The Growing Role of VLCCs in U.S. Crude Oil Exports -- RBN Energy -- March 8, 2018

Winter heating season over:

Jobless claims: link here --

• previous: 210K
• forecast: 220K 
• actual: 231K

Hmmm....combine this with 1Q18 GDP forecast lower to 2.8 (from 3.5); leveling off of gasoline demand; tariff talk; chaos in the White House; and, now the jobless claims report, and one might say we are starting to "see" a narrative develop.

Total now second largest producer in the North Sea: completes acquisition of Maersk Oil.

Devon downsizes: agrees to sell southern Barnett. $533 million deal. Nice background to shale revolution in the linked article.

Top story, from The WSJ today -- Trump putting Americans back to work -- 

Some steel and aluminum makers to restart plant operations amid tariff plans. U.S. Steel and Century plan to fire up idle furnaces and increase their workforces.

Some U.S. steel and aluminum makers are restarting idle mills and boosting capacity to make up for imports that face being priced out of the market if President Donald Trump’s proposed import tariffs take hold.

United States Steel Corp. on Wednesday said it would fire up a blast furnace in Granite City, Ill., and call back 500 workers. Century Aluminum Co. aid last week it will restart lines at a smelter in Kentucky that have been curtailed since 2015, doubling its workforce there to 600.

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Back to the Bakken

"Arctic" rigs:

$61.24→	3/8/2018	03/08/2017	03/08/2016	03/08/2015	03/08/2014
Active Rigs	60	44	33	114	191

RBN Energy: the growing role of VLCC's in US crude oil exports.

U.S. crude oil exports from the Gulf Coast remain at a high level, as does interest in transporting crude to Asia and Europe in Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) capable of carrying as much as 2 million barrels (MMbbl) each. The catch is that only one Gulf port — the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) — can send out fully loaded VLCCs, and so far LOOP has loaded only one; other Gulf ports need to fill or top off the gargantuan tankers in open waters using reverse lightering. Plans are afoot to allow greater use of VLCCs, but how long will they take to implement?

Today, we discuss the economic benefits of exporting crude on supertankers, the growing use of VLCCs for Gulf Coast exports and the challenges exporters face in utilizing them even more this year and next.

VLCCs are giants. The supertankers have an average length of about 1,100 feet — longer than Houston’s 75-story JPMorgan Chase Tower is tall — with an average beam (or width) of nearly 200 feet and an average fully loaded draft of 72 feet. There are about 800 VLCCs operating in the world today and, as we’ll get to, an increasing number of these behemoths are being filled with U.S. crude along the Gulf Coast and sent to faraway ports in Europe and Asia.

Which reminds me: where is Shaden? Unfortunately the site says the "Shaden is out of range." There have been no position updates since late February.