The Market And Energy Page, Part 2, T+332 -- December 19, 2017; 7,000 DUCs In The Permian; Another Large US Crude Oil Inventory Draw

For the archives and to look back on this a year from now. Nothing new here; it's been talked about for quite some time. From 24/7 Wall Street, data points:

• between January, 2017 (Trump takes office) and January, 2018 (first year of his presidency): US crude oil production from major shale regions forecast to rise by 1.2 million bopd, to 6.4 million bopd
• next month (January, 2018): the total is expected to rise by almost 100,000 bopd
• December, this month: total production should be 6.314 million bopd, an increase of 220,000 bopd compared to estimated November, 2017, production
• DUCs in the Permian: 7,354! Incredible. Compare to about 1,000 in the Bakken

US crude oil inventories, weekly API report, link here, data points:

• another huge draw: down 5.22 million bbls
• forecast: 3.20 million bbls
• previous draw: 7.382 million bbls
• we'll see the EIA data tomorrow at which time I will post re-balancing data

Drop in inventory, from Bloomberg:

Crude rose in after-hours trading because an oil-industry assessment was said to show a larger-than-expected contraction in U.S. crude stockpiles.

Futures extended gains from the settlement in New York after the American Petroleum Institute was said to have reported domestic oil inventories slid by 5.2 million barrels last week. That exceeded the 3.15 million-barrel decline forecast in a Bloomberg survey. If the drop is confirmed by the government on Wednesday, it will aggravate tightening supply conditions stemming from the shutdown of a key North Sea pipeline.

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Petro-Chemical Plants -- Random Note

At another post, a reader sent this comment:

Inter Pipeline just announced a $3.5 billion propane cracker in Alberta. Wouldn't be surprised if the Ethane pipeline from Tioga is converted to propane, and a ND methane cracker is built.

Link to one source for this story: https://inspectioneering.com/news/2017-12-18/7205/inter-pipeline-to-build-canadas-first-integrated-propane-dehydro

Another link here.