The Phillips/Energy Transfer Nederland to St. James project plans a
30-inch diameter pipeline that should be able to carry over 700 Mb/d of
light crude. That would be enough capacity to handle DAPL and ETCOP
barrels coming out of the Bakken as well as additional crude coming into
Nederland from the Permian and from Cushing via the TransCanada Cushing
Marketlink pipeline. But more importantly, the pipeline will offer
Bakken producers their first opportunity to ship crude direct from North
Dakota to refineries in the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast region
by pipeline. As such the new route should offer shippers lower freight
costs than existing rail alternatives. The result will likely be the
displacement of significant Bakken volumes being shipped to St. James
each day by rail.
This is a very important article. It will be archived at the source, by the source.
MDU Resources Group, Inc. and Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. today announced that the Dickinson, North Dakota-based Dakota
Prairie refinery, the first greenfield fuels refinery built in the
U.S. in nearly 40 years, has commenced operations. The facility
has begun producing diesel fuel and is expected to begin sales of
diesel as the plant ramps up during May.
The refinery is designed to process 20,000 barrels per day (bpd)
of locally sourced Bakken crude oil, resulting in a production
slate that includes up to 7,000 bpd of diesel fuel that will be
sold from the plant to regional, North Dakota-based customers.
Wasn't it just last week when MDU announced that they were hoping to have the plant opened up in the next couple of months or so ... it's amazing how fast things happen when earnings will be announced. MDU announces earnings after market close tonight. It will be interesting to see how much diesel will be produced this week -- now that the refinery is up and running.
The Chevrolet Volt is getting more electric-only miles, sleeker
styling and a whole suite of improvements -- yet Chevrolet is cutting
the price of its extended-range electric car by $1,175.
The price
cut speaks to the difficult time that automakers are having when it come
to selling fuel-conserving cars in a low gas-price environment. And
it's not the first time that Volt got a price cut. The original Volt,
not this all-new model, had its price reduced by $5,000 in August, 2013.
The new Volt is capable of being driven 50 miles on electricity alone,
some 31% better than the outgoing Volt. It also has a backup gas engine.
I assume the tax credits are good only for the original buyer, but I don't know.
It's pretty clear that without "going crazy", your house can easily draw 3kw of electricity; and yet, Tesla's 10kWh back-up battery has continuous output of only 2kw, and thus is inadequate to run even a medium-sized house, and would be completely dead in five hours anyway, with no capacity to run central air conditioning or charge an electric car.
(For a medium-sized house, a central air conditioner alone draws nearly 5kw.)
... a comparably priced 16kw natural gas-fired generator can run your entire house (including the air-conditioning) for as many hours as needed, at a cost of less than $2/hour (assuming 195 cubic feet/hour consumption at full draw and a New York State gas price of less than $10 per 1000 cubic feet of gas)?
By the way, another dot is connected. Why did this battery pack show up now?
... to find some use for millions of Panasonic cells that it has committed
to buy without being able to sell enough cars to utilize them ...
I don't know that much about Tesla batteries but this rings true. Regardless, the Tesla battery pack runs about $3,500 and SolarCity has an installation package that doubles the price.
This short video probably should be deleted and not posted, but it may be one of the few recordings of my 93-year-old dad talking about how these construction workers worked right through the winter this past year, whereas when he was growing up, construction workers often quit for the winter. The video is a few miles south of Williston, if I remember correctly.
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Cross-Country Trip
I try to get in two cross-country trips each year, generally one to California and back, and one or two to North Dakota and back.
I enjoy them all. Sometimes I'm by myself, sometimes I'm with my wife, and rarely (once) we go with the granddaughters. The trip with the granddaughters is always the most fun.
For whatever reason, this most recent trip back to Williston was one of the best I've had, possibly because a) I drove through Nebraska during the night, both directions; and, b) the weather was incredible, and the scenery spectacular, especially in Kansas.
Thinking about this, I wrote the following down why this particular trip seemed particularly nice -- all because I was driving by myself:
I could play the music I liked as loud as I liked
I could listen to all three hours of Rush Limbaugh (when I remembered, and when I found "his" station)
I could stop at McDonald's without anyone saying, "McDonald's? Not again!"
I could stop when and where I wanted; even if the rest stop looked "creepy," I could stop there
as soon as the car came to a stop, I was out the door, out of the car
I could read a book while driving
I could sleep at rest stops and not motels, and not feel guilty
4Q14: KOG deal with Whiting closes. Whiting owns KOG. KOG ticker symbol no longer for Kodiak Oil and Gas. 685,000 + 183,000 = 838,000 acres (MT and ND)
Some back-of-the-envelope calculations: I know that Whiting had a
non-core asset package that was all Bakken; how much more they had
elsewhere, I don't know, but my hunch is, based on the rest of the
transcript, most of that non-core asset package was in North Dakota. If
so, 838,000 acres minus 774,000 acres = 64,000 acres.
$108
million / 64,000 acres = $1,700 / acre. Possible? Maybe. I don't know.
Just thinking out loud. This is a WAG as they say; don't make any
financial or investment decisions based on this, or on anything you may
have read at the blog, or think you may have read at the blog. If this
is important to you, go to the source, and the source certainly is not
the Million Dollar Way.
This may be the most important transcript since the first couple of years of the Bakken boom. The CLR transcript, which will come soon, will be very interesting, but I think the Whiting, Oasis, and SM Energy transcripts will be the most important transcripts for 1Q15.
Some readers will argue that Denbury should be added to that list. That's fine. There's room for five on the list. (Yes, that means there is room for one more, unannounced as of yet).
From the transcript:
Our objective this year is to rig and run the company to prosper at $50
oil. Clearly, the first quarter shows we have some of the most
productive oil assets in the industry. With the reduction in well costs
we're currently experiencing, by the fourth quarter, we should be able
to maintain a strong production profile of approximately 160,000 BOEs to
162,000 BOEs a day on a quarterly spend of only $375 million. For 2016,
as our base decline rate flattens, we believe this translates into a
strong mid-single-digit growth profile on a $1.5 billion CapEx budget.
This should approximate our cash flow at current strip prices.
Our total net production reached a record 167,000 BOEs a day, a 3%
increase quarter-over-quarter. As you can see on slide four, 91% of our
total production in the first quarter came from our Rocky Mountain
region. At 133,500 BOEs a day, the Bakken Three Forks represents 80% of
our total production. We are a focused company.
As recently reported in several publications, Whiting has the top two
wells in the Williston Basin in terms of initial production rates. These
wells are located at our Tarpon field in McKenzie County, North Dakota.
The Flatland Federal 11-4TFH well produced at an initial rate of 7,800
boepd during a 24-hour test of the Three Forks formation, making
this the very best well in the basin. The Flatland Federal 11-4HR well
produced at an initial rate of 7,100 boepd during a 24-hour test
of the Middle Bakken formation.
With our plays in the Williston Basin we control 774,000
net acres. We have over 7,500 future gross drilling locations in the
Bakken and Three Forks. We control the sweet spots in the Central,
Eastern and Southern Williston Basin where typical wells have cumulative
production in the first 90 days of more than 50,000 boe.
Go to the linked transcript for much more information.
First Solar Inc. FSLR
reported adjusted first-quarter 2015 loss of 62 cents a share, much
wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 29 cents. In the
prior-year quarter, FirstSolar had generated earnings of $1.89 per
share. The downslide is attributed to a plunge in revenues.
The largest solar-panel manufacturer of the nation reported its first
quarterly loss in years as it planned to form a YieldCo with fellow
solar company, SunPower Corp. SPWR. Moreover, delays in multiple
projects under construction, a higher proportion of modules and the sale
of the SolarGen 2 project in the prior quarter led to disappointing
results.
Later, 9:19 p.m. CT:to add to the story below, the new link --
Children from 20 foreign countries and all 50 states have enrolled in Watford City's Elementary School in the past three years.
It would be interesting to know if any other elementary school in the US can beat that. I know in NYC there are a lot of folks from foreign countries, but I doubt if workers from all 50 states have moved to NYC for work.
Later, 9:10 p.m. CT: to add to the story below, two points:
apparently Watford City has the second largest elementary school in the state; and,
Watford City will go to Class A high school competition in 2017-2018 school year, right up there with Dickinson and Williston and Minot and ...
Original Post
Don tells me there was an interesting story on this evening's new in the Dickinson area, a story of the "schools without borders" in the Watford City area. That story is now on the net at this link.
Here is a fairly recent article that tells the story in Watford City with regard to schools. As the slump in oil prices continue, I assume oil companies will continue to circle the wagons, keeping Williston and Watford City relatively busy while other western North Dakota cities take the brunt of the slowdown.
One of the metrics that will be interesting to follow will be public school enrollment in western North Dakota in the fall of 2016, not this coming school year, but the school year that begins in the autumn of 2016.
WATFORD CITY, N.D. (AP) — Every morning as principal Brad Foss arrives at his school — after just a 60-second commute — he's reminded of oil's giant footprint in this town.
There's the revolving-door student roster that reads like random pages of a school atlas: Jiang from China, Emma from Utah, Jose from Guatemala, Omar from Arizona.
There are the teachers, many of them transplants, including a dedicated Kurdish refugee who's helping dozens of students learn English, a job that would never have existed until now.
And there are rows of white trailers, temporary homes for several teachers — and for Foss, who's just a minute's walk from his office.
Like the rest of this town, Watford Elementary School has been transformed by the oil boom.
Families with young kids are constantly moving in, undeterred by the recent plunge in oil prices. The 700-plus enrollment is more than double that of 2011.
Many newcomers are the offspring of riggers, welders, truck drivers, engineers and others lured from across America — and around the world — by the prospect of good jobs.
Their arrival has brought diversity to a school that until recently had virtually none.
"We have a world community within our own little school," boasts Foss. "The kids here can bring the globe to life, and that's kind of cool."
Much more at the link.
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Highway 85, Going South Toward Alexander
South Of The Lewis and Clark Bridge
Video taken April 28, 2015
I do not know what that large enclosed, circular structure is being used for that we passed at 44 seconds into the video.
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Tweeting Now
For The Archives
Baltimore:
black mayor
black police commissioner
black deputy police commissioner
half of police department is black
black city council president
10 out of 15 city council members are black
63% of the city is black
87% of the city voted for Barack Obama
hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1967
Tell us again how Baltimore is a "white Republican" problem.
