Governor’s Pipeline Summit

The North Dakota Governor’s Pipeline Summit will take place the morning of Tuesday, June 24, at the National Energy Center of Excellence, located at 1200 Schafer Street on the Bismarck State College campus.

View a Tentative Agenda for the Governor’s Pipeline Summit.

Pipeline industry leaders will be on hand to talk about their investments in building the state’s pipeline infrastructure to help reduce impacts in North Dakota’s oil country. Pipelines provide great opportunity for helping to:

• reduce impact to roads and highways,
• increase safety both on roads and product handling,
• and provide reliable and efficient routes to key market destinations.

There is no cost to attend the summit. If you plan to attend, please take a moment to pre-register now. On-site registration the day of the event will also be available.

For those unable to attend in person, the summit will be available via video stream at www.governor.nd.gov.

Register for the 2014 Governor’s Pipeline Summit

Press Release – June 12, 2014

With insurgents having overrun Mosul and now heading toward Baghdad, virtually all of the media focus has been on the military aspects of this conflict as well as a possible alliance between Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

Lost in the shuffle has been the “fear factor” building into the world price for crude oil. This may very well happen to oil prices should the ruling government in Iraq be toppled, or if the conflict turns into a civil war.

Already the price of oil has spiked in the past two days with tensions escalating and may very well drive the price for a barrel of oil oil up another $10 a barrel.

The US has the means to insulate itself against such price spikes: Thanks to the unending supplies of oil and natural gas unlocked by frac’ing, we can free ourselves of our dependence on imports from volatile North Africa and Middle East regions.

These price spikes almost immediately will translate into higher prices for gasoline and diesel at the pump. In an market such as this “Prices shoot up like a rocket and drift back down like a feather”.

Let me know if you are interested in speaking with me.

Bob van der Valk
Senior Editor
Bakken Oil Business Journal
406.853.4251
editor@bakkenoilbiz.com

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The Williston Basin Chapter of the American Petroleum Institute (Williston API) has established endowed scholarships at Montana Tech of the University of Montana and the University of North Dakota.

The Williston API is a nonprofit organization comprised of service oriented individuals who serve the local oil and gas industry, as well as the surrounding community. Our members are dedicated to providing a forum for the discussion of energy related issues and promoting improvement of the energy industry through education and community action.

Williston API members are committed to develop and adhere to the highest level industry standards, protect the environment, and lead in health and safety performance. The Williston API raises funds for scholarships, promotes education, and makes an impact in the community where we live and work.

In 2008, the organization established the Williston API Scholarship program at Montana Tech offering two $2,000 scholarships annually to support one junior and one senior in the Petroleum Engineering Program. The scholarships are part of a continued effort to meet the increasing demand for a skilled workforce in the growing oil and gas industry in the Williston Basin.

The University of North Dakota (UND) has recently established the Department of Petroleum Engineering and the Harold Hamm School of Geology and Geological Engineering in the College of Engineering and Mines offering for the first time a petroleum engineering degree program.

The Education and Scholarship Committee presented a proposal to the board of directors and subsequently to the membership to establish a similar scholarship program at UND as the one at Montana Tech. Ultimately the decision was made to establish the Williston API Endowed Scholarship at UND and fund two $2,000 scholarships to be awarded annually for Petroleum Engineering. Additionally, the chapter also established the Williston API Endowment to fund the scholarships at Montana Tech.

“The education and scholarship committee and our board of directors presented the endowment proposal to our members and they voted with great enthusiasm to establish these endowed scholarships,” commented Ken Callahan, president of the Williston API Board of Directors. “The endowments will enable these scholarships to be funded in perpetuity and our members see this as an investment in our future and a legacy of our chapter.”

“This was a record year for Montana Tech with 405 students enrolled in Petroleum Engineering,” explained Luke Meyer with the Montana Tech Foundation. “We are truly pleased to see the Williston API strengthen their commitment to the program by now creating an endowment for their scholarships that were established in 2008.”

“This represents the very first endowed scholarship for our relatively young Petroleum Engineering program which now has over 200 students in its fourth year in existence,” stated Dan Muus, Chief Development Officer, UND Alumni Association & Foundation. “We are excited to have this ongoing support for our students from the Williston Basin API chapter. UND students graduating with degrees from the Harold Hamm School of Geology and Geological Engineering and the Petroleum Engineering department today, will be leaders within the industry for decades to come.”

Contribution Challenge
The endowments have been initially funded with $25,000 to each institution and will only partially fund the annual scholarships. The Williston API will continue to fund the balance of the scholarships until the endowments are fully funded, approximately $50,000 each. The chapter plans to make future contributions as finances allow and as approved by the membership.

The Williston API education and scholarship committee along with the board of directors would like to challenge and encourage its members and their companies to join in the effort to support the future of our industry by making additional contributions to the endowments. Contributions may be made to either or both endowments by contacting the foundations directly. More information is available at the chapter website at www.WillistonAPI.com.

Brent Eslinger, Sr. District Manager for Halliburton and past president of the Williston API added “This is an outstanding achievement for the Williston API Chapter and its members. It is an opportunity for our industry and our chapter members to give back to our community and prepare our youth for success.” He added “This next step of an endowed scholarship will become a standing legacy for the API chapter.”

“I am proud of our organization and the commitment our members have made to this effort,” stated Kathleen Neset, president of Neset Consulting, past board member of the Williston API, and member of the Education and Scholarship Committee. “I for one would like to encourage other companies to support this initiative and I look forward to fully funding these endowments in the near future.”

Companies and individuals interested in contributing to either or both of the endowments can find more information on the chapter website at www.WillistonAPI.com.

Contact
Williston Basin Chapter API
Ken Callahan, President
701-770-5030
Ken.Callahan@mdu.com

Listen to what Mr. Hannity had to say about energy and North Dakota by viewing the clip here. Then, be sure to attend WBPC on May 22 to hear his thoughts first hand!

‘Energy Is Our Answer’: Hannity on ‘Get America Back to Work’ Campaign

Sean Hannity was on “America’s News Headquarters” today to discuss his “Get America Back to Work” campaign, where he teams up with companies in oil-rich states to get Americans employed.

A few years ago on his radio show, Hannity said that if he was unemployed, he would pack his bags and go to North Dakota, where he would beg an oil executive to hire him.

His message spread, months went by, and Hannity said he got about 20 calls from people who said they took his advice, moved to North Dakota, found jobs, paid off debt, bought houses and more.

That’s when Hannity and his team began to approach companies in North Dakota, Louisiana and Texas in order to get Americans back to work.

“Energy is our answer – it could literally transform the American economy […] it is the single greatest resource we have,” he said, stressing that he has been “blessed beyond measure” and that it kills him to see the middle class being held hostage.

“I identify with them because that’s where I came from,” he said of America’s middle class.

“People are suffering needlessly and government policies are literally an impediment to their life, their success, their opportunity to buy a nice house in a safe neighborhood, get a nice car, send their kids to a nice school. All of this is government getting in the way. I say bypass ‘em, they’re all a bunch of idiots,” he said.

Aaron Flint is the host of the popular statewide talk radio show “Voices of Montana.” In addition, he serves as the editor of the daily online news and commentary blog “The Flint Report,” recognized by The Washington Post as “one of the best state-based political blogs.” Aaron has also been listed by The Washington Post as one of the best state based political reporters. His work has been featured nationally by the Fox Business Network, The Drudge Report, Huffington Post, Politico and others.

He has deep Montana roots, since his father’s family homesteaded near Flathead Lake, and his mother’s family goes back four generations in Glasgow. While in fourth grade Aaron recalls stuffing newspapers for The Glasgow Courier, which for years was published and edited by his grandparents, Ron and Joan Helland.

As an officer in Montana’s Army National Guard, Aaron served three military tours overseas, in 2005-06 as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Ramadi, Iraq, and later in 2008-09 as an embedded advisor with the Afghan National Police at COP Wilderness in Afghanistan. Most recently, he deployed to the Horn of Africa.

Flint’s journalistic experience began as a journalism student at Howard University. He later received a BA degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Montana where he served as President of the Associated Students. He also worked for two years as a Policy Advisor on the Washington staff of U.S. Senator Conrad Burns. Flint’s broadcast career includes work with Montana Public Radio, a runner for the NBC News “Today” show at the 2004 National Political Conventions, an internship with Bloomberg TV and Radio in Washington, DC, and as Executive Producer and Reporter with KTVQ-2 Television (CBS) in Billings.

Flint enjoys combining his real world background and Montana roots, with a love for journalism, saying, “Every day, I hope to take a wide range of experiences to show audiences the bigger picture, or to give them a side of the story they won’t get anywhere else”.

Aaron and his wife Jessica have two young boys, and a baby girl born during his recent deployment overseas.

John Driscoll in running for the US House of Representatives for Montana and recently visited with the Bakken Oil Business Senior Editor to share his views on the future for energy in the Big Sky State.

He said he was surprised and delighted to discover crude oil is being shipped from the Bakken by rail to the Columbia River, and then transported by ship to West Coast refineries in California.  It has effectually displaced crude oil which would otherwise have to be imported from Saudi Arabia and other regions in the Middle East and North Africa.

He was posted at the Pentagon and serving his third and final tour of duty as a US Army Colonel, working as a Joint Staff Officer for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the 9-11 terrorist attacks.  A few days afterwards he noted on a post incident survey required of those receiving combat pay:  “I was standing just an estimated 100 feet in front of the American Airlines Flight 77 plane after it came to rest in the depths of the building.   On the first deck, a few feet to the right of Corridor 4, I later observed a 20-foot hole blasted through the inner wall of the C Ring, just a few feet from where I was nearly knocked off my feet on the first deck in Corridor 4 at the B Ring.”

He further stated it was a close call and after over 12 years it’s hard to forget 19 out of 20 terrorists were Saudi nationals who hijacked and flew our planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

He encourages President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to help address a complex set of challenges we will face in meeting our national energy requirements.  There is need to work together in order to be able to minimize the human, environmental and financial costs of getting the US onto a more secure source of crude oil.

He pointed out there is a need to move quickly beyond the Keystone XL pipeline decision and make plans to build another pipeline, crossing the US-Canadian Border at Sunburst, Montana, upgrading north of the Marias River, accepting Bakken from along the alternate (Tioga) route, proposed by the State of Montana and BLM for the Northern Tier Pipeline, and flowing down the CANAMEX (I-15) corridor to West Coast refineries.

Montanans are capable protectors of Montana’s environment and will bring their environmental stewardship and our personal individual rights to a clean and healthful environment in solving the problems certain to be identified.  This will aid the safer, more efficient and environmentally benign transport of crude oil via pipeline.

His focus will be to encourage efficient development, distribution and use of fossil fuel energy, as the transition to alternate energy resources.

This will assist in freeing up national capital from supporting forward deployment of US military forces to countries with governments hostile to the US.  Private capital can accelerate changing over thermoelectric plants to above 50% conversion efficiency, since they will still have to rely on base-load coal for the intermediate term. Wind, hydro and natural gas energy will have to be integrated on a situational basis as well.

Over the long run the US needs aim toward a robust electricity infrastructure of upgraded transmission lines, including more outside linemen, and high speed electric passenger rail along our Interstate highways, integrated with plug-in hybrid and electric motor vehicles.

“The Sky is the limit.” KTVQ – Montana – Jay Kohn’s interview with Bob van der Valk, Senior Editor of the Bakken Oil Business Journal, about crude oil production in the Bakken.

The Bakken Oil Business Journal is a Silver Level Sponsor for this event. See you there!

By Kevin Smith, San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Chevron Gas station prices, unleaded gas $4.53 with Super unleaded at 4.69 on the corner of La Crescenta Ave. and Honolulu Ave. in Montrose, Ca on Tuesday, April 15, 2014. (Keith Birmingham Pasadena Star-News)

Southland gas prices have risen dramatically in recent days, and one industry expert figures they’ll remain above $4 a gallon until September.

The average price for a gallon of regular gas in Los Angeles County was $4.30 Wednesday, up 17 cents from a week ago and up 26 cents from a month ago, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

California’s average price for regular was $4.19 a gallon Wednesday, topped only by Hawaii’s average price of $4.32 a gallon.

“I think it will level off now, but prices won’t fall below $4 a gallon until September,” said Bob van der Valk, senior editor for the Bakken Oil Business Journal. “It’s because of the lack of supply … there’s just no backup supply.”

Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the Automobile Club of Southern California, linked the price hikes to several factors.

“Most of our refineries should be through with the turnaround maintenance that’s involved when they convert from winter-grade to summer-grade gas,” he said. “But two refineries — the Chevron refinery in El Segundo and the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance — will still be down for a couple more weeks.”

Van der Valk said the Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery in Martinez is also experiencing problems. Those issues have served to reduce California’s supply of gasoline. Refineries are also exporting more gas overseas, Spring said, which further erodes California’s in-state supply. Spring also noted that ethanol costs have risen because producers are having a hard time getting enough tanker cars to move their product by rail.

“Many of those cars have been diverted to move oil from the Bakken Reserve in North Dakota,” he said. California has 20 refineries that collectively produce about 42 million gallons of gas per day.

The state’s refineries produced more than 6.4 million barrels of gas for in-state use for the week that ended April 4, according to the California Energy Commission. That was down 4.1 percent from the previous week but up 2.3 percent from the same period a year ago.

Production of non-California gas for export rose 35.8 percent for the week that ended April 4 to more than 1 million barrels, the commission reported. Year-over-year production of gas for export rose 19.5 percent.

Despite the price spike, business was brisk at the Woodland Hills 76 Station at the northwest corner of Topanga Canyon and Burbank boulevards on Wednesday where regular was flowing at $4.30 a gallon, midgrade at $4.39, premium at $4.48 and diesel at $4.00.

Drivers were mildly surprised to discover this fill-up was going to cost more than the last one but realized it’s become a common occurrence this time of year.

Canoga Park residents Scott and Ilene Hastie, heading to the beach with their two grandchildren, were filling the tank of their 1987 Toyota Land Cruiser. “It’s still going,” said Ilene Hastie as the dollars continued rolling on the pump’s counter. The bill eventually came to $86.91 cents. “It usually doesn’t cost this much,” she said.

Ilene Hastie and husband Scott finish filling up their Toyota Land Cruiser stopping on their way to the beach at a gas station in Woodland Hills. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht/Los Angeles Daily News)

Woodland Hills resident Dean Atkinson, a general contractor, was topping off his Chevy Silverado truck with diesel when the pump’s meter hit $95.

“This truck, I get about 12 miles to the gallon if I’m pulling a trailer. If the wind is behind you, you might get 15,” said Atkinson, who spends about $1,000 a month on fuel for the Chevy and a Toyota Tacoma. He had just returned from a trade show in Las Vegas and towed a 21-foot trailer. The fuel tab for that trip was about $300.

He’s got a cost-cutting plan.

“It’s at the point now where I will drive the smaller truck when I can. That one gets about 22 miles to the gallon,” he said.

Woodland Hills resident Allen Rivas, who works behind the counter, said that prices there actually down from Tuesday after rising about 20 cents in the last week or so.

No one has complained, he said.

“Nobody. They need it,” he said of the fuel.

Don Garrison is also feeling the squeeze. Garrison, who owns Simply Discount Furniture in Santa Clarita, said his company makes about 50 deliveries a week throughout the Santa Clarita Valley, Antelope Valley, Ventura and Los Angeles.

“It’s definitely affected us, but we haven’t passed that along to our customers yet,” he said. “We’re trying to absorb the costs to keep our prices down. But it really depends on the amount of time that the prices stay up. If they stay up for say a month … then we’ll have to adjust our delivery charge.”

Playa del Rey Florists is losing money on its deliveries, owner Lance Williams said. The company does about 130 deliveries a week.

“It’s very hard because it comes so fast and there’s nothing you can do to really plan for it,” he said. “It’s almost a non-recoupable item because there is only so much someone is willing to pay for delivery.”

On Tuesday, the cheapest Los Angeles-area price could be found at an Arco station at 15705 Nordhoff St. in North Hills, which posted regular at $3.98 a gallon. But prices at some of the region’s other outlets were alarmingly high.

A Chevron station in Los Angeles and a Mobil station in North Hollywood both were selling regular for $5.19 a gallon. And scores of other locations listed regular at $4.89 or higher.

“We really didn’t think prices would get this high,” Spring said. “We’ll just have to hang on tight to our wallets because we’re over $4 a gallon by a significant amount.”

Reach the author at Kevin.Smith@sgvn.com or follow Kevin on Twitter: @SGVNBiz. Retrieved: http://www.presstelegram.com/business/20140416/los-angeles-gas-prices-soar-above-4-only-hawaii-pays-more