Biden suspends oil and gas drilling on Federal Lands for 60 days for review.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

14 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

As to defense, well, it would be no time at all before Texas had its own military, nukes, and all the bells and whistles. Don't mess with Texas!

Not even necessary.  For anybody that thinks that bureaucrats can order the Army to go "put down a rebellion in Texas," I remind you to look at the logistics.  The US regular army is 480,000 men.  But only perhaps 1/3 are actual infantry troops.  The rest are truck mechanics that fix brake shoes, cooks that peel potatoes, radio operators, guys that fuel helicopters, lots of clerks, guys that do supplies, all the Joe-jobs.  So you have maybe 150,000 men with actual guns.   They have to go up against say 10 million heavily-armed Texan men, and who knows how many women, in some shootout?  Nah. 

Those Army units consist of guys recruited from Nebraska and Indiana.  How motivated are they to go into some shooting war with Texans?  Will they even get on the bus?  Probably not.  If the men refuse to board, what are the officers, the lieutenants and majors and colonels, going to do?  Probably, nothing.  Plus, they also have no appetite for going there. 

So you will predictably have this wholesale refusal of military units, the commanders telling the politicians, "Hey, you guys go figure it out. We, we are staying in the barracks."  

So the Pentagon tries to institute the draft.  Lotsa luck with that idea. You are going to have an explosion, real riots in the streets, recruiting and induction centers burned down, real insurrection stuff.  Nobody, and I mean Nobody, is going to accept being drafted.  Those of you old enough to remember Vietnam and that draft fiasco will grasp that having a draft is going nowhere fast.  Ain't gonna happen. 

Is the Navy going to do a shore bombardment of Corpus Christi?  Nah, no chance.  Is the Air Force going to blast downtown Ft. Worth?  Nah, nobody has any stomach for that nonsense.  So, Texas becomes independent by virtue of "facts on the ground," same as the Crimea becomes part of Russia with facts on the ground.  Fait accompli, my friends. 

You could put down a secession movement in say Rhode island, not enough guns there in the hands of civilians - but Texas?  Hopeless. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.   Still true today. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

In point of fact, the Civil War itself was unconstitutional. There was nothing in it requiring states to continue to belong to the union. Among the many war crimes Lincoln committed was the suspense of First Amendment rights and censuring and closure of multiple newspapers who were saying exactly that, and quoting Hamilton, Jefferson and others. But as we all know, history is written by the winners. 

Mark my words, if Texas seceded Biden would call in the United Nations or NATO after American troops refused to fire on countrymen. Many of you are still laboring under the illusion that Biden was legally elected as president by 81-83 million voters. That story is complete fiction, regardless of how much censorship Big Tech and the media apply. Don't believe either that these "blue" states are really blue. That's just an artifact of the ballot stuffing. The swamp runs deep and wide  

[Symmetry + 109]

46 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

 

How motivated are they to go into some shooting war with Texans? 

Why attack them at all?  Let them isolate and suffer.

"The worst policy is to attack cities. To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack."

 

-Sun Tzu

 

[Roch + 537]

8 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

All true (your post details), but not historically totally. The big refinery in NB is in St. John, and is owned by the Irving family conglomerate (along with pretty much the rest of the Province!).  Historically the refinery bought ME oil and brought that in by large tanker.  Then at one point it switched to Bakken oil from North Dakota and brought that in by unit train.  The CP then sub-contracted the shipments past the transfer in the Cote-Ste-Luc railyard in Montreal, to the Montreal Maine and Atlantic.  The MMA then had that disaster at Lac Megantic where 47 died and the fires of the wrecked train burned down half the town.  After that the Bakken was shipped by rail unit train via the CSX mainline to the Port of Albany, NY, where it was trans-loaded onto 60,000-ton tankers, then by sea via the Port of New York and the Atlantic up to the Gulf of Maine. 

All that has apparently now stopped and Irving is buying its oil from Nigeria, last I heard. 

Syncrude is not spending the cash to build an upgrader plant, for billions, to upgrade the bitumen oilsands oil to an API point where it can flow through a pipe or be transported via rail without all those heating coils.  They don't see the viability of return, and they may well be right.  Demand destruction is collapsing the ability of oilsands crude to be a competitive crude product anywhere, outside of Canada.  Thus, "if" Canada were to impose an import tariff or quota on finished oils and also a quota or total ban on crude import, "then" there would be an internal market for Syncrude oils to the East (and West) internally and the incentive would be there to build an Upgrader.  Without that political structure I see no hope for a new pipeline. 

Oilsands tar oil can be converted into a solid, the "hockey puck" form, and shipped as a bulk commodity in gondola cars without consideration of temperature issues.  The idea is to use a plastic pellet as the carrier.  At the destination end the idea is to separate the oil from the carrier pellets and return the pellets for another use cycle.  It seems sound enough; how that works out financially is another matter, although if the producer (Syncrude) is prepared to take a haircut on their product pricing then I should think it is viable. 

Can Syncrude build its own refinery platforms in Edmonton / Ft. McMurray and ship distillate to internal markets?  Only if those markets are protected from the Americans.  Will that happen?  It might. hard to tell. It is a volatile political atmosphere inside Canada, lots of different pressures on various governments. 

 

You are correct.  Balkan light oil was, may still be shipped , to New Brunswick. The Magantic derail was a disaster. The town was turned into an inferno. Terrible.  I think you are correct Nigeria now.  

New Brunswick can't process dilbit . Cost about $10 billion upgrade. Need a coker unit and upgrade distillation towers. When he Gulf refiners started refining dilbit new steel distillation towers that were supposed to last 15 to 20 years were useless in less than a year.  The high heat triggers it's corrosive nature. Steel towers had to be upgraded using, I think,  nickel and chromium alloys.  You would know more about the metallurgy then I . That's your wheelhouse. 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Roch

[JoMack + 547]

The energy sector is front and center with all the "smart" guys from Wall Street to Exxon.  One of the more brilliant of them said "well, we went from the horse and buggy to the car, so what's the big deal"!  Another guy, reading from a script from John Kerry, repeated the "green jobs will replace that awful fossil fuel and nuclear industry jobs"!  I wonder if they realize that oil, gas, nuclear and related industries have about 6-7 million jobs in the U.S.  Last I looked, there were 114,000 solar and wind jobs.  I wonder how long it will take Biden to continue his purge on energy jobs, before he and his sycophants get the backlash that is sure to come.  I hate to say it but, come on man!  Do you really think you'll survive the onslaught?

[Roch + 537]

3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I think at that point the areas of the country that burn #2 heating oil for winter heat will be going back to coal. 

You would be surprised how much anthracite is still available in small mines (bandit mines, under the radar) in Appalachian coal country!  I predict coal will be the new outlaw, thus bootlegged, product of this century.   Probably disguised in bags labelled "salt," or "Potatoes," something like that. 

Another growth industry, brought to you by the bureaucrats in D.C. 

#2 heating oil is diesel oil. Same thing.  Plenty available.

[Roch + 537]

2 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Not even necessary.  For anybody that thinks that bureaucrats can order the Army to go "put down a rebellion in Texas," I remind you to look at the logistics.  The US regular army is 480,000 men.  But only perhaps 1/3 are actual infantry troops.  The rest are truck mechanics that fix brake shoes, cooks that peel potatoes, radio operators, guys that fuel helicopters, lots of clerks, guys that do supplies, all the Joe-jobs.  So you have maybe 150,000 men with actual guns.   They have to go up against say 10 million heavily-armed Texan men, and who knows how many women, in some shootout?  Nah. 

Those Army units consist of guys recruited from Nebraska and Indiana.  How motivated are they to go into some shooting war with Texans?  Will they even get on the bus?  Probably not.  If the men refuse to board, what are the officers, the lieutenants and majors and colonels, going to do?  Probably, nothing.  Plus, they also have no appetite for going there. 

So you will predictably have this wholesale refusal of military units, the commanders telling the politicians, "Hey, you guys go figure it out. We, we are staying in the barracks."  

So the Pentagon tries to institute the draft.  Lotsa luck with that idea. You are going to have an explosion, real riots in the streets, recruiting and induction centers burned down, real insurrection stuff.  Nobody, and I mean Nobody, is going to accept being drafted.  Those of you old enough to remember Vietnam and that draft fiasco will grasp that having a draft is going nowhere fast.  Ain't gonna happen. 

Is the Navy going to do a shore bombardment of Corpus Christi?  Nah, no chance.  Is the Air Force going to blast downtown Ft. Worth?  Nah, nobody has any stomach for that nonsense.  So, Texas becomes independent by virtue of "facts on the ground," same as the Crimea becomes part of Russia with facts on the ground.  Fait accompli, my friends. 

You could put down a secession movement in say Rhode island, not enough guns there in the hands of civilians - but Texas?  Hopeless. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.   Still true today. 

Come on.  WWIII , Texas vs. The Capital. Too funny.

Where's Katniss Everdeen when you need her.

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Roch

[Roch + 537]

11 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Roch, you seem to have good knowledge of the bitumen, so maybe you could answer a question that I've harbored for years. 

First, here is what little I know about it. The Bakken Basin (in which I am very interested) extends into Alberta, where they used to call it the Exshaw, after the predominant source rock. As far as I know, it contains mainly the same light sweet oil that is found in the Bakken. If so, there is no better diluent than a light oil that would mix well enough with the long-chain asphaltenes in the bitumen to result in low shear-stress flow (using the same LaPlace formula that was worked out for flow in a human capillary). That would eliminate the air-bubble/toxicity problem that you alluded to. The light sweet could have been (at one time) readily piped to the origination of bitumen. Additionally, the high sulfur of the bitumen could have been reduced to fit the refinery.  

That ship has sailed, obviously, but this whole thing seems like a sad chapter in Canadian-U.S. energy cooperation. I am a fierce opponent of Saudi Arabia because of their repeated betrayal, and an equally fierce proponent of using neighboring Canada's bitumen in our refineries. As it stands, because of Mr. Biden's and Trudeau's stance, western Canadian oil is basically doomed. Instead, the U.S. will continue to import heavy sour from a country that is not only vulnerable but also given to sudden fits of betrayal and malice.

Why on earth wasn't this worked out when there was a chance to cooperate? I presume that it was because fracking would be involved. 

The Environment Organizations stopped the XL thru the courts and through Obama.

The XL was approved three times 1. Original (no opposition)  2. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 3. Trump 

OPEC (aka Saudi Arabia ) squeezed U.S. producers and refiners 4X between 1970s - 1990s and the nationalized Venezuelan oil companies became more difficult to deal with.  

The International Oil COs flocked to Canada Tar Sands in the 2000s. They invested hundreds of $Billions . If you can believe it the Canadian government limited non-Canadian ownership to minority position (49%).  That eventually changed. 

Originally, the plan was to produce Syncrude and pipe to U.S.  They cleaned, diluted and refined the bitumen .  They were actually refining twice.  Refining the bitumen into syncrude to transport to U.S. , then the U.S. refineries processed again into product. It cost between $60- $70 to just make the syncrude  . Even with transport costs, at the time it was better than buying from OPEC.  

Then they discovered they could ship the diluted bitumen directly to Gulf and save big bucks.  Why refine twice ?  They started building the Keystone .  Because the pipeline traveled between two countries it was the State Department responsibility to approve. The original Keystone had little opposition from the Environmentalist and was approved during Bush Administration.

Condensate and Light crude was used as diluent.  At the beginning it came from the U.S.  There was a pipeline that took the condensate to Alberta.  I think it was called the Pony Express pipeline.  As the Bakken developed (both U.S. and  Canadian ) and the Oil Sands increased  production the Bakken shipped the condensate by rail to the oil sands. 

The first leg of the Keystone , (Canada to Cushing) and Enbridge's pipelines to the U.S. Midwest/Cd Ontario worked fine.  The leg from Cushing to the Gulf Coast started construction during Obama's first term. Obama actually attended the ceremony  to start the construction.  Midstream companies  then reversed  an existing Gulf to Cushing pipeline providing more capacity for dilbit going south.

The Oil Sands needed more capacity out of Canada to grow exports to a planned 5mm to 6 mm bbls/day. There had been several pipeline spill accidents most notably the Kalamazoo River spill in Michigan. Keystone XL was challenged by the Environmentalist, held up in court  and now had to be reviewed again by Hillary's State Dept.   A consulting firm that did work for Big Oil hired some of Hillary's former staff. Then Hillary's State Dept  awarded that same consulting firm a contract to evaluate the safety of the proposed XL pipeline.  Also during this time the  Canadian Chamber of Commerce gave a substantial donation to the Clinton Foundation. Surprise, the consultant report determined the pipeline was safe.   Hillary approved the XL. However, Obama received pressure from some very large campaign donors (Tom Steyer , etc) and reversed the decision. 

It's been back and forth like a pickle ball ever since.  

Even with Trump's approval those opposing the XL with a little money and some good lawyers can delay it forever.  

They won.  I think it's safe to say it's dead. 

Chevron wants to get back into Venezuela and Mexico is supposedly going to bring their oil industry back. Hopefully we won't be as dependent on Saudis .

 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Roch

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

6 hours ago, El Nikko said:

Sorry guys I am Vivian 

p.s Just kidding

p.p.s Or am I

p.p.p.s But I am just kidding 

Of course you are.  I Googled you, Vivian El Nikko, and there are no results!   But what are you really hiding, huh?  Maybe you are Vivian C. Sandiego!  

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

With apologies to Selva, I believe I have found the real Vivian Fulk.

Vivian Fulk - UbiVerse

ubiverse.org/people/vivian-fulk

I am a Climate Sacred Activist. I support science and compassion. I am a Climate Leader – personally trained and serve as a mentor with the honorable Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore. I've spent 35 years as a Clarity PPM software process engineer providing clear corporate governance. I meditate and pray daily and hear the earth call MAYDAY MAYDAY – M’aidez, M ...

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

5 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

They have to go up against say 10 million heavily-armed Texan men, and who knows how many women, in some shootout?  Nah. 

Be mighty careful around a gal from Texas.  She will most likely have a surprise for you:

For those of you who didn't know that was a thing.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

5 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

With apologies to Selva, I believe I have found the real Vivian Fulk.

Vivian Fulk - UbiVerse

ubiverse.org/people/vivian-fulk

I am a Climate Sacred Activist. I support science and compassion. I am a Climate Leader – personally trained and serve as a mentor with the honorable Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore. I've spent 35 years as a Clarity PPM software process engineer providing clear corporate governance. I meditate and pray daily and hear the earth call MAYDAY MAYDAY – M’aidez, M ...

I hear voices inside my head sometimes, too.  But usually only when I read Bio openings like that one!  My voices say "STAY AWAY! STAY AWAY!  Run Forrest, Run!"  or something like that.

[surrept33 + 609]

5 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

In point of fact, the Civil War itself was unconstitutional. There was nothing in it requiring states to continue to belong to the union. Among the many war crimes Lincoln committed was the suspense of First Amendment rights and censuring and closure of multiple newspapers who were saying exactly that, and quoting Hamilton, Jefferson and others. But as we all know, history is written by the winners. 

Mark my words, if Texas seceded Biden would call in the United Nations or NATO after American troops refused to fire on countrymen. Many of you are still laboring under the illusion that Biden was legally elected as president by 81-83 million voters. That story is complete fiction, regardless of how much censorship Big Tech and the media apply. Don't believe either that these "blue" states are really blue. That's just an artifact of the ballot stuffing. The swamp runs deep and wide  

I think the Texas vs White reconstruction-era SCOTUS case says it well:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/74/700/

States do not have the right to unilaterally secede from the United States, so the Confederate states during the Civil War always remained part of the nation.

Anyway, there is like 0% chance a "Texit" ever happens. Texas is too economically integrated with the rest of the US. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

3 hours ago, JoMack said:

The energy sector is front and center with all the "smart" guys from Wall Street to Exxon.  One of the more brilliant of them said "well, we went from the horse and buggy to the car, so what's the big deal"!  Another guy, reading from a script from John Kerry, repeated the "green jobs will replace that awful fossil fuel and nuclear industry jobs"!  I wonder if they realize that oil, gas, nuclear and related industries have about 6-7 million jobs in the U.S.  Last I looked, there were 114,000 solar and wind jobs.  I wonder how long it will take Biden to continue his purge on energy jobs, before he and his sycophants get the backlash that is sure to come.  I hate to say it but, come on man!  Do you really think you'll survive the onslaught?

Well, the majority of votes went to Biden (?) so we have a lot of uninformed people, that think a rush to pure green is a great idea. It isn't and anyone with a brain should know that. Then we have the ignorant mainstream media and the deplorable education system which spews out parrots more so than thinkers. The RED PILL shock treatment will have to be force fed by direct example. We will have interesting times for ,at least, the next two years. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

12 hours ago, surrept33 said:

Anyway, there is like 0% chance a "Texit" ever happens. Texas is too economically integrated with the rest of the US

Don't be so sure.  Kruschev thought that about Crimea.   And Ottawa thought that about Quebec, so they had a Vote, and Separation lost by 50,000 votes - those were the votes of the Italian immigrants in St. Leonard, who voted to stay inside Canada.  Without those immigrant votes, Quebec would now be a separate, independent country.  These things hang on surprisingly thin margins. 

YOu can be economically integrated and still have separate political systems.  Look at Monaco and France.  Or Goa and India.  Lots of examples out there. 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Jan van Eck
typing error

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Yes, England is still working on actually breaking the ties that bind it to Europe. If the E.U. had the power it would have stopped England from Brexit. 

[surrept33 + 609]

6 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Don't be so sure.  Kruschev thought thazta about Crimea.   And Ottawa thought that about Quebec, so they had a Vote, and Separation lost by 50,000 votes - those were the votes of the Italian immigrants in St. Leonard, who voted to stay inside Canada.  Without those immigrant votes, Quebec would now be a separate, independent country.  These things hang on surprisingly thin margins. 

YOu can be economically integrated and still have separate political systems.  Look at Monaco and France.  Or Goa and India.  Lots of examples out there. 

Let's just say cities like Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio (or at least, the urban cores of them, but these days, more and more of the surburbs) wouldn't want to leave the US. They identify less with the politics of people like Paxton. Look at many of the texas counties here: https://flowsmapper.geo.census.gov/map.html#

Many of the rural counties in Texas are actually losing population. 

Goa is completely part of India btw. The situation I was referring to is more like the integration between northern ireland and the rest of ireland. The largest hotbed of terrorism in the world in the 1970s was in north ireland, hence a lot of border posts. After the good friday agreement, north ireland and the rest of ireland became integrally integrated. Until Brexit at least. 

Edited January 29, 2021 by surrept33

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Beto should have taught us that even Texas is in danger of going Purple, especially with uncontrolled immigration. 

 

[LANDMAN X + 181]

On 1/25/2021 at 7:10 PM, Gerry Maddoux said:

Ever wonder why the "sweet spots" in shale always seem to be centered around federal land? This is the case in both New Mexico and North Dakota (not much federal land under the Texas portion of the Permian). If you lease a 2560-A plat and you deal with one lessee--the federal government--it's a quick process, as opposed to perhaps dealing with a hundred lessees on private lands. 

Gerry, enjoy your writing on shale drilling and other topics...specially on the Bakken.   Worked in all the oil producing counties of ND, MT, and SD -- Williston Basin, in the 80s and some later 90's.  I'm from North Dakota.  There aren't many acres of BLM (Federal Lands) in ND.  Most of lands were fee patents from the later 1800s.  Eastern part of state, virtually no mineral reservations from the early US patents late 1800's.. fee owned, minerals and everything.   Lots of lands the USA reserved coal (western part ND), but not oil and gas rights. Many of the lands in western ND have coal reservations in patents but not any other minerals. Of course, ditches & canals  were reserved to US all the time... (Roads and water ways)   Along the townships north and south of the RR lines, every odd section,  especially through western ND, the RRs reserved all minerals...big mistake.  The ND supreme court ruled ( in 50's) invalid reservation for the reservation wording "all minerals"  (soil is a mineral). The most BLM (Federal) lands in ND are in Billings county (Medora county seat-Bad Lands of ND)   Was fun working there in 1982 when hot county at the time.  LOTS OF HISTORTY.  President Teddy Roosevelt loved the place.  Billings is out of the sweet shale spots but never know until the bit goes down...                

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

12 hours ago, surrept33 said:

I think the Texas vs White reconstruction-era SCOTUS case says it well:

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/74/700/

When you go to that link and read the case Decision, one thing did leap out to me:

The rebel forces being disbanded on the 25th May, 1865, and the civil officers of the usurping government of Texas having fled from the country, the President, on the 17th June, 1865, issued his proclamation appointing Mr. A. J. Hamilton, provisional governor of the State; and directing the formation by the people of a State government in Texas.

In other words: if you stage a rebellion and do secede from the Union, you better make sure it will stick, because if your guys lose, it would be prudent to flee to some place where there is no extradition treaty!   [You already know that they are coming after you with a vengeance.]  Life is short, and your neck is weak.  Try to keep the rope from it. 

[JoMack + 547]

11 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Beto should have taught us that even Texas is in danger of going Purple, especially with uncontrolled immigration. 

 

When this goofball was running, friends asked if I liked him.  They went on to say they planned to vote for him against Ted Cruz.  I was stunned to say the least since they're in the oil and gas industry.  Most of us in the business really don't think a guy in Texas riding a skateboard, on the front of Vanity Fair magazine is our kind of guy.  Okay, so this was coming from a woman (no offense to women) but she went on to say she thought he was "cute".  OMG, so now I think we can understand why an old man, losing his mind, can win the Presidency.  Not that he's cute, but apparently they believe anything!  Phew.  

Texas is definitely heading the wrong direction especially if you're in the oil and gas industry.  The major cities are now left wing.  UT  Austin used to be the think tank for major advancements in the energy industry. I was in a meeting with engineers from other parts of the world on  facing the challenges and major hurdles in completing a 2 mile lateral horizontal well.  Now UT of Austin is a breeding ground for climate change warriors.  After years of indoctrination they are now part of either Apple or the government.  Houston was the home the the Majors and through activism in their Boards, they've moved out of drilling into investing in renewables and with that they move to the left and we witness the likes of Exxon/Mobil, a Major oil company slinking into a ghost of its former self as it tries to be a "Good Samaritan of climate change". 

Being somewhat conservative, I always think, wrongly I might add, that people will finally get common sense and get out of the dark side and move more into more right sided thinking.  But, it never happens.  Now that we're on the bullet train heading for an energy meltdown, I say to myself, well, how will they feel when gas lines begin, electricity is unreliable and the computer doesn't fire up, and millions of jobs are gone.  I that what it's going to take?  I doubt it.  It is the exact same thing about Texas turning purple.  Is it the population that is moving more into the left flank or is it the massive moves of Californians that destroyed their own state and decide to move east and land in Texas.  I find the latter to be more likely since my friends I talked about here have new neighbors.  They proudly announced they moved from San Francisco.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

11 hours ago, LANDMAN X said:

The most BLM (Federal) lands in ND are in Billings county (Medora county seat-Bad Lands of ND)   Was fun working there in 1982 when hot county at the time.  LOTS OF HISTORTY.  President Teddy Roosevelt loved the place.  Billings is out of the sweet shale spots but never know until the bit goes down...    

Landman, I appreciate your kind words about my musings and also your personal perspective on the sparsity of federal lands in the Bakken Basin in North Dakota. I have checkerboard interests in ND and wondered--throughout the pandemic--why my new well development had virtually stopped. 

At first, I attributed it to the oil glut, the lower price for (better) oil from the Bakken, the problems with pipeline shipping, a high bankruptcy level in companies working there, and a diminishing work force. But then I investigated a bit and found that most all drilling had been shifted to federal lands . . . just in case those polls were right and the country was falling for the Democrat's ploy. 

The existing production in ND is almost 30% from federal lands, which up there are interlaced with private lands, making some of the long laterals impossible under the new Biden threat. The preponderance of drilling--about 60%--has been on federal lands during the pandemic. They will (thank God) finish drilling that out in the next two years. Then (maybe), they can get back to work on private lands. 

Obviously, the "Biden Threat" changed the whole drilling pattern in the Bakken. It has also done so, equally, in the Delaware--though efforts were already concentrated in that direction and it hasn't been so obvious in Eddy and Lea Counties in SE New Mexico. The North Dakota federal lands may not look like much when you check them out on a plat map but if the big switch is from private to federal for fear of some maniac changing the rules, it is as if the world has changed--I can tell you from personal experience. 

BTW. I really like Billings County. I don't have any production there but the Billings Nose is one great stratigraphic trap. Eventually, a giant pool of oil will accumulate there.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

1 hour ago, JoMack said:

Being somewhat conservative, I always think, wrongly I might add, that people will finally get common sense and get out of the dark side and move more into more right sided thinking.  But, it never happens.  Now that we're on the bullet train heading for an energy meltdown, I say to myself, well, how will they feel when gas lines begin, electricity is unreliable and the computer doesn't fire up, and millions of jobs are gone.  I that what it's going to take?  I doubt it.  It is the exact same thing about Texas turning purple.  Is it the population that is moving more into the left flank or is it the massive moves of Californians that destroyed their own state and decide to move east and land in Texas.  I find the latter to be more likely since my friends I talked about here have new neighbors.  They proudly announced they moved from San Francisco.

Your post is accurate and incisive in many ways. Remember though, it was Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, who made a victory lap through California and bragged about the Texas recovery from the financial meltdown of 2009, urging Californians to "come to Texas." Well, it worked. I have nothing against Mr. Perry except to say: That was insane; people take their politics with them to their new home. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

4 hours ago, JoMack said:

When this goofball was running, friends asked if I liked him.  They went on to say they planned to vote for him against Ted Cruz.  I was stunned to say the least since they're in the oil and gas industry.  Most of us in the business really don't think a guy in Texas riding a skateboard, on the front of Vanity Fair magazine is our kind of guy.  Okay, so this was coming from a woman (no offense to women) but she went on to say she thought he was "cute".  OMG, so now I think we can understand why an old man, losing his mind, can win the Presidency.  Not that he's cute, but apparently they believe anything!  Phew.  

Texas is definitely heading the wrong direction especially if you're in the oil and gas industry.  The major cities are now left wing.  UT  Austin used to be the think tank for major advancements in the energy industry. I was in a meeting with engineers from other parts of the world on  facing the challenges and major hurdles in completing a 2 mile lateral horizontal well.  Now UT of Austin is a breeding ground for climate change warriors.  After years of indoctrination they are now part of either Apple or the government.  Houston was the home the the Majors and through activism in their Boards, they've moved out of drilling into investing in renewables and with that they move to the left and we witness the likes of Exxon/Mobil, a Major oil company slinking into a ghost of its former self as it tries to be a "Good Samaritan of climate change". 

Being somewhat conservative, I always think, wrongly I might add, that people will finally get common sense and get out of the dark side and move more into more right sided thinking.  But, it never happens.  Now that we're on the bullet train heading for an energy meltdown, I say to myself, well, how will they feel when gas lines begin, electricity is unreliable and the computer doesn't fire up, and millions of jobs are gone.  I that what it's going to take?  I doubt it.  It is the exact same thing about Texas turning purple.  Is it the population that is moving more into the left flank or is it the massive moves of Californians that destroyed their own state and decide to move east and land in Texas.  I find the latter to be more likely since my friends I talked about here have new neighbors.  They proudly announced they moved from San Francisco.

Great comment but I think you underestimate the migrants from all over the world. The big investors, as you mentioned, are also changing the USA from capitalism to crony capitalist fascism in league with Chinese fascism, European fascism, Russian fascism etc. You can also call it socialism, but it is run by elites in every country. Australia and New Zealand may be better than the USA without Trump but I am not up to date on them. 

[JoMack + 547]

3 hours ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

Your post is accurate and incisive in many ways. Remember though, it was Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, who made a victory lap through California and bragged about the Texas recovery from the financial meltdown of 2009, urging Californians to "come to Texas." Well, it worked. I have nothing against Mr. Perry except to say: That was insane; people take their politics with them to their new home. 

Phew, Texas dodged a bullet!