35912, F/NC, CLR, Jamestown Federal 14-17HSL1, Banks, t--; cum 109K 3 months, 7 days; a 40K month; Three Forks, the potential pay zone was determined by the desire not to be overly high in the first bench, with a broad clean zone with better drilling and oil show, but no markers to warn of Pronghorn approach. The uppermost zone was set in this territory purely for steering marker and turn-around room. A buffer over the lowest dolostone bed (which overlies the internal 1 in turn) was also maintained on the low side, in order to prevent approach to that lower dolostone, which is less than ideal for both oil production (although with gas levels noted, this may not be true of this particular area) and drilling rate. Late morning on July 22nd the upper Bakken shale was intercepted ....  a sidetrack was initiated at 10:30 a.m.; drilling ahead on the sidetrack commenced at 20:12 that evening; a single assembly through to TD; the well was completed on the morning of July 23rd. The lateral was drilled in less than 24 hours? Fracked 12/18/2019 - 12/28/2019; small to moderate frack with 7.3 million gallons of water; 88.7% water by mass.

A reader replied:

Regarding the operators drilling a lateral in one day, several Appalachian Basin operators (whom I have been monitoring for years now) routinely average 7 to 8 thousand feet in 24 hours with - I believe - the record setter being about 10,000'. 

The increased focus for Bakken operators may revolve around the precision involving the 'build/curve' and the landing point as those hydrocarbon bearing strata in the Bakken/TF are so thin ... relatively speaking. 

It is a great testament to the skills of the crews to be doing what they do.

Earlier I posted this: Completely unexpected: new LNG port proposed for Houston -- Rigzone. Data points:

• Pilot LNG LLC
• Galveston LNG Bunker Port project
• Pelican Island, between Galveston and Texas City 
• FID: 2Q21
• project:
• a floating liquefaction plant
• would provide LNG marine fuel to vessels to the Texas ports of Houston, Texas City, and Galveston
• would provide LNG to one of the US's largest port complexes
• nameplate liquefaction capacity of 05 million tons per annum
• 18,000 cubic feet of storage capacity

The same reader noted:

Regarding that floating LNG barge/ship set to produce .5 mtpa (million tonnes per annum ... ~65 Million cubic feet per day), this is a great example of what to expect in the coming years. 

If you look at the picture accompanying the Rigzone article, you may notice that the hardware is comprised of several modules. 

These modules are becoming almost interchangeable components separately manufactured in China, Italy, South Korea, Thailand, amongst other countries.

This GREATLY facilitates time-to-assembly (on site), reduces costs dramatically, and expands the markets for LNG that heretofore required massive infusions of capital, supply, and - ultimately - sizeable consuming markets.

This is ALL in the process of dramatic change (upheaval, actually) as everything becomes way faster and cheaper to produce ... this, while the accompanying innovative hardware to store/transport the product (LNG) is improving at lightening speed.

The fact that a 2 mtpa LNG plant is now being built way up in the woods of North East Pennsylvania (NEPA) is one example. Proposing that this could be done a decade ago would justifiably be deemed preposterous.

From fueling the new Tasmanian ferry to supplying  Fairbanks, AK, with cheap, year-round fuel, this LNG 'world' will continue to rapidly expand and evolve.

And, we both might add: the US will be a huge supplier of this fuel.

Speaking of Pennsylvania, a native thereof:

Medley, Bobby Vinton