Free Republic

The holiday season can bring stresses -- what with the shopping, shipping, baking and bills -- but for workers in the energy sector, this December is turning out to be especially tough thanks to industry layoffs. Take Robin Ewan, who, for more than 30 years, worked as a test engineer for Schlumberger, a global oilfield service company. Not anymore. "This is the first time around Christmas that I've been laid off, and it has a bit of an effect, because now, you know, you're wondering who to buy presents for and what presents. You're going to make it more meaningful...

BOTTINEAU, N.D. - A 24-year-old Bottineau Public Schools science teacher has been charged with a sex-related crime involving a minor. Marissa Ashley Deslauriers was charged Tuesday with one count of corruption or solicitation of a minor, a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison, in Bottineau County District Court.The Bottineau woman had an initial court hearing Tuesday morning, where District Judge Michael Sturdevant set her bond at $10,000. Her district's website profile says she has bachelor's degree in biology and minor in chemistry from Concordia College. Additional information, including whether the minor was Deslauriers’ student, was...

The Dec. 6 Forum editorial, “U.S. gun violence is a plague,” relies on a premise that is fundamentally false. The editorial make multiple claims that are contrary to FBI crime data. These are not differences of opinion, or complicated issues where reasonable people can have a respectful disagreement. No, the editorial makes claims of a statistical nature that are simply not supported by evidence. (Notably, the editorial offers no citations for any of its claims.) To wit, the editorial claims the following: “That gun violence is escalating.” “The record shows that current laws and attitudes about gun ownership have not...

Abdulrahman Ali, a Somalian who arrived in America four years ago, is accused of sexually assaulting a gas station attendant in a bathroom at Gordy's Travel Plaza in Mapleton, North Dakota. After trying to kiss her, Ali allegedly forced the woman into the women's bathroom, locked the door behind him and started sexually molesting her while slapping and kicking the victim. When the woman tried to escape, Ali threw her against the wall. After law enforcement arrived, Ali refused to open the door, claiming that the victim was his wife. After police kicked in the door, the woman was found...

What do Common Core and Obamacare have in common, other than the enthusiasm they engender in the White House and widespread disappointment they generate outside of it? Both programs have fatal computer glitches. "New Hampshire-based company Measured Progress, which developed online Common Core tests used in Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota, has acknowledged a major glitch in the tests' rollout," Chris Neal reported in School Reform News. "Technical malfunctions, such as servers crashing during testing, resulted in only 37 percent of Nevada students being able to take their exams." "Meanwhile, Montana and North Dakota only managed to test 76 percent...

U.S. shale oil production is expected to fall by more than 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January from the March peak, according to a U.S. government forecast on Monday, on the back of a global glut that's slashed oil prices to a near seven-year low. Total output is set to decline by just over 115,000 bpd to 4.86 million bpd in January compared with December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's drilling productivity report. Bakken production from North Dakota is set to fall 27,000 bpd, while production from the Eagle Ford is expected to fall 77,000 bpd. In...

After three years of waiting, the University of North Dakota's sports programs have a nickname again. UND president Robert Kelley announced Wednesday that the former "Fighting Sioux" will now be known as the "Fighting Hawks," the nickname chosen by UND voters in an online voting runoff over runner-up "Roughriders." The "Fighting Sioux" moniker was controversially dropped at the NCAA's behest in 2012, sparking years of debate and discussion over what the university's athletics programs -- perhaps most notably, its powerhouse men's hockey program -- should be called instead.

Increases in North Dakota's crude oil production have resulted in increased associated natural gas production from oil reservoirs, especially in the Bakken region. Because of insufficient infrastructure to collect, gather, and transport this natural gas, about one-fifth of North Dakota's natural gas production is flared rather than marketed. North Dakota's Industrial Commission (NDIC) has established natural gas capture targets in an effort to reduce the amount of flared gas, and they recently issued a revision to the flaring targets in response to faster-than-expected gas production growth in the Bakken region. North Dakota's current target is to capture and sell at...

New federal data shows that the Energy Department expects drillers in the Permian Basin to push oil production in the shale play above 2 million barrels per day for the first time ever this November. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s monthly Drilling Productivity Report released Monday, which covers seven of the biggest shale plays in the country, projects production in the Permian to jump by 17,000 bpd this month. That increase would bring the play above the 2 million bpd mark. In December, the EIA expects the play to grow again by 11,000 bpd. But the Permian is one of...

One person was seriously injured in a shooting Monday night at a Clayton State University student apartment building. The shooting at the Clayton Station Apartments happened shortly after 8 p.m. in the 3000 building of the Clayton Station Apartments, university spokeswoman Maritza E. Ferreira said in a statement. The victim is not a student, but is believed to be the relative of a student, Ferreira said. Police were still searching for the suspect Monday nigth, she added.

When President Obama announced he was killing the Keystone XL pipeline, he said he was agreeing with the State Department’s assessment that the pipeline from Canada “would not serve the national interests of the United States.” The fact is that it would not have benefitted the personal financial interests of friend and economic mentor, Warren Buffett, who can rest assured that oil from Canada and the nearby Bakken formation in North Dakota will continue to be transported by a railroad he owns. As Investor’s Business Daily noted in a 2011 editorial: Killing the Keystone XL pipeline may help one of...

Only 1% of the Bakken Play area is commercial at current oil prices based on my analysis that follows. Only 4% of horizontal wells drilled since 2000 meet the EUR (estimated ultimate recovery) threshold needed to break even at current oil prices, drilling and completion, and operating costs. The leading producing companies evaluated in this study are losing $11 to $38 on each barrel of oil that they produce, the very definition of waste. Although NYMEX prices are about $46 per barrel, realized wellhead prices in the Bakken are only $30 per barrel according to the North Dakota Department of...

Universities have come a long way from the days of yore when they proclaimed that part of their mission was the search of truth. At the Heritage Foundation recently, Brooklyn College history professor KC Johnson noted that “in the last decade…the two most significant…rape hoaxes in the United States happened on college campuses” at Duke University and at the University of Virginia. The men’s lacrosse team was accused of rape at Duke, while at UVa, “to their great shame, the student body and student newspaper rushed to the side of the accusers.” Neither of the accusers were raped, as they...

Drillers in a few of the biggest shale plays in the country are set to scale back their oil production dramatically next month, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s forecast released Tuesday. The EIA said in its Drilling Productivity Report that overall U.S. oil production would fall 93,000 barrels per day to 5.12 million bpd total in November, the largest decrease recorded in the agency’s data going back to 2007. The drop would also mark the seventh-straight month of production pullbacks. Three of the largest U.S. shale plays — the Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara — together could lose...

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally protected grizzlies. The agreement resolves a lawsuit brought by conservationists after the state had sought to open 37,000 acres , mostly in the Stillwater State Forest, to timber harvesting despite what environmentalists said would be the destruction of prime grizzly bear territory. ... U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy in a decision last year found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by...

For the top U.S. shale plays that once seemed immune to the downturn, persistently low oil prices are starting to take their toll. The lingering crude slump is expected to drive down production next year in the nation’s premiere oil patches — West Texas’ Permian Basin, South Texas’ Eagle Ford and North Dakota’s Bakken shale — as operators spend less to stay within cash flow, according to a report by investment banking firm Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. With oil hovering around $50 per barrel, or less than half the price it fetched last year, output from the so-called Big...

Real estate developers were too late to the party in North Dakota. Just a few years after fracking sparked a shale oil frenzy that lured thousands of unemployed workers to North Dakota in the hopes of landing high-paying jobs, plummeting oil prices have sapped some oomph from the boom. As workers streamed into North Dakota, temporary camps popped up to meet the demand, and real estate developers followed suit with plans to create thousands of permanent apartments. Related: The North Dakota Boom That’s Going Bust After Oil’s Plunge But crude oil prices have fallen more than 50 percent in the...

An F/A-18 fighter jet aircraft has crashed west of Naval Air Station Lemoore. The crash, which happened Monday, was north of Highway 198 in a dirt field just east of the Kings/Fresno county line, about two miles west of NASL, according to Adam Barresi, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol. The pilot reportedly ejected from the aircraft in mid-air, parachuted to the ground, landed and walked over to emergency responders on scene, according to Kings County Fire Chief Bill Lynch. Lynch said the crash happened around 4 p.m. The pilot's name wasn't immediately available. The parachute was reported as...

BISMARCK – Some of the money set aside by North Dakota lawmakers to defend the state against legal challenges to its abortion laws will instead be used to cover attorneys’ fees awarded to lawyers for couples who challenged the state’s gay marriage ban. The state Emergency Commission voted 5-1 Wednesday to approve a request by Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem to transfer $75,000 from the abortion litigation fund to a separate fund for general litigation expenses. Last month, the state agreed to pay $58,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs in a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of seven same-sex couples who...

The cleanup of a massive 2013 oil spill in northwestern North Dakota is being hampered by a lack of natural gas needed to power special equipment that cooks hydrocarbons from crude-soaked soil, a state regulator said. Crews have been working around-the-clock to deal with the Tesoro Corp. pipeline break that spilled more than 20,000 barrels of oil into a Tioga wheat field two years ago this month. Bill Suess, an environmental scientist with the state Health Department, said Wednesday that workers will be at the site at least another two years baking oil from the soil using a process called...