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ot earth wobblies
a large (>1 km diameter) asteroid impact could affect earth rotation with similar magnitudes to the Chilean earthquake, however, there would be more serious problems than worrying about resetting your watch. nuclear detonations are trivial in comparison.
fun one to play with:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
don't be in a big hurry to file your tax returns in 2036
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis
Bakken
can't help you out on similar formations but it might be of interest to note that the portion in ND is a small part of the formation. Most of it is in Montana and Canada although that doesn't necessarily correlate with where the most oil production will come from.
[ot] healthcare & joe's seat
watched the first few speeches as carried by CNBC (taking advantage of the non-standard liberties of my job ;^))
[ot] healthcare summit
judging by the fact that joe biden didn't bother to get to his seat until after obama and everybody else were set to go i'd say joe may have forgotten who is president
just when i thought you were being reasonable ;^) you go and say wallstarb is smart and informative. i would argue the antithetical case.
i vote no on the basis of what Dew considers a sourced rumor. but since i've put wallstarb and his cohorts on ignore i'll be content until the tribe of cohorts exceeds the limit on the number of allowed ignored posters.
slb/ny times blog
Dew,
i thought the NYT article was reasonalble (blind squirrels ;^)).
they did miss some important bits o history: 1. SLB once owned a drillbit biz and that divesture may have been done under duress (before my time) and 2. the previous ceo also made a large purchase (Sema) shortly before his retirement which was the root of the afore-mentioned duress.
SLB has regained some offerings as part of this 'merger' and expands their portfolio in areas where we're possibly weaker than some competitors. Some folks may be worried about history repeating itself w/ regard to a large corporate purchase as the ceo is retiring but the differences are so many and great that any comparison is ludicrous.
the market and NYT writer obviously think the price was high but i have little doubt it will pay off. If you look at the relative stock prices of SLB and SII over the past 4 or 5 yrs, the divergence has been largest over the past few months so in a stock for stock purchase I think SLB's timing was good. The gap started closing a few weeks ago so looks to me like there was some leaking between the end-phase negotiations and the final agreement.
might also note that SII's CEO and CFO are former SLB employees. Not sure how that affected the negotiations but I think it will probably be advantageous during the integration. I am a bit curious as to whether SII's corporate officers will transfer into SLB and in what positions.
cheers,
Charlie
shale gas drilling
more on lack of precision in news reporting (re a 19Feb story in the WSJ regarding congressional investigations of drilling practices in gas shales):
The two congressmen raised particular concerns about the use of diesel fuel, which contains carcinogens. In 2003, three large oil-field-service companies, Schlumberger Ltd, Halliburton Co. and BJ Services Inc., reached a voluntary agreement with the EPA not to use diesel in certain wells.
But on Thursday, Mr. Waxman said that documents provided by BJ Services and Halliburton indicated they had continued to use diesel after the agreement was signed. BJ Chief Financial Officer Jeff Smith said Thursday that the company had "inadvertently used diesel on a couple of jobs" after the agreement but had since fixed the problem.
i'd bet that the cases cited in the 2nd quoted paragraph were NOT gas shale projects. Looks to me as if a dishonest congressman is intentionally confusing cases to mislead technically illiterate news reporters (and hence the technically illiterate public).
OT - Clean energy
Turtlepower,
sorry, didn't mean to offend.
The reading comprehension comment was a 2 parter: 1. both articles you've cited refer primarily to production and infrastructure build rather than the discovery of fundamental properties or processes which underlie the ultimate development commercial products; 2. shot-across-the-bow to people who read rascism into criticisms of national or political policies.
The bit about spending $440B over 10 yrs states obliquely "expected to go primarily" to research. I suspect folks in the PRC governing bodies have a different concept of research than I do. My cynical view is that the 'research' expenditures, IF they happen, will go mostly toward obtaining research rather than doing the research. However, covering both angles of that may include sponsoring students from the PRC to go universities and technologically based companies outside the PRC. Unfortunately, I'd be surprised if there are many royalty checks going out to the foreign companies and universities who can or do have patent claims on various technical processes and products in or from Chinese manufacturing plants. [i eagerly await data on royalties paid by PRC-based companies versus royalties claimed against PRC-based companies. Of course, I'd also be interested in the converse ;^)]
When I see graduate students from outside the PRC flocking to universites in the PRC, then I'll believe that China has a lead in technical discovery and innovation. I've never heard of single case although I've known many non-nationals who've gone to Japanese, Russian, Australian, German, French, .... US universities.
regards,
Charlie
OT - Clean energy
The chinese are way ahead
reading comprehension is vastly under-appreciated even though the NYT writer does have some problems with English grammar.
Note the article says "China vaulted past competitors ... to become the world’s largest maker ..."
innovation and the high margin ends of nearly any business are not the forte of institutions in the PRC. Conversely, they dominate the low margin, mass production share of many markets.
I'd bet that most of the research and development innovation occurs in the USA or through funding by US institutions (I include funding from entities like GE and XOM as well as the federal gov't) although, in many, if not most cases the scientists and engineers are not US citizens and the funding is often not spent in the US. Unfortunately, for those funding entities, retention and protection of IP is a problem - particularly with respect to the PRC. The profligate lack of respect for IP in the PRC is one of the enabling factors in their dominance of cheap manufacturing.
mentoring
yeah, personal experience and observation of others. there are plenty of very young yet very experienced and very intelligent folks in the oil patch. Experience from the 'old hands' is valuable but I don't think there will be a problem such as claimed when the USS Iowa's main guns were blown up, e.g. the guns were never repaired/replaced supposedly because the necessary machining capability and expertise had been lost. The real story was probably that the old guns cost too much and didn't provide nearly as much versatility and capability as new weapons. Metaphor sadly intended.
regards,
Charlie
old geologists
'tis true and not limited to geologists. there is some concern in the oil patch about what problems may result if the grizzled old hands retire en masse. however, i see no shortage of consultants reappearing from the ranks of the retired so i don't think it's a huge problem yet. 'mentoring' is strongly encouraged although sometimes i'm not sure who's being mentored.
(This is what makes the critique of "Obama as Socialist" so utterly stupid, not to mention, racist.))
i should stop being surprised by extrapolations such as yours but please do explain how you've arrived at the conclusion that labling Obama as a socialist is racist.
GDP industry stats
I am not even sure where to start.
gruesome detail [to reinforce the lack of interest]
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=SNA_TABLE1
or grossly generalized
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector_composition
if you want to use methane as a proxy:
http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/fluid.cgi?Action=Load&ID=C74828&Type=IsoTherm&Digits=5&PLow=.1&PHigh=10&PInc=.1&T=298.15&RefState=DEF&TUnit=K&PUnit=MPa&DUnit=kg%2Fm3&HUnit=kJ%2Fmol&WUnit=m%2Fs&VisUnit=uPa*s&STUnit=N%2Fm
or if that link is munged try
http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/fluid/
also has ethane, propane, butane,....
for methane at 25 C and 1 bar (~1 atm) there are 1542 m^3/tonne
benzene
yeah, intentional or not, there is a great deal of obfuscation in the article: "near" with no numbers or units, "gas-production facility" without saying what kind of facility, "comparable to" again without any quantification, "sites" again without saying what kind of site, e.g. a well being drilled, poducing well, gathering facility, etc.
in my own cynical way, i think this is an old fashioned supply and demand problem. Gas prices are low so gas companies are offering low lease rates. This is the local population's approach to 'counter-offering'.
benzene
agreed that the concentration of nasty fumes in the air around the fueling hole of a car is unhealthy; however, houses and publicly accessible ground is typically at least 10s and usually 100s of feet from gas wells. During drilling it's usually much more than that. Dissipation is a function of r^2.x (x>0) so the concentration drops off rapidly away from the source. If the concentration and effluent rate is so high that it doesn't dilute to a sufficiently low concentration over a small radial distance, then it not only is a breathing hazard to the operating personnel, but it's also a fire hazard. Since both of those are deletarious to profitable operation well operators have an incentive to not let those things occur. In addition, if a well is losing benzene, then it is also leaking larger quantities of methane, ethane, and propane, etc. which are profit (and liability).
Gas wells do leak. That's a fact of life. However, I'd bet that the concentration of benzene within 5 feet of any normally operating well (i.e. one that is not in iminent need of repair) is much less than the concentration of benzene within 5 feet of an operating gasoline station pump. Taking into account the relative amounts of material being delivered to the surface from the 2 sources I'd say gas wells perform remarkably well.
Maybe the Fort Worth official should move to La Brea.
cheers,
Charlie
benzene and gas drilling
The highest level was comparable to levels experienced by drivers while filling their cars with gasoline
sounds like gas station owners should be more fearful than gas well operators.
if these kind of noises came from nearly any source other than politicians, then I might give it more credibility. fear and extortion seems to be the political plan du jour.
[OT] Pickens Predicts CNG Bill Enacted by May 2010
whether or not a bill passes by May is not substantively important. Symbolically, maybe; however, there is no infrastructure to support widespread use of these vehicles. If the federal gov't wants to move this idea, then it would be more effective to merely create NG fueling facilities at federal sites and subsidize creation of the same for state and local gov't vehicle pools. I suspect Obama could do the first by fiat - no legislation necessary. Of course, manufacturing of NG vehicles is also necessary, but hey, the federal gov't/we own GM so I suppose putting that into gear should be easy.
personally, i'd be a happy camper if this proposal became law and NG vehicles became common but it really looks like nothing more than another shiny bauble for Nancy Pelosi to play with.
hydrofrac'ing/benzene
Dew,
I'm not a frac fluid expert so I don't really know whether there is benzene is used, however, I don't see how or why it would be useful and thus my skepticism. Most hydrofrac'ing fluids are 90 to >99% water (i.e. "slickwater" fracturing). Surfactants, biocides, and scale/corrosion inhibitors are also mixed in the water but I don't think benzene serves any of those purposes. If you can lay hand on SPE-115766, -122931, -119898 they might be of interest. The first is a general overview and the other 2 specifically address environmental aspects of hydraulic fracturing. The 2nd paper does not mention benzene at all while the 3rd mentions benzene management in the context of "flowback". Having benzene in the water produced back from the stimulated well (the flowback water) makes much more sense than adding benzene to the injected water. The nature of these reservoirs is that any complex or large hydrocarbon molecules will be highly degraded and one of the products of that degradation will be benzene. The purpose of the fracturing is to open up permeability and desorbtion of the volatile hydrocarbons into the created fractures. Consequently, benzene along with methane and any other volatile compound present goes into the water stream produced back to the surface. So as usual, the wailing and teeth knashing masses are trying to fix a symptom rather than the problem (unless killing the patient is considered a successful treatment of the problem).
regards,
Charlie
Exxon’s Tillerson Presents Merger Case to Congress
that was an interesting article. kind of strange that it was from a Dallas newspaper. With throw-away lines like "Exxon opposes the cap and trade system approved by the House in June, Tillerson said. But Exxon, which has funded groups that deny global warming, recognizes that industrial emissions contribute to climate change, he said." I'm guessing it's the local liberal newspaper.
back on point. I suspect that the service companies have a stake, potentially larger than the production companies, in disclosing the composition of the fluids used in hydro-frac'ing. Some of the chemicals used are proprietary. Maybe congress should ask Coca-Cola to turn over its secret recipe. I wouldn't be surprised if there are aromatic compounds in Coke, too. Articles like the posted one tend to include half-truths meant to scare people who don't understand the difference between benzene and aromatic molecules which by definition contain benzene rings.
Hydro-frac'ing is getting a lot of attention because of a variety of factors: close proximity of natural gas operations to large populations not accustomed to such things and generally biased against such companies; technical ignorance of the population combined with fear, manipulation of the fear and ignorance by politically motivated groups who already have the ear of the local populations; noise and inconvenience caused by development of the resource; subtantive unknowns regarding how and why hydrofrac'ing works and what happens to much of the injected water which exacerbate the fears of the technical illiterati, etc. Underlying, the first two of those reasons is a naive opinion held by a non-trivial part of the population that the country's energy needs can be met without hydrocarbon fuels.
MA, Cambridge voting
I voted at 11:55 AM precinct 1. 1 person leaving as I was going in. No other people either entered or left while I was there. Maybe 25% of the names their list had been checked off (that would be a high estimate). most primitive voting exercise I've ever experienced.
I walked past the precinct 2 polling place on my way to vote and saw 1 soggy Coakley volunteer, 2 people leaving, 1 going in (precinct 2 polling place was an apt building. very strange)
The Carbon Capture Report is a service of the University of Illinois and represents active research in the areas of automated machine learning
obviously their machines are lacking in some analytical abilities.
just for grins if you google: oil site:idenix.com you'll turn up 2 hits on the Idenix website, e.g.
under Robert Pelzer's page:
Mr. Pelzer was Senior Vice President and General Counsel at DuPont Pharmaceuticals based in Wilmington, Delaware. Mr. Pelzer also held a variety of positions within the DuPont organization, including Director and General Manager for the European oil and gas business and Vice President and General Counsel of Conoco Canada Limited in Calgary, Canada.
compine that with words like "pipeline" and probably "climate" or "global" or "environment" and the 'learning machine' decides that Idenix has something to do with carbon capture and oil
Monsanto & GMO seeds in Iraq
In occupied Iraq, it is now illegal for farmers to plant anything except GMO seeds
according to site below your claim is bogus. if you have substantive evidence to the contrary i'm sure we'd all love to see it. There's no shortage of claims such as yours.
http://www.juancole.com/2008/07/genetically-modified-seeds-not-used-in.html
Re: MON and worldwide farm acreage
Dew,
I think the world has vast amounts of undeveloped acreage that could be used for agriculture. It may be more expensive to develop that acreage or even make it accessible so biotech is a cheaper alternative (which I think is what you're really arguing).
regards,
Charlie
Re: Ag biotech (MON)
Dew,
you might want to look at:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/BiotechCrops/
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/CostsAndReturns/testpick.htm#historic1
i wouldn't sign onto the acreage argument but the data and my anecdotal observations are that the farming community has committed to ag biotech and it hasn't hurt their profitability even with rapidly increasing fuel costs.
Charlie
OT poorgrad & uninsured yng adult facts
jbog was correct regarding millions of uninsured young adults (18-24 yo). I provided a reference to the US census bureau's data which apparently nobody bothered to look at.
In 2007 there were 7.99 million uninsured in the 18-24 yr old bracket and in 2008 the number grew by nearly ~200k.
Charlie
OT uninsured
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/hlthin08/p60no236_table7.pdf
not sure how many young adults don't care about insurance but if it's only 5% of uninsured 18-24 yr olds, then there are still > 1 million young adults who choose not to have health insurance.
FWIW: the Senate's healthcare bill sets 26 yrs as the limit for being considered a dependent on a parent's health insurance. Wondering if employer provided plans will be forced to carry those 'elderly' dependents?
Senate healthcare bill
I'd like to know if the Senate version of the healthcare bill.
<http://help.senate.gov/BAI09A84_xml.pdf> has any relevance to MNTA's M-Enoxaparin ANDA? I'm not clear on whether M-Enoxaparin is being treated strictly as a generic substitute for Lovenox outside the purview of this bill or if it is being treated as an "interchangeable" under the healthcare bill's language (pg 1859-1906).
If M-Enoxaparin is addressed by the healthcare bill than it appears to me that the bill eliminates simultaneous approval of multiple generic versions of Lovenox for at least 1 yr after approval of the 1st generic (pgs 1865-6).
thx,
Charlie
shale gas
I'm not so sure that regulations need to be upgraded vs interpretations of existing law being better enforced [i.e. I really don't know which is more appropriate or necessary but yes there do appear to be some problems]. In shale gas, contrary to many other hydrocarbon resources, there are a lot of small operators with relatively limited resources for training and avoiding environmental problems and who are developing projects in highly populated areas. Bad combination. However, folks in the service industry won't be hurt in anycase so I'm happy with whatever happens ;^)
regards,
Charlie
Sounds a bit like sour grapes because she lost out on royalty payouts (she sold her mineral rights for $180 so she and other family members go for environmental litigation payouts).
It looks like the Marcellus is over 1 mile deep at Dimock, and water wells tend to be on the order of a few hundred feet, so any contamination of water wells that is traceable to NG production is probably due either to a faulty well (e.g. bad cement job) or one of the surface spills of fracturing fluid. Those things do happen in oil and gas production and are fixable. Unfortunately, the "back to living in caves but I still want a Lexus" crowd has gotten hold of this story.
audio presentation of locals who seem to generally be happy with natural gas production in the area
http://pagaslease.com/journal_mp3_dsblk_04-30-2009.php
regards,
Charlie
why does trying to convince him have to take up half the board?
putting him and his pals on ignore is a very effective way of reducing 'noise'. try it, you'll like it.
I've been puzzled about shale gas outside of North America for two years now. Can't understand why it has taken so long for this obvious technology transfer to start....Or North America has a more entrepreneurial oil and gas industry?
I think your guess is correct. Shale gas reservoirs in North America are/were being drilled by small operators which don't exist in the rest of the world. Those small operators comprise something like 30% of the shale gas service provider market (not sure if that's still true). Those small operators have/had a problem in that most of them carried a substantial debt load. Plummeting gas prices and tightened credit may have driven many of those operators into bankruptcy.
[ot wallstarb]
No one can be an expert on all science - but if you really think hard that once you have a grasp on it - it doesnt change often and it's pretty constant - so assuming that is true then what is the variable tjhat will change more often? Science or the stock relative value and risk/reward?
The answer is obvious - and while the science may help - its pretty much a constant and doesn't change often. What will change is the ebb and flow of investor sentiment. If you know that the science is sound or not you can make entry/exit decision based on relative value or risk/reward objectives.
wallstarb,
While most of your words above are English, the accumulation of them is nonsensical. While you obviously have some readers I, and obviously several others, think you are detracting from the value of this board.
Why don't you set up your own board on i-hub? I don't see why it should be any more difficult for your followers to read your board than it would be for others to put you and your TA responders on ignore.
This is not censorship, merely appropriate division according to the different interests of board readers.
regards,
Charlie
wsj - Gas Drillers' Painful Growth Paradox
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125381630844038367.html#mod=todays_us_money_and_investing
a very concise and dead-on article
[ot] precision in language
I have found it useful to try and understand what people mean by their statements rather than focus on the denotation errors.
Zipjet,
Unfortunately, the common failure to be precise in language has led to an equally common tendency of people to interpret meaning rather than simply accepting literal meaning. Unfortunately, people tend to color their interpretations with their personal opinions of the person issuing the words or what the listener or reader believes to be the ultimate intention of the issuer.
In this particular case PIPE has a negative connotation so one could easily believe that wallstarb is using lack of precision as a subterfuge to undermine MNTA's price for his personal gain. Of course, if he or anyone else objects to this insinuation, then maybe my words should be more carefully re-read.
regards,
Charlie
DD,
I was referring specifically to your question about APC. I didn't have any information but just wanted to let you know that i couldnt reply to such questions.
regards,
Charlie
OT] A true global market for NG?
sort of. i agree with the WSJ article. Australia and other countries have certainly developed NG resources for export (LNG). The Gorgon field is certainly advantageously placed for Oz. However, with prices and resources in the US being as they are the possibility of significant LNG imports to the US are marginal at best and I don't think the US has significant export capability at the moment. Building it would entail the same problems as building new refineries. Gorgon has technical problems (e.g. transport to mainland for processing and compression) but its location is nearly optimal from a marketing and local population perspective.
The Persian Gulf has the biggest NG reservoirs in the world and until recently those resources were stranded. The owners are starting to monetize those resources not just thru NG as fuel exports but thru more profitable chemicals manufacturing. Historically, this has been a good chunk of US exports (one of the few sources of positive net revenue) so this will be another blow to the "heavy industry" part of the US economy and will put further margin pressures on US refineries.
regarding one of your previous questions: I can't substantively reply to your questions about specific companies and projects unless it's public domain. don't want to get myself in trouble.
regards,
Charlie
shale gas
DoA,
my comments don't really run counter to SLB's white paper. SLB (and anybody else that can) want to develop technology which gives them a competitive advantage to the mom & pop operations. That technology tends to be expensive but if it increases the return to the resource owner or cuts down on the number of holes that the owner is paying for then SLB can argue that their services are cheaper.
The business about fracturing (part of stimulation, not completion, in spite of what the document says) is exactly why gas shales are cheap to produce. Anybody with enough money/credit to buy a high-pressure pump and some tanks can pump a few 100k to a few million gallons of pond water down the hole can stimulate a gas shale reservoir. A surprising number of people have that kind of money. Amongst that crowd Tesco is actually on the large side.
I would not be surprised if any given shale gas well undergoes a rapid decline from the initial production rate; however, there is a difference between decline and depletion. A poorly completed and stimulated well is likely to have a shorter life; however, i do not think that is what Sutherlin was refering to.
Your last quote exemplifies my analogy to the CA gold rush, e.g. rather than spending money to develop the resource for maximum production, many owners and service providers go for the quick hit.
I've forgotten the percentage of horizontal wells vs vertical but I believe almost all shale gas wells are now horizontal. Horizontal wells present some problems for logging but for many folks that just meant they'd save some money and not log the wells. This undoubtedly contributed to a lot of uneconomic wells being drilled but until the last year or so that didn't matter much to many resource owners.
Low NG prices, environmental concerns, and current credit situation are all conspiring to make life hard on the smaller shale gas development companies.
regards,
Charlie
GENova
i like the description on google finance:
Genova Biotherapeutics, Inc., formerly Kinder Travel, Inc., is a travel agency offering a range of travel services, including corporate travel, vacations, cruise holidays, and group tours. right to the poor house.
Sutherlin’s comments re Tesco
DoA ;^)
you found the comment i intended you to see.
Sutherlin was only a director of Tesco; unfortunately directors frequently don't know much about the businesses they supposedly oversee. Hopefully for you he knows more about mining.
The nat gas business has fundamentally changed from 15 yrs ago and there is no going back. People who make historical comparisons between the price ratio of oil to NG and then conclude that NG prices must rise to get back to that historic ratio are ignoring that fundamental change and will probably lose their money [hopefully i got the lose/loose case correct so Dew won't delete my post].
Whether Tesco's market cap is $250M or $300M is irrelevant - both are miniscule compared to the major players in the overall natural gas services industry.
part of the reason for the fundamental change in the NG market is the advent of cheap means of exploiting shale gas. Because sophisticated drilling, completion, and production techniques are not necessary for shale gas dozens of "mom & pop" drilling and production companies have cropped up to exploit shale gas reservoirs. This has resulted in a situation that is a bit like the California gold rush of the 1850s where thousands of small operators descended on the resource and rapidly and sloppily stripped off the easiest and richest reserves. That didn't last long - partially because the sloppiness caused health and environmental hazards. The same is starting to happen in the shale gas business because small operators tend to be on the sloppy side. In addition, when NG was higher, drillers were just drilling wells w/o regard to whether or not a well was economic. If enough holes were drilled the avg would work out to being profitable. That won't last either. Eventually, the big service companies will gain back the market and be able to impose higher prices on the market.
So, yes, NG prices will increase again but I wouldn't bet on the oil:NG price ratio to close to its historic avg. When NG will make it back to $7 is outside my willingness to speculate but in anycase I wouldn't bet on Tesco being a big grower in market share or stock price. Whether or not that will have any bearing on JOYG is something I know not.