Small outfit in the Appalachian Basin - Eclipse Resources - just drilled the longest lateral at 20,800 feet, named Mercury well.
ECR now has about half dozen wells 19,000 foot plus lateral length, targeting condensate rich area of Utica.
Drilling is generally one run, spud to TD in 16 or 17 days time.
Extraordinarily economic approach.
Virtually
all Appalachian operators are trying for 15,000 foot laterals as the
gas flowing for the following decades will be extremely inexpensive to
produce.
These operational procedures will continue to spread to the Bakken and other 'shale' plays as refinements continue to manifest.
For a short period of time early in the boom, and in some cases still today, Bakken operators drilled some short laterals, slightly less than a mile in length. Now, the "standard" length for a Bakken lateral is a bit less than two miles long. A few folks are suggesting that we will start to see laterals 3 x 4,500 feet or 13,500 feet long. A 20,000-ft lateral in North Dakota will be the length of four sections.
Yup. Deep doo-doo for Saudi Arabia. My re-balancing calculations suggest the market will be over-supplied for at least 44 more weeks. Previously posted.
Before
Thursday, I’d hoped Franken would run for president in 2020. A hugely
gifted communicator with entertainment chops, he seemed well suited to
take on Donald Trump, assuming the demagogic showman seeks re-election. A
decade ago, when Franken first considered running for Senate, I spent a
few days trailing him around Minnesota and found him serious, earnest
and decent. As a lawmaker he’s been — in what now seems an awful irony —
great on issues of sexual assault. He was behind one measure that made
it easier for people who are sexually victimized while working for
defense contractors to find justice and another ensuring that survivors don’t have to pay for their own rape kits. He hired feminist women, including Stephanie Schriock, who managed his 2008 campaign and is now president of Emily’s List.
Sure,
Franken made plenty of sexist jokes when he was with “Saturday Night
Live,” but I thought he was one of the good guys. (I thought there were
good guys.)
Then I saw the photo. On Thursday morning, Leeann Tweeden, a former
model and radio news anchor in Los Angeles, accused Franken of harassing
her during a 2006 U.S.O. tour to entertain American troops abroad. She
wrote that he talked her into doing a sketch in which he “mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.”This
story alone might not have gotten Franken in much trouble — even if
Tweeden had been able to get people to believe her, Franken could have
explained it away as acting. But there’s a disgusting, indelible
photograph from the cargo plane that took them home from Afghanistan. In
it, Tweeden has fallen asleep in her flak jacket, and Franken, grinning
at the camera, appears to grope her breasts. The picture was included
on a commemorative CD sent to participants by the trip photographer.
Tweeden
wrote that when she saw it: “I felt violated all over again.
Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated.” No wonder; the picture is utterly
dehumanizing.
Soon
after the news broke, Franken issued a terse apology, saying the photo
“was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”
I read that and thought: You have to resign now. But then Franken put
out another, better statement, saying he felt disgusted by his former
self: “It’s obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And,
what’s more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated
by it.”
He asked for an ethics investigation into his conduct and for the
opportunity to make things up to his female supporters. I found this
persuasive and would like to see Franken redeem himself, but I still
don’t think he can.
Asking for an ethics investigation? He's making a mockery of the system. He knows that an ethics investigation will last months, if not years; the outcome will be kept secret; and, two years for now, voters (and the press) will forget all about it.
Fantasizing about raping Leslie Stahl? And that's just the tip of the Minnesota iceberg, it appears.
The 600-lb US Senate gorilla: Al Franken. I was dead wrong on this. I thought the story had no legs; darling of mainstream media. We will know by Monday if his fall is as fast as that of Harvey's. If there are no Al Franken stories on front page of NY Times after Tuesday, November 21, 2017, it's a dead story. He was overwhelmingly re-elected to his second term in 2014, so he has lots of time to recover. But the photograph is a real downer. Interestingly enough, the harassed and traumatized actress has already accepted his apology, which sort of ends the story, one would think. I'm okay, you're okay, comes to mind. Or que sera, sera.
Que Sera, Sera, Doris Day
Rocket man: not a peep out of North Korea in quite some time now. China, others, want to reward North Korea for good behavior; Trump says "no way."
MAD: US has less than 15 minutes to respond to nuclear attack. Some in Congress want to extend decision for a nuclear response to a nuclear attack on the US to a year or so through congressional oversight. Of course, if there is a nuclear attack on the US, the entire DC political process shuts down while members evacuate to an undisclosed location.
Just say no. US House approves its version of tax bill. First GOP senator has said he will vote "no" on US Senate version; others yet to weigh in but one can expect no less than three more GOP senators to say "no." Those saying "no" can be "bought." I'm posting this for the archives; I've lost interest in the bill. I agree with those who say the various versions appear simply to be replacing old loopholes with new loopholes; and, throwing a bone to the middle class. I strongly believe that tax cuts for US corporations will be good news for the US but the average "man on the street" won't see any change. And even though corporate tax cuts are good for the US, is it that much "good news" compared to other problems/solutions? I'm not convinced the tax code is the biggest problem for the Fortune 500 companies.
Former GE CEO Immelt: unaware that a second corporate jet was flying as back-up whenever he flew. Says he stopped the practice as soon as he learned about it. Really?
November 17, 2017: see first comment about current production milestones, records.
Original Post
Two wells coming off confidential list today:
32977, SI/NC, BR, Dodge 3B MBH, Dimmick Lake, no production data,
29090, SI/NC, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-23C-14-6H, no production data,
**********************************************
Story Of The Day
Artificial lift: this story deserves a stand-alone post of its own; will get around to it later. From Rigzone.For newbies, one can look at three-legged stool regarding quality/success of a well:
location
location
location.
Okay, just kidding. Here are the three "technology" pieces
drilling
completing (fracking, e.g.)
lift (pump)
Rigzone looks at artificial lift. From industry expert spokesman:
Most often, lifting liquids from the well allows the gas to flow using
its own energy, but today some methods can also aid in lifting the gas.
Often 50 percent of the resource is left to be extracted after the
high-rate initial flow period,” Scott said. “Companies that win in
unconventionals are the companies that get artificial lift right. I like
to use the term ‘artificial lift first
**************************************** Second Story Of The Day
For the eighth consecutive
month, oil production in North Dakota hovered over the 1 million barrel
per day mark, and incrementally climbed its way back to another
milestone.
September
production was 1.107 million barrels per day, up from August’s 1.089
million. It is the first time since March 2016 that North Dakota oil
production exceeded 1.1 million.
That, and the production of natural gas:
These production numbers put state revenues at 17 percent above forecasts, despite prices being a little lower than forecast.
“We
are still 2 percent low on that,” Department of MIneral Resources
Director Lynn Helms said. “If we project that through the biennium,
production numbers will make up for it, but we are still lagging in
terms of prices on revenue forecast.”
What's going on in the Bakken?
Longer
lateral lines are part of what’s driving increased production, along
with more sand and larger, slickwater hydraulic fracturing techniques.
“One
place that’s a standout is what Liberty is doing in northern Mountrail
and southern Burke Counties,” Helms said. “I took a look at some of
those extended lateral wells that are producing 2.5 to 3 times the
initial production rate of the 2-mile laterals that were previously
drilled in that area. That’s pretty encouraging, and it’s already
affecting Mountrail numbers.”
Burke County numbers aren’t showing an effect yet, since some of the wells production statistics are still confidential.
These improvements are keeping the Bakken in the No. 1 and 2 place in terms of production per rig.
One reason why there is so much activity in the Permian vs the Bakken right now:
“We still have to compete with the fact that there’s a
lot of leasehold to procure in the Permian and the Anadarko, but once
those basins reach a similar level of maturity, you’d expect companies
to bring their capital back here, where they make more money for every
dollar invested.”
Long laterals:
more of them, mostly in non-core areas
NDIC has re-spaced some 1280-acre units to 1920-acre units to accomodate the need for longer laterals
only three wells meeting these new parameters are presently producing
a bump should occur when more of these long-lateral wells come on line
when looking at month-over-month production increases
of almost 20,000 barrels, that represents about one-sixth, one-seventh
of that increase; a significant increase
example: once Slawson is able to complete some of these in Van
Hook, it looks like that one pad all by itself could potentially breach
20,000 barrels per day
Flaring problem? a one-time maintenance problem that has been fixed
*************************************
WTI
WTI: up almost 1% in past 24 hours? Why? Was it the closure of the northern leg of the Keystone pipeline, major source of heavy oil; US refineries optimized for heavy oil. Concerns that crude oil imports of heavy oil from Venezuela could fall? Or was it Harold Hamm's comments (see below). I don't know -- it will be interesting to watch price of oil for next few days as Keystone / Venezuela stories continue to unfold.
Amherst, SD, about 10 miles south of North Dakota state line in northeastern South Dakota
population unknown
Amherst is an unincorporated community in Marshall County, South Dakota, United States. Although not tracked by the Census Bureau, Amherst has been assigned the ZIP code of 57421
spill:
5,000 bbl (or 210,000 gallons as reported by most mainstream media outlets)
contained at site
cause: unknown
implications:
Nebraska regulators to release their decision on Keystone expansion on Monday, four days from now
Nebraska regulators not allowed to use spill as factor in their decision since TransCanada has already obtained an approved environmental impact statement
northern leg of system shut down (from Hardisty, Alberta, to Cushing, OK) and to Wood River and Patoka in Illinois
southern leg remains open
main economic concern for Canada: Canadian heavy crude differentials for DECEMBER delivery in Hardisty have widened to $14.65 per bbl below US crude from a discount of around $14.20/bbl the previous day
for January (2018) delivery: widened to $15.50 below US crude
for newbies: breakeven price for Canadian crude has always been significantly higher than US shale
Canadian sell-off could worsen if pipeline is shut down for extended period of time
for US refiners: possibly a double whammy if Venezuela delivers less heavy crude oil to the states
*******************************************
Other News
TSLA: shares could surge in an "up" market with news last night of a) truck; b) roadster
