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Friday, June 5, 2020

Week 23: May 31, 2020 -- June 6, 2020

Most under-reported story:
Top story of the 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:
Top North Dakota energy story:
Geoff Simon's top ND stories:
  • Leads off with: state owns river mineral rights; MHA nation says it will fight "illegal taking";
  • NDIC recommends state funding to plug abandoned holes
  • EERC making headway on gas storage
  • WAWS has lots of pipeline jobs
  • Southwest Water Authority needs more capacity; 760 potential customers on the waiting list
  • Delta gets okay to suspend flights to Williston WXA
  • ND Covid-19 cases are declining
  • US states no longer have power to block pipelines
  • EPA: final rule on CWA written to fast track natural gas, oil infrastructure (means nothing; will likely end up in appellate courts)
Operators:
Operations:
Advantaged oil:
500K oil:
Non-Bakken formations:
Natural gas:

Commentary:

BR With Permits For A 7-Well Sequoia-Well-Infill Pad -- June 5, 2020

BR with seven new permits, #37614 - #37620, inclusive --
  • BR has permits for a seven-well Sequoiafill pad in SWSE 36-153-95, Hawkeye oil field; all 870’ FSL and lined up east-west about 2600' FWL
The graphic:


The wells identified in the graphic above:
  • 26598, 1,923, BR, Sequoia 14-9TFH, Hawkeye, t8/14; cum 315K 4/20;
  • 26599, 1,923, BR, Sequoia 14-9MBH, Hawkeye, t8/14; cum 340K 2/20; off line 2/20; remains off line 4/20; 
  • 26600, 1,923, BR, Sequoia 24-9MBH, Hawkeye, t8/14; cum 268K 4/20;
  • 18140, 540, BR, Sequoia 24-9H, Hawkeye, t9/09; cum 308K 4/20; see full production profile at this post;

XTO To Monitor Fracking Communcation Between Middle Bakken And Three Forks First/Second Bench -- June 5, 2020

Note: in a long note like this, there will be typographical and content errors, not only because it was a long note, looking at file reports of three wells, but also because I was distracted while watching Kinky Boots for the umpteenth time. 

The well:
  • 36678, drl/A, XTO, Mariner 14X-36D, Bear Creek, t--; 33K in 21 days, extrapolates to 46,521 bbls over 30 days; this well is on a three-well pad; 640-acre spacing (not commonly seen any more); section 1-147-96; no other wells in the immediate area;
  • twenty miles north of Killdeer in Dunn County, ND 
  • no frack data, either at NDIC or at FracFocus;
  • production, 32565 over 21 days extrapolates to 46,521 bbls over 30 days
    PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
    BAKKEN4-202021325653203329963396861216927479
From the geologist's narrative:
  • second of three observational lateral wells completed on the pad, but on June 5, 2020, it was the only one of the three to show any production;
  • target: the middle Bakken;
  • will converge toward the Mariner 14X-POW-S lateral directly below in the Three Forks;
  • surface hole drilled on August 10, 2019; cement casing to 2,437'
  • vertical holed drilled with four BHAs -- three mud motor failures;
  • the curve was drilled in 33 hours with a single BHA
  • intermediate casing set to 11,703' MD
  • re-entered on October 18, 2019
  • the lateral was drilled using two BHAs; TD = 16,634' MD on October 23, 2019; about 5 days drilling;
  • middle Bakken entered at 11,543' MD and 11,033' TVD
  • target interval: 23' thick; 12' below the upper Bakken shale; the base of the target was 10' above the lower Bakken shale;
  • background gas throughout the entire later ranged from 40 to 3,000 units; gas shows ranged from 118 units to 3,508 units;
  • lateral exposed 4,931' of uncased hold, entirely within the Mississippian-Devonian Middle Bakken Member;
  • this well is being equipped with a special fiber optic liner to monitor fracking communication with the other Mariner wells
The three wells on this pad:
  • 36680, Mariner 14X-36POW-H,  third of three wells on this pad to be drilled; one of two production observation wells on the pad, a middle Bakken development well; the lateral portion drilled in four days; exposed 4,358' of uncased hole; the lateral is equipped with a special fiber optic liner to monitor fracking communication with the other Mariner wells;
    • the vertical was drilled through the Three Forks Third Bench
    • the target was the middle Bakken; 17'-thick seam; 10' below the upper Bakken Shale, and 10' above the lower Bakken shale
    • perhaps more on this later;
  • 36679, Mariner 14X-36POW-S, Three Forks B2; first of three on this pad; intended as as an operational well; the purpose of the well: monitor fracking communication based on proximity to offset wells being fracked; special fiber optic liner was run to monitor fracking (note the spelling) communication from the Mariner 14X-36D 
    • completed 100% within the Three Forks second bench and Three Forks first bench target interval, opening up 4,963'
    • the three primary offsets:
      • XTO Mariner 14X-36POW-H
      • XTO TAT State Federal 14X-36F
      • XTO Pelton 2-1SWD
    • more on this later, perhaps
  • 36678, Mariner 14X-36D, a middle Bakken, see above;
The graphic:

Eight New Permits -- June 5, 2020

I was gone all day, so I'm only going to post the headlines and the links on this historic day.

One thousand points: link here.


AAPL: hits all-time record.

Say what? Washington Post blasted over inaccurate 'grim milestone' tweet on unemployment rate: 'it's not true.' Google for link. Reminds me of the night Trump defeated Hillary.


Worse call ever. Link here over at MarketWatch.


Holding out for a bailout. Link over at ZeroHedge.

Yup, time to start monetizing redundant real estate. Link here.

OPEC basket: actually falls on this historic day to $34.84. Drops sixty-two cents, or about 1.75%.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$39.076/5/202006/05/201906/05/201806/05/201706/05/2016
Active Rigs1264615025

Eight new permits, #37614 - #37621, inclusive --
  • Operators: BR (7); MRO
  • Fields: Hawkeye (McKenzie); McGregory Buttes (Dunn)
  • Comments:
    • BR has permits for a seven-well Sequoiafill pad in SWSE 36-153-95, Hawkeye oil field; all 870; FSL and lined up about 2600' FWL
    • MRO has a permit for a Sophia USA well in NENE 15-147-94, McGregory Buttes oil field;
One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:
  • 36678, drl/A, XTO, Mariner 14X-36D, Bear Creek, t--; 33K in 21 days, extrapolates to 46,521 bbls over 30 days; this well is on a three-well pad; 640-acre spacing (not commonly seen any more); section 1-147-96; no other wells in the immediate area; see this note;
Producers now abandoned:
  • 25657, QEP, Ernie 3-10-2-11LL,
  • 21052, QEP, Moberg 15-22/15H,
  • 11273, Scout Energy Management LLC, Nelson 43 1;
  • 11641, Scout Energy Management LLC, Shae 1;
  • 13634, Scout Energy Management LLC, SFTU 10-30;

The Luckiest Man In The World Today: Prince MbS -- June 5, 2020

The luckiest man in the world today: Prince MbS. The House of Saud is in great shape. Truly amazing!



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.

The gap between the haves and the have-nots continues to widen. Or should we say, the gap between the investing class and the non-investing class continues to widen.

White privilege:



The protests we're seeing? This is not a "race war." It's a class war.

Just as the 12th century crusades had nothing to do with religion though the bishops walked in front carrying the Catholic banners.


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The Literature Page

Beating a dead horse -- pun intended. LOL.

The Wooden Horse: The Liberation of the Western Mind, From Odysseus to Socrates, Keld Zeruneith, p.2007.

The notes to this incredible book are as enjoyable to read as the book itself.

A few days ago I was sorting out the genealogy of Odysseus. One source suggested Autokykos was the grandfather of Oysseus but close reading of the wiki entry suggested some confusion. From Keld's notes, p. 574:
The Autolykos side of the Odysseus figure and its reception is thoroughly described by W. B Stanford in The Ulysses Theme. Autolykos is otherwise a strange figure of "origin," since, according to Apollodorus, he ws not only Odysseus' grandfather but also Iason's (Jason's) through his daughter Polymede, even as he, along with Laertes, sales with the Argonauts. All these coincidences in the Odyssey mean that Odysseus and Iason (Jason) are not only cousins but almost merge as figures.
There is also a long note -- too long to transcribe here, on page 572 -- explaining the seeming inconsistency that on the way home, "Odysseus offended Athene."

Another note, same page:
The myth of how women -- as a consequence of the competition between Athene and Poseidon to become god of Athens -- lost the right to vote and should belong to only one man is clearly an example of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.
Note 24, page 577: a possible explanation of how the pig became considered unclean in patriarchal Judaism. Isaiah said that the Lord condemned those who held cult festivals and eat pigs and mice.

Shelduck: word for the day.

Delta Air Lines To Suspend Service To Williston, ND -- June 5, 2020

Delta Air Lines / Williston: no links. I'm sure the story is easy to find.

Corona Virus? What Corona Virus? Looks Like America Re-Opened Ahead Of Schedule -- May, 2020, Data; WTI Crude Jumps 4.4% -- Breaks $39 -- June 5, 2020


AAPL: reverses course. Takes $5-swing. Down $2.50 before the report; up $2.50 after the report. Now we wait to see what the computers do. Markets open in a few minutes. Later: AAPL climbing the wall of worry -- now up 1.06%; up $3.35; seven minutes into trading. Later: mid-morning: AAPL up 1.55%; up over $5. Could hit all time high -- or did it already hit an all-time high? Dow holds. Up over 700 points.

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

8:30 a.m. CT: Dow opens up 701 points.

Oil jumps:
  • WTI: up 4.38% right after the jobs report comes out
  • Brent: up 5.2%
  • OPEC basket: up 1.46%

I'm Taking The Day Off -- June 5, 2020


Listening to talk radio for a few minutes this morning after the report came out: apparently the "internals" are even better than the headline. I wonder if CNN will cover this story? And, if so, how will they spin it?

FWIW, A Couple Of Updates On Corona Virus -- June 5, 2020

Updates

Later, June 6, 2020: graphic update.

Original Post
 

Fuzzy math: This is very, very interesting. I touched on this a few days ago. I haven't read this article yet, link here, just the headline. I will be interested to see if "Professor Karl Friston" noted the same thing I did: massive testing for the corona virus is revealing very, very strange results. If the virus has pretty much been around for six months, why are so few folks testing positive for it. And why are the results so inconsistent around the world?
  • New York:
    • number of tests performed: 2,293,730 (and one would think there is a good reason to test those who have been tested)
    • number of cases reported: 383,899 (and one knows the number of cases is over-reported)
    • ratio of number of cases reported to number of tests performed: 17%
  • North Dakota: 3.6%
  • USA: 9.8%
  • UK: 6%
  • Sweden: 15%
  • Brazil: 62%
  • The article, now that I've read it: very, very short. Not much meat there. Apparently only looking at mortality rates. Says mortality rates similar in both UK and Sweden despite very different approaches.  Mortality rates, deaths per one million population:
    • World: 50
    • USA: 333
    • Italy: 557
    • UK: 588
    • Germany: 104
    • Sweden: 452
Second article: And, more jumping on the bandwagon, now that it's been pointed out: "Has Sweden's Covid-19 strategy backfired?" Link here.
Anders Tegnell, Sweden's chief epidemiologist, has acknowledged that too many people have died in the country due to COVID-19. Tegnell was key in developing Sweden's more relaxed strategy which saw bars, shops, cafes and gyms remain open while the rest of Europe locked down, which he criticised as being unsustainable.

Some restrictions were indeed imposed in Sweden with schools closing for over-16s but, as Statista's Niall McCarthy notes, the public were generally trusted to remain responsible and carry out physical distancing without government enforcement.
His comments come as figures show Sweden's per capita death rate being the highest worldwide in the seven days to June 02.
I'm curious: how many deaths is too many per Anders Tegnell. I know Governor Cuomo of New York said one death was too many.

Note: this is from Johns Hopkins University. If you can't trust Johns Hopkins, who can you trust? 
 

ZeroHedge: one really needs to pick and choose, be very, very wary, but overall, the articles over at ZeroHedge link to some very, very good writing, regardless of whether one "accepts" the premise of many of the articles. I'm not talking about Tyler Durden himself, though he writes incredibly well and is incredibly prolific; I'm talking about many of the articles to which he links. Exhibit A: "Levitate the Pentagon," from Asia Times, from June 19, 2007. I just wish there weren't so many ads and ads disguised as stories.
  • the takeaway: this is not a race war, this is a class war 
  • the elite are watching this on their huge, 4K televisions sipping malt
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One Bonus Link 

But this one is not about corona virus. It's about the "staggering" "Powell Bubble" in just one amazing chart. Link here.

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Another Bonus Link

I see why Twitter banned ZeroHedge. Like potato chips, one can't read just one article.

It turns out that that its three authors retracted their study on hydroxychloroquine, you know, the article that was used to attack Trump. The article was published in the world's premier medical journal, the Lancet.
The study, published on May 22 in the UK's prestegious Lancet medical journal, relied on bogus data from a company called Surgisphere, which would not transfer the full dataset for an independent review, and "can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources."
My hunch is there is much more to the story.

This is not the first time the Lancet was duped in a huge, socially-sensitive, issue driven by politics.

Jobs Report For May Due Out Today; WTI Jumps 2% Overnight -- June 5, 2020

Jobs report for May: it will be so bad, I may not even bother reporting it. Later: link here.

Fuzzy math: they must be reading the blog. First story over at Rigzone today -- "traders ask why US inventory math does not add  up." A regular reader of the blog noted that some time ago, has been writing about on a regular basis -- now Bloomberg brings up the issue. Previously posted. Will post the blog links later.

Chatter: Saudi Arabia and Russi seem more than ready to extend production cuts; Iraq said to be lagging. No links: story everywhere and words don't mean a lot coming out of the Mideast. All I can say is that Saudi Arabia cannot afford another OPEC+ surge in production.

Iraq bankrupt, link here.

 
OPEC basket: drops back a bit -- $34.84. Link here.

WTI: jumps over 2% overnight.

Urals sour: seems to have finally found its ceiling, at least for now, at around $39.

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

Futures: it was reported by someone else -- since the rioting began, the Dow has been up over 1,000 points. Must have been another good night of rioting: Dow futures up over 300 points.

No more guidance: Barry Diller on Expedia Group and IAC. Said back in April, "the U.S. government needed to bail out every company hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and 'we’ll worry about paying the bills later.'”  I had forgotten all about Expedia, et al. Ouch. Is TicketMaster even around any more? See this link. If I read that correctly, brokers will have to refund ticket sales to buyers if professional games are held but with no fans allowed to attend.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:


$38..236/5/202006/05/201906/05/201806/05/201706/05/2016
Active Rigs1264615025

Two wells coming off the confidential list today -- Friday, June 5, 2020: 21 for the month; 166 for the quarter, 393 for the year:
  • 36455, drl/drl, BR, Glacierfill 1B, Clear Creek, no production data,
  • 36360, drl/drl, Slawson, Gunslinger Federal 10-12-1TFH, Sand Creek, no production data,
RBN Energy: will crude shippers soon need to commit to Enbridge's Mainline system?
Up in Canada, there is finally a regulatory timeline for reviewing Enbridge’s long-standing proposal to revamp how it allocates space — and charges for service — on the company’s 2.9-MMb/d Mainline. But the plan to convert the largest crude oil pipeline system out of Western Canada from one whose space is 100% uncommitted and allocated every month to one with 90% of its capacity locked in via long-term contracts remains controversial, especially among producers.
Plus, the world has changed in the past few months.
Oil sands and other production in Alberta and its provincial neighbors is off sharply in response to pandemic-related demand destruction and low oil prices, and the always-full Mainline has been running at well under 90% of its capacity lately. Further, the Trans Mountain Expansion and Keystone XL projects — competitors to the Mainline in a way — have progressed this year, making shippers wonder whether to lock in capacity on the Mainline if TMX and KXL’s completion may be imminent. Today, we begin a short series on the prospective shift to a contract-carriage approach on the primary conduit for heavy and light crudes from Western Canada to U.S. crude hubs and refineries.