Significantly Fewer Posts Over The Next 72 Hours

I will be posting much less frequently over the next 72 hours.

Good luck to all.

OXY USA reported a couple nice wells today:

• 18985, 1,556, OXY USA, State Knopik 1-21-16H-144-97, Little Knife, Bakken
  18823, 906, OXY USA, State -1-16-21H-143-96, Fayette, Bakken

Very Nice Piece on BEXP On a Day Like Today -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA - For Investors Only

Link here.

As stated in past posts, BEXP used their Q1 call guidance wisely, building Basin power outages in April into their near-term thinking. Most of the Street is likely to be sitting on the mid or just under it as the weather has not exactly been a quiet issue, first with snow melt and then with inordinate rainfall which eventually led to widespread road closures. But here's where BEXP shines in pointing out that while this may be a bump in the road, they haven't been simply wading about waiting for the great flood to recede ... and then the author provides four points....

For investors, today is not the kind of day one looks at the value of one's portfolio.

The Gambler, Kenny Rogers: "... if you're gonna play the game, boy, you gotta learn to play it right. Know when to walk away, know when to run, you never count your money when you're sitting at the table. There will be time enough for countin' when the dealer's done ..."

Today is the kind of day one looks at which shares are on sale. I personally use KOG as my "barometer" for the Bakken and when it hits $6.00 it's time to buy. Someone else suggested that to me, and trying to track all the other companies is way too hard.

The Bakken companies, unlike the farmers, are still putting in their seed corn in 2011.

2H11 will be outstanding for Bakken companies, and 2012 will be even better. But then I'm always looking through oil-covered glasses.

The Powder Keg In Fairview, Montana -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

This place may simply have the best pizza in the world. It is truly incredible. Everything is made from scratch and made fresh daily. The manager and two others come in every day at 8:00 a.m. to start preparing the ingredients that will be used later when the restaurant opens at 4:30 p.m. (Mountain Standard/Daylight Time).

There is a note in the menu that answers the question how long it will take for the pizza to be ready. Since they don't start preparing your pizza until it is ordered, it's about a 25-minute wait, but the atmosphere is such you don't mind the wait. (Of course, you can call ahead, and they will tell you when the pizza will come out of the oven.)

There is a full menu, but everyone comes for the pizza. The manager-on-duty the night we visited said folks come as far away as Bismarck, North Dakota, for the pizza. (184 miles)

This is what someone from Louisville, had to say about it:

I have nothing but great things to say about this restaurant. Though it's sort of out in the middle of nowhere in a tiny town in Eastern Montana, the food is delicious! They have one of the best BBQ beef pizzas I have ever eaten. They also have pizzas you wouldn't normally eat, such as biscuits and gravy pizza. The breadsticks and fried green beans are to die for, and if you're not in the mood for pizza they have many other dishes (though their pizza is what they're known for and by far the best thing on the menu). 

Home made ice cream for cones and/or sundaes are free for all customers. You serve yourself, and make your own sundaes. It really is quite incredible.  

I put this on the same list of outstanding places to eat as Roy Moore's lobster shack in Rockport, Massachusetts. Now I have four restaurants on that list.

The third is Eats 'N Treats in Bowman, North Dakota.

The fourth is the First International Bank and Trust in Watford City, North Dakota.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due -- EOG, Two Great Wells -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Over the past year I have given EOG a lot of grief for reporting wells with less-than-impressive IPs (just one data point, yes, I know).

But elsewhere some folks were talking about production in "35/36-151-91."

Those are sections 35 and 36 in T151N-91W, Parshall oil field, Williston Basin, North Dakota.

According to the NDIC GIS server, there are only three wells in these two sections (and all of them are spudded in section 36). I originally thought all of them ran under the river, but I was wrong:

• 18827, 732, EOG, Liberty 10-36H, Parshall, t2/11; cum 182K 6/12;
• 18828, 1,066, EOG, Liberty LR 16-36H, Parshall; this is a shorter short lateral running northwest to southeast; t2/11; cum 201K 6/12;
• 19919, 1,648, EOG, Liberty LR 21-36H, Parshall, t7/11; cum 197K 6/12;

The "LR" designation for #18828 is confusing; one almost wonders if plans for the well were changed after the permit was granted.  I thought "LR" stood for long lateral under the river, but this is a shorter-than-usual short lateral running away from the river. (Of course, with changing channel, or with flooding, the horizontal may actually be under water at times.)

Production runs for 18827:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
4-2011	15937	0
3-2011	15700	0
2-2011	17654

Production runs for 18828:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
4-2011	16338	0
3-2011	17977	0
2-2011	15750	0

These two wells, to date, after just three months, have produced 99,356 bbls of oil, and at $50/bbl --> $5 million. At $75/bbl --> $7.5 million.

No precipitous drop in production after the first month which is common for Bakken wells, but I assume we will see the typical Bakken decline over the next six months or so. But still, two very nice wells, and a third being drilled.

Note the nomenclature of the wells.

Nothing To Do With The Bakken -- But Trees Cause More Pollution Than Automobiles

And that was back in 1981.

• Tree cause more pollution than automobiles do." -- Ronald Reagan, 1981 

Since then automobiles have become much "cleaner" and ... to best of my knowledge ... trees haven't changed.

Biologists all know this (the source is CBC News):

The world's trees, shrubs and other plants do produce massive amounts of hydrocarbons - nine times as much as do automobiles, by some counts.

Those gases, most notably isoprene, are major ingredients of ozone, a lung irritant linked to asthma and other serious respiratory ailments.

Ozone formation also requires a second ingredient: nitrogen oxides, a byproduct of the combustion of fossil fuels. A major source of those gases is the tailpipe of just about every car, truck and bus on the planet. [Catalytic converters were introduced on a wide scale in 1975 to decrease production of nitrogen oxides.]

A forest of 10,000 of the trees emits perhaps 22 pounds of hydrocarbons an hour - the equivalent of spilling a dozen gallons of gasoline and allowing it to evaporate, according to an estimate by the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Those emissions can contribute to ozone formation wherever there is enough sunlight and a ready source of nitrogen oxides.

Wow, I miss Ronald Reagan.