Week 49: December 2, 2012 -- December 8, 2012

Note: I have a busy Saturday scheduled with the granddaughters tomorrow; blogging may be compromised.

Bakken operations
It's official: a trillion-barrel reservoir
1.5 million bbl-EURs
Filloon: 1.5 million bbl-EURs
CLR successfully completes first TF3 well
On track for 2,575 new oil and gas permits for calendar year 2012 
Random note on times to drilling to total depth
Active rigs hit intra-boom low: 181
OXY USA has a gusher
CO2 - EOR - Bakken, being studied
Helis reports another huge well

Other formations
Red River
Three oil formations folks may not have heard of

Takeaway
Enbridge: $6.2 billion announcement -- huge
Enbridge: $3.4 billion announcement
First Bakken oil unit train reaches BP's Cherry Point refinery, Washington State
BNSF vs ONEOK
North Dakota oil and rail: National Geographic
Human interest: BNSF in North Dakota

Economic development
Williston's building permits, >$405 million; exceeds those of Fargo AND Minot combined

Photographs
Vern Whitten

Millionaires
634 in 2011; 532 in 2010 (North Dakota)

The Washington Post Will Pay All 2013 Dividends To Beat the ObamaCliff

Link to AP News.

The Washington Post Co. will pay its 2013 dividends before the end of this year to try to spare investors from anticipated tax increases.

The media and education company said Friday that its dividend of $9.80 per share is payable Dec. 27 to shareholders of record as of Dec. 17. The payout is instead of regular quarterly dividends next year.

Washington Post is the latest company to move up its quarterly payout or issue a special end-of-year payment to protect investors from potentially having to pay higher taxes on dividend income starting in January.

The list of companies paying dividends early continues to get longer and longer. I first started investing in 1984. I don't recall anything like this in all those years.

A lot of folks are going to get some nice cash dividends for Christmas, 2012. Very, very interesting. 

Unintended consequences.

BP Starts Building Biggest Commercial Computer -- Rigzone

Link to Rigzone.com.

Years ago I followed the dramatic increase in commercial computing power, tracking the "race" between the US and Japan. I pretty much forgot all about that race until this story.

BP has begun building a new supercomputing complex for commercial research that it claims will be the biggest in the world at its Westlake Campus in Houston, the company reported Friday.

The project is designed to keep BP at the forefront of seismic imaging technology and, the firm said, will be a critical tool in its global hunt for oil and natural gas in coming years.

BP's existing HPC center was the world's first commercial research center to achieve a petaFLOP of processing speed (or one thousand trillion calculations per second). But the company said that this has now reached maximum power and cooling capacity in its current space at the Westlake Campus.

The new center will be housed in a three-story, 110,000-square foot facility. Equipped with more than 67,000 CPUs, it is expected to have the ability to process data at a rate of up to two petaFLOPS.

Currently, the world's fastest supercomputer is the non-commercial Cray Titan – which is used for scientific projects at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and was built with funding from the US Department of Energy. The Titan has a processing speed of 17.59 petaFLOPS.

One almost wonders what the US intelligence community computers can do.

Eco-Trade Acquires Acreage in South Bakken Prospect in Montana (Alberta Bakken)

Link here to Rigzone.com.

Eco-Trade Corp. announced Friday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the South Bakken Prospect in Montana.

Eco-Trade Corporation ... Lewis & Clark County in Montana, near Great Falls totaling over 5,800 acres called the South Bakken Prospect. The property is located in the southern part of the Alberta Bakken Fairway, and may hold an estimated reserve potential of between 80 to 120 millions of barrels of oil ...

The advent of the Alberta Bakken Fairway creates another opportunity for Bakken production outside of the boundaries of the Williston Basin. The Bakken Fairway was first discovered and drilled in Alberta, Canada, but now extends deep into northwest Montana into Lewis & Clark County where it is bordered by the Rocky Mountain Thrust Zone on the west and the Sweetgrass Arch to the west.

I occasionally post stories about the Alberta Bakken (this is not part of the Williston Basin Bakken) at a link on the sidebar at the right for other formations.

On Track For 2,575 New Oil and Gas Permits for Calendar Year 2012

Back on October 13, 2012, I posted that the rate of new permits being issued, North Dakota was on track for 2,535 new permits this calendar year.

Tonight, December 7, 2012, North Dakota is now on track for 2,575 new permits for this calendar year.

Back on June 1, 2012, I posted these stats:

My database showed the following number of permits (may or may not include salt water disposal wells):

• 2012: 2,093 (est) -- based on 866 permits issued as of May 31, 2012

• 2011: 1,940

• 2010: 1,684 

• 2009: 629

• 2008: 956

• 2007: 497

• 2006: 422

The pace of permitting has increased significantly since June 1, 2012.