Reminder: 4Q12 Earnings Will Start to "Flow"

Alcoa reported today, initiating this earnings season. Earnings for Bakken-related companies are at the sidebar at the right.

Crude Oil Pricing Projections -- US Department of Energy

US Dept of Energy oil forecast for 2013, data points:

• global consumption will climb to a record

And one could stop right there, but let's continue:

2012:

• 2012: WTI average: $94.12

2013:

• 2013est: WTI average -- $89.54/bbl (up 1.3 percent from last month's forecast)
• Brent, 2013est: $105.17/bbl average (up 1.4 percent from last month's forecast)

2014: 

• 2014est: WTI to $91/bbl
• 2014est: Brent will slip to $99.25 

Brent-WTI spread 

• 2013est: Brent-WTI spread -- $16/bbl (rounded)
• 2014est: Brent-WTI spread -- $8/bbl (rounded)

Global demand:

• 2012: 89.17 million bbls
• 2013est: 90.11 million bbls
• 2014est:  91.46 million bbls

Note: to the best of my knowledge, these numbers are correct; the article was a bit confusing due to so many projections from month to month. At least confusing to me. Recommend: check out the linked article. 

Wells Coming Off Confidential List Wednesday; Two New Permits Today -- The Bakken, The Williston Basin, North Dakota

Active rigs, Wednesday morning: 182 (steady, up 1 from yesterday)

Wells Coming Off Confidential List Wednesday

21596, drl, Slawson Exploration, Coyote 2-32H, Big Bend,

22351, 394, OXY USA, Louie Pavlicek 1-28-33H-142-97, Willmen, t7/12; cum 15K 11/12; on a NG pipeline;

22809, 315, Samson Resources, Baja 1522-04TFH, Ambrose, t10/12; cum 13K 11/12; no NG pipeline;

22832, 1,739, Denbury Onshore, Siverston, GV 44-32NEH, t11/12; cum 13k 11/12; hooked up to NG pipeline, most being flared but only the first full month of production;

Bakken Operations, Tuesday

Active rigs: 181 (steady, up one)

Two (2) new permits --

• Operators: BEXP, Whiting
• Fields: Camp (McKenzie), South Heart (Stark)
• Comments: None.

Wells coming off the confidential list today were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.

Producing well completed:

• 23568, 1,399, Whiting, Miller 44-10H, Sanish, t12/12; cum --

Permits canceled:

• 20264, PNC, Newfield, Vincent 159-102-22-15-1H, Williams County
• 23848, PNC-->new submission, CLR, Dragseth 1-4H, Williams County

Richardton, ND, To Get Local Grocery Store

Link here to The Dickinson Press.

This southwestern North Dakota city is getting a long-awaited grocery store this spring.

With an opening date sometime in March, Springfield Market in Richardton will fill an empty gap in a community of more than 500 with the nearest small grocer 15 miles away in Hebron and large grocer 23 miles away in Dickinson.

The grocery store was made possible with a loan from the Bank of North Dakota Flex PACE program and help from Stark Development Corp. to buy down the interest.

For Investors Only: CLR is "Surging"

Check out CLR at Yahoo!Finance. Dynamic link so numbers will change. At time of posting, CLR was up almost 3.5% for the day. Some are associating it with rumors that KOG could be bought. I will "vote" no on this but could really, really be wrong. But if CLR is surging because of rumors that it might be buying KOG, the latter should be "surging" a lot more than 25 cents/share.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read at this blog.