5/6 Wells To Drill Status Coming Off Confidential List; Production For CLR Re-Entry Hold Jumps 10-Fold

I almost forgot! The wells coming off the confidential list Thursday:

• 17602, 215, CLR, Charlie Bob Creek 1-25RH, Ranch Coulee, t12/08; a re-entry well; 3/13; cum 45K
• 23305, drl, WPX, Blackhawk 1-12HB, Moccasin Creek,
• 23370, drl, CLR, Atlanta 3-6H, Baker; 7,549 bbls in first 6 days;
• 23820, drl, Hess, HA-State 152-95-1621H-4, Hawkeye,
• 24219, drl, MRO, Ahern 34-19H, Bailey,
• 24282, drl, CLR, Hawkinson 7-22H2, Oakdale

Interesting to see so many CLR wells, including another Atlanta well, one of 14 wells on one pad southwest of Williston, just northwest of the bridge.

Note the production from the re-entered well, CLR's Charlie Bob Creek; Ranch Coulee is in the southeast corner of McKenzie County, abutting Dunn County:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	3-2013	31	4451	4493	2775	4537	4537	0
BAKKEN	2-2013	28	5377	5440	3185	4792	4792	0
BAKKEN	1-2013	11	3469	3118	2521	2779	2779	0
BAKKEN	12-2012	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2012	6	45	367	92	29	29	0
BAKKEN	10-2012	31	310	225	437	122	122	0
BAKKEN	9-2012	21	250	225	337	111	111	0
BAKKEN	8-2012	31	311	455	462	225	225	0
BAKKEN	7-2012	31	326	204	427	177	177	0
BAKKEN	6-2012	30	323	227	455	208	208	0
BAKKEN	5-2012	31	344	394	443	169	169	0

Last Post For The Evening -- Have To Get Back To Work -- But Two Works Of Art From My Granddaughter

During their time in Boston, the granddaughters collected thousands of shells which they paint.

The other day, the older granddaughter accidentally broke a seashell that the younger granddaughter had painted. The younger granddaughter, she is 6 years old, noted a shard of the broken seashell and painted this:

This week is the art show at their elementary school. The younger granddaughter entered this painting which she did when she was in kindergarten:

The attention to detail surprises me. The little school of fish; the one fish blowing bubbles; the "baby" octopus and "baby" turtle.

They will be moving to Dallas this summer.

Random Comment On The Canadian Oil Sands: Expect To See Some Announcements This Summer

I'm too exhausted to discuss this, but I want to get the date-time stamp.

The tea leaves tell me that Canadian operators in Alberta will start announcing shutting down of some projects starting later this summer.

This was the article that Don sent me. It is only one tea leaf; there are many, many others.  The Calgary Herald is reporting: any pipeline to the Canadian west coast is a pipe dream.

But, observers say the odds for Northern Gateway and the Trans Mountain expansion moving ahead are still rather slim.

Warren Mabee, a professor at Queen's University, says the Liberals' support for pipelines is highly conditional and doesn't amount to a "green light."

He says, to his knowledge, B.C. Premier Christy Clark's five conditions have not been met by Enbridge Inc., the company planning to build Northern Gateway.

For investors, the moat is very, very big favoring Enbridge, TransCanada, Canadian Pacific, and the Burlington Northern (owned by Warren Buffett). This is not rocket science.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you read here.

From SeekingAlpha: The Coming Price War Between Crude Oil And Natural Gas

Despite its title, a lot of great information about natural gas. If you haven't read it, highly recommend it.

Some interesting quips from the article:

And not all "unconventional extraction" projects are profitable, even at near-$100 a barrel crude prices. But many are, and some could be, even with under-$30 markets. Skills developed from experience will make many more of those.

Even so, there may still be some Middle East properties with under-$10 costs, so the Saudis and their neighbors are not facing ruin. But the glory days of international oil are winding down.

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Here in the US, the role of Natural Gas has been kept minimal because of its irregular availability. NG previously has been produced in association with crude oil. Where NG was a byproduct, "associated" gas that was of small value, hazardous, and had no regular market, was simply "flared.," or burned in the open air.

Encounters of big Natural Gas reservoirs caused "bubbles" of supply, relative to demand (and transportation capacity) that put a chill on NG price - but rarely so on oil or oil product prices.

The initial efforts to use horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing were aimed at recovering NatGas, which as it turned out, was found in stupefying quantities, far more than could be handled. Since NG was the objective, much of that found has been shut in, awaiting the construction of take-away capacities that will transport it to market.

The costs of discovery are significant enough that few companies have the financial resources (internal or external) to do a lot of this. The question of the ultimate NG sale price is always a major limiting factor.

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But the biggest undeveloped market, already in the early stages of invasion, is in transportation. There CNG and LNG already can present upwards of 50% fuel savings for long-haul truckers and intense city-delivery ops like FedEx and UPS. As well as for non-electric municipal transit systems. It is here that refined oil - gasoline - faces its most serious challenge.

Expansion of that market depends on two things: 1) availability of NG fuels on a wide geographic basis, and 2) vehicles designed for or converted to the use of NG fuel.

Task 1 is being promoted by the company Clean Energy Fuels Corp. and obstructed by the Big Oil club, which knows exactly what its accomplishment is likely to do to profits.
Task 2 at the consumer level only has one NG-fuel-designed vehicle (by Honda  and now serious, developed engines designed by a subsidiary of Cummins for truck and large vehicle usage. Conversion kits to adapt existing internal combustion engines of passenger vehicles, in widespread use elsewhere in the world, are prohibited by law here in the US. (Guess why?)

CLR's 1Q13 Earnings And Operations Update

A reader reminded me I had not posted Continental Resources' press release for its 1Q13 operations and earnings.

I get overwhelmed during earnings seasons and miss some reports, even the big ones. And this one is huge.

Hopefully I will come back to this press release and dissect it. There is a lot of information in this release.

In addition, here is the earnings call transcript.