"Hot-Dam" As We Used To Say: Spending Up, Unemployent Down -- April 30, 2015

Jobs:

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 for the week ended April 25, the lowest reading since April 2000.

It was the eighth straight week that claims remained below 300,000, which is usually associated with a strengthening labor market, suggesting March's moderation in job growth was likely an aberration. 

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 290,000 last week. The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 1,250 last week to 283,750.

Active rigs:

	4/30/2015	04/30/2014	04/30/2013	04/30/2012	04/30/2011
Active Rigs	86	187	185	210	173

RBN Energy: this is a keeper -- an update on the Monterey tight oil play.

RBN Energy takes a closer look at the Monterey tight oil play, which sits beneath parts of central and south-coastal California.

As recently as 2011, the EIA was saying the Monterey play had about 15 Billion Bbls of technically recoverable oil, more than all the other tight-oil/shale plays in the Lower 48 combined. (In that same estimate, the Bakken was estimated to have about 4 Billion Bbl of technically recoverable oil, and the Eagle Ford about 3 Billion Bbl.)

By 2014, however, EIA had dramatically honed back the Monterey estimate to only 600 Million Bbl—a 96% drop. (That’s like hearing, “No sir, your gas tank’s not full. You’re actually running on fumes.”)

EIA said the big downgrading of the Monterey play’s potential—at least given current technology—was tied to new geological information and the lack of production growth like that seen in the Bakken and Eagle Ford shales.

Subsequent industry reports have  indicated that the Monterey play’s geology and that of the Bakken and Eagle Ford are like night and day, with the Monterey play’s being much more complex—and less predictable.

As noted, this is a keeper. It will be archived by the source, at the source.