Friday, May 16, 2014; OPEC Needs To Increase Ooutput; Natural Gas Stockpiles Depleting? Housing Stats Bullish; Oil Trades (Again) Over $102

Peak oil? Global recovery? OPEC needs to boost output. According to an agency watchdog, OPEC needs to boost output. The views are in contrast with concerns just a few months ago that OPEC may be overproducing and risked facing an oil glut. Specifically, recent forecasts "call for a significant rise in OPEC production from current levels for the second half of the year." This comes on top of a recent rebound in Iraqi and Saudi production. One word: China. Second word: Interesting.

Natural-gas prices jumped more than 2% on data that showed producers added less gas than expected to stockpiles. A reminder: the Chinese-Russian natural gas pipeline deal could have Russian delivering almost twice as much natural gas to China EACH YEAR for the next 30 years (beginning in 2018) as the US has in ALL its natural gas stores. Reported previously. Sanctions working out pretty good well, huh?

More global warming? Snowed in Illinois overnight; could see a bit of snow in Chicago this weekend. 

Another tough day on Wall Street for bulls, but oil traded over $102 (again) and WMB traded at a new high. 

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Active rigs:

	5/16/2014	05/16/2013	05/16/2012	05/16/2011	05/16/2010
Active Rigs	190	190	211	172	114

RBN Energy: Marcellus/Utica pipelines.

Many of the largest pipeline/midstream players are involved in this latest build-out of Marcellus/Utica gas pipeline capacity. They include REX co-owners Tallgrass Energy Partners, Sempra US Gas & Power and Phillips 66, which recently (May 7) closed an open season soliciting interest in moving up to 1.2 Bcf/d of Marcellus/Utica gas east-to-west through REX’s Zone 3 (eastern Ohio to eastern Missouri) starting in June 2015.

Others include TransCanada, Kinder Morgan, Dominion Transmission, Spectra Energy, Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, and Williams. Taken together, their projects—most slated for completion in the 2015-17 period—will provide more than 9 Bcf/d of new take-away capacity, ease constraints that have hampered gas-production growth in the Marcellus/Utica, and open big, new, long-term markets hundreds of miles away.

In the next episode of this series, we will begin an in-depth look at the new round of pipeline projects, and consider how they will help take Marcellus/Utica gas production to the next level.

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The Wall Street Journal

The chess game continues. When Putin touches down in China next week, it will signal the beginning of the global power shift. All under Obama's watch. All due to dithering. 

Big, bad Wal-Mart does not oppose hike in minimum wage. Meanwhile Government Motors recalls
another 2.8 million vehicles.

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Housing Starts In April

USA Today is reporting:

Home building surged in April as warmer weather helped builders break ground on new homes at the fastest pace this year.

Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.07 million, up from 947,000 in March, the Census Bureau said Friday.

Economists had predicted a rate of 980,000, according to the median forecast in Action Economics' survey.

The gains came largely from multi-family construction, where starts rose almost 40% from March. Single-family starts were up 0.8% to a annual rate of 649,000.

Building permits issued for home construction, a gauge of future activity, rose 8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.08 million. April was the third month in a row for permits have topped a 1 million annual rate. But permits for single-family homes were only up 0.3% to an annual pace of 602,000 last month.

Housing starts improved from March in every region.

A reader noted my error in a comment I made regarding this post (thank you to the reader). Note: there are two metrics being tracked in this news story: housing starts and permits. Two different metrics.