Monday, September 21, 2015; Keystoned; Propane Inventories Hit Record High

Active rigs:

	9/21/2015	09/21/2014	09/21/2013	09/21/2012	09/21/2011
Active Rigs	67	196	185	184	194

RBN Energy: update on the Rocky Mountrain region -- conference.

It had to happen eventually.  There is only so much magic dust that U.S. producers can sprinkle on shale basins to counteract the impact of sustained low prices.    

After falling steadily from $100/Bbl plus last June to just over $40/Bbl in January 2015 and recovering to $60/Bbl between March and June of this year, U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices have languished in the mid $40’s/Bbl this month (September 2015) and there seems to be nothing on the horizon that would make you think that even a return to the $60s is in the offing anytime soon. 

Low prices have prompted a dramatic pullback in drilling rig deployment and despite remarkable resilience in crude production, we have certainly witnessed a convincing end to the 1 MMb/d year growth experienced between 2012 and 2014.

Monthly Energy Information Administration (EIA) crude production data shows declines in May and June).  It is reasonable to assume that downward trend will be with us for a while. Even the robust math of wells being completed out of inventory (wells drilled months ago, only now being brought online) and very high “sweet spot” initial production rates that have been mostly responsible for sustaining production until now can’t offset the natural declines in shale wells forever, at least not at today’s rig count. 

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I'm Waiting For The Obama Speech On This One

EIA "energy cookie":

U.S. inventories of propane and propylene reached 97.7 million barrels as of September 11, the highest level in the 22 years that EIA has collected weekly propane inventory statistics. In the first six months of 2015, U.S. propane and propylene inventories were 24.3 million barrels higher on average compared to the same period in 2014. In the past year, nearly all of the increase in inventories occurred in the Gulf Coast region (PADD3) --- EIA

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Keystoned

Three days ago I used "Keystoned" for the first time. I'm sure others have used it, but I had not seen it used before. Now, this morning, I see this twitter:

Could US crude oil export policy be Keystoned?

We'll do a google search for keystoned later.