Two Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- July 10, 2019

Wells coming off confidential list today -- Wednesday, July 10, 2019: 10 for the month; 10 for the quarter;

• 35545, SI/NC, WPX, Delores Sand 29-32HZ, Antelope-Sanish, no production data,
• 31808, drl, EOG, Riverview 22-3031H, Clarks Creek, no production data, the EOG Riverview wells in Clarks Creek are tracked here; in addition, EOG has Riverview wells in Antelope-Sanish; neither site has been updated in a long time;

Active rigs:

$59.12	7/10/2019	07/10/2018	07/10/2017	07/10/2016	07/10/2015
Active Rigs	57	66	57	29	73

 RBN Energy: how Edmonton got rid of its butane surplus, part 2.

Offer any energy commodity at a low-enough price and buyers will surface, as long as there’s a way to get that liquid or gas from where it’s being sold to where it’s being used or put on a boat for export. That’s been the recent experience of the butane market in Western Canada, where a perfect storm of events last fall caused butane prices in Edmonton, AB, to freefall to near zero. But things have turned around, at least for now. Today, we take a look at the dramatic recovery of the Edmonton butane market and what might lie ahead.

Markets always find a way to clear. That’s a commodity market truism usually uttered when catastrophe appears to be looming. In Edmonton this past spring, the fear was that the seriously oversupplied butane market might be the exception to this rule. When we last looked at the Western Canadian natural gas liquids (NGLs) market a few months ago in Part 1 of this series, butane prices had been in a prolonged slump since the fall of 2018, when they had tumbled to near zero as the region’s butane inventories built to record levels. Last fall’s problems can be attributed primarily to insufficient demand, compounded by logistical challenges. To recap, Alberta’s butane production historically has gone to four main consumers: crude oil blenders, export buyers, Keyera’s Alberta EnviroFuels (AEF) plant (which converts butane to iso-octane), and to local and regional refiners, including in Washington State and Minnesota. Western Canada’s crude blenders use butane as a diluent for heavy crude oil to reduce its viscosity and enable easier transport through pipelines; the blending market accounts for more than 50% of daily production. The rest goes to refiners, who use butane seasonally as they make winter-grade gasoline, to the export market and to AEF.