Morning Note -- October 16, 2018 -- Bone Saws Are The New Box Cutters

From a presidential tweet this morning, a president with a great sense of humor and willing to share. This was part of a tweet thread that began with a tweet from President Trump:

LNG export terminals: link to an old post with list of LNG export terminals planned along the Texas / Louisiana coast. 

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The gloves are off: the other day I wrote that "the gloves are off," now that the world has come down hard on Saudi Arabia following the murder of Kashoggi. From Bloomberg:

For 45 years, it’s been considered out of bounds for Saudi Arabia. But all of a sudden, Riyadh made what many read as a veiled threat to use the kingdom’s oil wealth as a political weapon -- something unheard of since the 1973 Arab embargo that triggered the first oil crisis.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, said on Sunday it would retaliate against any punitive measures linked to the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi with even “stronger ones." In an implicit reference to the kingdom’s petroleum wealth, the statement noted the Saudi economy “has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

Roger Diwan, a longstanding OPEC watcher at consultant IHS Markit Ltd., said the Saudi comments broke “an essential oil market taboo.”

This had to have been the most well-planned state-level murder ever planned. International. One or two private jets land at Istanbul airport, arriving from Saudi Arabia. Fourteen thugs. Diplomatic bags? Fourteen guys just happen to arrive by plane the very same time the victim visits the consulate. One wonders to what degree the government of Turkey played a role. We've been through Istanbul numerous times: it's not an easy airport to get through with regard to passport control and customs.

I wonder if Mike Pompeo asked the Saudi King which brand they used. It looks like bone saws are the "new" box cutters.

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LNG Texas: Canada has their "LNG Canada" -- one project. And we still haven't seen how that will play out. But Texas? Texas has an "LNG Texas" project, too -- actually more than one can follow. Today, Rigzone is reporting that another LNG Texas project "advances":

NextDecade Corp. has secured a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for its Rio Grande LNG project near Brownsville, Texas, along with its associated Rio Bravo Pipeline, the company reported Friday afternoon.

“We appreciate the FERC staff’s continued commitment to the review of our project,” Matt Schatzman, NextDecade’s president and CEO, said in a written statement. “The draft EIS represents a culmination of several years of analysis and evaluation in conjunction with multiple federal, state and local agencies and stakeholders.”

FERC, which reviews and permits LNG facilities in the United States, issued the draft EIS as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The document follows a detailed review of environmental, engineering, social and other aspects of NextDecade’s proposed project. The 27-million-tonne-per-annum Rio Grande LNG export facility would receive natural gas from the Agua Dulce gas hub near Corpus Christi via the company’s 4.5 billion cubic foot per day Rio Bravo Pipeline.

Comment: there are many, many blog posts on LNG export terminals in Texas / Louisiana -- this post, at one time, provided a fairly comprehensive list of such terminals.

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Back to the Bakken

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Tuesday, October 16, 2018:

• 34686, SI/NC, XTO, FBIR Yellowwolf 31X-10D, Heart Butte, no production data,
• 34474, SI/NC, XTO, FBIR Ironwoman 31X-10D, Heart Butte, no production data,
• 34079, SI/NC, XTO, Ravin 21X-15A, Siverston, no production data,
• 29774, 1,674, Slawson, Gobbler Federal 3-35-26H, Big Bend, 43 stages; 8.3 million lbs, t9/18; cum --

Active rigs;

$71.39→	10/16/2018	10/16/2017	10/16/2016	10/16/2015	10/16/2014
Active Rigs	69	58	31	67	189

RBN Energy: the LNG Canada project will impact gas markets, but not soon enough.

The final investment decisions by Royal Dutch Shell and its partners in the LNG Canada liquefaction and export project in British Columbia are a long-term boon to Western Canadian natural gas producers and to TransCanada, which now can proceed with its planned Coastal GasLink pipeline across the full breadth of BC. But the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat and the new 420-mile, 2.1-Bcf/d pipe won’t come online until 2023 — an eternity for producers in the region’s Montney and Duvernay shale plays, who through much of 2018 have been enduring profit-crushing price discounts for their gas relative to Henry Hub. Today, we consider the largest North American liquefaction/LNG export project to be sanctioned in several years, and why BC and Alberta producers wish it were coming online much sooner.