Winter NAPE Expo Business Conference Highlights - 2014

NAPE

The NAPE Expo is a North American event with some international influence, which features key players in the oil and gas industry. The business conference theme for 2014 was sustainability in the U.S. oil and gas industry.

The conference touched on key issues such as hydraulic fracking, sustainable business strategies and technological innovations.

Multiple speakers  put a spotlight on the practice of hydraulic fracturing. Here are some of their comments:

• Former Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, said, "I believe hydraulic fracking is safe... there is not a single case where fracking has caused an environmental problem for anyone."
• David Blackmon, Dir. FTI Consulting, said, "the biggest issue by far facing the industry today is water."
• "Treatment and recycling will be one of the main drivers moving the industry forward over the next 10 years," said Andrew Slaughter, VP, Upstream Research, IHS

The Business of Unconventional Drilling and Technology

• Robert Turnham, CEO, Goodrich Petroleum on business strategy: "we move early, identify opportunities and take the risk up-front. If you move early, then you enjoy lower royalty burdens straight off the top."
• Industry targeting the "sweet spots" in the shale plays. Floyd Wilson, CEO, Halcon Resources, on the Bakken: "[the company's] most recent wells in the Bakken are the best ever."
• Apache converting waste gas to electricity for field grid usage
• General industry focus on artificial lift technology in shale drilling to quickly drain reservoirs
• New diverter technology being utilized to make marginally economic wells profitable

Other Highlights from the Conference

• Luke Keller, VP, BP America, said, "[the] U.S. could achieve energy independence by 2035."
• "$2000 financial benefit to every American household by 2015 due to unconventional drilling of natural gas," according to Don McClure, VP, Government Stakeholder Relations and Legal, EnCana Oil and Gas USA
• "Tremendous amount of light sweet crude is about to be discovered and put into the marketplace [in the U.S.]" according to Charles McConnell, Rice University
• Industry encouraged to support better outreach and education initiatives via social media outlets

Learn more about NAPE by visiting napeexpo.com

Bakken Refinery on Fort Berthold Reservation Gets Interior's Approval

Fort Berthold Indian Reservation Map

A proposed Bakken refinery on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation has been approved by the department of interior. The refinery will be the first built on U.S. soil in over 30 years. Several major refinery expansions have been undertaken by Marathon, Exxon, and others in the past decade, but difficult permitting has made new build refineries a scarce sight. The 13,000 barrel per day Bakken refinery will be small in comparison to the super refineries that process more than 500,000 b/d, but it will be a significant economic development for North Dakota.

Secretary Salazar commented - [blockquote type="blockquote_quotes" align="left"]By working with the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people to place this land into trust status, we are supporting infrastructure that will help bring American oil and gas to market while promoting Tribal economic development and self-determination regarding land and resource use.[/blockquote]"By working with the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people to place this land into trust status, we are supporting infrastructure that will help bring American oil and gas to market while promoting Tribal economic development and self-determination regarding land and resource use."

The MHA National Clean Fuels Refinery will be another Bakken job engine in North Dakota. As many as 1,000 jobs will be created during construction and 140 permanent operational jobs will continue once the Bakken refinery is brought online.

The Bakken refinery is being designed with capacity of 13,000 b/d and will refine local crude into diesel, propane, and naptha products. The proposed site will be contributed to a trust by the MHA Nation for development. The three tribes asked the Interior`s Bureau of Indian Affairs to accept a 469-acre piece of property into trust. The proposed refinery will use ~190 acres and the remaining acreage will be used for the production of feed for the Tribes` buffalo herd.

Additional federal permitting will be handled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, EPA and OSHA. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the EPA led the drafting of the Environmental Impact Statement that was issued in 2009.

The EPA issued a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit for the refinery in August 2011, a step under the Clean Water Act that details required conditions and limitations for the proposed refinery`s operations. A thirty-day notice of the Department`s decision to acquire the land in trust is being published in the Federal Register.