Four New Permits; Four DUCS Completed -- November 22, 2017 -- Note WTI -- US Driving Records Will Be Broken; Keystone Pipeline Shut Down

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Four new permits:

• Operators: Nine Point Energy (2); Whiting (2)
• Fields: Squires (Williams); Heart Butte (Dunn)
• Comments:

Four producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 28462, 1,894, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-96-24C-13-3H, Keene, t10/17; cum --
• 33326, 1,814, MRO, Spring 21-15TFH, Bailey, t11/17; cum --  (#16964, #20321)
• 33325, 5,072, MRO, Chapman 31-15H, Bailey, t10/17; cum -- (#16964, #20321)
• 33324, 2,282, MRO, French 31-15TFH, Bailey, t10/17; cum -- (#16964, #20321) 
• Comment: see update of #16964 at this link)

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Price of Crude Oil

This is a strange time of the year to see the price of crude oil rising. Remember all that talk about $20 oil?

I thought everyone said fossil fuel was dead now that everyone is driving EVs. From John Kemp, Reuters oil analyst based in London who probably has as good an understanding of the US oil sector as anybody, just tweeted this earlier today: US refiners are pouring seasonal record amounts of crude into their cauldrons and still struggling to meet demand for gasoline and diesel.

It is being forecast that Americans will set a driving record going back a dozen years this Thanksgiving -- one wonders if the refiners a) saw this coming; and/or b) are still catching up from the two hurricanes this past summer. Regardless of the reason, it looks like US will set records for gasoline and diesel fuel for part of 2017 if not all of 2017.

That's the "demand" side for US refiners.

On the supply side:

• Canadian heavy oil at risk due to the Keystone being shut down
• Venezuela sources may be at risk due to  ... well,  you know
• Saudi Arabia cutting deliveries to the US