Tuesday: Active Rigs, RBN Energy, And Futures

Crude oil is up over one percent in pre-market trading/futures. I know this has nothing to do with the economic news released yesterday by the Federal Reserve, but being the eternal optimist, I sure would like to think the news had some positive impact.

The news I am referring to, of course, is the Federal Reserve observation that for the ninth consecutive quarter, total household net worth has increased, and now has set an all-time US record. No ticker tape parade?

Pre-market trading means squat, but it is nice to see the price of oil back to where it should be. The fact that the Keystone XL South should be filling as we speak is said to be part of the reason the price of oil has gone up over the past few weeks. But I still like to think the economic news over the past few weeks has had some effect.

So, what else on this fine Tuesday where we see schools canceled for the third school day (five days of "holiday" for the granddaughters if one counts the intervening the weekend).

The active rig count continues to surprise some folks; it has surprised me. One-hundred-seventy-five (175) rigs would be about right, but here we are:

	12/10/2013	12/10/2012	12/10/2011	12/10/2010	12/10/2009
Active Rigs	193	181	200	166	70

I don't see a whole lot of difference between 200 rigs near the "height of the boom" with 193 rigs today when one considers better understanding of the geology, delineation of the middle Bakken, more powerful rigs, and pad drilling.

RBN Energy:

Midstream infrastructure companies are investing heavily in facilities to gather, store and transport condensate and natural gasoline range materials in the Utica. The expectation is that production of these light hydrocarbons from the wellhead and gas processing/fractionation plants will increase significantly in 2014. Today we take a deep dive into two company’s plans for condensate and natural gasoline takeaway.

This is Part 4 in our blog series covering midstream plans to capture and deliver condensate range materials to market from Utica shale production. In Part 1 we covered the expected surge in condensate, natural gas liquids (NGLs) and to a lesser extent crude oil production from the Utica shale in the next year (2014) as a result of new infrastructure coming online.

Then we described condensate and crude supply infrastructure plans recently outlined by MPC/MPLX (Marathon) at the Hart Energy DUG East Conference.

In Part 2 we looked at MPLX’s longer term Utica transportation strategy to provide third party shippers with options to move liquids outside the region.

In Part 3 we reviewed infrastructure proposals from Unity Pipeline Company and Kinder Morgan to move condensate and natural gasoline to Western Canada from the Utica as a diluent for blending with heavy bitumen crude to enable the latter to flow in pipelines.

This time we cover existing and planned infrastructure plans by Crosstex and UEO to handle condensates and natural gasoline output in the Utica.

There are a number of reasons to pay attention to today's post, not least of which it might provide hints and/or guidance to what might be necessary in the Bakken.