NDIC Hearing Dockets -- January, 2024

Locator: 46363DOCKETS.

January hearing dockets posted.   

Link here.

The NDIC hearing dockets are tracked here.

As usual this is done very quickly and using shorthand for my benefit. There will be factual and typographical errors on this page. Do not quote me on any of this. It's for my personal use to help me better understand the Bakken. Do not read it. If you do happen to read it, do not make any investment, financial, job, relationship, or travel plans based on anything you read here or think you may have read here. If this stuff is important to you, and I doubt that it is, but if it is, go to the source. These are cases, not permits.

Thursday, January 18, 2024, Supplement
Two Cases

The cases:

• 30659, CLR, place a cased pipeline between two well pads for pumping hydraulic fracturing fluid
• 30660, CLR, place a cased pipeline between two well pads for pumping hydraulic fracturing fluid

Thursday, January 18, 2024
Five Pages

The cases: 

• 30648, CLR, open receptacle to store water for fracking;
• 30649, CLR, open receptacle to store water for fracking;
• 30650, CLR, open receptacle to store water for fracking;
• 30651, CLR, open receptacle to store water for fracking;
• 30652, Slawson, Big Bend-Bakken, i) establish an overlapping 1600-acre unit, two wells; ii) four wells on each of two existing 1280-acre units, iii) terminate an existing 1920-acre unit; Mountrail County;
• 30653, Enerplus, commingling
• 30654, CLR, commingling
• 30655, CLR, commingling
• 30656, XTO, commingling
• 30657, SOGC (Sinclair), risk penalty legalese;
• 30658, Hunt, SWD

Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Eleven Pages

The cases:

• 30606, BR, Haystack Butte, Round Top Butte, Little Knife, and/or Lone Butte-Bakken, establish an overlapping 3840-acre unit; one well; Dunn County;
• 30607, Petro-Hunt, Tioga, East Tioga, and/or White Earth-Bakken, establish an overlapping 3840-acre unit; one well; Mountrail County;
• 30608, Petro-Hunt, North Tioga and/or Stoneview-Bakken, establish an overlapping 3840-acre unit; one well; Divide, Burke and Williams counties
• 30609, Hess, Ray and/or Dollar Joe-Bakken, establish two overlapping standup 1920-acre unit, two wells on each, Williams County
• 30610, Hess, Ray, Dollar Joe and/or Wheelock-Bakken, establish two overlapping 3840-acre units, one well on each unit; Williams County
• 30611, Hess, Beaver Lodge-Bakken, establish an overlapping standup 2560-acre unit, two wells; Williams
• 30612, Oasis, Cottonwood-Bakken, establish two overlapping laydown 1920-acre unts; five wells on each unit; Mountrail
• 30613, Oasis, Arnegard-Bakken, establish an overlapping laydown 3840-acre unit, one well; McKenzie
• 30614, MRO, Moccasin Creek-Bakken, setback rules, Dunn County
• 30615, Neptune Operating, Little Muddy-Bakken; establish two overlapping 3840-acre units; one well on each, Williams County
• 30616, Kraken, setback ruules, Williams
• 30617, Kraken, pooling
• 30618, Kraken, pooling
• 30619, Kraken, pooling
• 30620, Kraken, pooling
• 30621, Kraken, pooling
• 30622, Kraken, pooling
• 30623, Kraken, pooling
• 30624, Kraken, pooling
• 30625, Kraken, pooling
• 30626, Kraken, pooling
• 30627, Kraken, pooling
• 30628, BR, pooling
• 30629, BR, commingling
• 30630, BR, commingling
• 30631, Hess, pooling,
• 30632, Hess, pooling,
• 30633, Hess, pooling,
• 30634, Hess, pooling,
• 30635, Hess, pooling,
• 30636, Hess, commingling
• 30637, Oasis, Tyrone-Bakken, four wells on a laydown 1920-acre unit, Williams County
• 30638, Oasis, pooling 
• 30639, Oasis, pooling 
• 30640, Oasis, pooling 
• 30641, Oasis, pooling 
• 30642, Whiting, pooling
• 30643, MRO, pooling
• 30644, MRO, Moccasin Creek-Bakken, eight wells  on a standup 1280-acre unit; Dunn County;
• 30645, MRO, commingling
• 30646, MRO, commingling
• 30647, Grayson Mill, commingling
  

Two New Permits; Four Permits Renewed; Six DUCs Reported As Completed -- Ddecember 20, 2023

Locator: 46363B.

Wow, what a great day!

• Apple loses first appeal with regard to its Apple Watch; import ban remains in place;
• after starting out well, the Dow loses 500 points at the close; and,
• there was something else, I thought, but if there was, I forgot what it was.
  

It's counter-intuitive with regard to the Apple Watch story and the Dow story but it will become clear eventually.

Most ridiculous story today: the story in today's WSJ -- how "he" stole hundreds of iPhones and their passwords. 

• Spoiler alert: the victims willingly gave this stranger their iPhone password, and then he or an accomplice stole the iPhone.
• having said that, Apple's security fix is incredibly awesome! More on that later some day, perhaps, or at least the link.

**************************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: $73.75.

Active rigs: 37.

Two new permits, #40404 - #40405, inclusive:

• Operators: Phoenix Operating and CLR
• Fields: Burg (Divide); Jim Creek (Dunn)
• Comments:
• Phoenix has a permit for a Nate well, NENW 27-160-99; 
• to be sited 588 FNL and 1611 FWL; and,
• CLR has a permit for a Chase well, SWSE 7-145-96, 
• to be sited 360 FSL and 2060 FEL;

Four permits renewed:

• BR: two Chuckwagon permits, Sand Creek, McKenzie County; and two Renegade permits, Sand Creek, McKenzie County;

Six producing wwells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 39215, 458, SOGC (Sinclair), Grasslands Federal 14-15-3H; McKenzie County; Lone Butte, t10/23; cum 124K 1/25; on drl status;
  
• 39597, 1,976, CLR, Brooks 5-9H1; McKenzie County, Pembroke, t12/23; cum 243K 1/25; on drl status;
  
• 39598, 1,813, CLR, Brooks 6-9H1; McKenzie County, Pembroke, t12/23; cum 220K 1/25; on drl status;
• 39599, 2,674, CLR, Brooks 7-9H; McKenzie County, Pembroke, t12/23; cum 240K 1/25; on drl status;
• 39600, 2,907, CLR, Brooks 8-9H1; McKenzie County, Pembroke, t12/23; cum 197K 1/25; on drl status;
• 39652, 1,748, CLR, Brooks 4-9HSL1; McKenzie County, Pembroke, t12/23; cum 209K 1/25; on drl status;

Dry holes:

• 33399, Formentera Operations, Aldag 9-36-35-164-100W R, Divide County;
• 36186, XTO Energy, Olaf 42X-11AXD, Williams County

Well of interest:

• 22058, 549, CLR, Brooks 1-4H, Pembroke, t5/12; cum 187K 10/23; off line for a couple of months; now coming back on line; probably no halo effect, but time will tell.

EV Implosion -- December 20, 2023

Locator: 46362EVS.

Link here

The electric-vehicle reckoning continues: Panasonic has decided against building an electric-vehicle battery plant in Oklahoma.

It’s a significant announcement from a large EV player. Panasonic is the fourth-largest independent EV battery maker on the planet, according to SNE research, with market share approaching 10%.

It’s another sign that car companies were simply too aggressive with EV plans in 2021 and 2022—auto makers have paid for overpromising in 2023 and will continue to pay in 2024.

”Panasonic Energy is always exploring growth opportunities and evaluating ways to strengthen our business and advance the EV industry in the United States,” said a Panasonic spokesperson in an emailed statement. The Oklahoma project was part of that exploration, but the company has decided against developing the project.

Batteries: link here. Scorecard, EVs. 

Tesla wannabees, today:

• Lucid, Nikola, Fisker: all fell ten percent
• Rivian: fell five percent

Cool -- Recent New Yorker Magazine -- Nvidia -- December 20, 2023

Locator: 46361TECH.  

Link here.

Seriously, when did "you" last see / recall a full-feature essay on any business / company in The New Yorker?

I don't think I have one page dedicated to Nvidia. A good place to start.

The fourth industrial revolution. Link here.

Chips, semiconductor: link here.

• Home page for tech: link here.
• The cloud: link here.  
• Streaming: link here. Streaming wars.
• Spatial computing: link here.
• Generative AI: link here. 
• Apple Silicon: link here.
• Supercomputers: link here.

Near the end of The New Yorker essay:

I asked Huang if he was taking any gambles today that resemble the one he took twenty years ago. He responded immediately with a single word: “Omniverse.” Inspired by the V.R.-architecture gambit, the Omniverse is Nvidia’s attempt to simulate the real world at an extraordinary level of fine-grained detail. Huang has described it as an “industrial metaverse.”

Since 2018, Nvidia’s graphics cards have featured “ray-tracing,” which simulates the way that light bounces off objects to create photorealistic effects. Inside a triangle of frosted glass in Nvidia’s executive meeting center, a product-demo specialist showed me a three-dimensional rendering of a gleaming Japanese ramen shop. As the demo cycled through different points of view, light reflected off the metal counter and steam rose from a bubbling pot of broth. There was nothing to indicate that it wasn’t real.

The specialist then showed me “Diane,” a hyper-realistic digital avatar that speaks five languages. A powerful generative A.I. had studied millions of videos of people to create a composite entity. It was the imperfections that were most affecting—Diane had blackheads on her nose and trace hairs on her upper lip. The only clue that Diane wasn’t truly human was an uncanny shimmer in the whites of her eyes. “We’re working on that,” the specialist said.

Huang’s vision is to unify Nvidia’s computer-graphics research with its generative-A.I. research. As he sees it, image-generation A.I.s will soon be so sophisticated that they will be able to render three-dimensional, inhabitable worlds and populate them with realistic-seeming people. At the same time, language-processing A.I.s will be able to interpret voice commands immediately. (“The programming language of the future will be ‘human,’ ” Huang has said.) Once the technologies are united with ray-tracing, users will be able to speak whole universes into existence. Huang hopes to use such “digital twins” of our own world to safely train robots and self-driving cars. Combined with V.R. technology, the Omniverse could also allow users to inhabit bespoke realities.

Ya think Jensen (Omniverse) and Tim (Vision Pro) are in frequent communication? In Tim's world "ray tracing" is incredibly important and Tim mentions it a lot.

On another note, the other day I mentioned Nvidia and cybersecurity. A top story in the current issue of The New Yorker:

Apple: Winner Again -- This Time -- The iPhone 15 Pro Camera -- December 20, 2023

Locator: 46360AAPL.  

Link here. 

Brownlee justified his choice by admitting that while there are smartphones on the market that can produce better results when using zoom, the iPhone 15 Pro offers the most solid all-round performance across the biggest variety of use cases, and its ease of use when taking photos and videos remains unrivaled.