Price Of Oil? Blame It On Russia; The Market And Energy Page, T+54 -- March 14, 2017

Sedalia's Madison well update: some folks are interested in this Madison well. It has turned out to be a nice well. This well is in Pratt oil field, a few miles east-northeast of the Glenburn oil field, which in turn is northeast of Minot; well outside the Bakken.

WTI: $47.64 (7:29 a.m. Central Time) -- Yahoo!Finance. 

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Not happy: OPEC exports greater in February than in January. Now it turns out that Kuwait has greatly increased number of active rigs.

Not happy, Scotland: Scotland wants second vote on independence, a "do-over." Scotland could be cut off from both London and the EU. Already has a huge deficit. Low price of oil will make things even worse for Scotland.

Not happy, Russia: Russian oil major says US shale growth imperils OPEC deal. Cry me a river (of crude oil):

• data points: global crude oil production, 100 million bopd
• US shale growth: a couple hundred thousand bopd
• Russia has not yet cut production; from linked article: "Russia has yet to deliver on the pledged cuts"
• Russian excuse from linked article: "the goal became impossible to reach because of the efficiency and viability of the Russian oil industry"
• Saudi's Naimi had forecast a collapse in output from Russia's mature fields; instead production has risen in the past two years to an all-time high of 11.2 million bopd, partly because of a devaluation in the rouble (note new spelling since I was in high school) reduced production costs
• Kuwait significantly increases number of active rigs since OPEC meeting to cut production
• OPEC exports more oil in February than January
• so with all that, Rosneft's conclusion: "the only guaranteed route to balance the market was for all producers to limit supplies, but acknowledged this would not happen because US shale producers would not join any such pact. US law bars them from such action
• cry me a river

Not happy, oil bulls: oil below $49 as rise in US drilling threatens OPEC's efforts -- Bloomberg.

Nobody's happy. Maybe Alaska's Senator Lisa Murkowski is -- she says opening the Arctic to drilling is a Trump priority. So why don't we have an EO on this yet? Things seemed to have bogged down.

GE: a break-up possible? Some think so.

Blame It On The Bossa Nova, Eydie Gorme

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Futures

WTI: $47.64 (7:29 a.m. Central Time) -- Yahoo!Finance.

Dow: down 65 points in futures -- price of oil continues to fall; snowstorm Stella; Fed rate announcement tomorrow; NOKO-SOKO; Trump enthusiasm stalls;