For Those Interested In Midstream, RBN Energy Has Another Great Post Today -- February 9, 2018

Updates

September 13, 2018: Zohr field at 2 billion cubic feet / day. See this update here.

February 12, 2018: Turkish warships are impeding a rig from reaching a location of Cyprus where Italian energy company Eni is scheduled to drill for gas. -- from Twitter. Update from Reuters. Turkey is wearing out its "welcome" in the EU. Eni says it will produce 2.9 Bcf per day from Zohr field by second half of 2019. Compare that "2.9 Bcf" to the Bakken: from the last Director's Cut,

What was North Dakota's natural gas production in the most recent month, November, 2017? Yup, another all-time high: 2.1 billion cubic feet / day.

Original Post 

Peak oil! What peak oil? Remember this story? The Bakken, an oily play, is producing more natural gas than the Mediterranean's largest offshore natural gas field. I think I originally posted the Zohr field announcement back on October 30, 2015. Today, a "new ENI discovery 'confirms' extension of Zohr-like play in Cyprus EEZ"; from Rigzone, prior to the new discovery:

Zohr, the largest ever discovery of gas in the Mediterranean Sea, came online in December last year. Located in the Shorouk Block offshore Egypt, the field has potential resources in excess of 30 trillion cubic feet of gas in place (around 5.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent), according to Eni.

The Bakken: 50 billion boe recoverable? 10% of that being natural gas? 5 billion boe (natural gas) from an oily field?

Yes, I know. This story is about natural gas, not oil, but who ever says "peak natural gas."

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Peak oil! What peak oil? The US is "poised" to sell half of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- from Bloomberg via Rigzone:

The spending deal making its way through Congress calls for selling 100 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by 2027. Combined with other sales approved last year, that would mean the volume of oil in the reserve would fall by 45 percent, to about 303 million barrels.

"This is the biggest non-emergency sale in American history," said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners in Washington. "This is nothing short of liquidation of a safety net."

Let's see: the US produces 10 million bopd? 300 million bbls = 30 days; 100 million bbls (in spending bill) = 10 days. Color me, "not worried." 

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ExxonMobil's Reserves -- Exxon Is Back!

Updates

Later, 11:19 a.m. Central Time: this is really quite remarkable. Just a few hours after posting the note below, I stumble across this Reuters article via Twitter -- ExxonMobil's reserves jump 19% on growh in US shale and UAE. Along with everything at the original post, add this:

• the company paid more than $6 billion last year to double its acreage in the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. oilfield. That shale deal added more than 800 million boe to reserves, the company said.
• Exxon added another 800 million boe to its reserves from operations in the United Arab Emirates's Upper Zakum field

Original Post 

Peak oil! What peak oil? Last night I quickly ran through a Google search regarding ExxonMobil's recent announcement about its 2017 crude oil and natural gas reserves. Because I went through it quickly, the search was neither full nor completely accurate (I suppose), but I think I have it down to a 30-second elevator speech:

• ExxonMobil had an incredibly good 2017 with regard to reserves replacing production. Both on a percentage basis (a whopping 183%) and a raw number (2.7 billion boe) basis, ExxonMobil had an incredible year
• this past year, 2017, was the second best year for XOM since 2009 for replacement (in 2010, XOM hit the numbers out of the ballpark)
• the 2015 and 2016 were anomalies due to new SEC rules
• ExxonMobil's "reserve life" hit a historical high of almost 17 years in 2014, but it is clawing its way back, from 13 years in 2016; and now, 14 years in 2017

Peak oil. What peak oil?

The Bakken strikes back: for the archives. Nothing new in this story. It was reported in various forms last autumn (2017). But it's fun to read again.

Wow: Algerian energy firm Sonatrach will invest $56 billion from 2018 to 2022. I think that rivals US / international majors; I could be wrong; will have to check later.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$60.50↓↓	2/9/2018	02/09/2017	02/09/2016	02/09/2015	02/09/2014
Active Rigs	58	36	40	137	192

Oil hits 7-week low on expectations of higher US, Iran output -- Reuters.

RBN Energy: a new analysis of US midstreamers' assets and outlooks.

The recent rise in crude oil prices to levels not seen since late 2014 certainly has captured everyone’s attention, and generally boosted the financial prospects for U.S. producers and midstreamers alike. But while it’s often said that a rising tide lifts all boats, the fact is that accurately assessing the relative value of — and prospects for — specific midstream energy companies requires a deep, detailed analysis. Where are their assets located? How do they complement each other? Do their contractual obligations help or hinder? Sure, things may be looking up in the midstream sector in a big-picture sense, but that hardly makes every midstream company a winner. Today, we review highlights from a new East Daley Capital report that shines a bright light on 28 U.S. midstream companies.

We ran a series of blogs highlighting ..... In Part 1, we focused on the report’s argument that a surprising number of supply-push contracts for crude oil and natural gas pipeline capacity will be expiring in the next few years, and in many instances the likely terms for contract extensions or renewals may be much less favorable to the pipeline owners. The theme we discussed in Part 2 was that vertically integrated midstream companies that can gather natural gas, process it to remove natural gas liquids (NGLs), then pipe gas to market and mixed NGLs (or “y-grade”) to storage and/or fractionators — and maybe even fractionate the y-grade into ethane, propane and other “purity products” — have a real leg up on midstreamers whose assets are more disjointed. The third theme, which we talked about in Part 3 was that location really, really matters ­­— that is, the near- and mid-term success of a midstream company depends to a significant degree on how many of its pipelines, processing plants and other assets serve production areas that are on the rise and not on the edge.