The Midwest/Plains Oil Boom Thread

[Bond James Bond]

If you want to keep tabs in oil production in North Dakota, here is the link you should visit. They update the data every month around the middle of the month, and the data is 2-3 months behind:
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/...lprodstats.pdf
^
Up to 444,000 barrels/day as of August. Should reach half a million by sometime next year, probably early in the year. There's usually a slowdown in the winter so sometimes you see production fall for 2-3 months in the Dec to March timeframe.

[Bond James Bond]

Great video from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540...01989#45101989

Boy I'm tellin' ya, this is going to be fantastically great for Ohio when production there really starts to ramp up in the Utica shale. Unlike western ND, northeast Ohio already has lots of infrastructure, which is a huge problem in Williston.

[Bond James Bond]

Also from the same website, here's an article on finding a job in ND:
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_new...search-success
^
The comments are also a must-read. Lots of people saying the place has become like the Wild West, everything is crowded and expensive as hell, and all those people trying to sleep in their cars are in for big trouble when the frigid winter arrives. Then of course there are the obligatory anti-fracking people.

[Bond James Bond]

The deals are a-getting bigger on this. Everyone seems to want in.

Chesapeake expects to name Utica partner in December

Chesapeake Energy officials expect to identify its Utica shale joint venture partner when the agreement is completed later this year.

The company announced a joint venture with an “undisclosed international major energy company” on Thursday. The company also has entered a financial agreement with EIG Global Energy Partners. The two deals are helping Chesapeake finance its drilling programs in Ohio’s Utica shale formation.

During a conference call with investment firms Friday morning, Chesapeake Chief Executive Officer Aubrey K. McClendon said its Utica shale joint venture partner is “large, well respected, well known” and will be revealed when the agreement is closed. The company expects to complete the deal in mid-December.

Anadarko in joint venture for 300,000 Utica Shale acres

The U.S. onshore shale plays delivered extraordinary growth of more than 160% relative to where we were at this time last year. We're looking forward to further expand this opportunity set in the liquids-rich portion of the Utica Shale play in Ohio, where we recently began joint activity on our 300,000 gross acres.

Devon seeks partner for Utica shale and other ventures

Devon Energy Corp. is seeking a joint-venture partner for five exploratory projects covering 1.2 million acres in the U.S., including the oil-bearing Niobrara and Utica formations, Chief Executive Officer John Richels said.

Potential partners are reviewing data on the Mississippian oil deposit in Oklahoma, oil and natural-gas shale formations in Michigan and Louisiana, the Utica Shale in Ohio and the Niobrara deposit in Wyoming and Colorado, Richels said today in an investor conference call. Devon is still buying leases in those areas, he said.

Though drilling has barely just begun, they've already got a customer:

Marathon Petroleum Exec: Canton Refinery To Use 12,000 B/D Utica Crude Next Year

Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) has started to use small amounts of crude oil from the Utica shale at its refinery in Canton, Ohio, the company said Tuesday.

The refinery would be among the first to process oil from the up-and-coming shale formation in the northeast U.S. The Utica is expected to grow in prominence as new drilling technology helps unlock oil and gas that had previously been too uneconomical to make drilling worth the effort.

The 73,000 barrel-a-day Canton refinery will increase its take of Utica oil to up to 12,000 barrels a day in early 2012 and could raise the amount further, said Marathon Petroleum Senior Vice President Mike Palmer.

They're already planning new pipelines.

New shale gas pipeline to skirt the Dayton region

A proposed pipeline could transport a key industrial liquid from newly drilled Marcellus and Utica shale formations through Ohio and Miami Valley counties on its way to Gulf Coast petrochemical plants.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. of Houston, Texas, which would build the pipeline, said Friday it has a long-term agreement with driller Chesapeake Energy Corp. to transport at least 75,000 barrels per day. It would handle ethane, a byproduct of natural gas processing, derived from the Marcellus and Utica regions in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

Let's see if Ohio's unemployment rate reaches 4% or less within 5 years.

[Somnifor]

From today's Star Tribune:

N.D. oil boom pushes seniors out
Article by: JAMES MacPHERSON , Associated Press
Updated: November 14, 2011 - 4:27 PM

WILLISTON, N.D. - After living all of her 82 years in the same community, Lois Sinness left her hometown this month, crying and towing a U-Haul packed with her every possession.

She didn't want to go, but the rent on her $700-a-month apartment was going up almost threefold because of heightened demand for housing generated by North Dakota's oil bonanza. Other seniors in her complex and across the western part of the state are in the same predicament.

"Our rents were raised, and we did not have a choice," Sinness said. "We're all on fixed incomes, living mostly on Social Security, so it's been a terrible shock."

It's an irony of the area's economic success: The same booming development that made North Dakota virtually immune to the Great Recession has forced many longtime residents to abandon their homes, including seniors who carved towns like Williston out of the unforgiving prairie long before oil money arrived.

In addition to raising the rent, Sinness' landlords were going to require even long-term tenants to pay a $2,000 deposit. She fled for a cheaper apartment in Bismarck, beyond the oil patch, where her daughter also lives. Her new home is 230 miles away.

More

[He Named Thor]

Originally Posted by Somnifor

From today's Star Tribune:

I wonder if there was an actual cost increase or if her landlord's just a dick.

[Bond James Bond]

And stories about this are even getting reprinted in the Seattle paper!

Ohio shale drilling spurs job hopes in Rust Belt

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A rare sight in hard-luck Youngstown, a new industrial plant, has generated hope that a surge in oil and natural gas drilling across a multistate region might jump-start a revival in Rust Belt manufacturing.

The $650 million V&M Star mill, located along a desolate stretch that once was a showcase for American industry, is to open by year's end and produce seamless steel pipes for tapping shale formations.

It will mean 350 new jobs in Youngstown, a northeast Ohio city that is struggling with 11 percent unemployment.

[testdrive]

I sure hope Michigan can reap some of the benefits of this

[desertpunk]

Fargo Seeks Workers Amid North Dakota Jobs Boom



.

[kznkax789]

So I guess North Dakota is going to end up with the nation's hottest job market.

[Bond James Bond]

300-plus jobs coming to Muskingum County, official says

ZANESVILLE -- Halliburton, one of the largest providers of products and services to the energy industry, is working on a deal to build an operations hub in the EastPointe Business Park.

The company could create as many as 300 jobs over the next three years, Zanesville-Muskingum County Port Authority Board President Dick McClelland said this morning.

[Bond James Bond]

ANOTHER new factory in Youngstown related to this!

$13.2M shale-spurred project to bring 103 jobs

The proximity to the Utica and Marcellus shales is attracting an international company to spend $13.2 million for a natural-gas compression facility on Salt Springs Road.

Exterran Energy Solutions plans to start construction in February on the 65,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and office building to be operational in about a year with the work finishing in July 2015, according to paperwork provided by the company to the city.

When the project is complete, “[it] is one that will have a huge impact on the local economy with potential for further growth,” said T. Sharon Woodberry, the city’s economic development director.

The company plans to spend $9.3 million on building construction and $3.9 million on machinery and equipment at the city’s Salt Springs Business Park.

And the surge in real estate activity looks like it's already starting.

Gas, oil boom boosts real-estate markets

When they bought Palmantier’s Motel in August 2010, Rainie and Earl Sonntag liked the idea of saving a landmark.

The couple had experience running a small hotel and hoped to succeed with the property, but they didn’t expect the help they would get because of renewed interest in drilling for oil and natural gas in eastern Ohio.

Business started slow when the Palmantier reopened. “The shale guys came in, and it boomed,” Rainie said.

[Bond James Bond]

Now's it's on CNN!

Ohio set to see oil boom thanks to fracking

Ohio hasn't been an oil powerhouse for nearly 100 years.

But thanks to controversial new drilling technology, the state that once produced a third of the nation's crude and was the birthplace of John D. Rockefeller's mighty Standard Oil could once again be a significant source of domestic supply.

[desertpunk]

And next door:

Gov. Corbett: Another Pennsylvania Gilded Age?

[Bond James Bond]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

And next door:

Gov. Corbett: Another Pennsylvania Gilded Age?

That's natural gas, not oil.

Philly is outta luck, they don't have any of these formations near them. In PA, Pittsburgh and some other places in western and northern PA are going to benefit the most. Philly will have to make-do with something else.

[ohpenn]

Philly make it out nicely with the state tax revenues.

[cjfjapan]

I think fracking is going to be an environmental disaster. Already there are scattered reports of tainted drinking water, and earthquakes associated with this procedure. As with most things, I'm sure Ohio will be the last to realize the damage it causes.

[Bond James Bond]

Here's what Glowrock (who works in the industry) had to say in response to an article that EPA regulations would shut down fracing. Sounds reasonable to me:

I think Rigzone is full of crap on this one. First of all, the shale drilling is not even remotely close to being stopped. Secondly, the EPA rules concerning frac fluids are pretty much legitimate, for it makes sense to know what the hell IS being pumped downhole thousands of feet, and it also makes sense to know how the frac water is being treated when it comes back to the surface.

Lynn Helms is also a grade-A schmuck. No way that fracing is going to be stopped entirely by the EPA. There's no evidence of it so far, and I don't see it happening. Not to mention, people are quoted in this article as saying that the administration wants to end all oil and gas drilling, which is patently false.

I work in the damned industry. I work in a huge shale gas/shale oil region! I deal with these kinds of things every day, and that's why I know that this article is simply industry-driven propaganda designed to scare the public into pressuring the EPA to NOT put any restrictions on fracing whatsoever.

For the record, there most certainly HAVE been situations where drilling has disturbed/fouled people's water wells. It's not the fracing that's doing it, it's the drilling itself. Poor cementing jobs of the surface casing in the upper 1500' or so of the wellbore is usually to blame. The water in the wells normally flows clean and fresh again within a short period of time after drilling on adjacent properties, but sometimes it can take several months to return to normal. This is the truth, I've seen it for myself.

I swear, my industry does such a TERRIBLE job at public relations. Basically the API (American Petroleum Institute) says that we've done no harm ever, no damage ever, that we're perfect, glowing, amazing companies who have a halo over us at all times. Obviously this does nothing but piss off the environmental groups, who then attack with a fury that cannot be matched by anyone. If the API would actually acknowledge that sometimes problems do happen, if they'd sit down and actually discuss legitimate issues with the environmental groups and homeowners, we'd all be a hell of a lot better off. But right now, it's like our Congress: Two parties doing nothing but trying to tear each other's heads off without the capability of any level of compromise.

Uttlerly sad, and I've told some of the API leaders just that. They basically look at me and sneer, as if I'm somehow evil for even mentioning that our industry isn't perfect and infallible...

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Bond James Bond]

Holy moly!!!

This is a train loaded with Bakken oil heading out of Williston.

[Bond James Bond]

France's Total has gained a part interest in Chesapeake's Ohio acreage, and China's Sinopec has gained a part interest in Devon's portion of both the Ohio and Michigan portions of this. Billions of $$ in foreign investment!

International players jump at U.S. shale