Locator: 51056SPACE.
SpaceX has spent years trying to reinvent rockets. Now it's coming after midstream.
The aerospace giant plans to begin construction next month on an eight-mile natural gas pipeline dubbed "Starpipe" that will feed its Starbase launch facility in South Texas, according to filings reviewed by Reuters. The pipeline is expected to be operational by January and marks the latest step in Elon Musk's increasingly ambitious plan to control nearly every link in the Starship supply chain.
Starship burns liquid methane—a lot of it. Each launch consumes roughly 630,000 gallons, and today that fuel arrives by hundreds of tanker trucks in a logistical headache that's fine for a dozen launches but completely incompatible with Musk's vision of eventually launching hundreds, or even thousands, of Starships every year.
Pipelines solve that problem.
Engineering plans indicate that SpaceX also wants to build a liquefaction plant at Starbase to convert pipeline gas into liquid methane on-site. Company President Gwynne Shotwell recently confirmed SpaceX is also evaluating drilling its own natural gas in Texas, extending the company's vertical integration strategy from rockets and satellites to the energy that powers them.
Meanwhile in the Mideast: another entity -- Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA) has issued a stark warning to international maritime traffic, stating that any vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz outside of its officially designated routes will no longer be guaranteed safe passage. Iran fired on a non-oil cargo tanker transiting the strait in the last 24 - 36 hours.
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Back to the Bakken
Query:
Gemini: there are some locations in the Dakotas that have "ELLS" as part of their name, such as Ellsworth AFB. Who was Ellsworth?
Reply:
Trivia: my father was born near and grew up near Ellsworth AFB. His coming of age was spent in the US Navy during WWII after which he moved back to the Dakotas. We visited the Ellsworth AFB area almost every summer when I was growing up. We camped in the Black Hills for a week or so almost every summer.
WTI: $71.54.
Active rigs: 26.
Seven new permits, #43065 - #43071 --
- Operators: Hess (5); EOG (2)
- Fields: Ellsworth, McKenzie County; Clear Water Mountrail County;
- Comments:
- EOG has permits for two Clearwater wells, NENE 31-157-90,
- to be sited 275 FNL and 311 / 361 FEL;
- Hess has permits for five BW-Chad Allen wells, SENE 29-149-100,
- to be sited 1723 FNL and 852 / 984 FEL.
One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:
- 41580, 1,996, XTO, HBU Marmon Federal 24X-13F, Williams County;
