PrairiePundit

  Breitbart: North Dakota Gov.: Biden Oil and Gas Lease Halt Has Already Cost over $100 Million in Lost Revenue, Could Cost Billions if It Continues This is the nuttiest energy policy in history.  If anyone in North Dakota votes for a Democrat their sanity should also be questioned. 

 Jazz Shaw: I’ll confess to being a bit surprised when I saw t his headline over at NBC News  today. “ North Dakota and South Dakota set global Covid records. How did they turn the tide ?” Given the low opinion most MSM newsrooms have for the red states, it seemed unusual for NBC to admit what the numbers have been telling us for months. Following a significant surge in the fall, both states have seen their total number of cases trending downward and are leading the nation in rolling out the vaccines. SEE ALSO:   More senators who voted to impeach facing censure But the article quickly jumps into gear being critical of how Doug Burgum and Kristi Noem handled the pandemic anyway. After crediting the states with tremendous progress, the report immediately turns around and says their success may be “tenuous,” pointing to resistance against government mandates and the “ politicization of infection prevention measures .” Unlike states that had soaring case counts early in the ...

Washington Times: There’s an imminent environmental threat to water quality in southern North Dakota from oil leaks, but not from the Dakota Access pipeline . Protesters left behind about 200 cars and trucks in a floodplain, sending clean-up crews scrambling to tow the vehicles before the spring melt can carry them into the Cannonball and Missouri rivers, along with potentially thousands of gallons of oil, gasoline and diesel. “There are roughly 200 vehicles down there at last count, ranging from cars and pickups to rental trucks,” George Kuntz, vice president of the North Dakota Towing Association, told Western Wire. “We’re going to have a very drastic situation trying to keep these vehicles from getting into the river—what everybody’s been trying to protect from day one.” The vehicle estimate is more than double the original count by local officials, who have aided the Standing Rock Sioux in hauling off tons of garbage scattered across U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land at the for...

Washington Times: After spending more than $22 million on the Dakota Access pipeline protest, North Dakota wants to make sure any paid activists remember to submit their state income taxes. Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger said his office is keeping an eye out for tax forms from environmental groups that may have hired protesters to agitate against the 1,172-mile, four-state pipeline project. ... I find this interesting.  It could give the state a handle on dealing with some of the paid protesters and possible leverage against their paymasters.

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to deny a permit for Energy Transfer Partners to build a section of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota is likely to be a temporary setback. While the decision by President Barack Obama’s administration prevents the pipeline’s completion for now, analysts and Republican leaders have said Energy Transfer will probably receive the approval it seeks after President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. “The Obama administration’s refusal to issue an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline violates the rule of law and fails to resolve the issue,” North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican, said in an email. “Instead, it passes the decision off to the next administration, which has already indicated it will approve the easement, and in the meantime perpetuates a difficult situation for North Dakotans.” Trump has expressed support for Dakota Access as recently as Dec. 1. Energy Transfer Partner...

NY Times: Alternate Route for Dakota Pipeline to Be Explored The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a major victory in a battle that has become a global flash point for environmental and indigenous activism. The Army Corps of Engineers said that it would not approve permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline at a site that the tribe said would threaten a water source and sacred sites. This is a political decision by an administration that is on the way out and has little to do with reality.  Pipelines cross water sources all over this country and problems are rare.  The same government that is willing to ignore religious beliefs of those who do not want to bake cakes or participate in a gay wedding is making a religious accommodation for a pipeline that does not touch the Tribe's land. This will only lead to more of these absurd demonstrations by the "keep it in the ground" left.  The new administration should ignore this precedent in the fu...

The Hill: Republican lawmakers who supported the Keystone XL project are slamming President Obama’s delay of the Dakota Access Pipeline, calling it another example of his harmful approach to energy production. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said it is “astonishing” that the administration delayed the Dakota project despite a federal court ruling it could move forward. “The courts have ruled, the permits were there, the permission was given, and then the president comes in and intervenes in something that his own department had won the court case on it. So it just shows how anti-energy and anti-economy President Obama is,” Barrasso said. Activists, environmentalists and American Indians have mobilized opposition to Dakota Access in recent weeks, hoping to recapture the energy that helped grind the Keystone XL pipeline to a halt. The administration gave the effort a jolt of momentum earlier this month when it delayed final approval of Dakota Access for an agency review. GOP suppo...

CNN: North Dakota Republicans selected 25 national delegates Sunday, with results that looked good for Ted Cruz, but were far from certain because each delegate will be a free agent at the national convention. The North Dakota delegates include a handful of Republicans who have said they will vote for Cruz. But just as many delegates were mum about their plans when questioned over the weekend. Party leaders make up many of the slots, including Gov. Jack Dalrymple, First Lady Betsy Dalrymple, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and top party donors. The Cruz campaign put significant time and resources into the North Dakota voting -- as GOP rivals Donald Trump and John Kasich -- and on Sunday evening sought to portray the results as an unequivocal win. "I'm thrilled to have the vote of confidence of Republican voters in North Dakota who delivered such a resounding victory today," Cruz said in a statement. "As I met them over the weekend, North Dakota Republicans...

Fuel Fix: Plans are moving forward to build the biggest new refinery in 40 years in the U.S. at a time when gasoline consumption is expected to break an all-time record in 2016. California-based Meridian Energy Group is expected to begin construction soon on the planned Davis Refinery in North Dakota that would take advantage of the Bakken shale play and process up to 55,000 barrels of oil a day. The project comes on the heels of the 2015 opening of the 20,000-barrel-a-day Dakota Prairie Refinery that represented the nation’s first new refinery since 1976. “The Davis Refinery will be one of the most modern, efficient and environmentally-compliant refineries in the U.S. in more than 50 years,” Meridian Chairman and CEO William Prentice said in a prepared statement, noting that Houston-based BASIC Equipment is contracted for fabrication and construction services. The Davis Refinery is more substantial than the smaller, “teapot” Dakota Prairie project, said Patrick DeHaan, senior petrol...

Dallas Morning News: America’s oil boom sputtering back to life one rig at a time You could not call the return to production robust, but it is a start.  There are also some 4,000 wells that could now be complete.

Fuel Fix: Volatile Bakken crude expected to keep flowing through Texas Pipelines are a safer mode of transportation, but the anti energy left is opposing them on the bogus assumption that they can keep the oil in the ground.

Watchdog.org: North Dakota has almost 3 job openings for every unemployed person Incomes have also doubled over the last 10 years.  It is a microcosm of what is possible when the anti energy left is not in charge of where people can drill.

AP/Fuel Fix: North Dakota Republicans on Wednesday unveiled an $800 million one-time spending plan to address immediate problems tied to the oil boom in the western part of the state. ... The proposal includes $475 million to oil-producing counties and cities; $140 million to oil patch hub cities of Williston, Dickinson and Minot; $35 million to county schools affected by oil development; and $150 million for road projects outside of the oil patch. North Dakota’s newfound oil riches have resulted in unprecedented demands for spending on roads, schools, public works, law enforcement and emergency medical services. Wardner said the biggest need in the state’s oil patch is for affordable housing for workers. “We want these skilled people to stay and invest in North Dakota,” he said. Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said infrastructure needs and a shortage of workers are the biggest challenges facing North Dakota’s energy sector. The state has more than 25,000 u...

AP/Fuel Fix: Foreign investors more familiar with projects in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and tropical escapes of Southeast Asia are finding a new destination for their dollars and francs: Western North Dakota’s oil patch that’s home to booming towns, low unemployment rates and high incomes. SelectUSA, a government foreign investment initiative, said the state has drawn at least 31 publicly announced foreign investment projects since 2003 worth a total of $1.04 billion. Now two foreign companies are planning a pair of large oil patch developments worth $800 million. Williston Economic Development head Tom Rolfstad said there’s likely more foreign investment than what’s immediately visible. Among the latest projects is Swiss firm Stropiq’s plan for a $500 million, 219-acre mixed-use development called Williston Crossing featuring 1 million square feet of retail, entertainment and hotel space along with offices and residential plots. The oil patch is “an emerging market by m...

Fuel Fix: Two weeks after government officials all but demolished California’s shale-oil reserve estimate , Houston oil analysts offered a more optimistic view of plays in Texas and North Dakota. Oil producers eventually could drain 21 billion barrels of crude out of the Bakken Shale in North Dakota — nearly three times the government’s estimate of recoverable reserves in the region, Wood Mackenzie analyst Jonathan Garrett said during a media briefing by the energy research firm this week in Houston. Another analyst, Cody Rice, presented Wood Mackenzie’s assessment of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, where it projects this year’s drilling expenditures will be $27 billion — $4 billion higher than estimated previously. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said last month that about 600 million barrels of oil can be tapped from California’s Monterey Shale formation — a big dip from a previous estimate of 13.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil. But the government’s forecast t...

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix: Towering flames atop oil wells break the inky darkness in the badlands on North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The flares of natural gas set grass fires on the prairie where Theodora Bird Bear’s ancestors hunted buffalo and create a driving hazard on rural roads. “At nighttime, clouds of gravel dust from semis are lit up with flaring lights,” said Bird Bear, 62, who can see flames shooting from a well behind land where she grows red beans, corn and squash. “It’s a hellish scene.” Twice as much natural gas is wasted through flaring than in 2012 amid an energy boom that’s propelled North Dakota’s torrid economic growth. The state’s employment expansion has been the fastest in the U.S. for four years. In the rush to exploit the Bakken shale formation, which holds the nation’s second-largest oil supply, companies from Statoil ASA to Whiting Petroleum Co. are stepping in to try to capture more of what’s lost. Oil exec: Decades of life left in Bakken Shale N...

AP/Fuel Fix: The ice fishing in northeast North Dakota is the best it’s been in two decades, but some anglers can’t make it because trains handling freight and crude from the state’s oil patch are displacing Amtrak passenger service. Steve Dahl, owner of the Perch Patrol guide service, said he spent the past week calling hundreds of customers who had made reservations to fish at Devils Lake and stay in its namesake city. “The conditions are perfect but I’ve had to explain to them about this dumb train thing,” Dahl said. “For some of them who had their heart set on this, I would have rather told them I ran over their dog.” The federally funded rail corporation, which uses BNSF Railway Co. lines, said the “severe freight train interference” is causing long delays along its Chicago-to-Pacific Northwest Empire Builder route. In North Dakota, Amtrak trains are bypassing the cities of Grand Forks, Devils Lake and Rugby. Passengers in those cities are being bused to either Minot or to Fargo...

AP/Fuel Fix: The FBI’s possible plan to station permanent agents in the Bakken oil patch of Montana and North Dakota as the drilling boom drives crime rates higher has sparked a dispute between lawmakers from the two states over where the agents should be located. Crime on both sides of the states’ border has spiked as thousands of new workers brings drug traffickers in their wake. Since July, two FBI agents and an agency intelligence specialist have been stationed in Sidney, Mont., according to authorities. But those postings have been temporary, and a request is pending to make them permanent, FBI spokesman Kyle Loven in Minneapolis said Friday. North Dakota Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and John Hoeven want the agents moved about 45 miles northwest to Williston, N.D., considered the heart of the oil patch. Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Rep. Steve Daines want the agents to remain in Sidney. Loven said a final decision will be up to FBI headquarters. He could not offer a timetable. “The FBI un...

Fuel Fix: People in the oil business knew for decades how to predict flow of oil and gas without the help of astrologers, clairvoyants or divining rods: Just count the number of rigs pumping the stuff out of the ground. Oil field services titan Baker Hughes started doing that decades ago, and still does. In the last few years, though, a U.S. production surge from Texas to North Dakota has mystified number crunchers: Oil and gas continue to flourish even as Baker Hughes’ once reliably predictive rig count declines. New drilling technologies are breaking down that simple link between production and rig count, enabling oil and gas producers to drill more wells for every rig and prompting analysts to divine new metrics. Getting the right answer is imperative: The industry and the nation need to know for strategic reasons how much energy is coming out of the ground and how much is left. What they already know is that producers are draining tight rock formations much faster than they did t...

AP/Fuel Fix: Hundreds of trains carrying crude oil could soon be chugging across the Northwest, bringing potential jobs and revenues but raising concerns about oil spills, increased train and vessel traffic and other issues. With five refineries, Washington has long received crude oil from Alaska and elsewhere by ship, barges or pipelines. But ports and refiners are increasingly turning to trains to take advantage of a boom in oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region. Three terminals — in Anacortes, Tacoma and Clatskanie, Ore. — are already receiving crude oil by trains. Other facilities are proposed at the ports of Grays Harbor and Vancouver, and at refineries. Together, the 10 projects would be capable of moving nearly 800,000 barrels per day, said Eric de Place, policy director at Sightline Institute. “It’s a lot of oil that we’re talking about moving by train in Washington. It raises new questions about how the state can handle a spill.” The Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluatio...