Active Rigs Remain Steady At 51 -- April 18, 2017

Active rigs:

	4/18/2017	04/18/2016	04/18/2015	04/18/2014	04/18/2013
Active Rigs	51	29	93	188	185

Four new permits:

• Operator: Marathon
• Field: Antelope (McKenzie)
• Comments: 

Nine permits renewed:

• Sinclair (7): five Forest USA and two Horovitz permits renewed; all in McKenzie County
• Hess (2): two BW permits; one, a Spring Creek permit and one, a Thelma permit, both in McKenzie County

Two permits canceled:

• Whiting: two Hoffman permits in Stark County 

Wells coming off the confidential list:

Thursday, April 20, 2017:

• 9762, active-re-entry; no new data, North Range Resources, Sheep Creek Storm 2-1, Grassy Butte; first produced January, 1983; last production, April, 1986; now confidential again; no sundry forms since July 16, 1960; North Range has ten (10) permits/wells as of April, 2017; the two Sheep Creek Storm wells are on confidential status; five Placed wells have been discussed to some degree previously (one PNC; two on drl status; two confidential; all five in Rough Rider; all five vertical wells; #9762, a Madison well; cum 34K 4/86;
• 31766, SI/NC, Hess, HA-State-152-95-1621H-5, Hawkeye, no production data,

Friday, April 20, 2017:
22497, conf, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC Aldag 2-35-36-164-100W, West Ambrose, small amount of production;
25874, conf, Slawson, Pike Federal 4-3-2TFH, Big Bend, no production dat, 

The Market And Energy Page, T+87 -- April 18, 2017

A real nice way to start the day. No yard light -- it's a good place to be (link here):

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Energy and The Market

As predicted: US shale oil output in May (next month) is predicted to rise the most in over two years -- Reuters.

Production is predicted to drop in the Bakken but remain over 1 million bopd. The Permian will rise by nearly 76,000 bopd to 2.4 million bopd. Eagle Ford will rise almost 40,000 bopd to produce 1.2 million bopd. Overall, shale production should increase by 123,000 bopd to 5.2 million bopd. Note (from two days ago): "Saudis continued their over-compliance (with the agreed-upon cuts), cutting production to 9.9 million bopd in March, around 100,000 bopd below the agreed-upon monthly quota."

As predicted: Permian shale producers taking the strain of lower prices -- Bloomberg.

Pipeline: Blackstone to buy Permian Basin pipelines for $2 billion -- Bloomberg. Data points:

• seller: EagleClaw Midstream Venture LLC
• $2 billion in cash
• 375 miles of natural gas pipeline
• will retain name and operate as a Blackstone portfolio company 

Iran boosts gas-output capacity with new projects at giant field -- Bloomberg. Data points:

• Iran: holder of the world's biggest natural gas reserves boosted output
• the giant South Pars offshore field
• raised production to almost 600 million cfpd, putting it on par almost with Qatar
• $20 million to complete the six phases 
• Iran back on track to out-produce Qatar, world's biggest exporter of LNG
• even so, Iranians don't export much LNG because they use it themselves
• new production can barely keep up with domestic demand
• consumption almost doubled to nearly 200 billion cubic meters in 2015 from about 100 billion cubic meters in 2005
• Qatar announced earlier this month that it was ending a 12-year ban on new projects at its section of the shared field
• Qatar calls their part of the deposit the North Field, which together with the South Pars forms the world's largest reservoir of non-associated gas

UnitedHealth's earning beat on higher revenues. Getting the best of both worlds: raise premiums due to cost of ObamaCare and then getting out of ObamaCare? Earnings per share of $2.37 easily beat forecasts of $2.18.

Goldman Sachs stunned Wall Street today with a rare shortfall in bond-trading revenue, a traditional strength, in  a quarter when rivals gained momentum -- Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, Bank of America's revenues surged 40% as fixed-income trading beats estimates -- Bloomberg. 

IBM? What happened? Company misses revenue forecast -- first time in five quarters.

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Not Good ... But ...

Not Unexpected

Across the US, GDP has averaged a 0.6% increase in growth (GDP?) ... two states were stand-outs ... but not for a good reason:

Michigan and Massachusetts: growth "contracted." 

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GDP Now -- Latest Forecast 1Q17

Unchanged -- REMAINS AWFUL

Link here:

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2017 is 0.5 percent on April 18, unchanged from April 14.

The forecast for first-quarter real residential investment growth inched up from 12.0 percent to 12.4 percent after this morning's new residential construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to first-quarter growth declined from −0.71 percentage points to −0.76 percentage points after this morning's industrial production release from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. 

The Political Page, T+87 -- April 18, 2017

UK's prime minister Theresa May calls for "snap" election in June.

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As Turkey Turns

From: What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, by Bernard Lewis, c. 2002, one of the best books ever written on Islam.

“At the present time secularism is in a bad way in the Middle East.” – p. 108.

The author suggests that secularism may not survive anywhere in the Middle East.

“Of those Middle Eastern states that have written constitutions, only two have no established religion. One is Lebanon, no longer an encouraging example of religious tolerance or secularization. The other, as already noted, is the Turkish Republic, where, while the general principle of separation is maintained, there has been some erosion. The ex-Soviet republics are still struggling with these problems.” – p. 108.

Turkey has turned away from Ataturk's vision of Westernization and mordernization (two different things). Turkey may actually return to sharia law in my lifetime. 

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Notes for The Granddaughters

This was a big deal. The international teams from all over the world; huge European presence. Australia was represented. Foreign countries only brought their teams with players age 13 and over.

Our granddaughter's team is for 11-year-olds; she is ten years old, playing "up." Although they did not win against the older foreign teams, they more than held their own. It was general consensus that they were a better team than a 15-year-old team from Mexico. The two teams could not play an official game (due to age-specific competition) but in a friendly game they held the score to 1 - 1.

A Look At Soaring Sand Costs And Water-Disposal Expenses -- April 18, 2017

Active rigs:

	4/18/2017	04/18/2016	04/18/2015	04/18/2014	04/18/2013
Active Rigs	51	29	93	188	185

RBN Energy: soaring sand costs and water-disposal expenses threaten producer gains in key shale plays.

A typical shale well in the Permian now has a two-mile lateral (10,000-plus linear feet) and uses 15 million pounds of sand—that’s 1,500 pounds of sand per linear foot. We’ve been hearing that using 2,000 pounds of sand per linear foot is becoming more common in the Permian. Consider that for a moment; that’s like forcing a pickup-load of sand through perforations in a section of pipe the size of a two-liter bottle of Coke! And even greater use of proppant is a real possibility. In October 2016 Chesapeake Energy set a record by pumping more than 5,000 pounds of sand out of each linear foot of a 10,000-linear-foot lateral in a Louisiana well—and increased the well’s output by 70% over what would have been achieved through traditional sand use.

Amazing. Analysts bullish with $70-oil by year-end -- Rigzone.  Raymond James sill predicting that a 1-million-bopd drop in oil production will drive prices up. I still look at the huge amount of oil stored around the world.