Huge Activity In Reunion Bay -- December 11, 2018

For newbies: these are incredible wells. There are scores (maybe, hundreds) of Bakken wells drilled before 2012 that have not yet produced 50,000 bbls of oil -- after eight years of production. The three Behr wells below each produced 50,000 bbls of oil in the first 35 days or so of production, some in less than 30 days. Two of them produced almost 100,000 bbls in the first two months of production.

You will also be surprised at the relatively low amount of proppant used. Frack data will be posted later.

Meanwhile, the Alfred Old Dog wells have been added to the list of wells that will need to be followed up.

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The Post

All nine of the Alfred Old Dog wells are off line; they have been off line for the past two months. These are huge wells and would not have come off line had there not been some neighboring activity.

So, let's look at the Alfred Old Dog area.

The graphic:

The new wells to the east:

• 30827, 1,740, WPX, Behr 19-18HT, Reunion Bay, Three Forks B1, t7/18; cum 115K 10/18:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	10-2018	31	30625	30533	26641	38741	31595	3714
BAKKEN	9-2018	30	29482	29375	30696	37293	27420	6566
BAKKEN	8-2018	25	20837	20862	25629	26359	18988	5020
BAKKEN	7-2018	31	33593	33474	32297	42495	6217	32684
BAKKEN	6-2018	12	0	0	1	0	0	0

• 30824, 2,649, WPX, Behr 19-18HI, Reunion Bay, middle Bakken well, t7/18; cum 147K 10/18 (note: the legal name, "HI," not "H1").

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	10-2018	25	14110	14187	9823	16000	7957	6414
BAKKEN	9-2018	30	31197	31184	12670	35378	17823	14064
BAKKEN	8-2018	31	43951	43958	17781	49840	28140	16840
BAKKEN	7-2018	31	57971	57765	38776	65740	10089	49448
BAKKEN	6-2018	12	0	0	1	0	0	0

• 31859, 2,776, WPX, Behr 19-18HUL, Reunion Bay, Three Forks B1, t7/18; cum 157K 10/18;

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	10-2018	22	24106	24027	18572	24974	20150	2141
BAKKEN	9-2018	30	32284	32275	27819	33446	27532	2310
BAKKEN	8-2018	31	45198	45259	42606	46825	26805	15026
BAKKEN	7-2018	31	55349	55212	67084	57341	1018	50401

Noble Energy Partners Has Purchased Working Interests In One Bakken Drilling Unit -- Press Release -- December 11, 2018

I am, either:

• ahead of my headlights; or, 
• showing my ignorance.

First the press release from a reader:

Noble Energy Partners has purchased working interests and overriding royalty interests in 13 Bakken and 2 Eagle Ford Shale horizontal wells and affiliated pipeline infrastructure. 

The thirteen Bakken wells are located in Mountrail County, North Dakota and are operated by EOG Resources. The 13 wells have a combined average daily production of 1,719 BOPD and 2,110 MCFD, across 1280 acres with an average depth of 20,000 feet.  

First some "safe" comments.

It's somewhat amazing this story made the news -- obviously the company can send out a press release but it doesn't mean anyone will see it. But in this case, the press release was seen.

Why is it amazing? At least to me? We are talking about one drilling unit in the Bakken: "across 1280 acres." Twelve-hundred-eighty acres is now the standard for drilling units in the Bakken.  So, NEP invested in one drilling unit?

The press release said the company has working interests and overriding royalty interests in the 13 wells in the Bakken but does not suggest they will be an operator.

Their website suggests that NEP focus is on  investing in niche sectors in midstream and upstream oil and natural gas pipelines.

Pipelines.

I was going to write more, but my editor suggests I hold off. We'll leave it at this for now.

I think the story speaks volumes. I'll leave it at that.

The Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+36 -- December 11, 2018 -- The "Bees" Take Control

Updates

December 21, 2018: they are reading the blog. The "three Bees take control."

Original Post

Beto is the man. Beto is the machine. Over at NBC News. MoveOn.org poll:

• Beto: 15.6%
• Biden: 14.9%
• Bernie: 13.1%

I can all but guarantee Beto won't play second fiddle to either Biden or Bernie. Or Hillary. Speaking of the pelagic politician, she was nowhere to be found on the list which follows:

The three men were followed by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who garnered 10 percent support, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., with 6.4 percent. Meanwhile, Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg were each selected by about 3 percent of members.

But this is buried at the bottom: most popular, you ask? 

"Someone else / don't know / other": 28.8%. 

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Wouldn't All That Money 

Be Better Spent On PREPARING For Global Warming?

From spglobal:  

A winter storm across the lower Atlantic that dumped nearly three feet of snow in some areas of the Carolinas caused widespread power outages, but the impact on other commodities was limited.

Natural gas demand for home heating spiked amid below-normal temperatures. However, that demand lift was partially offset by lower pull for power generation, with load down almost 10% from forecasted levels.

Saturday and Sunday's average real-time on-peak prices for the Dominion Hub were higher than last Saturday and Sunday's comparable numbers -- by about $1 and about $8, respectively, to around $40/MWh.

The County "Saves" Williston's DMV Branch -- December 11, 2018

Williams County to take over operations at Williston's branch of the DMV. Link here. The bigger story seems to be why the state decided to shut down the Williston branch. Be that as it may, the county stepped in to do the right thing.

Current Export Wave Could Become A Tsunami -- RBN Energy -- December 11, 2018

Factoid: China imports every day the equivalent of the entire production of the US. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Russia. In round numbers, China imports 11 million bopd. The US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia each produce about 11 million bopd. Now this: China's crude oil imports jump to record high in November, 2018.

Chinese crude oil imports surged to an all-time high of 10.43 million bpd (barrels per day) last month, up by 8.5 percent compared to November 2017 and beating the previous record of 9.61 million bpd, which was set just a month earlier and was driven by smaller independent refiners who were rushing to fulfill their 2018 oil import quotas before they expire. 

As recently as 2002, China was consuming less than 5 million bopd.

Mexico: to build a new refinery --

Mexico plans to start awarding the construction of its seventh refinery as soon as March 2019, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Sunday at an event at the Dos Bocas port in Tabasco, even as the nation´s refining system is operating at its lowest levels in three decades.

Unveiling a plan for the nation’s refining system, Lopez Obrador said Mexico will invest $8 billion in the new processing facility at Dos Bocas.

Mexico’s oil production, on track for its 14th consecutive yearly decline, will rise "realistically" to 2.4 million barrels a day by 2024.

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Back to the Bakken

Only one well coming off confidential list today -- Tuesday, December 11, 2018:

• 33892, SI/NC, Hess, SC-5WX-152-99-0310H-3, Banks, no production data, the SC-5WX wells are tracked here;

Active rigs:

$51.61	12/11/2018	12/11/2017	12/11/2016	12/11/2015	12/11/2014
Active Rigs	64	52	40	65	186

RBN Energy: reverse-lightering crude oil supertankers along the Gulf Coast.

There’s a reason why more than half a dozen midstream companies and joint ventures are clamoring to build deepwater loading terminals on the Gulf of Mexico: because it’s a major pain to load Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) any other way. These days, the standard operating procedure for loading the vast majority of VLCCs along the Gulf Coast involves a complex, time-consuming and costly process of ship-to-ship transfers called reverse-lightering, in which smaller tankers ferry out and transfer crude to VLCCs in specified lightering areas off the coast. Today, we ponder the current dynamics for U.S. crude exports via VLCC. 

Even before the 40-year prohibition on most crude oil exports from the U.S. was lifted in December 2015, we were blogging about how an end to the export ban would help shape the landscape for U.S. crude production. In the past three years, the growth in export volumes has been stunning — from 590 Mb/d in 2016, on average, to 1.1 MMb/d last year and 1.9 MMb/d through October in 2018.

As the market looks to the immediate future, projections for rising crude production from the prolific Permian, Eagle Ford and SCOOP/STACK shale plays suggest that the export wave could soon look more like a tsunami, especially after a few new crude pipelines come online.