Random Update On Several Oasis Wells On DRL Status In Alkali Creek -- September 11, 2014

Updates

February 8, 2015: I think I was wrong on these wells. I thought these were going to be very short laterals based on the NDIC map server -- see screen shot below -- but it appears these will be standard long laterals (about 9,300 feet horizontally); the graphic below was apparently taken when the wells were being drilled and not on confidential status; they are back on confidential status and the horizontals are not shown on the NDIC map server
 

Original Post

This is just a reminder to myself to check up on these Oasis wells sometime in the future.

The wells in question (it appears these were were initially on confidential; came off confidential after TD reached; and then placed on DRL status; and before fracking, back on CONF status:

• 28068, conf, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 44-22 5B, 1280-acre, sections 15/22-154-94; Bakken;
• 28069, conf, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 44-22 6B, 1280-acre, sections 15/22-154-94; Bakken;
• 28070, conf, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 44-22 7B, 1280-acre, sections 15/22-154-94; Bakken;

• 28061, conf, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 43-22 16T3, 1280-acre, sections 15/22-154-94; Three Forks B3,
• 28062, conf, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 43-22 10T, 1280-acre, sections 15/22-154-94; Three Forks B1,
• 28063, conf, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 43-22 13T2, 1280-acre, sections 15/22-154-94; Three Forks B2,
• 28064, conf, Oasis, Helling Trust Federal 5494 43-22 4B, 1280-acre, sections 15/22-154-94; gas shows to 8,322 units in the far end of the lateral; no flare;

 

************************************ 

Russia And China Keep On Truckin'

Over at "Big Stories" I track the growing Russian-China partnership. Today it was announced that Russia and China will build one of the world's largest seaports:

China and Russia will build one of the largest ports in northeast Asia on Russia's Sea of Japan coast, reports said, in a further sign of the powerhouses' growing alliance.

The seaport is expected to be able to handle some 60 million tonnes of cargo a year, China's state-run People's Daily Online reported late Wednesday -- comparable to Britain's busiest port Immingham or Le Havre in France, according to European Commission statistics.

The new facility will be located in far eastern Russia, just 18 kilometres (11 miles) away from the Chinese border. The region is also close to North Korea.

While our own president dithers on the economy, now focused on a new war, and still playing golf, Russia and China just keep on truckin'. [With regard to the reference to golfing, even The New Yorker Magazine led off with that observation in its September 15, 2014, issue. I can't make this stuff up.]

Update On Solutions Energy, LLC, First Well In North Dakota -- September 11, 2014

In the July, 2014, NDIC dockets, Solutions Energy presented this case:

• 22684, Solutions Energy, Lone Tree-Madison, establish a 320-acre unit; 1 well, Ward County;

There is now a rig on site:

• 29241, conf, Solutions Energy, Nangchen 155-86-11-HS1, Lone Tree, Latitude: 48.255327     Longitude: -101.685200; about 15 miles west of Minot, and 2 miles south of Highway 2.  

This is Solutions Energy's first permit in North Dakota.

**********************

For My Archives - "No One" Will Believe This Anyway

Investor Village is reporting:

Hydraulic fracturing—fracking or hydrofracturing—raises many concerns about potential environmental impacts, especially water contamination.

Currently, data show that the majority of water injected into wells stays underground, triggering fears that it might find its way into groundwater.

New research by a team of scientists should help allay those fears. In a paper published in the current issue of the Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources, Terry Engelder, professor of geosciences, Penn State; Lawrence Cathles, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, Cornell University; and Taras Bryndzia, geologist, Shell International Exploration and Production Inc., report that injected water that remains underground is sequestered in the rock formation and therefore does not pose a serious risk to water supplies.

Hydraulic fracturing is a drilling technique commonly used to extract gas from previously inaccessible "tight" gas reserves, including gas trapped in shale formations such as the Marcellus. During this technique between 1.2 and 5 million gallons of water mixed with sand and chemical additives are injected at high pressure into each well to fracture the rock and release the gas. Typically less than half of the injected water returns to the surface as "flowback" or, later, production brine, and in many cases recovery is less than 30 percent.

In addition to the chemical additives, flowback water contains natural components of the gas shale including salt, some metals, and radionuclides and could impair water quality if released without proper treatment.

While flowback water can be managed and treated at the surface, the fate of the water left in place, called residual treatment water or RTW, was previously uncertain. Some have suggested that RTW may be able to flow upward along natural pathways, mainly fractures and faults, and contaminate overlying groundwater. Others have proposed that natural leakage of the Marcellus is occurring without human assistance through high-permeability fractures connecting the Marcellus directly to the water table and that hydraulic fracturing could worsen this situation.

The researchers report that ground water contamination is not likely because contaminant delivery rate would be too small even if leakage were possible, but more importantly, upward migration of RTW is not plausible due to capillary and osmotic forces that propel RTW into, not out of, the shale. Their study indicates that RTW will be stably retained within the shale formation due to multiphase capillary phenomena.

CBR: Coming Of Age -- RBN Energy -- September 11, 2014; Global Warming Hits Rapid City, SD -- Earliest Snowfall Since 1888

RBN Energy: CBR -- coming of age. Another article to save and/or bookmark.

A recent SEC filing to register a proposed Initial Public Offering (IPO) for their Master Limited Partnership (MLP) by terminal operator USD Group - whose principal asset is a unit train crude loading terminal in Hardisty, Alberta - reveals long-term commitments to rail by Canadian shippers. That development reflects frustration with continued delays to the expansion of congested pipeline capacity out of Western Canada but also indicates a new maturity in crude-by-rail transport. Today we discuss crude-by-rail’s coming of age in Canada.

And as we described in the “Go Your Own Way” blog series, a number of similar large rail terminals are also being built out and coming online in Edmonton and Kerrobert – Western Canada’s other crude oil gathering hubs. These developments are not unexpected in the context of continued delays in solving pipeline infrastructure constraints out of Canada. What is interesting about the USDP IPO filing is that the company clearly expects that its Hardisty rail terminal will be in business for the long term and should continue to generate income to distribute to investors. The 5 year terms of the throughput agreements associated with USDP’s Hardisty terminal are longer than similar commitments made by shippers in US crude basins like the Bakken. If successful, the IPO will add a degree of maturity to the crude-by-rail industry that has sometimes been considered a “stop-gap” solution to rescue stranded crude production until pipelines can be built.

Our view is that rail will continue to occupy a vital place in the North American crude oil distribution system. But rail is too expensive to replace pipelines as the preferred method of crude transport and is not suited to transporting the huge volumes of oil that pipelines ship around North America today. As an example, if the Hardisty rail terminal had to take the place of the delayed Keystone-XL pipeline that would ship 830 Mb/d of crude then it would need to expand its operation beyond the proposed Phase III with its 5 unit train loading tracks that could only load at best 420 Mb/d of crude (assuming 120 cars in a unit train holding 700 Bbl per car and five unit trains loaded each day). As a result rail is likely to remain the marginal transport choice that producers choose when pipeline capacity is not available or delayed. In the case of North Dakota that means rail will continue to be the first choice to ship crude to the East and West Coasts because there are no pipelines – but pipelines are rapidly replacing rail shipments to the Gulf Coast. Longer term, in the case of Canadian bitumen, the jury is still out on the question of whether shipping reduced diluent railbit or rawbit can provide rail with cost advantages over pipelines based on the diluent penalty. That answer has to wait until sufficient infrastructure is built out to determine unit train rawbit economics.

And, all of this, a "big thank you" to Mr Obama.

Active rigs:

	9/11/2014	09/11/2013	09/11/2012	09/11/2011	09/11/2010
Active Rigs	198	180	193	199	141

*********************
Apple

SeekingAlpha: why Apple's product launch rocked! This article will probably be available by subscription only later this month, but that's fine. It doesn't say anything we already didn't know. Everyone has their favorite from the hundreds of announcements, upgrades, changes, etc., provided by Tim Cook. My favorite: mobile payments. The Watch? Sometimes I get the feeling that Apple released the Watch just to get critics off their back. The technology is incredible, the sapphire crystal and the 18-karat gold backing are amazing, but time will tell whether it adds much to the Apple ecosystem. By the way: did you see how Apple finally got around from all those copyright problems. They have moved away from iWatch and iPayments. Apple stole a page from Prince, incorporating an "icon" (the famous Apple) as the first part of Watch and Payments. No copyright problems at all. Again, very, very clever.

*********************

For Investors Only

Trading at new highs: CFN, EW, GPRO. And that's about it. Pretty dismal.

*********************

Global Warming
Climate Change
Extreme Weather
New Ice Age

Seven inches of snow in the Rapid City, South Dakota, area overnight. This is the earliest snowfall in the city of Rapid since 1888. Not even the middle of September yet. When I was growing up in Williston, we usually looked forward to wonderful "Indian summers" in September. Now, with global warming we get snow. And more:

The NWS says many areas across far western South Dakota might experience a hard freeze by Friday morning as temperatures are expected to dip into the 20s and even teens in the Black Hills.

Overnight (and more to come). Biggest "official" snow reports so far:

• Custer - 8"
• Mt. Rushmore - 7"
• Johnson Siding - 5"
• Hill City - 4.5"

Look for increasing totals in the Northern/Central Hills between now and noon as snowfall has intensified in that area.
Meanwhile, summer snow blankets Denver.

Gonna be a long winter for the warmists.

It looks like the "climate change" we're getting is the climate we had in pre-industrial days. LOL.

Eighteen years and counting.

It will be interesting to see if the keynote speaker at the UN Conference on Climate Change (to which "no one" will be attending) mentions global warming, now that they call it "climate change." And if it's not "global warming," exactly what "climate change" are we talking about? Back to the Ice Ages? I can't make this stuff up.

Jobs And Joblessness -- September 11, 2014; CNBC Finally Starts Talking About The 800-Pound Gorilla

I got a late start, so I post the links and then come back to them later.

BusinessInsider is reporting: initial jobless claims rise to 315,000. Horrible. Expectations were for claims to total 300,000, down slightly from last week's 302,000.

The four-week moving average of claims rose slightly to 304,000. 

Ahead of the report, Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said he was "nervous that today’s claims report will show a clear jump from last week’s 302K, thanks to the difficulty of seasonally adjusting the data accurately in the week of the Labor Day holiday."

In other words: "fudging" or "massaging" or "manipulating" the data.

With these horrendous numbers it will make Janet Yellen's job that much more difficult: jobs, she says, are a bigger concern than inflation. [Later. About an hour after writing this entry, I came across this story: this chart is why Janet Yellen doesn't want to raise rates. How coincidental, or prescient.There is no graph at the present, but here is the narrative: Wages as a percent of GDP remain near multidecade lows, and until this trend shows any sign of improvement, Gundlach doesn't think that Yellen will want to do anything with interest rates.]

This certainly seems to suggest last week's overall unemployment numbers were very accurate -- the ones that no one could believe.

Finally, CNBC is talking directly about the 800-pound gorilla. An Obama mouthpiece, CNBC is reporting: it's all about ObamaCare. The soundbite that most analysts will take from this story: it's all about ObamaCare, and it's prominently mentioned in the article, albeit near the end of the article.

DeLong said his health-care premiums have surged by 48 percent during the past year. While DeLong doesn't have to offer health insurance to his employees, he always has, and wants to continue to do so. 

So, the Affordable Care Act was to make health care less expensive: health-care premiums have surged 48% (the number varies but all agree that health-care premiums have surged for those who had health care insurance in 2010). 

You may recall that some pundits have said ObamaCare is working out very, very well. They fail to mention that almost all of ObamaCare was delayed/put on hold by the President himself. Folks who should know fail to remind us of that. But this article does:

President Barack Obama's signature legislation requires all business owners with at least 100 or more full-time workers to offer them government-approved insurance by the end of the open enrollment period on Feb. 15, 2015-or face a fine of $2,000 per worker, per year.

Those with 50 to 99 workers have some reprieve, until 2016, as the law's requirements were pushed back an additional year thanks to criticism from the small business community. NFIB economist Dunkelberg says his group's polling has shown health-care costs are the top concern for small companies during the past 25 years.

He delayed his own program by executive order and his party did not object.

And then the minimum wage:

For Ken Jarosch, owner of family-owned Jarosch Bakery in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, a big concern is minimum wage. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn wants to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour from its current $8.25. Obama has led the push to hike the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour.

"That would increase our payroll by 5.5 percent, so I would have to raise my price by between 2 percent and 3 percent," Jarosch said. "My wait staff, sales clerks-they are high school kids. I can't see paying them more than $10 an hour right off the bat. I feel for those trying to raise families on $8.50 an hour, but we have to look at our interests."

Jarosch is also just below the full-time threshold for offering insurance to his workers, which is what is keeping him from creating new jobs.

I said that from the beginning: ObamaCare will limit hours for workers (29 hours is the threshold) and will limit number of employees small businesses will hire.

By the way, what color is the sky in the man's world? Yahoo!Finance is reporting:

That day [when the Fed raises interest rates] is coming as the U.S. economy, five years into its recovery, finally enjoys some robust job creation and seems to be on the cusp of real wage gains. As a result, the Fed is preparing to end its third iteration of bond-buying stimulus next month and is on track to raise rates sometime in early-to-mid 2015.

Projected Permits -- Calendar Year 2014 As Of September 10, 2014

As of September 10, 2014, and the two previous years:

Calendar year, 2014

• Permits to date: 2,028
• Projected permits for the year at this point: 2,926

Calendar year, 2013

• Permits as of September 10, 2013: 1,736
• Projected permits for the year at this point: 2,505 

Calendar year, 2012

• Permits as of September 10, 2012: 1,575
• Projected permits for the year at this point: 2,272 

See tags for previous projections.

*****************************

The Wall Street Journal

Captain America lays out the plan for the world's best military to join forces with the rest of the world to destroy ISIL. Apparently, the strongest military in the world "will rely on local forces in Iraq" to destroy ISIL, the same forces that have been so successful to date in holding back ISIL.

West Nile virus slams California; due in part to the severe drought. The risk, of course, is that West Nile virus could jeopardize building the bullet train, just as malaria jeopardized the Panama Canal. Well, maybe that's a stretch.

Looks like Syria used weapons of mass destruction (chlorine) .... we've seen this movie before.

The Ukraine president says that most Russian troops have been withdrawn from eastern Ukraine.

France lowered its growth forecast again and warned it will need more time to bring its public deficit in line with European Union rules. Oh, boy.

Several stories on Scotland going its own way; the vote is September 18, 2014.

Growth in the cost of health care coverage appears to be slowing; perhaps up only 3% this year, pushing the average annual premium for a family plan to just under $17,000. Well, that's good news.

Charles Munger defends Warren's recent deals.

The Los Angeles Times

Top story: Captain America vows to hunt ISIL militants "whever they exist." Except, of course, if they are coming through our southern border, along the Texas, Arizona, California borders. There his OPEN BORDERS policy takes priority, I suppose.

Time for Roger Goodell to be sacked. Like that will happen.