CarpeDiem Energy Links

North Dakota unemployment drops to 0.7%.

Abundant shale gas sparking resurgence in US manufacturing.

Too Bad It's No Longer a Scientific Argument -- Fracking

Link here to Rigzone.

Methane emissions from hydraulically fractured wells are 50 percent lower than estimates found in a 2010 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to survey results released Monday by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA).

The API-ANGA study found the venting of methane into the atmosphere during liquids unloading – a technique to remove water and other liquids from the wellbore to improve the flow of natural gas -- is 86 percent lower than EPA's estimates.

EPA had estimated that liquids unloading accounted for 51 percent of EPA's total "Natural Gas Systems" methane emissions in the 2010 inventory. Applying emission factors based on ANGA/API data reduces the calculated emissions for this source by 86 percent, from 4.5 million metric tons to 637,766 metric tons of methane.

Idle Chatter on EOG Permits for Six Wells in Spotted Horn -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

A long, long time ago, I remember "cocktail chatter" on this blog and elsewhere trying to sort out the nomenclature for EOG wells. Here we go again. Permits for these six wells in today's daily active report.  It appears that one well will be sited in section 20 and end in section 17; and an additional three wells will be sited in section 17 and end in section 8.  These are in Spotted Horn field; will be a mixture of middle Bakken and Three Forks wells. I believe 2-digit numbers represent middle Bakken, and 3-digit numbers represent Three Forks, but I could be wrong. Folks will either tell me or we will know in a year. Helis has had some very, very nice wells in Spotted Horn.

• 23061, Bear Den 23-2019H 
• 23062, Bear Den 101-2019H 
• 23063, Bear Den 100-2017H 
• 23064, Bear Den 108-1708H 
• 23065, Bear Den 20-1708H 
• 23066, Bear Den 102-1708H 

EOG already has two wells in this area:

• 19157, 1,476, EOG, Bear Den 04-20H, t3/11; cum 117K 4/12; hardly a year old, >100K bbls;
• 19170, 1,882, EOG, Bear Den 07-17H, t1/11; cum 119K 4/12; a little more than a yr old, >100K bbls;

I posted this video a long time ago:


Driving Down Into the Bear Den
In the big scheme of things there are very few videos taken by workers in the field and posted on the internet; some day these will be "rarities" that folks will enjoy looking back on.

Wow, I haven't looked at that video in a long time? Is it not simply incredible footage, incredible views?

Nice Pipeline Gathering Graphic for Oasis' West Williston Prospect

For those interested, Oasis has a nice graphic, slide 17, in its most recent corporate presentation.

I've updated the Oasis "snapshot" based on this presentation. Bakken oil company snapshots are updated here. The biggest change is the number of rigs Oasis plans to operate in the Bakken in 2012: 10. A year ago they had planned to have 12 operated rigs in the Bakken. I doubt it will make any difference in end-of-the-year projections based on effectiveness of rigs and crews.

With regard to costs, slide 20 is particularly interesting.

Again, this is not an investment site; see disclaimer and welcome. This is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold shares in Oasis. With the pullback in prices I may actually buy some shares in some Bakken oil companies sometime this month, but it won't be in the next 72 hours. 

New SandRidge Presentation -- Not a Bakken Story

SandRidge has a new presentation out.

It's not a Bakken operator, but there have been a number of stories posted on the site regarding Sandridge and the Mississippi Lime, so posted for those who are interested.