Hess To Triple Bakken Production by 2015 -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here. -- The link is finicky -- it's a Wall Street Journal article.

Hess Corp.'s oil production in North Dakota's prolific Bakken Shale will triple by 2015 as the oil company increases drilling activity in the area, Chief Executive John Hess said Wednesday.

Hess's net output, currently at 39,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, will reach 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent in 2012 and 120,000 barrels of oil equivalent in 2015, the executive said in an earnings call.

Hess, a large U.S. oil company with large offshore and international operations, has been aggressively expanding its presence in North American oil shale fields. In addition to the Bakken, the company has spent nearly $1 billion acquiring acreage in Ohio's Utica Shale, an emerging play; appraisal activity there will commence in the fourth quarter, Hess said.

These Utica acquisitions, as well as other purchases in the North Sea, account for a $1 billion increase in the company's forecast capital spending for 2011 to $7.2 billion, Hess said. 

It is interesting that Hess says it's Bakken shale production will triple by 2015: that's exactly what Lynn Helms is suggesting for the Bakken in general -- that North Dakota could triple its daily production by 2015. 

In early 2011 or late 2010, Harold Hamm, CLR/CEO, said he would triple the size of his company, Continental Resources, in five years.

The Energy Revolution That Keeps Carbon On Top -- Implications for the Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here. -- Bloomberg

This is an incredible analysis of the energy revolution: horizontal drilling and fracking.
nology.

In the meantime, however, a real revolution has happened in traditional energy -- one that poses a serious challenge to companies and investors betting on alternative energy. This breakthrough is arguably one of the greatest advances in energy production since the 1960s. And it came not from a Silicon Valley company, or from MIT or Stanford, but from the son of a Greek goatherd who immigrated to the U.S.

George Mitchell was born in Galveston, Texas, went to Texas A&M University and, in 1946, founded an oil-drilling and real- estate business. The company did well, and in the 1980s, Mitchell decided to take on a major technical challenge: He would try to coax gas out of a portion of the Barnett shale, which lies deep under Fort Worth and 15 counties in north- central Texas. 

And, of course the rest is history: horizontal drilling and fracking.

The author, unfortunately spends too much time on anthropogenic global warming, but at least points out the following:

A more serious problem is that both collecting and burning natural gas produce carbon dioxide, the main culprit in global warming. Gas producers never miss a chance to point out that burning gas emits less CO2 than burning coal does. But detailed research (including some of my own) shows that, in practice, switching from coal-fired electricity plants to gas-fired ones would have almost no effect on global warming. In fact, some scientists who have tried to do a full accounting of the emissions due to gas produced by fracking have concluded that it actually ends up putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than coal does. 

As I noted just a few days ago, global warming caused significant environmental changes in 8,000 B.C, a millenium not exactly known for us its of oil. But global warming is no longer debated in the science arena, it's debated (usually one-sided) in the op-ed pages of mostly irrelevant print media.

Not so long ago, many people believed that the cost of oil and gas would rise indefinitely, thus supporting the market for alternatives. Mitchell’s miracle [horizontal fracking] has changed that calculus, much to the chagrin of the Silicon Valley venture capitalists who caught the green-energy bug.

Germany's Energy Sources Becoming More Limited -- Bakken Implications

Nuclear power, solar power, natural gas, coal, wood ---


Link here.

Germany, the world’s biggest solar- panel market, will cut subsidies for photovoltaic power by a record amount next year as the government tries to control the pace of installations and wean the industry off support. 

North Dakota Hunters Don't Recall Four Harsh Winters In a Row --

I don't have the link; it's in the print edition, and probably won't be on-line for a day or two from the Minot Daily News. From the hunting section, much hand wringing over the poor deer hunting season. The harsh winters have taken their toll.

The writer says hunters do not remember a time when four winters in succession have been so harsh.

I doubt you could find a hunter in North Dakota who "believed" in global warming. Actually, it might be difficult to find any that even pay attention to the scam.

It turns out the hunters were correct:

The coldest winter in 30 years was recorded across many parts of the US during the 2010-2011 winter. Eastern parts of the US plunged to a record -50F with the Northeast of the US also seeing records broken. Temperatures was also largely below normal averages for New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and Minneapolis. Snowstorms shattered New York City in December 2010 and January 2011 to become the snowiest January ever recorded.

So let’s turn to the US winter of 2011/2012.

Our weather models consider all of these factors and are currently showing a particularly harsh winter for many parts of the US during 2011-2012. Large parts of Central and North America will face below average temperatures with above average snowfall throughout this winter, with temperatures in many Eastern and Western parts also showing as below average with above

NOG: "Best in Show" -- Cash Margins -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

This growth has also yielded "best in show" cash margins. NOG isn't posting growth for the sake of growth either as they have managed to eke out the best cash field margins (Revenue per BOE less LOE, G&A, and Production Taxes) among their Bakken Player peers. Or thought about another way, they're the low cost player of the pack, far lower than a Kodiak or an Oasis, both operators in the play.

As I've said many times, NOG has a very interesting and a very unique business model. Following the debacle that was Newfield, this is very reassuring.