Saturday, April 4, 2020

Reassuring: BR's Kings Canyon #18018 Back On Line -- Lookin' Good -- April 4, 2020

See this post from 2017. This well has been off line for the past four months. It came back online this past month with nice production:

The well:
  • 18018, 321, BR, Kings Canyon 21-27H, Camel Butte, API: 33-053-03012, t12/09; cum 260K 7/17:
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN2-20202723922083482379237250
BAKKEN1-20200000000
BAKKEN12-2019100018180
BAKKEN11-20190000000
BAKKEN10-2019112340000
BAKKEN9-201910300222407607314
BAKKEN8-2019224622715847447395
BAKKEN7-20192166228531017783229
BAKKEN6-20192554067531120121822128
BAKKEN5-201931971114519549104698135
BAKKEN4-2019301579164632973356293968

This well exactly parallels #18018, and has a similar production profile. It, too, was off line about five months; now back on line and lookin' good.  

The well:
  • 29434, 1,080, BR, Kings Canyon 3-1-27MTFH, Camel Butte, 4 sections, t8/15; cum 104K 2/20
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN2-2020211057969169916731309312
BAKKEN1-20200000000
BAKKEN12-20190000000
BAKKEN11-20190000000
BAKKEN10-20190000000
BAKKEN9-2019001030000
BAKKEN8-201913427588251696190474
BAKKEN7-20193182675854819741404493
BAKKEN6-2019301313136673341143903137

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The Book Page

From a reader:
  • Shakespeare’s Wordcraft by Scott Kaiser

Update On That Red Trail Energy Permit In Southwest North Dakota -- April 4, 2020

Well, well, well -- what do we have here?


Does anyone remember this post from December 2, 2019 -- note how quickly we move from getting the permit to drilling.
December 11, 2019: what is Red Trail up to? From April 20, 2019, US News, a carbon capture project. Data points:
  • this is being done to meet West Coast fuel standards
  • the company recently completed a geophysical survey of eight square miles around the plant
  • company's goal is to produce ethanol that will meet the low carbon fuel standards of California and/or the Pacific Northwest
  • the company and the EERC are targeting the Broom Creek formation, about 6,400 feet below ground that area
  • proposal: to inject about 160,000 metric tons of CO2 per year into the well
  • leaks? can anyone say Aliso Canyon gas leak?
December 7, 2019: from a reader, regarding the Red Trail Energy permit, see first comment:
The permit Red Trail is requesting for drilling could likely be related to research for a carbon sequestration project. Ive heard they have interest in a potential CO2 capture project. There will likely be permits requested for a well or wells in Oliver County in the near future as well which are related to Project Tundra, another potential CO2 capture project.
December 2, 2019, original post: Over at the NDIC well search site, this is the first and only permit (so far) for Red Trail Energy, LLC.  The website for Red Trail Energy greets visitors with huge "Ethanol" banner.
From the website:
Red Trail Energy, LLC (RTE) is a North Dakota-based investor group formed to finance, construct and operate a corn-based ethanol production facility located near Richardton, North Dakota. This vision became a reality when the $99 million, state-of-the-art plant began producing ethanol, in January of 2007. RTE now employs 47 personnel with an annual payroll of $2.9 million.
As one of the first coal-fired ethanol plants in the nation, RTE produces 50 million gallons of ethanol, using 18-20 million bushels of corn and ~100,000 tons of coal, annually. The plant will generate 2.8 gallons of ethanol from every bushel of corn. Coproducts produced by RTE include 125,000 tons of dried distillers grain and 80,000 tons of modified-wetcake annually.
The Richardton plant’s physical layout is composed of eleven structures, totaling 100,000 square feet of buildings, including administration, maintenance, processing, grain receiving, dried distillers grains storage, coal island, dryers and a pump house. The second-generation plant incorporates all the latest advances in ethanol processing, including equipment and technologies proven to boost efficiency and return on investment.
No mention of oil and gas operations.  The wildcat will be drilled on/near RTE property north of Richardton, ND. Richardton is east of Dickinson and about 100 miles west of Sterling, ND, where one turns south to Linton, ND. Linton is the county seat for Emmons County. Folks may remember Linton, ND: that's where the recent NDIC hearing on the DAPL expansion was held. Emmons County is the location of the fabled "Sleeping Giant" natural gas field.
The well with a rig on site:
  • 37229, conf, Red Trail Energy LLC, RTE 10, wildcat, SESE 10-139-92; 
Other recent news stories regarding this well:
The project is able to move forward due to Senator John Hoeven’s efforts to secure final approval for North Dakota’s regulatory primacy over Class VI injection wells, which are used for geological or long-term storage of CO2, the first such approval in the nation.

Hess Might Call Three Forks B1 The Devonian -- April 4, 2020

There's really no reason to post this well, except while looking at it on the NDIC map, I noted a pattern I had not see before. See the graphics below the production data.

From Beaver Lodge, comes another Devonian (Three Forks first bench) well:
  • 32342, 306, Hess, BL-Davidson-156-96-3526H-7, Devonian/Three Forks; 50 stages; 3.5 million lbs; Beaver Lodge, t4/16; cum 118 2/20; 
    • TD: 20,194 feet;
    • spud date, surface hole: December 14, 2015
    • vertical hole, January 6, 2016, Nabors B-04 rig;
    • cease drilling: January 18, 2016;
    • unitized;
Recent production:
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
DEVONIAN2-202029132613342067835783561
DEVONIAN1-20202915571406243084188296122
DEVONIAN12-2019001000000
DEVONIAN11-2019217448501327586558632
DEVONIAN10-20193112971280168111321113192
DEVONIAN9-20193011591111153510568105680
DEVONIAN8-201931126013191647127771275126
DEVONIAN7-20193113341322179013692136920
DEVONIAN6-201930135813061803140161393284

Initial production:
DEVONIAN11-2016307290709442451253712355182
DEVONIAN10-2016193923402520097364735410
DEVONIAN9-201629528053134080785278439
DEVONIAN8-201631766675854576104601039961
DEVONIAN7-20163177747706648497659586179
DEVONIAN6-201616517150833073711559201195
DEVONIAN5-201600180000
DEVONIAN4-2016299497629212291110119

The graphics:


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Sophia's Barber Shop

Sophia is five years old. I gave her NO instructions and NO restrictions. She did not see the barber shop until I began filming. The only instructions were SAFETY and you can hear them live. There is a short gap when neither of us are in the frame but press on, it's a short gap. Someone asked if she was just pretending or if she was really cutting hair. If you listen closely, you can hear hair being cut. She was free to do what she felt needed to be done.


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The Movie Page

I'm not interested in watching TCM's late afternoon film, "Fiddler on the Roof." Instead I'm watching "Sunset Boulevard" on Blu-Ray. What an incredible movie.

Paul Krugman Would Have Predicted This -- April 4, 2020

Link here.


From the linked article:
The dollar resumed its climb against major currencies on Friday as investors took refuge in safety bids amid worsening economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

The greenback index is on course for a near 2.5% gain over the week, having whipsawed last month from highs on a scramble for cash before slumping as the US Federal Reserve flooded the market with liquidity.

Indecision among euro zone governments about a rescue package for the region's hobbled economies has weakened the euro in recent days, helping the dollar to its best day in two weeks against the single currency on Thursday.

Analysts said the euro may also be faltering due to rebalancing by forex reserve managers stocking up on dollars. The dollar was up 0.5% against the euro on Friday at $1.8060, putting it on course for a 3% gain over the week. It was also up 0.5% against a basket of currencies.
Time to dig out those US Series E, war bonds, but instead of 30- and/or 40-year bonds, since folks are living longer, make them 50-year bonds. A huge "thank-you" to a reader who first suggested this to me several months ago.

Speaking of which, I thought I had cashed in all my Series EE bonds (which replaced the series E bonds in 1980) some years ago, but I just discovered a small cache of Series EE bonds in my firebox.

As long as I've digressed this much:
  • silver, about $17/oz today
  • gold, about $1,600/oz today 
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The Apple Page

My biggest decision this week: whether to buy my first pair ever -- the Apple AirPods.
Apple's AirPods Pro have returned to their low price of $234.98 on Amazon, down from $249.00. At about $14 off, this remains the lowest price we've ever tracked for a brand new model of the AirPods Pro among the major Apple resellers online.
There is so much going on at Apple right now. Best place to catch up: MacRumors. A rundown of headlines, links may or may not be provided later, depending on how much time I have:
  • Apple iPhone SE could be announced this next week; I would be really, really surprised if it is not;
  • Amazon's Prime Video app now allows users to bypass Apple's in-app purchase system and rent/buy movies directly from Amazon -- wow! Apple approved the deal;
  • Apple acquired popular weather app Dark Sky, "totally unexpected";
  • new Apple SE, 4.7 inch, vs original Apple SE, 4.0
  • huge whoops! Apple accidentally released "AirTags" -- this is huge, and something I've been waiting for, for quite some time; amazing this wasn't done years ago;
  • Apple Music was second biggest global music streaming service in 2019: Spotify, 35%; Apple, 19%; best part of that story -- with only 19%, Apple has a lot of room to grow; Amazon Music at 15%; the rest don't matter;
  • Apple acquires AI startup Voysis to improve Siri; 
  • Luna Display adaptor: converts an iPad or Mac into a second screen;
  • Powerbeats Pro returns to $200 at multiple retailers, including Amazon;
Last night when I turned in, I asked Alexa to play "Fleetwood Mac." No response. I tried again, no response. Then I remembered that Sophia, age 5, asked me, earlier in the day, if she could "stop" Alexa from listening to us. Amazing. She knew that by pushing a button on top of the Amazon Echo she could keep Alexa from listening to us. And she knew which of the four buttons.

Week 14: March 29, 2020 -- April 4, 2020

Top energy story of the week:
Favorite video:
Best news all week:
Biggest non-story of the entire week:
Top international non-energy story:
Top international energy story:
Top national non-energy story:
Top national energy story:
Top North Dakota non-energy story:
  • Paddlefish season canceled this year;
Top North Dakota energy story:

Geoff Simon's top ND stories (this does not include stories posted elsewhere on this page):
  • Governor wants roads to be built during downturn;
  • TC Energy going ahead with Keystone XL Pipeline;
  • ND gasoline prices about 15 cents below national average;
  • ND has adequate hospital bed capacity; 171 deaths anticipated;
Operators:
Operations:
Fracking:
Pipelines:
Field:
Commentary:

Saudi Arabia Foreign Exchange Reserves -- Posted Overnight -- February 2020 Data

Link here.


I'm already eagerly looking forward to data for March, April, May.

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The Book Page

Ninety percent of my waking hours is taking are of Sophia, and we have accomplished a lot things these past two weeks. But when I get a couple of free hours in the evening, this is what I've been reading / working on for the past two weeks:
  • re-reading the Annotated Wuthering Heights (notes here);
  • evolution, specifically, amphibians, more specifically, frogs; and,
  • the Celts, specifically the discovery of "middle earth"
I've got three books out -- and they are really, really good books -- regarding evolution, but interestingly, they don't spend much time on etymology. So, it's back to wiki.

I find this incredibly interesting, again, frogs:
The origins of the word frog are uncertain and debated.
The word is first attested in Old English as frogga, but the usual Old English word for the frog was frosc (with variants such as frox and forsc), and it is agreed that the word frog is somehow related to this.
Old English frosc remained in dialectal use in English as frosh and frosk into the nineteenth century, and is paralleled widely in other Germanic languages, with examples in the modern languages including German Frosch, Icelandic froskur, and Dutch (kik)vors.
These words allow us to reconstruct a Common Germanic ancestor *froskaz."
The third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary finds that the etymology of *froskaz is uncertain, but agrees with arguments that it could plausibly derive from a Proto-Indo-European base along the lines of *preu = "jump".
How Old English frosc gave rise to frogga is, however, uncertain, as the development does not involve a regular sound-change. Instead, it seems that there was a trend in Old English to coin nicknames for animals ending in -g, with examples—themselves all of uncertain etymology—including dog, hog, pig, stag, and (ear)wig. Frog appears to have been adapted from frosc as part of this trend.
So, now, a new game with Sophia. Name animals with names that end in "g."

Interestingly, the first true frog: Triadobatrachus .... something.

For the life of me, I can't find the etymology of this word except for this "three-frogged." "Tri" = three and adobatrachus  or obatrachus "means" frog, but I don't know the Latin/Greek for adobatrachus. Maybe it's in the wiki entry but I missed it. I thought trachus might have something to do with trachea and maybe it does, but every time I do a wiki search for "trachus" it takes me to "tragus" (part of the ear). Adobo is a form of cooking so that's no help, unless they're talking about froglegs. LOL.

Sometimes when you study evolution, like everything else, it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. Take amphibians. Evolutionary-wise, fifteen minutes of fame. Not much came of them: salamanders and frogs, that's about it. But yet, the amphibian "concester" (a Richard Dawkins term) was the first tetrapod and all tetrapods on earth can trace their heritage back to that amphibian-like animal.

If one is interested in this sort of stuff, this is a nice two-page summary (https://www.pnas.org/content/109/15/5557) but when that pops up, you may want to download the pdf: so much easier to read.

By the way, "di" is derived from the Greek (split; dilemma, diverge, Dimetrodon) but "bi" is derived from the Latin. When deciding whether to use "di" or "bi" as the prefix, the general rule is that "bi" goes with words derived from Latin, and "di" goes with words derived from Greek. I mentioned that to Arianna -- the oldest granddaughter -- she said she already knew that.

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βάτραχος

Update, April 5, 2020:
Interestingly, the first true frog: Triadobatrachus .... something.

For the life of me, I can't find the etymology of this word except for this "three-frogged." "Tri" = three and adobatrachus  or obatrachus "means" frog, but I don't know the Latin/Greek for adobatrachus. Maybe it's in the wiki entry but I missed it. I thought trachus might have something to do with trachea and maybe it does, but every time I do a wiki search for "trachus" it takes me to "tragus" (part of the ear). Adobo is a form of cooking so that's no help, unless they're talking about froglegs. LOL.
Finally, I found the origin of batrachus. But it appears philologists haven't been able to do much better.

It appears that batrahus is borrowed from Pre-Greek or Semitic (think the plague of frogs).
Pre-Greek consists of the unknown language or languages spoken in prehistoric Greece before the settlement of Proto-Greek speakers during the Middle and Late Bronze Age period in the area. It is possible that Greek took over some thousand words and proper names from such a language (or languages), because some of its vocabulary cannot be satisfactorily explained as deriving from the Proto-Greek language (also known as Proto-Hellenic, an Indo-European language).

Pre-Greek is not Indo-European.
"Helen of Troy" and the fall of Troy marked the end of the Late Bronze Age, and the beginning of the Iron Age, around 1200 BC.

Back to βάτραχος, it is only said, "seemingly imitative of croaking." A stretch. So, unless there's an incredibly new finding, we will probably not learn any more about how batrachus came about.