Energy News And Comment, Monday, February 11, 2019

Haynesville

Oil & Gas 360 has a huge update on the Haynesville. It's a must-read for anyone interested in US energy. Archived.

• 300 Tcf of natural gas 9,000 square miles of drilling room 
• excess takeaway capacity already in place 
• fast-growing Gulf coast gas demand from new users: new PetChem plant capacity, a new crop of LNG exporters and Mexico 

The play, which lies primarily under East Texas and Northwest Louisiana, is considered one of the top three U.S. natural gas deposits. The gas is generally between about 10,500 and 13,500 feet beneath the surface and the play averages about 250 feet of pay. Another zone of gas called the Bossier is located above the Haynesville and companies often reference the two plays as the Haynesville/Bossier Shale.

How does 300 Tcf compare to other global natural gas plays? Link here; and here; and, here. It appears that very recently the USGS put total US natural gas reserves at 350 trillion cubic feet.

From the linked article:

A conservative assessment reported by the Institute for Energy Research in 2010 gave the Haynesville 75 trillion cubic feet. In its 2010 assessment, the U.S. Geological Survey assigned the Haynesville 61.4 Tcf of natural gas.

But the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association sized up the Haynesville as follows: “It has been estimated that the Haynesville Shale holds more than 245 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. At that volume, it contains the equivalency of over 30 billion barrels of oil, or nearly 18 years of current U.S. oil production.”

A few years later, the USGS tossed its 2010 number out the window. In 2017 the Survey announced it had produced an updated calculation that shattered any other prior estimates of recoverable gas in the Haynesville.

The Survey’s new estimate was 304 Tcf of recoverable natural gas for the combined Haynesville and Bossier formations. That fattened up its prior estimate by a whopping factor of five.

We're going to see the same thing with oil and natural gas when the new Bakken estimates are released.

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Making America Great --- Again!

This is one of my favorite posts. It has been updated.  US LNG export terminals.

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Oh-Oh

Venezuela: the other day I posted this --

Not mentioned: if Venezuela routinely needs light oil to mix with its heavy oil for shipment, one would assume under "better" times, Venezuela would get that light oil from the US, but with US-imposed sanctions, Venezuela may be looking for alternatives.

Hold that thought. It turns out I was correct. Link here.

Venezuela’s PDVSA has begun mixing its extra heavy crude with locally produced light oil as imported diluents from the United States are now hard to come by.

Normally, PDVSA mixes the heavy crude with U.S. naphtha, which is perhaps the most common heavy crude diluent to make it transportable by pipeline or loadable on tankers, at a rate of 100,000 bpd of naphtha to 400,000 bpd of heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt. However, the latest sanctions that Washington slapped on Caracas include a ban for U.S. refiners to export diluents to the South American country.

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Miscellaneous

Making America great again: US oil and gas employment up over 5% in 2018; average wage: $112,712. That was the average! Link here. 

• Texas: 26,706 (total, now: 352,371)
• Oklahoma – 5,266 new jobs in 2018
• New Mexico – 3,626
• North Dakota – 2,808
• Colorado – 2,282

WTI: down again today. This is killing Saudi Arabia and OPEC. US shale survives at $40; thrives at $50 oil; surges at $60 oil. But Saudi Arabia cannot "make it" on $50-oil. What could change it to drive prices higher? I can't think of a thing. Except for Saudi Arabia to make huge export cuts.

Tesla: The Coyote Blog has a great piece on Tesla. Link to follow.

AGW: it's not just America reporting cold weather; pretty much worldwide. Will post links later.

Dueling rallies: El Paso. Trump mano a mano Beto.

Pebble Beach: free entrance today to watch the finish of the ATT Pro-Am. With two holes left to play, it's hard to see how Phil Mickelson could lose. He leads by three strokes. His lone competitor has three holes yet to play.