Cleaning Out The In-Box, Part 2, October 6, 2018

Boom! From Rigzone -- $32 billion of oil, gas merger and acquisition deals in 3Q18 breaks record.

Blowback from Bloomberg: Trump request for maximum OPEC output may backfire. What could this possibly be about? The article is said to be in the "News" section of Bloomberg, but it's clearly an op-ed piece:

If OPEC is the central bank of oil, then the Trump administration is commanding it to run the printing presses at full speed.

The U.S. State Department took the unusual step of issuing a statement on Wednesday asking the cartel to boost production by tapping the supply buffer it maintains in case of unexpected disruptions. It even gave a figure for how much more the group could pump -- 1.4 million barrels a day.

If the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries were to fill this request -- and Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on Thursday that it could -- the oil market would be in uncharted territory. Even during the worst crises of the past two decades, including the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Libya’s civil war, the cartel has never been forced to pump flat out.

If President Donald Trump gets what he wants from OPEC, it might not bring an end to the high oil prices he’s been complaining about for months. U.S. crude futures responded on Wednesday to the news that Saudi Arabia had joined Russia in pumping at close to record levels by rising 1.6 percent to $76.41 a barrel -- the highest since 2014.
In his 30 years covering the oil market, Jefferies analyst Jason Gammel said he can’t recall ever seeing anything like the State Department request.

“This is the lowest level of spare capacity in the global system relative to demand that I’ve ever seen,” Gammel said in an interview on Bloomberg television. “Spare capacity is moving to a precariously low point” and $100-a-barrel crude is a realistic possibility, he said.

Assuming Trudeau can close the deal; that the faux environmentalists don't shut this project down. From Rigzone -- LNG Canada raises the bar for Gulf Coast projects. We've discussed this before.

US natural gas revolution: at this post I noted I may not follow the natural gas fill rate any more; it seems to be irrelevant. A reader who is very, very knowledgeable about the Appalachian story wrote:

As per the RBN story, the ADDITIONAL 8 Bcf output expected in 5 years is about 25% MORE than Haynesville currently produces. 

Appalachia Rising!

Health insurance: $20,000 per year per employee. Previously posted? Can't remember. But if so, worth re-posting.