I haven’t been living under a rock I was just too busy to get to this earlier today. An I wanted a little time for more information to surface.
Norway’s Statoil has a 4.7 billion dollar cash offer to purchase Brigham Exploration (bexp) for 36.50 a share which seems like a good price until you realize that it works out to about $12,500 an acre which is not too far off from what a landowner could expect in royalty payments over the lifespan of a good well.
“The Brigham Exploration Company board of directors has unanimously recommended to its shareholders that they accept the offer.” and… It sounds like they plan to keep all of Brigham’s employees so it is probably a good deal for everyone who works at the company.
My personal feeling is that the only ones getting screwed are the stock holders because the stock price would have probably gotten over 36.50 a share this year anyway, but as it stands everyone still made some money so maybe it is OK.
I have a feeling this acquisition may be the first many significant buys in the Williston Basin.
The ripples caused by the news influenced some other in other small company’s around the basin. It almost looked like people were taking their gains and moving strait into Oasis which I think may also be on someones acquisition list.
Here is what Statoil has up on their site regarding the potential acquisition.
At a great expense to any search engine rank we had attained, we decided the world had enough blog sites dedicated to the Bakken, and this site can better serve the world as a community.
Please join the forum and let others know what is going on around the Williston Basin.
The blog will continue to be used for static content, but the forum is a better way to spread information.
The web site will get drastically restructured over the next few weeks/days. I will try to fix the rigs page so that it counts again. (may not be easy)
Thoughts go out to those involved with the Cyclone 18 Rig Fire.
Based on what NewsMax is reporting it seems that the Saudis may have granted permission for release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. NewsMax claims that “President Barack Obama reportedly sent a secret diplomatic mission to obtain Saudi Arabia’s OK prior to the U.S. release of 30 million barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve.”
Over the last two weeks gasoline has dropped between 10 and 20 cents around the country, and the economy has made a slight recovery even with uncertainty in Europe.
It will be interesting to see if there are any repercussions from OPEC in the coming weeks. If we did get permission it is possible nothing will happen, but it does indicate the Saudis are unable to meet global demand. On a local scale North Dakota and Montana may prosper, but it may come at a great cost to the country.
Local notes: My thoughts go out to those being affected by flooding around the area. It looks like it is going to be a long summer for all of us.
Not Evil Just Wrong posted a video of Josh Fox being asked questions regarding previous knowledge of flaming sinks prior to fracking and Josh liked it so much that a copyright claim was used to get the video taken off of youtube. He will likely do the same on Vimeo, but for now you can watch it here. For the record this video should fall under fair use which makes legal to use a clip from josh fox’s film.
Should the video be removed from Vimeo you can try these mirror links. Most video players should be able to play the file. Make sure to credit Not Evil Just Wrong if you happen to re-post anything. Mirror 1 Mirror 2 Mirror 3
How this story relates to North Dakota: In North Dakota shallow natural gas has been found in 52 of 53 N.D. counties, and even though hundreds of oil wells are fracked every year it is unlikely that any of the discovered gas can be related to oil companies in anyway. The gas was discovered using old water wells in ares that are both near and far from active oil fields. https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/shallowgas/sgasnew.asp
Rigs page is down until I can clean up the coding. It works the server processor hard for a few seconds while it loads and has caused some problems. (not sure how long it will take me to fix)
Lately, I have been slacking on writing blog posts, but I do think that most people who come to this site are missing the point. This web site is meant to generate interaction between people with similar interests (The blog and information portion is more of a side show). Please become a member of our forum and check out the job site. If you happen to work for a company in the Willison Basin, please let your HR people know that the job site exists. Unlike most job sites, ours currently and will always operate for free. Companies are encouraged to link to their regular hiring services.
In other news, the rig counts page has been modified so that it will only display companies that are actually drilling. There have been layout changes in every section of the site, but most people will not notice much difference. That said a few sections were widened so old monitors might have a little trouble fitting everything on the page. Please let us know if anything has become unreadable due to the changes.
Just thought I would post a note that we are sitting at or near our all time high rig count in North Dakota.
Expect the rig count to jump just after the load limits are lifted. There are several small companies from the south that have been sitting this winter out waiting for conditions to improve. (drilling wells in Texas)
Sorry about the lack of posts. There has been a lot going on lately and it doesn’t look like there will be an improvement any time soon.
So it appears that North Dakota has its own misinformed anti-fracking group. It looks like one person with a web page, but sometimes it doesn’t take much to get attention. I will not give them the satisfaction of a back-link, but I knew it was only a matter of time before we would have to deal with the fallout of the documentary gasland.
The local chapter released a video of sick animals which is supposedly the result of fracking. They go on to show salt coming out of the walls of a basement and few other things. It appears that they may have water trouble, but the likelihood of it having anything to do with fracking is low. I’m not opposed to it having something to do with drilling(if backed by testing), but it is very troublesome when people make the leap to fracking rather than drilling with no proof.
Many of our readers probably have some understanding of the geology in North Dakota, but I will try to provide a quick explanation of fracking so you are not easily fooled by people who tell you that your water is going to get contaminated.
North Dakota, Montana, and our Neighbors to the North have nothing to worry about when it comes to leaky frack water. Under normal circumstances frack water leaks into drinking water should be impossible.
The Bakken is a geologic formation within the Williston Basin, and it is approximately as hard for water to flow through the Bakken as it is for water to follow through concrete. Oil companies fracture the Bakken with a process called Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking). Fracking cracks the rock by using water pressure that exceeds the mechanical strength of the rock, and the bakken is brittle so it fractures well. The fractures are propped open with stand or ceramics beads, which essentially increase the surface area that oil can flow from. The combination of having 2 mile laterals with fractures means that enough surface area is exposed for small amounts of oil to flow toward the well bore and be produced. Without fracking there would be no Bakken oil production in the Williston Basin period.
For those concerned with the water making back to the surface rest assured it is all but impossible because it takes an extreme amount of pressure to crack rock and while that goal is achieved in the Bakken the units above are much more permeable so fluid can flow easier.
If water from the Bakken starts to flow into the rock units above it would be like a high pressure 2 inch pipe dumping into an 8 foot culvert. All the pressure is lost and the rock above cannot be cracked. Oil companies are very careful to not fracture into the unit above because it can screw up the completion, and they will get less oil.
Side Note: Deep water in the Williston Basin is often very salty (100 times more than sea water) and toxic, but the water from one geological unit the next is very different, which means that the water is probably not communicating. Most of the toxic water that is produced or generated during fracking is reused or injected thousands of feet below any drinking water sources. Typically oil wells in the Willison Basin are 8000+ feet down, and there are more barriers to water communication than I care to count protecting any potential usable water sources.
Let me know what you think. If you would like a better explanation of fracking please feel free to ask specific questions. Leave Comments and Join the Forum
