SDI To Build $3 Billion Steel Mill Along Gulf Coast; North Dakota Active Rigs At 62 -- April 23, 2019

Markets caught off guard: oil surges 2.7%; close to a 6-month high. It's a false narrative but it is what it is. 30-second sound bite:

• Iran produces about 4 million bopd
• exports:
• exports when things are going well: 2.4 million bopd
• exports in past couple of years; world has adjusted to Iran exports: 1.2 million bopd

Making America great: huge new steel mill to be built along Gulf coast --

• Indiana-based steelmaker Steel Dynamics (SDI)
• $1.8 billion project
• flat-rolled mill; 3 million short tons/year
• site choices narrowed to Texas, Louisiana
• flat-rolled steel up to 84 inches wide and one inch thick
• Corpus Christi location: environmental permits to take up to a year
• in addition, a new 400,000 short-ton hot-dipped galvanized (HDG) line at its Columbus, OH, operation
• that upgrade will cut production in half but will be made up in the new Gulf coast plant
• $30/short ton advantage along Gulf coast
• article doesn't say why it's cheaper to roll steel along the Gulf coast but I will give you three guesses and the first two don't count

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Back to the Bakken

No wells coming off confidential list today -- 

Active rigs:

$66.00	4/23/2019	04/23/2018	04/23/2017	04/23/2016	04/23/2015
Active Rigs	62	60	49	29	86

RBN Energy: US exports transform NGL markets. This is a great article -- a must-read. Archived.

U.S. propane is fanning out across the planet, with export volumes now triple those of any other country.  The global LPG market today is dominated by cargoes shipped from U.S. ports. Buyers from Mexico to South Korea can’t make a move without considering conditions on the Houston Ship Channel or pipeline constraints in Pennsylvania. But an interconnected market is a two-way street. U.S. propane prices are now influenced more by the weather in Europe and Asia than by the weather in Wisconsin or New Hampshire. And it’s not only propane. All NGLs are experiencing growth in U.S. export volumes, with huge implications for infrastructure, capacity constraints and, of course, prices.