Jim Ulvog – Page 36 – Outrun Change

Multi-well pad drilling in North Dakota

View from the highway that caught my interest. That is a lot of wells. Photo by James Ulvog.

One of many ways energy wizards are driving down the cost of drilling for oil is putting multiple wells on one site.

7/4 – Amy Dalrymple at Dickinson Press – Bakken multi-well pads getting bigger – The technique of drilling several wells from one site, called ~~multi-pad~~ multi-well pad drilling, is increasing. Both the number of pads and the number of wells per pad is going up.

For several years now I have noticed multiple pump jacks on one site.

In September 2015, I saw a 15 well pad. It is a few miles west of Ross and about a mile and a half north of highway 2. You can see it on Google maps at coordinates 48.333785, -102.653962, although the satellite photo is really old. It shows only the middle six wells with pumps installed and a drilling rig working on the west row of wells. No progress on the east row of wells.

Photo above is of the site. Here are a few more photos: Continue reading “Multi-well pad drilling in North Dakota”

More on the foolish Malthusian mindset that we’re gonna’ run out of everything

Here are three more stories in just the last week proving yet again the foolish of Malthusian thinking. The experts in a field have no clue, absolutely no clue, of the total amount of any resource available on this amazing planet. Whether it is water, crude oil, or helium, the experts don’t know what previously unknown field they will find next.

7/1 – The Million Dollar Way – Peak Oil? What Peak Oil? Huge Discovery For Hess, Exxon; $70 Billion at Current Prices – This post points to an article at Yahoo: Exxon Might Have Just Made The Largest Oil Find In Two Years. ExxonMobil and Hess Corp are in a joint venture that just discovered a huge field in deep water 120 miles off the coast of Guyana.

The new field, called Liza, likely has somewhere between 800M and 1.4B oil-equivalent barrels. Yeah, that’s somewhere in the range of one and a half billion barrels of oil. That nobody knew about. Until now.

To put this in context, there have been only five brand-new discoveries in the last four years with recoverable amounts of over 500M barrels. Only five? ONLY? To my little brain that is astounding.

Continue reading “More on the foolish Malthusian mindset that we’re gonna’ run out of everything”

Twists and turns in North Dakota energy

There is another hint of a whiff in the air that completion work in North Dakota may be picking up.

Federal injunction postpones shutting down all the crew camps within reach of the Williston City Commissioners. Hint of pushback from commissioners since the crew camps are now unlicensed.

Flaring in North Dakota has dropped dramatically in the last two years.

(Have you noticed Amy Dalrymple is the author of a large portion of the interesting reporting in North Dakota?)

6/25 – Amy Dalrymple of Forum News Service at Bismarck Tribune – Fracking jobs show signs of life in Bakken – The signs of life are very small, but visible.

Job Service of North Dakota is reporting some new jobs getting listed for work related to well completion: fracking, workover rigs, and trucking.

Continue reading “Twists and turns in North Dakota energy”

Here is a class-action showing how such things are settled but this time actually put a few dollars in the pocket of the class members

You can carry around hundreds upon hundreds of books inside that little device. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

I have long been amused by the way class-action lawsuits are settled. The members of the group receive very little and often it is a credit for your next purchase of the same item. At the same time, the attorneys involved get a huge payout.

One settlement I recall gave members of the class a coupon worth a few hundred dollars off their next purchase of a brand-new automobile. Since very few people will run right out and buy a new car that means very few of those coupons will ever be redeemed. In the meantime the attorney lucky enough to claim credit for the lawsuit walks off with millions upon millions of dollars.

An entertaining illustration of the dynamics is visible this week. Heat Street on June 21 explains Apple’s E-Books Lawsuit Yields Minuscule “Credits” for Readers, $50 Million for Lawyers.

Continue reading “Here is a class-action showing how such things are settled but this time actually put a few dollars in the pocket of the class members”

Rig count in North Dakota in first half of 2016

One small part of the legacy of Aubrey McClendon. Photo by James Ulvog. — Photo by James Ulvog.

Here is a recap of the North Dakota rig count, all from Million Dollar Way. Focus is on the first half of 2016. Some older data repeated for recent context: Continue reading “Rig count in North Dakota in first half of 2016”

Update on marijuana regulation: #24

Not much that I’ve noticed in the news about regulation of the recreational marijuana market. Here are a few things of interest. Reminder: Reason I’m following this issue is to watch a natural experiment on whether over-regulation will crush a new industry.

4/20 – Kelly Phillips Erb at Forbes – On 4/20, It’s High Time to Think About Taxes, Revenues & Marijuana – Great survey of how we got to the place we are today.

How the marijuana laws have developed, the Department of Justice’s effort to look the other way when states have legalized either medical or recreational marijuana, and the IRS’ stand that most costs of running a marijuana business are non-deductible.

Also, some discussion on how likely Congress is to make changes to federal law. Current assessment: not likely. Doing so would appear to be soft on crime. Current mess with opioid abuse would make any efforts to legalize marijuana appear to be bad.

6/16 – MarketWatch – Microsoft gets into the weed business – One of the requirements in those states where recreational marijuana is legal is the need to track every bit of marijuana from the seed that germinated into a plant all the way to the specific end product the marijuana went into.

Continue reading “Update on marijuana regulation: #24”

Accelerating collapse of the Venezuelan economy – 9

The economic devastation and human suffering in Venezuela is getting worse by the day. Every article I see shows the economy has taken one more step towards utter collapse.

6/9 – Washington Post – As hunger mounts, Venezuelans turned to trash for food – A man who used to work at a bakery now searches garbage cans for food because he will starve if he doesn’t find something to eat in the trash.

He is joined by small business owners and retired people in the search for enough food to merely stay alive.

Number of people below the poverty line has skyrocketed from 52% as recently as 2014 up to 76% today.

I wonder what could have caused that devastation?

In the 535 word article, the only hint of the reason for this human suffering is citing the government’s claim that the political opposition is intentionally causing this suffering in order to throw the president out of power.

While the WP reporters are incapable of seeing the cause, at least they are able to see the suffering.

6/10 – AFT at Yahoo News – Venezuela lets Maduro recall advance, with threats – Article reports looting is increasing and more protests involve violence.

A protest by opposition legislators resulted in several of them getting beat up. Yes, legislators are getting beaten when they protest.

Continue reading “Accelerating collapse of the Venezuelan economy – 9”

2013 construction costs for different energy sources

Million Dollar Way pointed me to EIA data for 2013 on the costs for construction and amount of new capacity for wind, solar, natural gas, hydro and biomass. As expected, the non-reliables have extremely high construction costs.

The data can be found here

Since the graph is public information, I will post it below:

Source: Energy Information Administration

Continue reading “2013 construction costs for different energy sources”

Yet another reason I am so optimistic when I take my eyes off the political news of the day: the energy revolution that keeps gaining speed.

One more illustration of the energy revolution currently underway. BTW, flaring is down to about 11% of all natural gas produced. Photo by James Ulvog. — One more illustration of the energy revolution currently underway. BTW, flaring is down to 9.2% of all natural gas produced. About 91% is captured, which shows great progress. Photo by James Ulvog.

When I look at the political news and the headlines in general news every morning, I get so discouraged. When I look away from those areas I am so optimistic.

Consider what the two following articles suggest about how bright our economic future could be: an abundant supply of oil and gas at increasingly lower cost to produce.

6/13 – JH at The American Interest – Resilient Shale Producers Get Their Second Wind – Article mentions a Financial Times article which indicates there is some increase in drilling, which is driven by prices a few weeks ago. Since then oil prices have come up further. Discussion speculates if prices remain in the $50 range there will be even more drilling.

The small-scale and short development time of shale wells creates a soft ceiling on prices. Shale production can increase quickly which will put supplies on the market quickly, which will counter a surge in prices.

A quoted analyst says his expectation is a long-term price of oil around $60. There will be fluctuations up to $80 and down to $40, but the price will tend toward $60. Drillers needing a price higher than that to be profitable will have a rough time.

Continue reading “Yet another reason I am so optimistic when I take my eyes off the political news of the day: the energy revolution that keeps gaining speed.”

News from Bakken – 6/15

Whether a boom time or slow down, all the oil activity has disrupted life in North Dakota. Photo by James Ulvog.

Two reports on the issue of whether transitory housing will remain in Williston: one court case closed with one remaining; city allows another year and a half to remove the camps.

Young guys who moved to North Dakota and decided to stay have brought their wifes to the area and guess what? Lots of them are having babies. By the way, our son is in that category, our daughter-in-law is someone who moved as well, and our grandson is one of the following statistics.

Finally, an indicator why people in North Dakota don’t like all the changes. I get it. Really, I get it: there are ugly sides to economic expansion.

6/8 – Amy Dalrymple at Oil Patch Dispatch – Williston Wins One Crew Camp Court Case, Another Looms – There are two cases and process against the city’s plan to shut down all crew camps. The case in state court has ended with the judge refusing to issue an injunction.

The federal case is still pending.

Continue reading “News from Bakken – 6/15”

Is the oil market ready to turn?

There is room for a few more wells on that site when the price is right. Photo by James Ulvog. — There is room for a few more wells on that site when the price is right, which may be soon. Photo by James Ulvog.

Daniel Yergin thinks so.

Bargain hunters who are hunting bargains think so.

Increase to $50 has some producers completing DUCs, which tells us those producers think so.

Oh, USGS estimates a field in Colorado has 40 times more natural gas that previously estimated. The field is almost as large as Marcellus.

6/5 Calgary Herald – Oil recovery is on its way after two-year-long rout, says energy economist – As one of many comments at a conference in Calgary, Daniel Yergin said he thinks the oil industry at the start of a recovery.

Continue reading “Is the oil market ready to turn?”

Great news on the open frontier, private space exploration edition

Amazing news on the open frontier of private space exploration:

SpaceX recovers another two boosters at sea.

What to do with all those warehoused ICBM boosters?

Another investment in mining asteroids.

5/6 – NPR – SpaceX Lands Falcon 9 on a Barge at Sea (Again) – This is the second successful recovery of a Falcon 9 booster at sea. Another successful recovery was on land. After several failed efforts to recover on a floating barge, SpaceX has two successes in a row. Very cool.

5/27 – Florida Today – SpaceX lands fourth booster after successful Falcon 9 launch – This is the third consecutive recovery of a booster. These three recoveries were on a platform out at sea. One previous recovery was on land.

4/14 – Behind the Black – The history of Falcon 9’s recoverable first stage – Check out this cool video showing the less-than-four-year history of going from the first tiny test by Grasshopper to successful recovery of the Falcon 9 booster at sea:

Robert Zimmerman says:

Continue reading “Great news on the open frontier, private space exploration edition”

Cool stuff on the open frontier of technology, drone edition

Amazing things happening in the use of drones. Maybe only major powers have the capacity to conduct extensive drone operations. Think about bee-sized drones and drone swarms.

First, a small tangent. 4/13 – Wall Street Journal – What Children Learned From the Shared Family Phone – What I learned from the article is that almost half of households in the US do not have a landline.

That is up from around 27% back five years. For the 25-34 age group, only around one-third have a landline.

4/22 – Press Enterprise – Inland agencies deputize drones for crime, rescues – Four specific city police agencies in the Inland Empire (the area in San Bernardino county that is east of LA) are planning to start using drones in operations.

Continue reading “Cool stuff on the open frontier of technology, drone edition”

Follow-up on the death of Aubrey McClendon

I’ve previously discussed the unexpected death of Aubrey McClendon, a pioneer in the fracking revolution that is changing the world. You can find my posts here. Two official reports were released this week on his fatal accident.

6/7 – Wall Street Journal – Police Probe Finds Nothing to Suggest Aubrey McClendon Committed Suicide – Two months of research by the Oklahoma City police, including criminal and accident scene investigators found no indications or hints that Mr. McClendon killed himself in the accident. Continue reading “Follow-up on the death of Aubrey McClendon”

Author: Jim Ulvog