Like a broken record: North Dakota oil production hits another high

October production stats are out.  New graphs at end of this post.

Bakken-only daily production hit 682,393 for the month. Increase of 2.9% over revised September info (late reports arrive which result in increasing prior data).  That’s the first month of over 20M barrels from Bakken.

Compared to December 2012 Bakken production, which was 469,769 bopd, that is an increase of 212,624 bopd in 10 months, a 45.3% increase in 10 months.

Statewide production is 747,239 bopd for the month.

Back of the envelope calculation for the dollar volume of oil revenue  

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Myths abound for the cause of the financial crisis

John Allison describes a number of the myths floating around in his article at Forbes. I read it in the 12-10-12 paper edition of Forbes, but can’t find it online. Was able to find it here:  The Financial Crisis and the Bank Deregulation Myth.

Here’s two old myths:

One is that the ‘robber barons’ took advantage of the common man to create their fortunes. In fact, great industrialists, like John D. Rockefeller, dramatically improved the quality of life for everyone. Another myth is that President Roosevelt’s New Deal ended the Great Depression, when in fact the Depression did not end until after WWII when his policies were abandoned.

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Why the Malthusians always get it wrong

“We are about to starve to death” is a recurringly popular idea. And it is recurringly wrong.

Rich Karlgaard surveys the Malthusians of several ages before giving two reasons such folks always miss the boat in his article Bad News Bear at Forbes.

Mr. Karlgaard mentions four people in the we’re-gonna’-starve-this-afternoon camp.  I’ll add a fifth.

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Timelapse view of drilling a well

Very cool video from Marathon Oil. Their description:

This timelapse video shows the drilling and fracking of a typical Marathon Oil well in the Eagle Ford, Texas. It was captured in the summer of 2012.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6_j7UkuzJTU#t=47s]

link if needed:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6_j7UkuzJTU#t=47s

Hat tip – Carpe Diem

Want your own tricorder? They are under development but not available. Yet.

A full-blown tricorder like McCoy or Spock used is still a ways off.  Development is in progress.

That’s the story from The dream of the tricorder in The Economist.

Smart phones will be the platform for the day we do have functioning tricorders.

In the meantime, we are seeing single-function devices that have a special app and plug-in device.

Continue reading “Want your own tricorder? They are under development but not available. Yet.”

Huge oil fields visible from space at night

Yeah, the lights on all those drilling sites make Bakken and Eagle Ford fields visible from space.

Check out two cool photos at New NASA satellite photos show America’s oil fields at night, over at Carpe Diem.

Cool pix. You can  pick out the interstate highways by tracing the visible towns that are in a line.

Another view of Eagle Ford is at Eagle Ford Shale. It’s not larger than either Houston or Dallas-Forth Worth.  The field is narrower but much more extended than either of those metro areas. Check out Have You Seen the Eagle Ford From Space?

Here is a snapshot why the number of rigs in the oil field isn’t as important as before

Look at the number of days from starting the well (spud) to reaching total depth on two wells:

16953, 440, Fidelity, Fladeland 11-15H, Sanish, t4/09; cum 163K 10/12; 29 days from spud to total depth; total depth = 16,100 feet;

23580, 1,295, Whiting, Iverson 41-14h, Sanish, t10/12; cum 6K 10/12; 12 days from spud to total depth; total depth = 16,576 feet;

Continue reading “Here is a snapshot why the number of rigs in the oil field isn’t as important as before”

We don’t have to prosper from all that oil we found, world edition – Peak Oil #15

How much shale-gas is underground?  The Wall Street has a great graphic in their article Global Gas Push Stalls (behind paywall).

Here are a few of the largest estimated deposits, in trillions of cubic feet:

  • 862 – U.S.
  • 388 – Canada
  • 681 – Mexico
  • 1,275 – China
  • 774 – Argentina
  • 187 – Poland
  • 180 – France
  • 396 – Australia

There’s huge amounts of shale gas waiting to be tapped. Enough to power economic and manufacturing revival in many countries.  What we’ve seen in the U.S. market in terms of dropping prices (benefiting consumers a lot) and generating manufacturing growth could happen in Argentina, Poland, France, South Africa, Brazil, Algeria, and Libya.

But will it? Doesn’t look likely at the moment.

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Growing attention on Mali

Two major articles in the Wall Street Journal taking up a full-page in the first section.  The U.S. may get involved in Northern Africa.  Why?  An area the size of France with no functioning government serving as a safe haven for terrorists.  No wonder there’s growing interest.  (Both articles behind paywall.) 

The first article, Terror Fight Shifts to Africa, suggests senior level people might want to get official authorization for military action in the Sahara.  There’s a debate whether current authorizations are sufficient.

Second article, Mali Gambles on Warlord as Peacemaker, provides background on Ansar Dine and its leader Iyad ag Ghaly. Also provides background on the current bad guys, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM.

Might be time to learn those names.

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More background on huge Eagle Ford field

Check out the graph of production in Texas, which shows output …

roughly doubled in just the last three years, from 1.08 million barrels of output per day in September 2009 to 2.05 million barrels per day in September of this year.

That observation and cool graph is from Prof. Perry’s post Eagle Ford Shale: the most profitable oil field in the world with dozens of “monster wells” producing up to 5,000 bpd.

He points to another article by Jennifer Hiller, Finding the sweet spots of the Eagle Ford at Fuel Fix blog.

Two fun tidbits from the post.

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Want to start your own educational institution? Go for it.

The educational frontier is wide open. Want to start your own institution of higher education? With today’s technology, some time, and a few dollars, anyone can do it.

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“Deck the Halls with Macro Follies” – Economists sing your favorite holiday carols

(cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Remember the rapping economists we saw here and here?  They’re back!

Just in time for Christmas, EconStories imagines their fantasy Christmas album featuring the classic hits from Keynes, Hayek, and other renown singers you know and love.

Enjoy the greatest collection of economic hits ever aggregated.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=7uKnd6IEiO0#t=41s]

Continue reading ““Deck the Halls with Macro Follies” – Economists sing your favorite holiday carols”