Update On Bonanza Creek -- Mike Filloon

Labeled as a Bakken update, I don't believe Bonanza Creek operates in North Dakota. Mike Filloon contributes over at SeekingAlpha. Bonanza Creek operators in the DJ Basin.

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A Note To The Granddaughters

We took the granddaughters to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Gardens yesterday and had a wonderful time. We did not have enough time to explore everything in the children's garden, and we had still not seen the main arboretum and garden. It's an incredible experience. The flowers were in full bloom -- the cherry blossoms were about the only flowers not yet on display; they come out a bit later, I guess in April, and only last a few days.

While resting, we challenged each other to name one flower starting with a letter of the alphabet, from A to Z. We were stumped on K, Q, S, and X, after seeing much of the garden. Then we saw the "snapdragons" and were a bit embarrassed we had forgotten them. I was sort of given praise for coming up with the Kumquat flower, which we agreed would satisfy "K" and "Q" but but then we saw the "Korean Rock Fern" and had the "K." [I see now there there is a flower's name that starts with X: http://www.ask.com/question/is-there-a-flower-that-begins-with-the-letter-x.] A google search will provide a number of flower names that start with "Q."

In a part of the garden, there are adult-size bird houses, as well as a "normal" bird houses. We quizzed each other on nocturnal and diurnal raptors. I had forgotten there was one diurnal owl; the older granddaughter reminded me it was the snowy owl. She also reminded me there were two families of owls: "true" owls and barn owls. Of all the raptors, only owls are nocturnal.

Tomorrow we will take the granddaughters to the Science and History Museum in Ft Worth.

Chicago May Divert CBR From Downtown To Suburbs

A reader send me this link to a video story out of Chicago.

Grumbling In California About Fracking

The AP is reporting at Rigzone:

In a year when California Democrats are worried about motivating their voters, Gov. Jerry Brown heard another unwelcome message Saturday: Some Democratic activists are bristling over his administration's policies on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Appearing at a state Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles, Brown found himself forced to speak over a noisy group of sign-waving protesters in his first major campaign speech since formally declaring his candidacy last month.

"Just listen a moment," Brown pleaded at one point, as the protesters bellowed "No fracking" and waved "Another Democrat Against Fracking" signs just steps from the podium where he was speaking. State Democratic conventions can be boisterous gatherings, but the protesters provided an unscripted distraction in what was otherwise expected to be a unified show of support for the 75-year-old governor, who appears headed for an unprecedented fourth term in the heavily Democratic state.

North American Energy Revolution And Opportunities In The South

Over the weekend, I posted/linked a story on Electrolux; the company may shut down a factory in Italy due to high payroll costs, but did not mention anything about the extraordinarily high price of electricity in Italy.

Yesterday, Electrolux was in the news again. In this case, Electrolux did, in fact, close an Electrolux plant, the one in Montreal, Canada:

Stockholm-based Electrolux AB (ELUXB), the maker of Frigidaire ovens, is moving production from a factory near Montreal, where it employed 1,300 workers, to Memphis as part of efforts to consolidate its operations in Tennessee, where it is receiving financial assistance. Factory workers in Tennessee earned almost 10 percent less in 2012 than the U.S. average, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The Electrolux story is buried deeply in a story highlighting the fact that Warren Buffett closed a Heinz ketchup factory in Canada. Although the story focuses on this particularly Canadian factory, in fact, Warren Buffett closed two other plants, also, in the United States. Buffett said:

"The tomatoes are going to go to the plants that have the low production costs," Buffett said in November at an event in Detroit. "It's really a question of having an unprofitable plant and concentrating production in a more profitable plant." 

In addition:

The job cuts have come despite a pick-up in global growth and a 13 percent drop in the Canadian dollar since September 2012, raising concern that Canadian factories will struggle to compete with plants in China, Mexico, and even the U.S., where the much-touted manufacturing renaissance has been fueled by declines in real wages and two-tier pay scales that mean less money for new employees.

There are a couple of interesting story lines here that circle back to the problems in Italy, reflected by the first linked article on Electolux. Cheap energy in the United States is only of the story lines.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Active rigs:

	3/11/2014	03/11/2013	03/11/2012	03/11/2011	03/11/2010
Active Rigs	191	187	206	173	103

Bakken watch: another day without a CLR report on the 14-well pad southwest of Williston portends bad news.

Bakken watch: seasonal load restrictions go into effect in southwest North Dakota starting tomorrow, March 12, 2014.

RBN Energy: inland crude tank barge fleet.

There are approximately 3,350 inland tank barges in the US that are all part of the Jones Act fleet. These barges move crude oil, refined products and petrochemicals along 12,000 miles of navigable inland waters – most along the Mississippi River system. Crude by barge traffic has grown 8 fold in the past three years and barges are over 90 percent utilized. Most of the increasing volume of crude moving from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast by barge is coming from Canada by pipeline and loading onto barges in Illinois. Today we review barge movements along the Mississippi River.
This blog is Episode Six in our series detailing the US Jones Act Fleet.

The Wall Street Journal

Government will investigate Government Motors over 10-year-delay in recall.

Article shows how out-of-touch the Obama-appointed Sotomayor is. In 8-1 vote she sides with government. Supreme Court rules in favor of landowner in rails-to-trails case.

The diplomatic "crisis": Putin rejects US proposal on Ukraine.

An interesting cultural phenomenon: US companies cling to writing paper checks.

U.S. companies lag far behind their counterparts in Europe, Japan and even Brazil in the world of e-payments. American businesses and consumers wrote 21 billion checks in 2012, according to the Federal Reserve. That's more than four times as many checks as were written that year in the European Union's 28 member countries, according to the European Central Bank.

A slippery slope: in fracking, more neighborliness. The story mostly has to do with overseas fracking.

McDonald's US sales slow down for fourth month. I think this has less to do with the economy but more to do with the franchise.