COP Announces Dividend Unchanged Despite Spin-Off of PSX

Link here.

ConocoPhillips announced a quarterly dividend of 66 cents per share, payable June 1, 2012, to stockholders of record at the close of business on May 21, 2012.

This dividend is unchanged from previous quarters, and it comes after COP has spun off PSX.

EOG: First CBR Bakken Oil to St James, Louisiana Terminal -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here.

EOG Resources said on Wednesday it received  its first crude from the Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota at  the St. James, Louisiana terminal on April 15.

The terminal will have capacity to handle 50,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) of crude in June and 70,000 bpd by year end, the company said in its first-quarter earnings call. 

From the conference call:

I'll now address 2 other EOG key differentiators: Crude-by-rail and sand plants. Our St. James crude-by-rail facility received its first Bakken crude oil shipment on April 15, allowing us to begin capturing the current $15 Bakken in LLS price uplift. We now have the capability to move our Bakken, Eagle Ford and Wolfcamp crude to either Cushing or St. James.

Based on current differentials, the best NPV for our rail tanker fleet is to move our EOG Bakken oil to St. James and sell our Eagle Ford in the Houston and Corpus Christi markets. We expect our St. James facility to handle 50,000 barrels a day by June, increasing to 70,000 barrels a day by year end. We've provided guidance on our U.S. oil differentials relative to WTI for the second quarter in yesterday's press release.

For those modeling this net back benefit, remember that May will be a debugging month while we iron out the startup kinks, though likely to facility will run at intermittent capacity. We will not have the St. James facility fully operational for the entire second quarter, and not all of EOG's oil production will be sold to St. James. As market conditions and differentials change, we have great flexibility and can rapidly revise where we sell our production and how we get our production to market.

Pipeline Activity in the Oil Patch -- Current Trends -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Link here to an absolutely excellent article. Simply one of the best articles this week (year?).

In the winter of 2012 a mostly snowless and relatively warm Bakken Shale play in northwest North Dakota was trucking about 70% of its oil supplies in the gathering and processing phase as production continued at an all-time record clip averaging 546,000 bpd in January. New midstream infrastructure construction was limited to intrastate shipments within an under-developed gathering and processing system.

In various ways this scenario is being repeated in many of the shale plays as production of oil, natural gas liquids and gas continues to outpace the development of midstream infrastructure. As a result, many of the exploration and production (E&P) operators are increasingly getting involved in takeaway infrastructure.

“I think there is a trend, although you will probably get different philosophies on the subject,” said David Lundberg, a New York City-based analyst with Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P). “It is particularly evident in certain shale plays where the infrastructure is not well built out, such as the Bakken.” 

The data points are endless in this long (4-page) article. 

Federal Fracking Rules Will Hurt Development in the Reservation -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

BLM fracking rules will hurt development in the reservation -- link here.

Eleven (11) New Permits -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

Daily activity report, May 9, 2012 --

Operators: MRO (3), BR (2),  OXY (2), BEXP (2), Triangle, Hess
Fields: Big Bend (Mountrail), Sand Creek (McKenzie), Bull Butte (Williams), Alger (Mountrail), Cabernet (Dunn), South Tobacco Garden (McKenzie)

MRO has a wildcat for a well in McLean County.

Hunt oil cancels #22502, Bear Butte 1-2-11H, McKenzie County.

Three (3) wells were released from "tight hole" status:

• 19476, DRL, ERF, Buffalo Run 5-24H, Dunn
• 21587, DRL, Hess, EN-Binger 157-94-1201H-1, Mountrail
• 22502, PNC, Hunt, Bear Butte 1-2-11H, McKenzie

Samson is changing the name of two wells suggesting new target:

• 21363, loc, Samson Resources, Biscayne ...04TFH (was ...99H)
• 22809, loc, Samson Resources, Baja ...04TFH (was 99H)