Nine (9) New Permits -- 1/4 Wells Off Tight Hole Status Fracked -- MRO Reports Two Very Nice Wells -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Daily activity report, October 14, 2011 --

Operators: CLR (2), Petro-Hunt (2), Sequel (2), G3 Operating, Fram Operating, and Oasis.

Fields: Jim Creek, Union Center, Rainbow, Charlson, and Temple.

Sequel has permits for a 2-well pad.

G3, Fram, and Oasis, all have a permit for a wildcat in Williams, Renville, and Williams County respectively.

Only one of four holes released from "tight" status was completed and reported an IP:

• 19320, 881, Whiting, Brehm 21-4H, Mountrail County.

However there were two producing wells that were completed:

• 19667, 902, MRO, Buffalo 34-12H, Dunn
• 20529, 1,523, MRO, Randi USA 41-17H, Mountrail

I remember when it was said elsewhere (and it was true) that MRO never had any good wells, or at least none with IPs greater than 350 or so. That's probably been about two years, and this past year MRO has had some great wells, including these two, based on IPs.

No wells came off the confidential list today but eleven (11) more wells were reported as "plugged or producing" and you know that "all" Bakken wells are producers.

A company unfamiliar to me took over operation of a couple of Petro Harvester wells. Open Range Inc will take over operation of (both near the Canadian border; near Columbus, ND; both originally Sagebrush Resources wells, and both Madison wells:

• 18899, 1, Busch 2-5, spudded in 4/10, and has a cumulative of 22 bbls 18902, 2, Busch 10-5, spudded in 5/10; and has a cumulative of 401 bbls

Two comments:

• I doubt if the IPs of these two wells were inflated; and,
• This is further proof that an IP of 5,000 is preferable to an IP of 1.

I remember when I first started this blog more than two years ago: the big argument was the validity of IPs and if they meant anything. Wow, we've come a long way.

Open Range is new to North Dakota. They now operate a total of four (4) wells all up in Portal field. Two of them are on the confidential list.

Dismantling The Obama Health Care Plan One Piece At A Time -- Absolutely Nothing To Do With The Bakken

Just so you all know, before I start: I support the intent of the Obama health care plan, and support much of the individual pieces of the program. I don't know the details of most of the plan so it's inappropriate for me to comment on those pieces. Of course, by their own admission, most of those who voted for it at the time, had not read it either, but that's another story.

But even before the bill is adjudicated (would that be the right word?) in court, the administration is starting to, as the story says below, "pull the plug" on certain parts of it.

The Obama administration Friday pulled the plug on a major program in the president's signature health overhaul law - a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency.

Targeted by congressional Republicans for repeal, the long-term care plan became the first casualty in the political and policy wars over the health care law. The program had been expected to launch in 2013.

My understanding is that this was not entirely partisan as the writer would suggest.

Committee Formed to Address Issue of Homeless on Main Street -- Not Yet -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

These are the three stories on the front page of today's Williston Herald.

First, this may be my favorite of the three: the landlady who raised the rent from $700 to $2,00 on senior citizens says she "felt sick when she raised the rent, and feels sicker now."

Then these two articles should have been printed side-by-side but due to spacing one was printed above the other: "Planning and Zoning Committee votes against a 450-bed man-camp" that would have been built north of the city.

The companion article: "Committee formed to address campers in city." The sidebar includes this quote: "We're starting to see a campground mentality."

That was predicted just a few weeks ago. It's not worth looking for the link right now.

If the natural progression plays itself out, one can expect we will soon see the following headline: "Committee formed to address the homeless camped out on Main Street." 

Remember tent cities in Williston? Look where this article appeared -- AthleticBusiness.com. Darin Krueger says he was brought up “like any North Dakota kid.”

“I was taught that if people need help, you do what you can to try to take care of them,” says Krueger, the director of the Williston, N.D., parks and recreation department. That was the thinking that drove Krueger and his colleagues to officially allow a small group of men to live in tents on a portion of Williston’s main outdoor recreation complex. The accommodation became temporary, after it “kind of blew up on us,” Krueger says.

Shortly before this article was published in Athletic Business.com, the tent cities were banned in the city's parks.

This is interesting. This is the Canadian experience, from the same link:

In December 2009, a British Columbia appellate court upheld a lower court’s ruling that a ban on tent cities in public parks violated a person’s constitutional right to security, if there is not adequate shelter space available. The ruling stemmed from a 2005 lawsuit that resulted when the city of Victoria shut down a tent city that had as many as 70 residents at one of its parks.

There are options which I have alluded to before but some things are left best unsaid.

I first blogged about the housing problem more than a year ago, April 21, 2010, following a New York Times article highlighting the problem. It is not as if the current situation was unpredictable. Obviously if the New York Times was writing about it in April, it must have been known locally as early as January 2010. In just two months, it will have been two full years and the county is denying man-camps and wondering what to do about RVs on residential streets.

I know the study regarding campers on residential streets won't include the issue of residents parking their pickup trucks on sidewalks but that issue also needs to be addressed, along with motorboats, trailers, and recreational vehicles. If someone cannot use the sidewalk and takes the street instead (especially someone in a wheelchair or pushing a stroller) and gets hit by a passing motorist, I'm not sure where the liabilty rests, but my hunch is that a good lawyer would. In Boston, the owner of the house is held liable if an injury occurs on the snow-covered sidewalk in front of the house. Boston requires that walks be cleared of snow by the owner -- the ordinance was first put into effect in 1976.

Fantastic Friday: Huge Stories Today -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

As regular readers know, I post up to a dozen new stand-alone posts every day and update several other previous posts (as long as I am not traveling).

Earlier this morning I posted a reply to the comment I received some time ago from "anonymous" that North Dakota had only wheat and oil, and needed to have a more diverse economy if it was going to survive economically.

So I replied. In the course of that reply, I learned that the United States Air Force has stationed a number of Global Hawk aircraft at Grand Forks AFB. That is absolutely incredible. The aircraft arrived just last month, and are without question, one of the huge success stories of the 21st century. (I guess the first Global Hawk arrived in June, 2011, but the new models arrived last month.)

The idea for an unmanned surveillance aircraft of this type was but a twinkle in someone's eye when I was in my 20th year or so in the Air Force, and stationed at Langley AFB, Virginia, where Air Combat Command was the "sponsor" for the new technology. I was part of the mission that oversaw development of the Global Hawk, although I had absolutely no direct involvment. And then I moved on, and sort of forgot about it.

I started reading about the "US drone assassinations of US citizens" recently and still didn't remember the Global Hawk but then today, a writer let me know.

So, as I started out earlier today, saying that there were going to be some fantastic stories posted today, little did I know how exciting some of them were to become.

A huge "thank you" to my readers in general, and to "anonymous" in particular, for pointing out that the missions of the Minot and Grand Forks air bases had changed.

With regard to Minot AFB, it still does have the B-52H and the intercontinental ballistic missiles (unless the Minot AFB website is out of date -- highly unlikely). Aha -- the Air Force has not changed as much as I was led to believe. In fact, now that I am rambling, I remember how excited some local Minot folks were when the USAF announced that it would be bringing in another squadron of B-52's. The 69th Bomb Squadron was reactivated at Minot AFB on September 3, 2009.

Yeah, I would say that North Dakota still has a pretty diverse economy: grain, oil, coal, ranching, Air Force, universities, tourism, railroad, and whatever else I noted earlier this morning at the link above.

Oh, one last thing: the B-52 has outlived any number of other weapon systems, and has adapted from a high-altitude bomber (that's where the "strato" in Stratofortress comes from) into a low-level stand-off bomber. I was lucky enough to have my first (and only flight) in the B-52 in about 1982 (I forget the exact year, but I think it was 1982. It was already 30 years old then, its maiden flight taken in 1952 following the signing of a contract to have them built in 1946. 1952 - 2012 will be 60 years old. Hmmm.

The Three Best Oil Fields in the Bakken -- Mike Filloon -- SeekingAlpha.com

Mike has posted the third in a series on the three best fields in the Bakken.

Three fields have dominated with respect to oil production in North Dakota. These three fields are also controlled by three separate oil producers. The three fields and the top acreage holders in those fields are:

• Alger Field-Brigham (BEXP)
• Sanish Field-Whiting (WLL)
• Parshall Field-EOG Resources (EOG)