Nineteen (19) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA -- KOG With A Nice Well; Others Off Confidential List Are Mediocre At Best

Active rigs: 185 (rising)

Nineteen (19) new permits --

• Operators: QEP (4), HRC (4), Fidelity (3), Oasis (2), CLR (2), Emerald (2), Slawson, Whiting
• Fields: Heart Butte (Dunn), McGregory Buttes (Dunn), Tyrone (Williams), Stanley (Mountrail), Alkali Creek (Mountrail), Foreman Butte (McKenzie), Roosevelt (Billings), Sanish (Mountrail)
• Comments:

Wells coming off the confidential list were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right. 

In a huge airport, if there is a huge line of customers at the check-in counter backed up, and there are flights getting ready to take off, the airline personnel find out which passengers need to be at the boarding gate the quickest, and bring those folks to the head of the line, to get them processed and get them their boarding passes. 

Question: if the Feds were going to come in and take over permitting for BLM land, where should operators and the NDIC focus their attention for the next six months? Yup. 

McGregory Buttes and Heart Butte are both entirely inside BLM-managed reservation.  

Wells coming off confidential list on Tuesday:

• 23637, 203, Fidelity, SDF 11-30H, Sanish, middle Bakken; 18 stages; 1.5 million lbs;  t3/13; cum 17K 7/13; 
• 24082, 1,403, MRO, Schmidt 34-32H, Murphy Creek, middle Bakken; 30 stages; 1.4 million lbs;  t5/13; cum 18K 6/13;
• 24432, 400, CLR, Lindell 4-10H, Stoneview, t5/13; cum 10K 6/13;
• 24485, 511, Murex, Lori Ann 4-9H, Writing Rock, 37 stages; 3.1 million lbs; gas averaged 1,038 units; 1/11 - 1/30;  t3/13; cum 22K 6/13;
• 24610, 2,197, KOG, P Wood 154-98-2-27-34-16H, Truax, middle Bakken; no production data;
• 24972, drl, MRO, Nelson 11-25H, Bailey, middle Bakken; no production data; 

Note the small amounts of proppant used compared to what EOG is now using. 

Monday Evening News, Views, And Links

Active rigs: 185 (rising, but remains within narrow range)

Not the Bakken, but important nonetheless: a 7-part series on the Utica at MarketRealist.

Keystone XL -- regardless of its outcome -- will have little impact on imported oil from Venezuela, according to Bloomberg.

The U.S. last year imported an average of 906,000 barrels of crude per day from Venezuela, a 35 percent decline from a four-decade high in 1997, according to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Energy Department’s statistical arm.

The U.S. imported 2.4 million barrels per day of Canadian crude last year, a 1,368 percent increase from the low of 164,000 barrels per day in 1981. Imports from Mexico and Saudi Arabia are down from levels a decade ago, due in part to a boom in U.S. production from formations such as the Bakken formation in the upper Midwest. At the same time, production from Venezuela has fallen.

So, the 30-second soundbite: the Keystone XL capacity was projected to be 850,000 bopd; Venezuela imports to the US about the same amount. It looks like the US wouldn't miss either (either Venezuela's oil or the Keystone XL).

Tea leaves: O'Bama administration supports natural gas; says there is no war on coal. Speaks with forked tongue, kemosabe. 

New at the newsstand -- nothing about the Bakken. It's pretty obvious that print media is struggling. It's pretty easy to find almost any print article on the internet; sometimes it takes a bit of work but generally one can find it. At worse, a digital subscription. But either way, print media is struggling. However, it looks like some publishers might be coming up with some clever ideas. I'm seeing more examples of print media published special editions, or collector's editions.  For example, Time Magazine might publish a very thick glossy on Martin Luther King. What made me think of this at the moment: my wife just sent me an absolutely wonderful Scientific American collector's edition on quantum physics, with great graphics on subatomic particles. The problem with a typical issue of Scientific American, there are too many articles -- including politically correct articles on global warming -- that don't interest me. Don't ask me why, but I have a subscription to BloombergBusinessweek. Every issue I am almost guaranteed two long articles in the magazine but the rest is filled with fluff, including a regular-occurring page on "what I wear to work." You have got to be kidding. That's the problem with weeklies: a few good stories, but then filled with fluff. But I would be the first to stand in line to pick up a Bloomberg Businessweek glossy with an in-depth special on the oil and gas industry.

Again, Spot On -- A Tesla Update; Outselling Porsche, Jaguar In California; Year-To-Date Has Also Outsold Buick, Ford Lincoln In California

On August 7, 2013, I posted my story that Tesla knew its target audience, and GM would follow.

Today, the numbers out of California validate/confirm that view. CNBC is reporting: Tesla is outselling Porsche and Jaguar in California.

Yes, it's a small share of the California car market, but Tesla Motors sales in the Golden State are supercharging.

In fact, sales of Elon Musk's electric car have surpassed Porsche, Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover, and Lincoln, according to new figures from the California New Car Dealers Association.

Year-to-date, the luxury carmaker has sold 4,714 cars in California, versus 4,586 for Porsche, 1,254 for Jaguar, 2,982 for Volvo, 4,022 for Land Rover, and 2,230 for Lincoln.

Tesla also outsold Fiat (Milan Stock Exchange: F-IT) (3,898), Buick(4,675), and Mitsubishi (2,939) this year in California.

Very, very interesting. 

Yahoo! In-Play: More Fertilizer Plants In North Dakota?

CHS Inc. and Dakota Plains Cooperative announce the two cooperatives have been in discussions about entering into a merger transaction: Co and Dakota Plains Cooperative, a full-service agribusiness headquartered in Valley City, N.D., announced the two cooperatives have been in discussions about entering into a merger transaction and now seek approval from the members of Dakota Plains Cooperative and the CHS Board of Directors. Integral to this effort is close examination of opportunities to enhance agronomy assets in the east central area of North Dakota. Plans under discussion include constructing three new fertilizer plants within the Dakota Plains trade area to take full advantage of the proposed fertilizer manufacturing facility in Spiritwood, N.D., currently under review by CHS.

Update Of The Spearfish Oil Patch In North Dakota

Today, three Spearfish wells in the North Souris oil field came off the confidential list. One well is a Legacy well and two are Corinthian wells; as regular readers know, I can never remember the relationship among Surge, Legacy, or Corinthian (same link as the Legacy link), and I won't sort those companies out now. I'm just interested in the Spearfish in general at the moment.

I follow the Spearfish here. 

If I had to provide a 30-second soundbite/data points regarding the Spearfish in North Dakota (see "Welcome/Disclaimer" and purpose of the blog):

• Canadian operators have the most experience with the Spearfish in this area
• the Spearfish in North Dakota is north/northeast of the Bakken, straddling the Canadian border
• Canadian Spearfish wells cost $1.5 million; North Dakota Spearfish wells cost $3 million (vs $7 million or more for a Bakken well)
• Spearfish spacing is 320-acres or 640 acre (vs 640-acres or 1280-acres for a Bakken well)
• 200,000 lbs of proppant vs 4 million lbs of proppant in the Bakken
• total depth of 7,000 feet vs 14,000 feet (short lateral) or 20,000 feet (long lateral) for a Bakken
• total depth for a Spearfish can be reached in less than a week
• current Spearfish wells in North Dakota appear to be short laterals for the most part
• Spearfish oil is somewhat heavier than Bakken oil; and contains sulfur (not good but US refineries are configured for such, and seek sour oil, such as the Spearfish oil)
• contentious among operators/shippers to mix Spearfish oil with Bakken oil
• in 2010, NDIC started talking about the Spearfish in the context of the Bakken boom; the North Dakota Spearfish seems to be hitting its stride as of mid-2013

At $50/bbl, a $3,000,000 well would require 60,000 bbls at the well-head to break even. Sort of.

So, some examples of some recent North Dakota Spearfish wells:

• 23075, 80, Corinthian Exploration,  Corinthian McCullough 13-36 1H, North Souris, 160-acres; TD, 5.8;  t10/12; cum 19K 6/13;
• 23073, 140, Corinthian Exploration,  Corinthian McCullough 5-1 1H, North Souris,  ICO; TD, 5.8; t2/13; cum 15K 6/13
• 22964, 139, Corinthian Exploration,  Corinthian Freight 5-36 1H, North Souris,  ICO; TD, 5.8; t10/12; cum 18K 6/13
• 21951, 157, Legacy Oil,  Legacy Etal Berge 12-31H, North Souris,  320-acres; TD, 7.3; t12/12; cum 16K 6/13
• 21921, 97, Legacy Oil, Legacy Etal Berge 5-7H, Red Rock,  320-acres; TD, 7.2; t12/12; cum 15K 6/13
• 21820, 83, Legacy Oil, Legacy Etal Berge 13-6H, North Souris,  320-acres; TD, 7.2; t3/13; cum 4K 6/13
• 21549, 88, Legacy Oil, Legacy Etal Berge 1-1H, North Souris,  320-acres; TD, 7.2; 25 stages; 200K lbs; spud date: December 2, 2011; TD, December 9, 2011; t4/12; cum 18K 6/13
• 21504, 126, Legacy Oil, Legacy Etal Berge 5-31H, North Souris,  320-acres; TD, 7.0; t4/12; cum 23K 6/13
• 21389, 104, Legacy Oil, Legacy Etal Berge 1-12H, Red Rock,  320-acres; TD, 6.6; t12/11; cum 14K 6/13
• 19612, 95, Legacy Oil, Legacy Etal Berge 9-1H, North Souris,  320-acres; TD, 7.0; t6/11; cum 23K 6/13

An example of what the drilling patter of the Spearfish/North Souris - Red Rock looks like:

It should be noted that Barney and Fred lived in Bedrock and not Red Rock. It should also be noted that The Flintstones was the first American animated show to depict two people of the opposite sex (Fred and Wilma; Barney and Betty) sleeping together in one bed, although Fred and Wilma are sometimes depicted as sleeping in separate beds (source: wiki).