WTI Trending Higher; World's Largest Off-Shore Oil Field "Partially" Shut Down -- February 15, 2019

Whoo-hoo! WTI up almost 2.5% today; up $1.34; closed at $55.75 today. Brent hit the 2019 high at $65.

Field down, from oilprice:

The Safaniyah oil field in Saudi Arabia—the world’s largest—is producing at a reduced capacity after a ship’s anchor cut a main power cable. An earlier report from MarketWatch quoted information from Energy Intelligence suggesting production at the filed had completely stopped, sparking worry about global heavy oil supply.

The worry was justified: with Venezuela sliding more deeply into chaos and with new U.S. sanctions reducing the flow of Venezuelan heavy crude to refineries, another heavy crude-producing field outage is exactly what the market does not need.

Safaniyah has a production capacity of over 1 million barrels of heavy crude: reason enough for the market to get excited or worried, or both. However, now that there is more information about the possible cause of the outage and its extent, this excitement or worry might calm down.

High crimes and misdemeanors: killing an oil pipeline that could be argued is a national security issue.

Active rigs:

$55.75	2/15/2019	02/15/2018	02/15/2017	02/15/2016	02/15/2015
Active Rigs	64	57	38	41	137

Five new permits:

• Operators: XTO (4); WXP
• Fields: Alkali Creek (Mountrail); Mandaree (Dunn)
• Comments:
• XTO has permits for a 4-well Krieger pad in Alkali Creek, in section 17-154-94;
• WPX has a single permit for a St Anthony well in Mandaree oil field, section 9-149-93