Conventional Saskatchewan Well Discovers New Pool -- Not a Bakken, But North of North Dakota -- Possibly At the Edge of the Northernmost Boundary of the Williston Basin

Link here.

Petro One reported that the first hole of its first summer drill program has led to the discovery of a previously unknown light oil pool on the Company's 100%-owned J5 property in Saskatchewan, Canada. This conventional vertical well demonstrated an excellent flow rate of 9.63 cubic metres (60.57 bbl) of light oil to surface in just 7.75 hours from the Viking sand at a depth of 736.5 m, without stimulation, swabbing or pumping.

As a result of this significant discovery, an expanded exploration and development drilling program of up to 17 additional wells has been planned on J5 to exploit the full potential of this newly identified reservoir.

Preparations are also under way for summer drill programs on other Petro One properties with strong light oil potential. Petro One holds 100% of the oil and gas rights to fourteen stand-along properties in Southeastern Saskatchewan and Southwestern Manitoba, including the J5 property, pursuant to leases issued by the Provincial Governments.

Perhaps completely unrelated to the Spearfish formation in northern North Dakota, but it makes one wonder.

The discovery sent the Canadian oil exploration company's shares up 33 percent to a more than two-year high.

The J5 property is well north of the Bakken/Spearfish in North Dakota, located about 400 miles northwest of Williston, North Dakota. But for me, looking through oily-covered glasses, hope springs eternal.

Williams County Nets $720 Thousand in Impact Grants -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here (regional links break early).

$720 thousand in impact grants for Williams County.

Townships, fire and ambulance districts in Williams County will soon be getting help through state energy impact grant dollars.

The state's Energy Development Impact Office has announced its final round of grant recipients before the program is converted into a new one approved by the Legislature this year.

A total of 79 requests totaling more than $15.1 million were submitted by entities in Williams County.

Of these, 49 requests were approved, with $720,400 awarded between them.

These totals were the second-most requested and approved. Mountrail County submitted a total of more than $22.3 million in requests and received $1.05 million in grant dollars.

Williams County Approves 900-Man-Camp North of Williston -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here (regional link will break).

The Williams County Commission voted to approve a proposed expansion of a temporary housing camp north of Williston on Monday.

The proposal was brought forward by Black Gold Oilfield Services out of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Black Gold was proposing an expansion of the 374-bed camp it received approval for in March, located north of the ATCO Lodge Williston.

The proposed expansion would increase the camp to a total of 900 beds.

Analysts Wrong About Marathon -- Motley Fool -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

Post break-up, there will be Marathon Oil (upstream) and Marathon Petroleum (downstream) -- if I don't have that backwards.

Motley Fool thinks Marathon Oil could rival Chevron or ConocoPhillips. And downstream, Motley Fool thinks it's only a matter of time before Marathon Petroleum grows larger than the largest independent now, Valero.

Would "Irony" Be The Right Word Here? -- Not a Bakken Story, But An Oil Story Nonetheless

Link here.

Whittier city official Bob Henderson has spent three decades, by his own account, helping rescue vast expanses of this hilly preserve from continued drilling by oil companies. As head of a conservation authority, his responsibility has been to protect the land.

But now, with oil hovering around $100 a barrel, the same man who led the charge to save the 1,290-acre Whittier Wilderness Preserve is interested in drilling there.

Proponents believe Whittier could get as much as $600 million over 25 years in oil revenues by using new technology that they say will only disturb 7 acres of the vast Whittier Hills.

Yup, with horizontal drilling, they could put in 8 wells on that 1,280-acre spacing. With EURs of 750,000, and at current price of about $100/bbl, let's see --- 8 x 750,000 x 100 --> exactly $600 million. And something tells me, the price of oil will be greater than $100/bbl five years from now.

Once drilled, eight small little pumps might be seen and that would be it.

Or he could just cover the entire 1,290 acres with solar panels.

Ten years ago while driving around the San Pedro Harbor, I used to see lots of very old pumps not pumping (stripper wells). Now, when I drive around, I see all of them -- literally all of them -- pumping, and some of these old donkey head pumps look very, very old, having not been repainted in ages. But at $100 oil even stripper wells work for some folks. A lot of these pumpers are in residential neighborhoods, protected by high steel fences, and hidden by hedges and palm trees.