Back To 40 Rigs In North Dakota -- December 8, 2016

Eyes wide shut. MSNBC "Morning Joe" was a huge disappointment this morning -- at least the opening segment, even going so far as to try to link climate change with US life expectancy. No mention of Chicago homicides, overdose epidemic in Miami. The segment was mostly anti-Trump with regard to his cabinet selections and very, very pro-Obama and then concluded with their big story of the day: US life expectancy declines for first time since 1993. Yeah, that was the big headline story for "Morning Joe" and they wondered why Americans voted for Trump. Hellooooooo ..... who's been president for the past eight years? Also, there was no analysis of the reason life expectancy has gone down. According to the article: Rising fatalities from heart disease and stroke, diabetes, drug overdoses, accidents and other conditions. Homicides? Look at the graph. I just can't get too excited. And if one is excited about this, look at the underlying data.

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Worth watching: short segment by Trump-appointee for Homeland Security. When he made this speech to "gold star" families, the general did not mention that he had lost his own son -- a lieutenant -- in Afghanistan. Watch from about 7:00 minutes on. The MSNBC crew were very, very supportive of both generals Mattis and Kelly. 

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Russian Hacking -- US Election

Election fallout: MSNBC "Morning Joe" spent a lot of time on US government concern that Russian hacking may have affected outcome of the election. Maybe something will come of this, maybe not. But one has to ask the question, what is the "end-state" the politicians are looking for with regard to this issue?

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Back To The Bakken

Active rigs:

	12/8/2016	12/08/2015	12/08/2014	12/08/2013	12/08/2012
Active Rigs	40	65	191	193	181

RBN Energy: Westward natural gas flows into Texas on the rise.

Of the six interstate pipelines that account for most of the natural gas crossing the Texas/Louisiana state line, two have net flows that are westbound into Texas––something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. By the end of this decade—and maybe far sooner—Texas will be receiving more gas from Louisiana than vice versa, mostly due to planned pipeline reversals aimed at moving more Marcellus/Utica gas to Texas export markets. Today we continue our look at changing Texas gas flows, this time with a focus on the half-dozen most important pipelines at the Texas/Louisiana border.

The natural gas flow patterns that characterized the U.S. energy-delivery sector for the decades preceding the Shale Revolution are gradually being undone, and Texas is more affected than most. The state remains the nation’s largest natural gas producer, and while output from the Eagle Ford, the Barnett Shale and other production areas is down, Texas still produces nearly twice as much gas as it consumes within its borders. But traditional Northeast and Midwest markets for Texas gas are being ceded to Marcellus/Utica producers, and more and more Northeast gas is flowing south/southwest to the western Gulf Coast, drawn by power/industrial demand, new LNG export terminals and rising pipeline-gas exports to Mexico.

We identified the five traditional “exit points” for gas leaving Texas (two through Louisiana, one each through Oklahoma and New Mexico, and one to eastern Mexico), and described how the flows of Texas gas to most other parts of the U.S. (except for the Southwest) have been falling fast. For example, flows through the corridor we define as Exit Point A into southern Louisiana (and from there to the U.S. Southeast) have plummeted 62% (to only 0.5 Bcf/d) in 2016 year to date compared to 2015, and in the past few months flows have actually flipped, with net flows now running west into southeastern Texas, not out of it. Meanwhile, flows of Texas gas into northern Louisiana (and from there to the U.S. Northeast and Midwest) through our Exit Point B corridor have averaged only 3.6 Bcf/d so far in 2016, down 25% from where they stood in 2014 (4.8 Bcf/d).