Seven (7) New Permits, BR Reports Four High-IP Wells -- August 25, 2015

Active rigs:

	8/25/2015	08/25/2014	08/25/2013	08/25/2012	08/25/2011
Active Rigs	75	194	184	189	195

Four (4) wells coming off confidential list Wednesday:

• 29163, SI/NC, Hess, BB-Chapin A-LS-151-95-0403H-1, Blue Buttes, no production data,
• 29610, SI/NC, Statoil, Cheryl 17-20 5H, Banks, no production data,
• 29760, drl/NC, MRO, Halvorson 34-34TFH, Reunion Bay, no production data,
• 30757, conf, XTO, Roen 24X-23E, Elk, no production data,

Six (6) new permits --

• Operators: Whiting (6), WPX
• Fields: Sanish (Mountrail), Lonesome (McKenzie), Juniper (McKenzie), Reunion Bay (Dunn)
• Comments:

Four (4) producing wells completed:

• 29050, 1,584, BR, Kings Canyon 2-8-34UTFH, Camel Butte, 4 sections, KOP - Dec 16; TD - Dec 21, 2015; 17 - 48 feet below the base of the lower Bakken shale; t7/15; cum --
• 29423, 1,608, BR, Kings Canyon 4-8-34UTFH, Camel Butte, 4 sections, pay target 24 feet thick; low background gas, moderately high trip gas; t7/15; cum --
• 29426, 2,040, BR, Teton 5-1-3TFSH, Camel Butte, 4 sections, t7/15; cum --
• 29465, 2,565, BR, Teton 7-1-3TFSH, Camel Butte, 4 sections, pay target 18 feet thick, t7/15; cum -- 

I track the Kings Canyon / Teton wells here.

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For The Granddaughters

From Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon: The History of the World From the Periodic Table of the Elements, c. 2010, p. 142:

As a historical curiosity, he might have also pointed out that the two people who came closest to discovering fission, Ida Noddack and Irene Joliot-Curie -- daughter of Marie Curie -- and the person who eventually did discover nuclear fission -- Lise Meitner, were all women.

Hoo-ah!

Man-Camps Springing Up In San Pedro, California -- August 25, 2015

Tweeting now:  3 hours ago BP has restarted 250,000 b/d crude oil distillation unit at Whiting, Indiana, refinery, company spokesman said Tuesday.

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Man-Camps In San Pedro, California

Only in the land of fruits and nuts and flakes. The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

The running legal and political debate at Los Angeles City Hall over how best to manage street encampments is turning to a new issue: tiny, curbside homes on wheels.

Some advocates for the homeless see the wooden, sometimes colorful single-room structures — about the size of a parking spot — as a simple and safer alternative to having the homeless sleep on the sidewalks.

The mini-houses have popped up recently around Los Angeles, with a number of them in San Pedro. But Harbor-area Councilman Joe Buscaino argues that a proliferation of the structures undercuts the appearance of neighborhoods and poses problems of public safety because the homes don't have running water or reflective markings.

"These wooden shacks are not the real estate I'm looking for in my district," he told colleagues at a committee hearing Monday.

The dispute is the latest twist in a complex and evolving legislative response to a growing homeless problem that has seen encampments spreading into more residential neighborhoods.

Encampments? Perhaps we should call them "man-camps."

In the Bakken, fracking came first, then the man-camps. In California, apparently just the opposite -- build the "man-camps" first. If you build it, they will come.

Safety issues: "... the homes don't have running water or reflective markings." The lack of reflective markings can be easily rectified. Running water: hoses from conventional cooperative homeowners.

Shell Game -- August 25, 2015

Tweeting at the noon-hour -- Nigeria's Buhari approves termination of controversial crude oil swap for refined oil products contracts with trading companies, NNPC says; the background --

The NNPC currently swaps a part of its allotted 445,000 barrels of crude per day to some oil companies and in return receives refined products. 

Oil swap derives from the fact that Nigeria’s four refineries operate mostly below 50% installed capacity and since 2003, the NNPC has continued to allocate them 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which corresponds to 100% capacity. 

The oil swaps have come under criticism following allegations that they have been opaque and the government has been short-changed in the deals. In its audit between 2009 and 2012, the Nigerian Extractive Transparency Initiative (NEITI) revealed that crude oil swap arrangements are not cost- effective, especially when compared to product prices and proceeds paid to the NNPC. 

And, so, the new president scrapped the swaps. Again, look at what was going on:

• the country's refineries had a total capacity of 445,000 bopd
• the refineries were only operating at 50% capacity (official number; reality, probably worse): 225,000 bopd

So, where was the delta going? Each day about 225,000 barrels of crude oil was unaccounted for. Technically, Nigeria just took 445,000 bopd off the global market but, of course, that ain't happening either.

I track Nigeria here when I run out of things to do. Algeria here. Angola here. 

China? What China? It's India One Has To Keep One's Eyes On -- August 25, 2015

The Apple Page

That failed Apple Watch story?

It's now being reported that Best Buy is accelerating its Apple Watch rollout to all 1,050 stores "amid" strong demand.

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The Coal Page

Whenever I see another story on intermittent energy and how important it is to the global economy, I keep going back to this graph:

and this graph:

Did anyone really pay any attention to this graph the first time is was posted? I know I did not. Generally when there is such a huge delta between "consumption" and "production" it is a graph projecting into the future how bad things might become. But in this case, this graph is "real-time." If I understand the graphic correctly, this is all domestic coal production, domestic coal consumption. Therefore, the delta represents the amount of coal that India must import every year, and for the past five or six years that delta is really becoming quite striking.

I doubt India can close the domestic-import delta. If not, it will be interesting where all that coal will come from.Washington state ports? LOL.

But this is really scary for the warmists: regardless of where the coal comes from, look at the "total production target for 2020 -- that's just five years from now. India's total production target is set at 1,500 million metric tons, compared to barely 700 million metric tons in 2014. I'm pretty poor at math, but going from 700 to 1,500 seems to be more than double. In five years.

From wiki:  India ranks fifth in global coal production at 228 mtoe in the year 2013 when its inferior quality coal tonnage is converted in to tons of oil equivalent. Coal-fired power plants account for 59% of India's installed electricity capacity. After electricity production, coal is also used for cement production in substantial quantity. In the year 2013, India imported nearly 95 Mtoe of steam coal and coking coal which is 29% of total consumption to meet the demand in electricity, cement and steel production.

So, if I read that correctly, India's "real" domestic coal production is 228 metric tons (2013); India imported 95 metric tons that year (2013). Compare to graphic above which suggests India domestically produced 600 metric tons -- but it's low quality coal. [Indian coal is of low quality as it has a high ash content.]

More from wiki: India is largely dependent on fossil fuel imports to meet its energy demands — by 2030, India's dependence on energy imports is expected to exceed 53% of the country's total energy consumption. In 2009-10, the country imported 159.26 million tonnes of crude oil which amounts to 80% of its domestic crude oil consumption and 31% of the country's total imports are oil imports. The growth of electricity generation in India has been hindered by domestic coal shortages and as a consequence, India's coal imports for electricity generation increased by 18% in 2010.

Something tells me Soros follows India closely. 

Re-Posting Due To Its Importance -- August 25, 2015

Breaking now: Hettinger, ND, set a new record low temperature yesterday -- 31 degrees. Yes, that would be one degree below freezing on the Fahrenheit scale. The old record was 37, set back in 2007, at the height of global warming.

Definition of irony: spending the past three decades preparing for global warming, and then learning that Algore got it all wrong; he was looking at the graphs upside down? It was the global ice age he should have seen coming! Remember that satellite probe that crashed into Mars some years ago: the engineers mistakenly used feet when they thought they were tracking the probe in meters. And then the EPA who wants to control every last creek in the US, floods a major river system with orange toxin in an amateurish attempt to clean up a mine.

Did anyone, by the way, ever explain why the river turned orange and not some other color? From The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From The Periodic Table of the Elements, by Sam Kean, c. 2010, p. 6:

"... Unraveling that mystery -- it's from hydragyrum, Latin for "water silver" -- helped me understand how heavily ancient languages and mythology influenced the periodic table ... I found mercury in literature class, too. Hat manufacturers once used a bright orange mercury wash to separate fur from pelts, and the common hatter hatters who dredged around in the steamy vats, like the mad one in Alice in Wonderland ..."

So, there you have it. The orange river was caused by mercury.  [CNN: One of the samples of mercury was nearly 10 times higher than the EPA acceptable levels. Samples of beryllium and cadmium were 33 times higher, and one of the arsenic levels was more than 800 times higher.]

If you don't know how poisonous cadmium is, look up itai-itai on wiki. Cadmium caused one of the worst Japanese holocausts of all time, and that includes the two nuclear bombs.

Don't even get me started.

By the way, rumor has it that Algore has been studying the Bakken heat map for the past several months.

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A Government Out of Control? Or In Control?

IRS used secret e-mail account, false identity to do government business, target Tea Party groups.  If Lois is not held accountable ... oh, heck, what does it matter?

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ObamaCare

The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

A new study finds that 75% of California's Obamacare health plans have narrow physician networks -- more limited choices than all but three other states.

The latest report examines health plans sold to consumers last year under the Affordable Care Act and shows wide variation in the prevalence of narrow networks across the country.

Only Georgia, Florida and Oklahoma had a higher percentage of small (sic) provider networks than California did in the insurance company directories analyzed by University of Pennsylvania researchers.
To hold down premiums under the health law, big insurers such as Anthem Inc. and Blue Shield of California cut the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients.

There's actually much more to the story, but that will have to do for now.