Results Of North Dakota's Quarterly Lease Auction -- February, 2017

North Dakota lease auction results are tracked here.

February, 2017, on-line results. Done quickly. There will be factual and typographical errors.

Billings County

• Eight tracts, from $4 to $32/acre

Bottineau County

• Eleven tracts, including a 5-acre tract, from $1 to $6/acre

Burke County

• Nine tracts; from $501 to $902/acre; Liberty Resources took all the tracts in this county

Divide County

• Seven tracts; from $4 to $401

Dunn County

• Thirty-one tracts; from $4 to $108; mostly Woodstone Resources; some Northern Energy

Golden Valley County

• Too many tracts to count, but all in the single-digit/acre range

McHenry County

• Fourteen tracts; all $1 or $2/acre; most by Skyworld, who also had most of the Golden Valley tracts

McLean County

• Seven tracts; all for $2/acre; all tracts won by The Triple T, Inc

Mountrail County

• Too many to count; mostly The Triple T, Inc, for $2/acre; though Northern Energy had three tracts for $400 - $500/acre

Renville County

• Nine tracts from $3 to $24/acre

Stark County

• Fourteen tracts; Northern Energy all of them except for two, for $2 - $3/acre; Skyworld got two very small tracts for $116 - $201/acre

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The Apple Page

The Motley Fool on Apple's online file-storage, March 5, 2017. Dead-last in customer loyalty.
Fortune on Apple's secret data center, Project Isabel, February 21, 2017.

All That Free Solar, Wind Energy Keeping California Electricity Prices Down -- March 4, 2017

Updates

March 6, 2017: the California duck curve.

Original Post 

There was an article earlier today from The Los Angeles Times about the excess wind and solar electricity California had. I was curious how much all that "free" electricity was saving California in utility bills.

This is the story I was referring to but from a different source: how California utilities are managing excess solar power. The article begins:

The Golden State is ramping up renewable energy as it pledges to be a bulwark against the Trump administration's pro-fossil fuel policies. But first, it has to figure out what to do with all the excess power it generates when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.

California's solar farms create so much power during daylight hours that they often drive real-time wholesale prices in the state to zero. Meanwhile, the need for electricity can spike after sunset, sometimes sending real-time prices as high as $1,000 a megawatt-hour.

And that, folks is the problem with non-dispatchable energy, also known as fool's gold, or solar energy. It takes a lot of "daytime FREE solar energy" to offset electricity that costs $1,000 a megawatt-hour at night. Hey, by the way, when do Tesla owners charge their coal-powered cars? Yup, at night. When do kids work on their computers at home? Yup, at night.

Whatever.

Some links on electricity rates across the US

Nebraska.gov, data for 2015, all states; least expensive to most expensive, some examples:

• Washington, #1: 7.41
• Wyoming, #4: 7.95
• Iowa, #8: 8.47
• Texas, #10: 8.63
• North Dakota, #13: 8.85
• Nevada, #22: 9.48
• Minnesota, #26: 9.69
• National average, between #31 and #32: 10.42
• New York, #41: 15.28
• California, #42: 15.50 (all that free solar and wind energy helping to keep prices down)
• Massachusetts, #44: 16.86 (wow)
• Connecticut, #46: 17.76 (wow)
• Hawaii, #48 (dead last -- due to some ties among states, on 48 positions): 26.17

EIA: average retail price, by state, January 17, 2017 (lower 48; does not include most expensive, Alaska and Hawaii, which are "special cases"):

• US average: 10.41 cents
• North Dakota: 8.75
• California: 15.42
• Minnesota: 9.53
• Iowa: 8.35
• Arkansas: 8.19
• Louisiana: 7.65
• New York: 15.28 
• California: 15.42 
• New Hampshire: 16.02 
• Rhode Island: 17.01 
• Connecticut: 17.77

I was reminded to look up that data: there is now a concern whether California's power grid will be able to keep up with legal marijuana's demand. Very, very high use of electricity. 

Bakken 2.0 -- March 4, 2017

Earlier today I posted a note on Bakken 2.0. A reader provided this line a few moments ago, from Investor's Business Daily: shale producers will soon reveal how lean and mean they really got.

Not much new was said that regular readers don't already know.

I'm always interested in frack sand data. From the article:

On the completion side, however, some of the innovations are adding to cost pressures. The biggest is the use of higher proppant loads to release more oil in the fracking process. Longer lateral wells also require more sand. Anderson said producers are now using an average of 4,600 tons of frac sand per well vs. 2,600 tons in 2014.

• 4,600 tons x 2,000 lbs/ton = 9.2 million lbs

I'm not seeing that; must be in the Permian. My hunch is that the average amount of sand being used in the Bakken is about 4 million lbs, maybe as high as 6 million lbs, but I could be way off. My number is simply based off anecdotal data, looking at a lot of completion data, but nothing comprehensive or statistical. 

From the article;

Gary Gould, Continental Resources' vice president of production, told analysts last month that the company is using 1,000-2,000 pounds of fracking sand per foot in the Bakken shale play vs. the 3,000 pounds per foot other operators are using. EOG even sees its sand costs falling by 18%, saying it has multiple sand vendors.

Also:

In the Bakken, Continental plans to increase the number of completion crews there to eight by mid-May from five now, but maintain the number of drilling rigs at four through the end of the year.

North Dakota: #2 Overall; #1 In Economic Growth -- US News -- March 4, 2017

The photo alone is worth 10,000 words:

The headline is worth another 10,000 words: US News -- Best States -- North Dakota's oil boom fuels economic growth. From the article:

• North Dakota: among the top five US states (economic, educational, health, and other metrics)
• economic growth : #1 in the Best States rankings
• overall measure of state economies: #2

Just wait until Bakken 2.0 hits its stride, probably sometime in 2018 or 2019

Actually this link to US News, Best States, 2017, shows North Dakota at #4:

• Massachusetts, #1
• New Hampshire, #2
• Minnesota, #3
• North Dakota, #4
• Washington, #5
• Iowa, #6
• Utah, #7
• Maryland, #8
• Colorado, #9
• Vermont, #10

 Again, it looks like "how/what" is measured.

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Dollar General Expands To North Dakota

Press release.

• its 44th state
• Hankinson, ND -- far southeast corner

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American Midstream Connects With DAPL

Press release.

American Midstream Partners, LP, today announced it has entered a connection agreement with Dakota Access Pipeline, the 1,172-mile 30-inch pipeline that extends from the Partnership’s Bakken formation production area in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois.

The new DAPL interconnect will tie into the Partnership’s Bakken crude oil gathering system which consists of interstate pipelines with capacity to transport up to approximately 40,000 barrels per day of crude oil. In addition, the Partnership’s Bakken crude oil gathering system has crude oil trucking capabilities located near Watford City, ND that provides greater producer access to market alternatives and off-take capabilities. AMID recently added hydrogen sulfide treating to its Bakken system allowing customers to meet pipeline specifications for crude oil delivery thereby expanding customer service offerings and the competitive footprint of the system. Leveraging off the recent additions to the Partnership’s system and the new connection to DAPL, AMID will be able to deliver an incremental 20,000 barrels per day to market.

Staggering -- "The First Of Many" -- March 4, 2017

Somehow it looks like I completely missed this one. From Fuelfix:

• a new petrochemical plant near Corpus Christi coming on line this year
• Occidental's OxyChem subsidiary and Mexico-based Mexichem
• $1.5 billion ehtylene plant in Ingleside
• 1.2 billion lbs of ethylene / year --> vinyl chloride monomers -->  polyvinyl chloride (for PVC piping)
• ethylene cracker -- ethane from natural gas to make ethylene, primary building block for most plastics
• 150 permanent workers
• this project: the smallest and first of several Texas Gulf Coast ethylene crackers being completed this year
• others under construction in the Houston area: XOM, Chevron Phillips Chemical, and Dow Chemical

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The Botany Page

Note: the trees in the photograph below are redbud trees (see first comment from a reader). Most likely they are Oklahoma redbud trees. I will let Arianna know.

Original Post

We have these really beautiful tree - bushes here in north Texas. I think they are trees but they tend to be a bit short and very broad. I keep telling myself to google to find out what they are.

On the way to water polo today, I mentioned them to Arianna as we drove by some of those beautiful flowering trees. Without missing a beat, she said they were crepe myrtle, and that depending on "how" they grow, they can be considered either trees or bushes.

Moments later we passed some other flowering trees which she said were either flowering dogwood or magnolias. I suggested that I associated magnolias more with the southeastern US, and she agree, either South Carolina or Georgia.

But crepe myrtle? I had never heard of them before. Where Arianna picks up all this information, I will never know.

She then went on to tell me her project at the moment pertained to the atmosphere, and she named the various levels of the atmosphere, from the troposphere to the ionosphere.

Oklahoma (?) Redbud Tree

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For The Archives

A couple of weeks before the end of 2016, there was betting among the Chicago police force whether homicides would end above 800 for the year (2016) for Chicago. The betting was that the number would come close but would not hit 800. I ran the numbers, threw in the fact that the last couple of days in 2016 were Friday/Saturday and suggested the number would come in just over 800, at 801 or so.

Today, a reader tells me that with some victims now being taken off life support, the number has hit 801 for Chicago for 2016. Apparently some folks are upset with the way records were kept -- if upset, I assume some folks lost a bet or two.

And so it goes.