Hess With Six New Permits; Five DUCs Reported Completed -- November 13, 2019

Range Resources: closes Houston office, lays off staff. Link at Rigzone. 

U.S. natural gas producer Range Resources Corporation will be closing its Houston office, resulting in the layoffs of 50 Houston employees, a company spokesperson confirmed to Rigzone Wednesday.

The company will continue to operate its North Louisiana division, which will now be managed from the Arcadia, Louisiana office.

Range has completed $1.1 billion in asset sales in the last 12 months, all of which will go toward debt reduction.

Mainstream media death watch: Sports Illustrated, a weekly as recently as 2015, will become a monthly in 2020. The end of mainstream media as we knew it at this site. As big as the story by itself is, digging deeper, it's an even bigger story:

Most notably, sources close to the magazine say, the “close time” for each issue will be 3-4 weeks, meaning that everything in every issue must be “closed” (all text and photos edited, complete, sent to the printer) more than three weeks before the magazine comes out.

That will meaningfully change the look and content of each issue, since stories will have to be evergreen enough to have a longer shelf life on newsstands. In addition, the iconic covers Sports Illustrated is so known for, which often show newsy photographs of a championship game or notable moment that just happened in the past week, likely won’t be possible.

Big headline, but a nothing-burger: the headline -- top US natural producer looks to sell major shale assets. "Nothing burger"? This could be a billion-dollar deal. It's a "nothing burger" -- the headline suggested (to me) that a major producer was getting out of shale. No, a company with its very survivability at stake is selling assets in last ditch effort to stay alive. Comstock Resources is likely to get a very, very good deal if it proceeds with buying the Haynesville assets.

API: weekly crude oil in US storage. Today it's a "surprise" crude oil draw. Always a surprise. LOL.  A draw of 500,000 bbls for the week; consensus, a build of 1.649 million bbls. Note again the fake precision -- 1,649,000 bbls, down to the near thousand bbls. Sure. WTI trading at $57.44 after the announcement -- trending toward $58.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$57.27	11/13/2019	11/13/2018	11/13/2017	11/13/2016	11/13/2015
Active Rigs	55	65	54	38	64

Seven new permits:

• Operator: Hess (6); Whiting
• Field: Big Butte (Mountrail); Glass Bluff (McKenzie)
• Comments:
• Hess has permits for a 6-well EN-Davenport pad in section 10-156-94; Big Butte oil field
• Whiting has a permit for a Klose well in section 24-23-3H, Glass Bluff oil field

One permit renewed:

• Lime Rock: a Schneider permit in Dunn County 

Five producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 36140, 701, Whiting, Oppeboen 12-5-2H, Sanish, t10/19; cum --;
• 30765, 1,433, Slawson, Hunter 4-8-17MLH, Big Bend, t10/19; cum --;
• 36371, 1,181, Kraken Operating, King 5-8 2H, Oliver, t10/19; cum --; 
• 36373, 981, Kraken Operating, Garner 32-29 2H, Oliver, t10/19; cum --; 
• 36372, 1,809, Kraken Operating, King-Wallace LW 5-8 1H, Oliver, t10/19; cum --;

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Cooking At Home