Tag "North Dakota"
Meet The Couple Bringing Indigenous Wellness Into The Modern Day
“I really should have started a blog about that,” she laughs on a call to mbg.
For Luger, this realization was empowering—and she wanted to share it with other Natives across the country.
Today, Luger and her partner Thosh Collins, who is also Native, help indigenous populations across America reclaim their health and wellness through their company, Well for Culture.
There’s a massive disparity between Native Americans’ traditional way of life and the conditions that they live in today. “We don’t have terms in our language for ‘wellness,’ and it’s because a lot of our indigenous practices are automatically wellness-based,” explains Collins, referencing practices like eating foraged foods as an example. “People are living in food deserts, where they don’t have access to the food they used to subsist on,” Collins says.
They also travel around the country to host wellness workshops with indigenous people on reservations, as well as in nonprofits, schools, and corporations. “Indigenous wellness can be useful not just for indigenous people but for all people.
But let indigenous people lead that.
As for the lessons we can all learn from indigenous wellness, Luger says that respecting the earth, putting food at the center of culture, and finding balance in the everyday all rank high on the list: “I find it interesting that today many functional medicine practitioners are presenting this idea that for many people is revolutionary: We can’t subcategorize things like food and fitness as separate because everything impacts everything else.
Energy Transfer Partners and Banks Lost Billions by Ignoring Early Dakota Access Pipeline Concerns
Roughly four years ago, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) filed a federal application to build a 1,172 mile oil pipeline from North Dakota’s Bakken shale across the U.S. to Illinois at a projected cost of $3.8 billion.
Following that approach proved to be a very costly decision, a new analysis concludes, with ETP, banks, and investors taking billions in losses as a result.
The report faults Energy Transfer’s management specifically for failing to disclose risks of costly delays due to public opposition to investors at an earlier stage. “In this case, ETP’s reporting concerning the project was silent or exclusively positive until the publication of its third quarterly report on Nov. 9, 2016, in which the company acknowledged that ‘protests and legal actions against DAPL have caused construction delays and may further delay the completion of the pipeline project,'” the report finds. “By this time, social pressure had been mounting for months and there is evidence that the company knew of these risks long before they were disclosed to investors.” “The timeline shows that ETP made few good faith efforts to understand and integrate the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s concerns about the environmental, social, and cultural risks into their operations and that ETP did not disclose known risks to investors until a later date,” it adds. “As a result, investors were not aware of the potential for delays and it is possible that this resulted in the overvaluation of ETP’s stock price.”
Lawsuits and criminal prosecutions of pipeline opponents now include a federal class action filed by five plaintiffs against private security firm TigerSwan and state and county officials, alleging that the defendants violated plaintiff’s constitutional rights by closing public roads for prolonged periods in 2016 to 2017, part of an effort to quiet resistance to the DAPL project.
In July, federal judge Billy Roy Wilson partially dismissed a racketeering lawsuit that was initially filed in August 2017 by ETP against nonprofits Greenpeace and BankTrack, as well as the environmental movement EarthFirst!
is an environmental movement too amorphous to be named to a lawsuit and that suing the magazine would be “futile and possibly frivolous,” ETP added five individual defendants to its lawsuit, including a Greenpeace staffer.
Exec: Statoil Has Room To Grow More In North Dakota’s Bakken
HOUSTON, March 6 (Reuters) – Statoil ASA, the Norwegian state-controlled oil producer, has plenty of growth opportunities left in North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation, an executive said on Tuesday. “We have quite a lot of running room” in North Dakota, Torgrim Reitan, head of Statoil’s U.S. operations, said in an interview on the sidelines of CERAWeek in Houston, one of the world’s largest gathering of energy executives.
Oil development has spiked in recent years in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico.
Concern has spread about a maturation of operations in North Dakota, the second-largest oil-producing U.S. state where Statoil is one of the largest producers.
The company does not see its North Dakota operations slowing down and it using new technologies and other process improvements to suck more oil from the Bakken, Reitan said. “We still see a great opportunity in the Bakken,” he said.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by David Gregorio) Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone.
All comments are subject to editorial review.
Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.
Climate ‘Hero’ Gets Three-Year Prison Sentence for Shutting Down Tar Sands Pipeline
Michael Foster, the valve turner who temporarily halted the flow of tar sands oil in TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline in October 2016, called for future actions to address the global climate crisis before he headed to prison, where he is expected to serve at least a year of his three-year sentence. “And if they don’t, the planet comes apart at the seams.
The only way what I did matters is if people are stopping the poison.” “Michael Foster isn’t a criminal,” Hansen added, “he’s a hero.”
The decision to sentence Foster to prison time was decried by other climate activists, including fellow valve turner Emily Johnston, who pointed out the lack of legal consequences for environmental degradation caused by the fossil fuel industry: No word on when Transcanada & the others will be tried for crimes against humanity.
But they will be—the only quest… https://t.co/fAlQuKgNOE — Emily Johnston (@enjohnston) 1517940696.0 “TransCanada and the State of North Dakota had both pushed for a harsh sentence to deter other climate activists (the prosecution recommended five years),” according to a statement released Tuesday by Climate Direct Action, which launched the #ShutItDown action.
Foster faced a maximum penalty of 21 years in prison, but is expected to only serve one year and then to be released on probation. “I made a decision to commit civil disobedience to defend my family tree and yours, knowing that there is no government, no politician, no corporation on planet right now putting forward a plan to defend life as we know it,” Foster also said Tuesday. “My kids and yours won’t survive this mess if we don’t clean up all this.”
Reposted with permission from our media associate Common Dreams.
The Bakken Is Bustling Again
I spoke about my company’s efforts to eliminate natural gas flaring in oil fields and then drove around the state to observe the most recent drilling activity there.
In early 2014, North Dakota was flaring 36% of its natural gas production.
An article from the Energy Information Administration last year stated that the amount flared had fallen to 10% of the state’s natural gas production by March 2016, but that also corresponded to a period of time that oil prices collapsed (which subsequently caused drilling activity in the state to plummet).
In 2014 there were around 200 rigs were drilling for oil in the Williston Basin.
That ultimately fell to a low of 22 rigs in May 2016, but the number has since rebounded back to more than 50 rigs.
Following my talk in Bismarck, I spent a couple of days driving around the North Dakota Bakken region to get a sense of the drilling activity in the state.
The first substantial flare I encountered was on a site operated by ConocoPhillips: Robert Rapier Flare at a ConocoPhillips Well in North Dakota As I drove further north, I took photos of probably 30 different flares like this: Robert Rapier Flare in North Dakota There were a lot of new wells being drilled throughout the region, and a lot of hydraulic fracturing activity taking place.
As a result, I saw many water lines on the ground, and I saw a lot of pumps owned by recent IPO Select Energy Services Inc: Robert Rapier Fracking Water Pump From Select Energy Services Further north, there was a lot of activity by WPX Energy Inc. WPX had many wells in operation, and at one site they had more than two dozen storage tanks for oil and produced water (and a visible flare in the center of the picture): Robert Rapier WPX Energy Production Site The most surprising observation to me was the level of activity being carried out by Marathon Oil Corporation.
Here is one Marathon site, with a well being drilled by Helmerich & Payne, Inc.: Robert Rapier Marathon Oil Corporation Drilling Site One company that appeared to be doing a lot of flaring was Hess Corp.
I observed several prominent flares at Hess sites such as this: Robert Rapier Hess Production Site The Bakken is undergoing a resurgence, but the current rig count is still only a quarter of the 200 rigs that were drilling there five years ago.
New technique may allow more oil from early Bakken wells
New technique may allow more oil from early Bakken wells.
BISMARCK—Oil companies are applying new hydraulic fracturing techniques to early Bakken wells, a process industry leaders say has the potential to recover more oil without increasing the footprint on the land. “On average, they’re getting better performance from the wells,” Kringstad said.
Fracking — or pumping a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals deep underground — and horizontal drilling techniques allowed operators to recover oil from the Bakken.
North Dakota legislators also are interested in the potential for refracturing existing oil wells and are planning a study during the interim focused on the fiscal impact to the state.
Sen. Kelly Armstrong, R-Dickinson, said recovering more oil would mean more tax revenue and more jobs. “We are only getting a small, small amount of the total potential reserve down there,” Armstrong said. “Everybody would benefit if we could figure out a way to recover more.”
Monte Besler, a Williston oilfield consultant known as the FRACN8R, said not all wells will be good candidates for refracturing.
Kringstad also is studying the impact refracturing could have on the pipeline industry and working to provide oil and natural gas pipeline operators data to help them plan.
Companies fracking North Dakota wells recover more oil
Companies fracking North Dakota wells recover more oil.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Oil industry leaders say applying new hydraulic fracturing techniques to older wells in North Dakota’s Bakken oil patch has the potential to recover more oil without increasing the footprint on the land.
Operators are targeting wells drilled between 2008 and 2010, the early years of Bakken development before technology advanced, The Bismarck Tribune (http://bit.ly/2rS9WAV ) reported.
He said most of the 140 wells in the Bakken that have used new fracking technology saw an increase in oil production from 200,000 to 250,000 barrels. “On average, they’re getting better performance from the wells,” Kringstad said, noting that industry leaders believe the wells are only recovering about 5 to 15 percent of the oil available.
North Dakota legislators also are interested in the potential for using fracking technology on existing oil wells and have planned a study focused on its fiscal impact to the state.
Sen. Kelly Armstrong, R-Dickinson, said recovering more oil would mean more jobs and tax revenue. “We are only getting a small, small amount of the total potential reserve down there,” Armstrong said. “Everybody would benefit if we could figure out a way to recover more.”
___ Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com
ND surprise: Oil production up 2 percent
ND surprise: Oil production up 2 percent.
BISMARCK — North Dakota oil production exceeded expectations in April and natural gas production hit an all-time high as operators focus on the core area of the Bakken.
Oil production increased 2.4 percent in April to an average of 1.05 million barrels per day, the Department of Mineral Resources reported Tuesday.
Helms attributed the large increase in natural gas production to oil companies focusing efforts on the most prolific areas of the Bakken — primarily in McKenzie and Dunn counties — where wells produce more gas along with oil.
North Dakota had 56 drilling rigs operating Tuesday, an increase of six from last month.
“Oil prices just don’t support adding drilling rigs,” Helms said.
Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, said he expects it may take six to 12 months before the market adjusts to Dakota Access.
Despite the increase in natural gas production, companies kept the flaring percentage unchanged in April at 10.4 percent, Helms said.
“We’re going to struggle with gas capture on trust lands on Fort Berthold,” Helms said.
“We really need to do something to correct that problem.” Seventy percent of oil was transported by pipeline in April, up from 58 percent in March.
America’s Best Entrepreneurial Governor
The North Dakota native and graduate of Stanford’s business school invested in tiny Great Plains Software in 1983 and became its CEO, growing the accounting software firm to 2,000 employees.
Q: How did you get from North Dakota–and North Dakota State University–to Stanford business school?
Then he left Stanford and joined Microsoft, when it had 30 people.
BURGUM: It was in 1983.
Q: Between the time you invested in Great Plains in 1983 and sold to Microsoft in 2001 were there any mistakes you regret?
I wanted to make sure Microsoft wanted a company and its people, not just a product.
I thought, wouldn’t it be great to run a state like that—to develop talent and attract capital?
BURGUM: Technology is changing every job, every company and every industry—or soon will be.
BURGUM: Not at all.
BURGUM: Yes.
Water Is Life At Standing Rock: Students Respond To DAPL
Author: Robert J. Benz / Source: The Huffington Post A Bald Eagle soars over water. Lakota Prayer Oh, Great Spirit, Whose voice
