Gulport Energy Enters SCOOP -- December 16, 2016

20,000. Everyone on watch for this. Largest surge in market following any presidential election. Comes with highest consumer confidence in twelve years. Fed rate increase, two days ago, now "history." 

Active rigs:

	12/16/2016	12/16/2015	12/16/2014	12/16/2013	12/16/2012
Active Rigs	40	64	184	191	181

RBN Energy: moving more midwest motor fuels into the east.

Each winter, New York spot prices for gasoline and diesel spike higher than spot prices in Chicago, opening a seasonal arbitrage opportunity for Midwest refineries and motor fuel marketers—if only they could move more product east from Petroleum Administration for Defense District (PADD) 2 to the East Coast’s PADD 1.

Midstream companies have taken note, and have been adding eastbound refined product pipeline capacity in Ohio and Pennsylvania. So far the aim has been to move gasoline and diesel as far east as central Pennsylvania, but the longer-term goal seems to Philadelphia, which ironically is the center of East Coast refining. Today we look at the ongoing shift in market territories claimed and sought by gasoline and diesel refineries and marketers in PADDs 1 and 2.

Gulfport Energy enters SCOOP: from Bloomberg.

America’s shale gas drillers are back to looking for the next big play.

On Wednesday, Gulfport Energy Corp. struck a deal to buy acreage in an oil and natural gas field in Oklahoma known as Scoop for $1.85 billion, marking its first foray in a region that Newfield Exploration Co. has devoted most of its capital budget to and Devon Energy Corp. invested almost $2 billion in late last year. Gulfport Chief Executive Officer Michael Moore described the acreage as a “sizeable and scalable footprint in a new operating area.”

The deal underscores renewed interest among drillers in exploring emerging plays outside the heart of the U.S. shale gas boom -- the Marcellus formation of the Appalachian Basin. The number of rigs drilling outside major basins has rebounded to the highest levels since February as prices rallied and a shortage of pipelines carrying the heating fuel out of Appalachia limited drilling there.

Gulfport described the assets as being in a part of the Scoop play that’s rich with natural gas and natural gas liquids. The company said it will complement its existing assets in the Utica shale formation, an Appalachian play.

First gas at Cygnus, UK's largest producing gas field in 2017: from Rigzone. Data points:

• located 90  miles off coast of Lincolnshire
• will contribute 5% of the UK's total gas production
• 2P reserves estimated to be 635 billion cubic feet of gas
  field discovered in 1988 
• required a government tax allowance of $810 million for project to go ahead
• work began in 2012
• created 5,000 jobs across the country during construction phase alone