Thursday - December 11, 2014; Mideast Gulf Cooperation Council To Unravel President Obama's Arab Spring Policy; US Natural Gas Fill Rate Graph Is Pretty Impressive

Active rigs:

	12/11/2014	12/11/2013	12/11/2012	12/11/2011	12/11/2010
Active Rigs	187	192	183	200	166

RBN Energy: Canadian diluent requirements -- part 7, Hardisty.


Jobs: first time claims, down 3,000 to 294,000; better than expectations which had expected not much change from previous week. The four-week average was little changed at 299,250 vs 299,000 the week before. Bloomberg said, "Companies are retaining staff and hiring at the strongest pace since 1999 as they try to meet stronger demand for their goods and services. Retail sales rose in November by the most in eight months."

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Natural gas fill rate: -51 Bcf.  For background, see this post.

Working gas in storage was 3,359 Bcf as of Friday, December 5, 2014, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net decline of 51 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 186 Bcf less than last year at this time and 351 Bcf below the 5-year average of 3,710 Bcf. In the East Region, stocks were 191 Bcf below the 5-year average following net withdrawals of 50 Bcf. Stocks in the Producing Region were 121 Bcf below the 5-year average of 1,230 Bcf after a net injection of 7 Bcf. Stocks in the West Region were 39 Bcf below the 5-year average after a net drawdown of 8 Bcf. At 3,359 Bcf, total working gas is below the 5-year historical range.

Look at the graph at the EIA natural gas fill rate site. It is quite incredible -- a huge kudos to the US natural gas industry -- look at how the current graph is narrowing the gap with the historical averages. It is very impressive. I assume the weather helped.  

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Unraveling

This story is so interesting on so many levels.

Debkafile is reporting:

The six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) rulers meet in the Qatari capital of Doha next week amid high suspense across the Arab world. Its agenda is topped by moves to finally unravel the 2010 Arab Spring policy championed by US President Barack Obama, moves that also bear the imprint of extensive cooperation maintained on the quiet between Israel and key Arab rulers.

Story lines:

• provides glimpse of changing Mideast
• interesting what our own media does not broadcast or publish
• the timing of the meeting
• "extensive cooperation maintained on the quiet between Israel and key Arab rulers"

That third bullet is what I find most interesting: the timing of the story. It coincides almost exactly when Saudi's took action (or better said, inaction) to let the price of oil plunge, thereby adding incredible volatility to western markets and an obvious attempt to thwart Mr Obama's North American energy successes. 

Okay, they are not Mr Obama's energy successes; I made that part up.