Active Rigs Hold Steady At 61; WTI Up A Bit -- March 6, 2018

US oil pipelines pivot south: shale surges. From Financial Times. This is quite an incredible story.

In 1967 the Capline pipeline began shuttling imported and Gulf coast crude northwards from Louisiana to Illinois, where it was dispensed to Midwestern refineries. Now, its volumes drying up, Capline’s owners have proposed flipping the 1.2m b/d conduit to flow south instead of north, permitting inland crude to reach the coast.

The new BridgeTex, Permian Express and Cactus pipelines now stretch from west Texas oilfields to ports and refineries in coastal Corpus Christi and Houston. Additional pipeline systems able to handle more than 2.1m b/d are planned or under construction, according to RBN Energy, a research company. Workers are clearing a path for the Epic pipeline, which will stretch 700 miles from the booming Permian Basin to Corpus Christi. National oil companies from Asia are among the confirmed shippers on the line.Please use the sharing tools found via the email icon at the top of articles.

“If you were sitting in Riyadh or in Moscow and you were looking at some country grabbing 2m barrels a day in market share in one year, it might make you wonder about what you’re doing,” [an analyst] adds. (US exports of crude oil and petroleum products climbed more than 1.7m b/d between December 2016 and December 2017 to a record 7.3m b/d.)

Much more at the link.

Posted earlier: Saudi Arabia cuts price on its oil. Trying to re-grab market share. Good old "free markets." From Bloomberg via Rigzone:

Saudi Arabia cut pricing for Arab Light crude to Asia for the first time in eight months, a sign that the world’s largest oil exporter is fighting harder for sales in its biggest market.

State-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co. lowered its official selling price for Arab Light crude for April shipment by 55 cents to $1.10 a barrel more than the Middle East benchmark, the company said Monday in an emailed statement. It’s the first cut since August. Aramco had raised its January pricing to the highest since 2014 and kept it there for the next two months. The producer, known as Saudi Aramco, was expected to lower pricing by 45 cents a barrel, according to a Bloomberg survey.

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Back to the Bakken

"Arctic" rigs:

$63.13↑	3/6/2018	03/06/2017	03/06/2016	03/06/2015	03/06/2014
Active Rigs	61	44	35	114	191

RBN Energy: rising Canadian production, takeaway constraints and WCS price discounts, part 6.