Macallan Fine Oak - 15 Year Old

A couple of years ago I decided to tell everyone that if they didn't know what to get me, there was always scotch. Since then I have not lacked for scotch in the pantry.

Color: Gold
Nose: Clean and sweet
Palate: Gentle
Body: Smooth
Finish: Short but pleasant

Macallan has been distilling scotch near the Spey River since 1824. They use small stills and claim that makes a better scotch.

The fine oak series is matured in three different types of oak: European sherry oak casks, American oak casks seasoned with sherry and American oak casks seasoned with bourbon. It makes for an exceptionally smooth scotch. This particular selection was picked out by my 15 year old grandson for Father's Day. No, he didn't taste it - he went with his instincts.

There's something special about sipping a scotch picked for you by a loved one.

Lease Sale - Finally!

The government finally held a lease sale for the Gulf of Mexico and it set records. They offered 7,434 blocks (a block is a 3 mi x 3 mi square) in the Gulf of Mexico between the Texas/Louisiana border and the Alabama/Florida border. 56 companies made 593 offers on 454 bocks which brought in a check for $1.7 Billion to the government. This money only gives the companies the right to drill for oil and gas for 5 to 8 years.

Here's how the numbers stacked up:

Statoil made the highest single bid of $157.1 Million for a single block. In total, they bought 26 blocks for $333.2 Million.

Shell spent the most, dropping $406.6 Million for 24 blocks.

BP spent $337.7 Million to acquire 43 blocks.

If you attend a lease sale, you will probably be bored to death as it involves a guy reading out the bids on all these leases. But the room is full of people who are involved in oil field poker game and want to see who did what. They studiously take notes on the results. It's most interesting when one company spends a lot of money to acquire a lease and leaves a lot of money on the table between his bid and the next highest.

An example is Mississippi Canyon 162. There were 7 companies trying to get this block. Chevron won it with a bid of $51.2 Million. The next highest bid was $40.7 Million, which means they over bid by about $10 Mil. The lowest bid was for $600,000. This could cause someone to wonder what Chevron saw that nobody else did. They won't know until they drill it, and then a geologist could either be a hero or looking for a new job.

It will take several years for these lease to be productive. First they have to line up budget funds and schedule drilling rigs. After drilling, they will need to evaluate the results and come up with development plans. But it's a good sign that the Gulf will be getting busy and that there will be new projects in the works.

Energy Cost Rogues Gallery

Last month I blogged about the rising cost of electricity due to Obama's EPA regulations on coal plants. Yesterday, the Senate took up a resolution to strike down Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT). It failed by 4 votes!

Go here to see how your Senator voted. And you folks in the northeast. Your RINOs just voted to add another burden on you. You can expect your electricity costs to skyrocket! But, it's not a tax. And you can always keep warm chopping firewood.

Executive Privilege

Is it just me, or is the proper time to assert Executive Privilege is when the subpoena is first issued and not after months of hearings and threatening letters and when you finally need to assert it in order to protect the ass of a direct report who probably isn't worth saving in the first place and whose incompetence placed you between this rock and that hard place?

If it truly was Bush's fault, why aren't you showering Mr. Issa in documents that confirm that?

It's clear to me that the rock is being kicked over and all kinds of critters will come scurrying out. What I don't understand is why Obama is trying to protect Eric Holder, unless he has pictures of Obama being amorous with a goat, or something.

Maintenance

I did a little maintenance on the blog roll. I cleaned up a few links and added two interesting blogs. Go take a look at Improbable Research and Retro Things.

Paralysis by Analysis

So I went to our bi-weekly meeting where the different discipline groups involved in this project get together to compare notes and swap information. In this one, our illustrious Reservoir Engineers broke the news that the temperature of the reservoir is thought to higher than anticipated. (They do this by "modelling" the thermal gradient as they have no direct temperature measurements) The problem is that if the temperature of the oil is higher than a certain maximum temperature, it could cause problems for the equipment used to produce the oil. After listening to a maddening description of his "study methodology", he informed us that his conclusion was: "We just don't know enough and need to do more modelling!"

Color me gobsmacked! All I need to know is that even if there is possibility that the temperature could be higher than planned, that we have a contingency plan to deal with it - even if it means cutting back on production rates for a few months. Then we can continue with the design with no schedule delay. But everyone else seems to want to do the studies so we came away with about 5 more "action items".

I marvel that gas prices ares as cheap as they are.

Book Review - The Lost Ones

This is Ace Atkins sequel to "The Ranger". Quinn Colson is now sheriff. He has to deal with a old friend who is selling guns to a Mexican drug cartel as well as a baby smuggling ring. There is also a side plot where we learn a little more about Quinns younger days and his sister, who has returned home.

This one did not grab me like the first book, but it is still a good read.