Legacy Fund Deposits -- June, 2020

Later;

North Dakota Legacy Fund site.

Link here. North Dakota's oil tax savings account next week will see its lowest-ever monthly deposit.

State Treasurer Kelly Schmidt told the Tribune on Friday that the Legacy Fund on June 19 will receive about $10.24 million from oil tax revenue, the "lowest deposit in history," reflecting April oil production, collected in May and distributed in June.

The sum is half the previous record-low deposit: $20.46 million in April 2016, amid sagging oil prices that heralded deep budget cuts for the state [during the first Saudi surge].

The Legacy Fund had about $6.6 billion as of April 30. Its record monthly deposit is $117.16 million made in August 2014 [just before the first Saudi Surge began].

Its average deposit is $54.7 million a month.

The state's longest-serving treasurer said the deposit is a reflection of plummeted oil prices and production amid the coronavirus pandemic -- which idled thousands of wells in North Dakota's Bakken oilfield -- as well as the Saudi-Russia oil price war.

In fact, number of producing wells (link here, and here):

• April, 2020: 15,465 (first source) (15,007 from second source)
• March, 2020: 16,280 (first source) (15,870 from second source)
• February, 2020: 15,758 (second source)
• January, 2020: 15,607 (second source)
• January, 2019, a year earlier: 15,043
• I'm not exactly seeing "thousands of wells idled in the Bakken"
• Later, from Geoff Simon:
  
  
  
  It's been widely reported that nearly 7,000 wells have been shut in, but Helms' report lists fewer than 2,200 wells on the "Inactive" list. He said that's because producers are continuing to operate many of their wells at a much-reduced rate to keep them mechanically sound.