Completely Off The Radar Scope: Temple Oil Field

A reader suggested I update Temple Oil Field. Having just updated the field, I see why. It's going to be an incredible field.

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On a completely different note, an update on the frozen Great Lakes, and some incredible photographs. 

Great Lakes ice cover topped out at just over 88 percent frozen over on Feb. 13, according to NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. This hasn’t happened in nearly two decades.

Lake Superior, Lake Erie and Lake Huron are closer to 100 percent frozen over, as of Feb. 19, according to NOAA-GLERL.

The most ice cover reported on the Great Lakes, in records dating to 1973, was in 1979 when the ice reached 94.7 percent. Weather Channel meteorologist Jonathan Erdman says that for the past four years, the ice coverage remained around 40 percent or less. The 40-year average peak seasonal ice coverage is just over 51 percent.

For the first time in five years, ice caves on Lake Superior’s south shore are now accessible by walking across the sufficiently thick ice on Lake Superior. This week temperatures are expected to rise above freezing, and the Great Lakes could see some thawing, Erdman says. However, a cold front in the wake of Winter Storm Seneca will open the door to a return to a colder pattern that is likely to hold through the end of February, if not into early March. Given that, it seems reasonable ice cover will make a comeback, and could top the peak value from just before Valentine's Day.

Taking The Bakken To Oklahoma -- Devon

Devon isn't drilling in the Bakken, but the the oil and gas company is obviously watching the North Dakota operators closely. Rigzone is reporting:

US onshore-focused junior oil firm Magnolia Petroleum reported Monday that partner Devon Energy is to drill eight wells on the same spacing unit in Oklahoma as the Marion 1-23 HW well. This will be to maximize the recovery of reserves from both the Mississippi Lime formation and the lower-lying Woodford formation, the firm said.

Magnolia, which has a 4.1-percent interest in the area being drilled, said this will be the first time it will have participated in eight wells on a single section in Oklahoma.  

Magnolia Chief Operating Officer Rita Whittington commented in a company statement: "Just as it has become established practice to drill eight wells on a single unit to maximize the recovery of reserves from both the Bakken and the lower lying Three Forks Sanish formation in North Dakota, we believe more and more operators will do the same in Oklahoma, targeting the Mississippi Lime and Woodford. 

So Much For All That Talk That The Bakken Is Destroying North Dakota

A big "thank you" to Don who sent me this link; I certainly would not have seen it. The Consumerist is reporting:

If you’re living in North or South Dakota right now, you’ve probably got a big ol’ grin on your satisfied face. And well you should, as a new study from Gallup says the Dakotas top the list of states with the highest well-being figures in the nation for 2013.

In case the link is broken in the future, here are the top 10 and the bottom 10:

The Top 10
1. North Dakota: 70.4
2. South Dakota: 70.0
3. Nebraska: 69.7
4. Minnesota: 69.7
5. Montana: 69.3
6. Vermont: 69.1
7. Colorado:68.9
8. Hawaii: 68.4
9. Washington: 68.3
10. Iowa: 68.2

The Bottom 10
50. West Virginia: 61.4
49. Kentucky: 63.0
48. Mississippi: 63.7
47. Alabama: 64.1
46. Ohio: 64.2
45. Arkansas: 64.3
44. Tennessee: 64.3
43. Missouri: 64.5
42. Oklahoma: 64.7
41. Louisiana: 64.9

The President's War On Coal Is Hurting Most Those Who Can Least Afford It; No Wonder We Need To Raise The Minimum Wage; To Pay For The War On Coal -- Both The Campaign And The Consequences

Wow, this is incredible and exactly predictable.

CNS News is reporting (and I assume NBC, CBS, ABC, and Al Jezeera are not reporting):

The electricity price index soared to a new high in January 2014 with the largest month-to-month increase in almost four years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Meanwhile, data from the Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, indicates that electricity production in the United States has declined since 2007, when it hit its all-time peak.

To some extent it can be blamed on this severe winter, so it will be interesting to see how the entire calendar year 2014 compares to previous years.

Remember: coal-produced energy is the least expensive (excluding hydroelectricity). Nuclear is next. Then natural gas. Wind and solar are very expensive. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what will happen when president's war on the least expensive form of energy is succeeding, and the government, through tax credits and loan guarantees, continue to promote the most expensive form of electricity. Spain and Germany found out and are trying to stop the insanity.

This is really quite astounding. The president has put us on the road to New England (see tag at bottom of the blog).

There are three interesting things about electricity and the cost of electricity. It is not a progressive "expense." The rich pay the same price/kwh as the very poor.

The second thing, as part of their income, utility expenses for the poor take up a disproportionate share of their cost of living compared to the upper middle class and the wealthy.

Finally, electricity is not really in the "nice to have" category. It is pretty much something everyone requires, no matter how poor.

The president's war on coal is hurting most those who can least afford it.

More Odds And Ends; Catching Up With The Day's Events

First, a huge thank you to all the readers who sent in multiple stories today. I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I am beginning a fairly extensive two-week cross-country trip which is occupying my time, both physically and mentally, errands to run and mixed emotions about leaving.

I will get to all the stories. I doubt I will be blogging as much as usual, and when I do, it will be at odd hours, during the next two weeks.

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This is an interesting story about the price of oil. I agree with the premise, the headline, but I have not read the entire article. I will get back to it later. The Dallas Business Journal is reporting:

One month after TransCanada opened the oil floodgates in Cushing, Okla., the West Texas Intermediate price of crude oil is over $100 a barrel and drivers are paying 10 cents more per gallon.

The opening of the Gulf Coast Pipeline cleared up the bottleneck of oil by moving it from the hub in Cushing to refineries in South Texas, said Patrick DeHann, a senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com. The 485-mile, 36-inch diameter pipe, which passes 80 to 100 miles east of Dallas, can carry up to 700,000 barrels of oil a day.

Oil supplies in Cushing have dropped from 35.8 million barrels, down 6 million barrels since the pipeline first opened Jan. 22.

“It’s a sizeable drop. The bottleneck has been removed,” DeHann said.

He quickly points out that there are a number of factors beyond the pipeline that affect oil prices and supplies.

Regardless, gasoline prices in Dallas have shot up to $3.26 per gallon for regular unleaded, 10 cents higher than a week ago, according to AAA.com. They’re still cheaper than a year ago when drivers were paying $3.70 per gallon and some feared gasoline prices would reach $4 a gallon.

I noted the same in a post the other day that neighborhood gasoline went from $2.99 to $3.26 pretty much "overnight."

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Oil and gas boom, 2014. Forbes is reporting:

Where jobs are concerned, Texas has consistently outperformed the national economy in terms of job creation and rate of unemployment in every month since the advent of the Great Recession and the discovery of the Eagle Ford Shale play, both of which took place in October of 2008.  Indeed, during the 24 month period from July 2009 through June of 2011, Texas created 49% of all new jobs created in the United States, and the vast majority of those jobs were either directly or indirectly the result of the state’s oil and natural gas boom, centered in plays like the Eagle Ford in South Texas, the Permian Basin of West Texas, and the Granite Wash play in the Texas Panhandle.

And then it goes on from there.

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Update on the New England propane shortage. Background to this story at this post.  The Burlington Free Press is now reporting emergency propane is on its way:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has used for the first time emergency powers it has under the Interstate Commerce Act to try to alleviate a shortage of propane in the Midwest and Northeast, including Vermont.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission first issued an order on Feb. 7 for the Enterprise TE Products Pipeline Co., which owns a pipeline that delivers propane and other refined products to the Midwest and Northeast from the Gulf Coast, to give propane top priority in the pipeline for a week.

The commission then extended that order for another week, ending today, sending an estimated 500,000 barrels — or 21 million gallons — of propane north from Houston to Cincinnati, then across Pennsylvania to New York.