Poll: Another Look At President Obama's Recent Statement On The Keystone XL

I'm not going to look for the links now because I am traveling and have a poor/unreliable wi-fi connection, but I think folks are aware that when asked at the recent governors' meeting when he would make a decision on the Keystone XL, President Obama suggested he would be making the decision in "a couple of months." There is no recorded soundbite of that exchange (or if there is, I have not heard it) but one of the governors said President Obama said just that.

I personally think, if he said it, it was a just a one-liner thrown out as a hypothetical and means absolutely nothing.

So, now that I have biased the poll, here we go:

With regard to President Obama's alleged statement on making a decision on the Keystone XL ...

• ... he was accurately quoted but his statement was a complete lie
• .... he was accurately quoted but his statement was a bit of tongue-in-cheek, hyperbole, but not an outright lie
• ... truthful, and he will approve the permit by July 4, 2014
• ... truthful, and he will deny the permit by July 4, 2014
• ... the statement was never made. The governor is lying, misspoke, or was misquoted.

Natural Gas Prices In Chicago -- Sticker Shock: The Road To New England

Chicago Business is reporting:

Heating bills in Chicago are going way up, both next month and also next year if Peoples Gas has its way.

The Chicago natural gas utility announced today that its charge for the gas commodity in March is soaring 79 percent to 93 cents per therm from 52 cents in February. The steep increase is a result of the extreme cold weather that has boosted the near-term cost of natural gas and the price to transport the fuel, the company said.

At the same time, Peoples filed with state regulators for a delivery rate hike that would take effect in the middle of next winter. That $129 million increase, if the Illinois Commerce Commission granted it in full, would bring the average Chicago household's monthly gas bill to nearly $100.

Increasing Bakken Crude Oil Reaching California

Despite all the talk about problems with CBR, rail and crude oil continues to roll.

Bloomberg is reporting:

California, the third-biggest refining state in the U.S., is about to see a flood of oil by rail from places such as Canada and North Dakota as suppliers seek to tap a market isolated from the rest of the country.

The Western U.S. may bring 500,000 barrels of light oil by rail a day in 2015 as the region’s refiners seek to replace shrinking output in California and Alaska and more costly foreign imports, Mark Smith, Tesoro Corp.’s vice president of development, supply and logistics, said at a conference yesterday in Glendale, California. California refineries can run 1.63 million barrels a day, the most in the U.S. after Texas and Louisiana, government data show.

The region has become one of the most depending in the nation on foreign oil as the West lacks pipeline access to crude from shale supplies in the middle of the country. Companies from Alon USA Energy Inc. to Valero Energy Corp. are looking to tap the market with projects that would bring more crude into the West by rail.

“The West Coast is one of the last frontiers where foreign imports really have a stronghold, and there’s not a lot of alternatives,” Smith said yesterday at the Crude By Rail 2014 conference organized by Houston-based American Business Conferences. “Obviously there is a huge opportunity here” for oil shipped by rail. 

It costs $9 a barrel to send North Dakota’s Bakken crude to Washington and $4 to $5 more to carry it by ship from there to California, according to Valero, the world’s largest independent refiner. Tesoro said the cost of delivering a barrel by rail from the Bakken to California would range from $9 to $10.50.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc posted a price of $88.33 a barrel yesterday for Bakken crude in North Dakota. Alaska North Slope oil typically used in West Coast refineries cost $109.70 at 12:05 p.m. New York time today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

California may get more than one-quarter of its crude from Canada and U.S. states other than Alaska should six proposed rail-offloading projects win approval, state Energy Commission data show. Companies including Valero, Phillips 66 and Plains All American Pipeline LP support the projects.

A huge "thank you" to a reader for sending this story. While I am traveling, I will be posting less.  Sorry. 

CLR Reports 4Q13 And Full-Year 2013 Earnings

Link here.

Continental Resources, Inc. today announced fourth quarter and full-year 2013 operating and financial results. Net income for the quarter ended December 31, 2013 was $132.8 million , or $0.72 per diluted share, compared with net income of $220.5 million , or $1.19 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2012. Excluding items typically excluded from published analyst estimates, adjusted net income for the fourth quarter of 2013 was $228.1 million , or $1.23 per diluted share, a 19% increase over adjusted net income of $191.8 million , or $1.04 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Net income for full-year 2013 was $764.2 million , or $4.13 per diluted share, compared with net income of $739.4 million , or $4.07 per diluted share, for full-year 2012. Excluding items typically excluded from published analyst estimates, adjusted net income for full-year 2013 was $986.1 million, or $5.33 per diluted share, a 61% increase over adjusted net income of $611.9 million, or $3.36 per diluted share, for full-year 2012.

EBITDAX for the fourth quarter of 2013 was $712 million , a 20% increase over EBITDAX of $595 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. Full-year 2013 EBITDAX was a record $2.84 billion, a 45% increase over EBITDAX of $1.96 billion for full-year 2012.

I like the report; Wall Street did not.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you might have read here. 

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

Active rigs:

	2/26/2014	02/26/2013	02/26/2012	02/26/2011	02/26/2010
Active Rigs	193	183	204	169	96

Eleven (11) new permits --

• Operators: EOG (8), BR (2), Petro-Hunt
• Fields: Parshall (Mountrail), Corral Creek (Dunn), Stockyard Creek (Williams)
• Comments: EOG permits -- one 3-well pad; one 5-well pad; it never ceases to amaze me all the permits and all the different operators in Stockyard Creek

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

One producing well completed:

• 25951, 2,688, BR, Capitol 44-7MBH, Westberg, t12/13; cum 14K 12/13;

Only one well coming off the confidential list tomorrow:

• 25594, drl, XTO, Loomer 41X-4C, Tobacco Garden,

*******************************

Bakken Trip #3

Second Report

I guess it's cold out there. But the weather report seems worse than it feels, if that makes sense. I was surprised to see how "warm" it was today, up to 22 degrees. This is not to "take away" from what the men and women in the field are experiencing, especially the folks on the rigs, but for most of us in-town folks, it was an incredibly nice day. No wind makes a big difference. It is interesting how "relative" things are. Coming from one degree earlier to 22 degrees during the day, that 22 degrees felt good.

I spent the day checking on wells in the Stockyard Creek area; I hope to post some photos later. Nothing out of the ordinary. Most "enjoyable" was seeing the Statoil Pyramid pad northwest of Williston; it's quite a pad. Surrounded by green mesh link fence, and that surrounded by young "evergreen" trees that will someday completely hide the pad. When I get a good wi-fi connection, I will post video, photos. If one stays in downtown Williston, or on the east side of Williston, one would hardly know there's a huge oil and gas industry enveloping the area.