Miscellaneous Headlines From Rigzone -- August 7, 2014

Rigzone has several stories today that are quite interesting, and helps put the Bakken into perspective. Again.

First, this headline: Statoil's Arctic Summer Campaign Fails.

Statoil has failed to find any oil in its summer campaign in the Norwegian Arctic, an area which the firm has called an "exploration hot spot" with high potential. Statoil said its third well in the Hoop prospect, among the northernmost wells drilled anywhere, showed only a small pocket of uncommercial gas. Two previous wells showed no oil and only small amounts of gas.

It has been suggested that Statoil could buy another Bakken operator to help shore up production. Statoil produces about 2 million bopd. Oasis, for example, produces about 40,000 boepd. CLR? 100,000 bopd from the Bakken. I could be off on the numbers; just thinking out loud.

And then this: China Finds Shale Gas Challenging, Halves 2020 Output Target.

China has halved the quantum of shale gas it expects to produce by 2020 after early exploration efforts to unlock the unconventional fuel proved challenging, according to an industry website and a government source.

China, believed to hold the world's largest technically recoverable shale resources, is hoping to replicate the shale boom that has transformed the energy landscape of the United States. About four years of early evaluations and drilling have so far yielded one large find - Fuling field - in the most prospective gas province of southwest Sichuan, but experts say the Fuling success is hard to repeat due to complex geology and high cost of production.

China is having trouble recovering their natural gas, and halves their 2020 output target; meanwhile, US producers keep increasing their projections and actual production. Perhaps China's reserves are harder to tap; maybe not. Perhaps we are seeing the skill of our own geologists, engineers and roughnecks. 

Rigzone had at least two articles today suggesting that Barack Obama is indeed going back into Iraq. It would have been nice to have stopped the insurgents BEFORE they captured Iraq's largest dam. It has to be a bit disconcerting waiting until AFTER the insurgents took control. Taking the dam was probably the tipping point; President Obama really had no choice. Good, bad, or indifferent, President Obama now appears to be in "react" mode, responding to events as they spiral out of control rather than trying to shape future events. Be that as it may, it appears that the US going back into Iraq will push the stock market lower (futures are already 80 points down) and push the price of oil up. Friday could be a very, very interesting day.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

By the way, back to the Mideast and oil. Rigzone is also reporting:

An oil company owned by Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler said on Thursday it had discovered around 3 billion barrels of oil in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an amount similar to the proven reserves of oil producers Britain and South Sudan.

The crude was discovered around Lake Albert on Congo's eastern border with Uganda, Oil of DRCongo said in a statement.

An analysis of seismic survey data "indicates around 3 billion barrels of oil in place", it said, although it was not yet clear what portion was recoverable.

And elsewhere, with regard to Russian sanctions, another well-thought-out debacle:

Putin bans agricultural imports from EU, US and other countries that placed sanctions on Russia. Specifically:

The Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a televised cabinet meeting yesterday that Russia’s retaliatory ban covers all imports of meat, fish, milk and milk products, fruit and vegetables from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway. It will last for one year.

Checkmate.

This particular blurb did not mention wheat. I'm not sure if that was significant or not. If this ban does remain in place for a year it will truly disrupt supply chains. Certainly, US farmers can sell agricultural products to South American companies who will in turn sell to Russia, but Norway and the EU have a slightly different problem: there really is no other "middleman" for EU. I didn't realize that Finland and Sweden were both part of the Union, but Norway was not. This could be particularly challenging for he Scandinavian countries and Poland. Germany is Russia's #1 trading partner, I think I recall reading recently.

I don't know if Americans know it or not, but 2% of our fish imports come from Russia. It's very likely President Obama could put a ban on Russian fish and Russian caviar. I can't make this stuff up.