Whiting -- Three Forks -- Marmon Wells - North Dakota, USA

For those of you who have been following Whiting's activity targeting the Three Forks in southwestern North Dakota, some folks have noticed low production numbers from a couple of Marmon wells:

Marmon 12-18TF produced only small amounts for three months and shows no production since October 2010. The drilling rig moved off sister well, Marmon 11-18TF, this past April, and received a tight hole designation on 8-30-11. 

It turns out Whiting is using at least one of the Marmon wells as a monitoring well:

Whiting is using the Marmon 12-18TFH for monitoring reservoir pressure and temperature. A notice in the well file states that Whiting ran five pressure and temperature guages connected to a fiber optics cable. Whiting requested approval to continue the monitoring until November 2011.

Wow, This Is Huge -- Corrected KOG/Injection Story From Yesterday -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

There was quite a bit of buzz yesterday evening and earlier today with regard to KOG requesting a permit for injection in yesterday's daily activity report for two or three wells that were still on the confidential list. I was quite shocked to see that, but I figured "it was what it was" and we would see how it played out. But it looked very serious.

Well, today, NDIC corrected the story. It turns out the wells were listed in the wrong place on the reporting form. KOG is not asking to inject these wells; rather, they should have been listed under the section of the form for "Permit Renewal."  Here is the corrected report:

CORRECTION TO DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT FOR AUGUST 12, 2011 WAS LISTED AS PERMITTED FOR INJECTION. CORRECT LISTING IS PERMIT RENEWAL:

• #19505 – KODIAK OIL & GAS ( USA ) INC., CHARGING EAGLE 15-14-11-3H., SWSE 14-147N-92W, DUNN CO.
• #19506 – KODIAK OIL & GAS ( USA ) INC., CHARGING EAGLE 15-14-24-16H., SWSE 14-147N-92W, DUNN CO.
• #19508 – KODIAK OIL & GAS ( USA ) INC., EAST GRIZZLY FEDERAL 3-25-13-3H., NENW 25-148N-104W, MCKENZIE CO.

Huge news and very, very good news for everyone in the Bakken.

I guess this was another example if something doesn't seem right, it may not be right. Glad to see this.

Six (6) New Permits -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Daily activity report, September 2, 2011:

Operators: MRO (3), Denbury Onshore, Helis, and Petro-Hunt

Fields: Grail, Reunion Bay, Lonesome, Garden, Murphy Creek

It looks lik MRO has another two-well pad. Two more fields that I haven't seen before:Lonesome and Garden.

Seventeen (17) producing wells were completed and reported. Seven with an IP > 1,000:

• 19292, 1,358, XTO, FBIR Baker 34X-25, Dunn County
• 19293, 1,537, XTO, FBIR Walker 34X-25, Dunn County
• 19833, 1,458, MRO, Shirley Pennington USA 14-22H, Mountrail County
• 19845, 1,084, Petro-Hunt, Van Hise Trust 153-95-28C-21-1H, McKenzie County
• 19971, 1,337, Murex, Peggy Lee 31-30H, Williams County
• 19985, 1,073, Hess, En-Dobrovolny A-155-94-1324H-1, Mountrail
• 20122, 1,163, MRO, Skogstad 41-28H, Mountrail County

This was particularly important:

CORRECTION TO DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT FOR AUGUST 12, 2011 WAS LISTED AS PERMITTED FOR INJECTION. CORRECT LISTING IS PERMIT RENEWAL:
#19505 – KODIAK OIL & GAS ( USA ) INC., CHARGING EAGLE 15-14-11-3H., SWSE 14-147N-92W, DUNN CO.
#19506 – KODIAK OIL & GAS ( USA ) INC., CHARGING EAGLE 15-14-24-16H., SWSE 14-147N-92W, DUNN CO.
#19508 – KODIAK OIL & GAS ( USA ) INC., EAST GRIZZLY FEDERAL 3-25-13-3H., NENW 25-148N-104W, MCKENZIE CO.

Life in a Man-Camp --- Video -- Bakken, Williston, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

From DrudgeReport -- Panic: Administration Halts EPA Smog Regulation

Link here.

To say this is "interesting" is an understatement.

Now, if we can just put the Louisiana folks back to work.

Finally:

President Barack Obama on Friday sacked a controversial proposed regulation tightening health-based standards for smog, bowing to the demands of congressional Republicans and some business leaders.

Obama overruled the Environmental Protection Agency and directed administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposal, in part because of the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty for businesses at a time of rampant uncertainty about an unsteady economy.

This may be the first bit of good news on the regulatory front that I have seen in some time.

By the way, what was EPA proposing?

The EPA under Obama proposed in January 2010 a range for the concentration of ground-level ozone allowed in the air — from 60 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion. That's about equal to a single tennis ball in an Olympic-size swimming pool full of tennis balls.

I can't make this stuff up.

Other headlines regarding the economy today:

Unemployment among blacks highest in 27 years. The smog rules would have done away with jobs that would have worsened the unemployment rate, and perhaps disproportionately among minorities.

The August jobs report was dismal for plenty of reasons, but perhaps most striking was the picture it painted of racial inequality in the job market.
Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported.

The proposed smog rules would have resulted in rolling blackouts.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, operator of the state's power grid, said in a report today that a new federal environmental regulation would reduce generating capacity and put the grid "at increasing risk of emergency events," including rotating power outages.

The Jan. 1 implementation date for the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, designed to curb air pollution from power plants, leaves ERCOT with "an extremely truncated period" in which to assess the impact of the rule and "no realistic opportunity to take steps that could even partially offset the substantial losses of available operating capacity," it said.

This simply suggests folks making decisions are in over their heads.