Two Wells Coming Off The Confidential List Today -- November 19, 2019

Active rigs:

$56.38	11/19/2019	11/19/2018	11/19/2017	11/19/2016	11/19/2015
Active Rigs	55	62	56	39	64

Wells coming off confidential list today -- Tuesday, November 19, 2019: 63 for the month; 158 for the quarter:

• 35606, 1,299, Whiting, Sylte 21-15-2H, Tyrone, t6/19; cum 61K 9/19;
• 35357, SI/NC, XTO, Lonnie federal 31X-3BXC, Hofflund, no production data,

RBN Energy: butane prices are up and a big draw on butane stocks may be in the offing.

Anything but normal might be the best way to characterize today’s market for normal butane. Butane production at gas processing plants and fractionators is at or near an all-time high. Butane consumption by steam crackers is maxed out, and so were butane exports until new dock capacity came online this fall. Butane inventories? They’ve risen to record levels too, and this summer, butane prices fell to their lowest mark in more than a decade. Now, with winter-gasoline blending season in high gear and new room for export growth, butane prices at Mont Belvieu are up more than 35% from where they stood a month and a half ago. What does all this mean for the butane market this winter? Today, we discuss recent trends in normal butane production, consumption, exports and stocks.
Normal butane (C4), with its four carbon atoms per molecule, is a middle-of-the-pack natural gas liquid (NGL) that’s heavier than ethane (C2) and propane (C3), lighter than natural gasoline (C5+), and is a close cousin to isobutane (IC4), an isomer of normal butane that is a bit more esoteric.

Most normal butane is supplied by gas processing plants and fractionators, which separate NGLs from the raw gas stream (processing plants) and split the mixed NGLs into “purity products” (ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline). The balance of normal butane supplies in the U.S. comes from refineries. There are three primary domestic markets for normal butane: (1) as a motor gasoline blendstock rimarily during the colder months of the year, when federal environmental regulations allow gasoline to have a higher Reid vapor pressure, or RVP; (2) as a feedstock for steam crackers to produce ethylene and other petrochemical products; and (3) as a fuel — normal butane, like propane, is a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). And don’t forget exports. With normal butane production significantly increasing during the Shale Era, a big slice of what’s being produced is now loaded onto VLGCs and shipped to Asia, Europe and other overseas markets. (VLGCs are very large gas carriers.)