Relevant To The Whiting Announcement? -- March 24, 2015

Reuters / Rigzone is reporting:

Despite a 50 percent slide in crude prices since last summer, U.S. shale oil producers are enjoying remarkably easy access to capital markets and this will allow them to avoid getting squeezed when banks reset their loans in April.

A surge in equity issuance so far this year by oil and gas companies has surprised many who in December thought the price drop would hurt the ability of producers to tap capital markets. But investor appetite has held up in the first quarter, amounting to a vote of confidence in the ability of shale oil companies to weather the storm by relying on hedges and slashing spending to show a commitment to capital discipline.

"Because the capital markets are so good companies that are more worried about their borrowing base are able to ... raise either debt or equity, take those proceeds, and reduce their borrowing base," said Timothy Perry, a managing director for energy investment banking at Credit Suisse in Houston.

He said one client had reduced its borrowing base by two-thirds after doing a capital market deal.

Maybe the capital markets "know" something the rest of us don't know.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

Halliburton Closing It's Minot Shop -- March 24, 2015

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

Halliburton will suspend operations in Minot starting April 1 and close the facility, a spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

The oilfield services company will transfer a majority of Minot employees to Halliburton locations in Williston and Dickinson.

Two data points (not mentioned in the story):

• BHI and Halliburton are merging 
• BHI built a huge new Minot facility about the same time they built the Williston facility (if I remember correctly) 

This from a 2013 post elsewhere:

I do work at the Minot [BHI] location. First thing I would like to comment on is the replies. We have not laid off 60 people due to any issues with zoning. In fact we are expanding to meet the demands. We have all ready out grown our facility in Minot.

The Minot facility is made up of several different product lines. We chose the location in Minot for several different reasons. One of those reasons is to try take advantage of retiring Air Force personal who wanted to remain in the Minot area. We also felt that Minot would be an appealing place to draw and retain skilled people that wanted an opportunity to expand their career locally.

One of our product lines does use SOS for hiring their employees and the other four product lines hire direct.

Please go to Bakerhughes.com and search careers in Minot. We are looking for talented hard working people who want to live in North Dakota. The main office # 1-(701)-420-8000.

Baker Hughes is proud to have nearly 250 employees in Minot and nearly 1050 employees that live in North Dakota. This is a great community to raise a family, and one of the best choices I have made in my career by moving here to Minot.

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Another Government Bureaucracy Out Of Control

Every veteran knew the intent of Congress when the 40-mile rule was adopted -- the folks at the VA found a way to circumvent that intent. Fortunately Congress caught the VA at their little game. Fox News is reporting:

Responding to pressure from Congress and veterans groups, the Department of Veterans Affairs is relaxing a rule that makes it hard for some veterans in rural areas to prove they live at least 40 miles from a VA health site. 

The change comes amid complaints from lawmakers and advocates who say the VA's current policy has prevented thousands of veterans from taking advantage of a new law intended to allow veterans in remote areas to gain access to federally paid medical care from local doctors. 

The VA said it will now measure the 40-mile trip by driving miles as calculated by Google maps or other sites, rather than as the crow flies, as currently interpreted. The rule change is expected to roughly double the number of eligible veterans. 

I hope it triples or quadruples the number of eligible veterans.

The "Other" North Dakota Industry -- March 24, 2015

A big "thank you" to a reader for sending me this; ChinaDaily is reporting:

Before the Bakken shale formation transformed North Dakota into an energy giant, the state was mostly known as a provider of soybeans, corn and other crops. North Dakota remains an agriculture powerhouse and during the week of March 30 a delegation will travel to Qingdao in Shandong province in China to showcase the state's agricultural commodities and food products.

The 2015 China - North Dakota Better for You Food Ingredients event is organized by the North Dakota Trade Office, Northern Crops Institute and the North Dakota Department of Agriculture.

Dean Gorder, executive director of the trade office, said this will be the third time he has led a delegation of mainly small and medium-sized family-owned North Dakota companies to China.

"North Dakota is a significant producer of specialty crops like flax, sunflowers and lentils," he told China Daily in an interview. "Part of our mission is to demonstrate how the Chinese can incorporate these crops into their food. They are just starting to learn about them."

To accomplish that, Gorder said specialists from the Northern Crops Institute (a collaborative effort among Minnesota, Montana, and North and South Dakota to support the promotion of crops grown in the four states) will give presentations to Chinese buyers and other officials representing food manufacturers in the mainland. "They will actually prepare dishes for them made with the North Dakota ingredients so they can experience the taste and nutrition they can bring to a meal," he said. 

I was hoping they would have also mentioned chickpeas.

New Permits In Past Six Weeks By Operator -- March 24, 2015

Disclaimer: this is from my database. There are likely to be typographical and factual errors. If this information is important to you, go to the source. 

New permits by operator since February 1, 2015, through today:

Armstrong: 1
BR: 25
BTA: 8
CLR: 9
Corinthian: 8
Crescent Point: 3
Denbury: 1
Emerald: 3
Enduro: 2
Enerplus: 4
EOG: 18
Hess: 16
Halcon: 9
Liberty Resources: 5
Missouri River Resources: 2
MRO: 11
Newfield: 11
Noah Energy: 2
North Plains: 1
Oasis:10
OXY USA: 1
Petro-Hunt: 1
QEP: 12
Sedalia: 1
Sinclair: 2
Slawson: 12
SM Energy: 8
Statoil: 15
Whiting: 68
WPX: 14
XTO: 52

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I think there are a lot of story lines in this list.

XTO:

• last permit, and it was a single permit that day: March 16, 2015
• prior to that, three permits on March 12, 2015
• a single permit, March 11, 2015
• a single permit, March 9, 2015
• deep pockets (financially)

Whiting:

• most Whiting permits are for pad drilling, 4 - 6 wells per pad
• 14 consecutive permits between March 4 and March 6, inclusive, 2015

QEP:

• all pad drilling

WPX:

• pad drilling

 CLR:

• last permit, a singleton, March 12, 2015
• last permit, prior to that, a singleton, February 6, 2015
• six permits, pad drilling, Alkali Creek, February 4, 2015

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I developed the list to try to undertand WLL's decision to issue 35 million shares and to issue $1.75 billion more in debt.

Massachusetts Asks Washington For Global Warming Disaster Relief -- March 24, 2015

The AP is reporting:

Massachusetts will seek a federal disaster declaration for the record-setting snowstorms that wreaked havoc on the state and piled up what state officials estimate to be $400 million in snow removal costs and other damage.

Governor Baker planned to send a letter to President Barack Obama by the end of the week asking for the disaster declaration for 10 counties, an area encompassing about 250 cities and towns. The letter would be submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the final decision on the request to be made by the president. [This is a no-brainer.]

In what the administration acknowledges is an unusual request, the state is asking the federal government to treat the several weeks of storms that began in late January as a single disaster, compounded by frigid temperatures that prevented any immediate melting.

Global warmists predicted much more precipitation. That was this year. Last year they predicted less precipitation. Whatever. The discussion is closed.