Notes From All Over, Part 2 -- September 23, 2019

Opportunities: if anyone has noticed, the US rig counts continue to drop. My hunch is that day rates for drilling have come way down. Those with rigs: the last thing they want to do is "lay them down." They will rent at lower prices to keep them active. Break-even costs in the Bakken, earlier this year. In Mountrail County, $8/bbl is the break-even price.

Making the Bahamas great: remember that story and pictures of that huge petroleum products terminal in the Bahamas before, during, and after Hurricane Dorian? Today, Rigzone is reporting:

Buckeye Partners, L.P. reported Friday that it has resumed full operations at its Buckeye Bahamas Hub.

Buckeye stated that BBH – the largest petroleum products terminal in the Western Hemisphere – sustained only minor damage from Hurricane Dorian, which devastated part of The Bahamas early this month.

The company added that its has completed inspections and repairs and that it found no indications of product release or environmental threats. Last week, Buckeye restored partial operations at BBH.

“On behalf of the entire company, I want to thank the Buckeye emergency response teams and al of our employees in The Bahamas for their dedicated work to safely restore operations at our Buckeye Bahamas Hub,” Khalid A. Muslih, executive vice president and president of Buckeye’s Global Marine Terminals unit, said in a written statement emailed to Rigzone.

Buckeye also stated that the company and its employees have been contributing to various relief and recovery efforts in the wake of Dorian.

Hyperbole, Mideast: whenever anyone says this -- the 2019 attack on Abqaiq -- was the biggest disruption in "oil" supplies in the history of the universe, I remind them of a) the Suez Crisis of 1958; and, b) the OPEC embargo in 1973. There were many, many more repercussions from those two events than what has occurred so far from "Abqaiq-2019."

Hyperbole, Texas: everyone said Imelda, September, 2019, barely a tropical storm according to DFW radio news outlet, was several times worse than Hurricane Harvey. Exxon shut down the largest refinery along the Gulf Coast. After Hurricane Harvey: massive shortages of gasoline in Texas; long lines; service stations running out of gasoline. After Imelda, the price of gasoline hardly rose, if at all, and there were certainly no shortages. Any rise in the price of gasoline was probably from "Abqaiq-2019" and even those increases were minimal.

Hyperbole: some said the attack on Abqaiq would cause price of gasoline to skyrocket, resulting in ... yes, the recession that is right around the corner.

Mea culpa: I'm not immune fro criticism. I thought the price of oil would jump much more than it did. But I'm still convinced, "the numbers don't add up."

**************************************

Corky

I hope Corky, seemingly ageless, will visit me when I'm in a nursing home.