Five Wells Comiing Off The Confidential List Today -- December 20, 2019

Update on grid for Connecticut / Rhode Island, from a reader:

• the current spot price of electricity in Connecticut/Rhode Island is $161/Mwh;
• oil hit 5% fuel level earlier -- oil needed to produce electricity in this country -- wow!!
• nuclear plant (1 of 3 in region) Millstone 3 is down for unscheduled repairs;
• LNG tanker just arrived at Everett with LNG from Trinidad -- despite the US having a glut of its own natural gas;
  
• reason for all this: natural gas pipeline expansion projects blocked
• "we" xpect years of this unnecessary 'drama'
• crucially needed transmission line from Canada - Clean Energy Connect- is now facing a "no go" referendum next autumn -- I think this has to do with transmission lines through neighboring states

CBR: Canadians love the railroads, apparently. Canadian CBR will spike next year -- will grow by 100,000 bbls/day. Currently as high as 400,000 bopd; could reach 550,000 bopd. As a reminder: 30 - 40 tank cars can car one million bbls of oil. A unit train is 100 - 110 cars in length. 

Pretty amazing: after all these years of preparation and work, on the very day that Israel is ready to start producing natural gas from the Leviathan project, Jerusalem's district court -- which I assume is one old man, maybe three -- told Delek Drilling LP and Noble Energy Inc to stand down. The reason: there are concerns that the project may endanger the health of the public. Great news for Russia and other countries supplying that part of the world with natural gas. [Later, same day, the ruling was rescinded; Noble and Delek will start production on Monday, December 23, 2019.]

Exit, stage left: Daimler, BMW exiting North American car-sharing market; cutting in Europe.  People like their own cars. Duh.

DriveNow, part of the combined firm, started in London in December 2014, but "had to face the hard reality that we could still not convince enough people to do so," the company said in announcing its exit from the UK market.

It is the latest sign of financial struggles in the broader mobility market and a setback to those who view car-sharing as a way to reduce carbon pollution and congestion, because unlike ridesharing services, the vehicles are not on the road between trips.

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Back to the Bakken

Tioga, ND: new police station, Norseman Museum to open in March, 2020.

Job openings in North Dakota: 14,000. That's the headline. In fact, 14,749, which in my book,if one is rounding, is 15,000 jobs. Unemployment rate: 2.5%.

Active rigs:

$60.95	12/20/2019	12/20/2018	12/20/2017	12/20/2016	12/20/2015
Active Rigs	53	69	51	41	64

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Friday, December 20, 2019: 61 for the month; 266 for the quarter:

• 36170, drl, XTO, Lavern 42X-14AXB, Capa,
• 34839, 1,065, Enerplus, Apollo 149-93-33D-28H-TF, Mandaree, t6/19; cum 42K 10/19;
• 33886, SI/NC, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-8A-31-3H, Charlson, no production data,
• 34745, 103, Oasis, Nordeng 5298 13-25 7T, Banks, t6/19; cum 106K 10/19;
• 30177, SI/NC, Slawson, Muskrat Federal 5 SLTFH, Big Bend, no production data,

RBN Energy: NuStar's CAPEX plan addresses trio of crude and refined product challenges.

The midstream sector in Texas is still in the midst of what seems to be a never-ending build-out of new pipelines, storage terminals and export docks, all aimed at keeping pace with rising production and refining volumes and the increasing need to move incremental output to foreign markets.

Given the understandable desire of midstream companies to earn revenue and profits multiple times as hydrocarbons move from the lease to end-users, it’s not surprising to find midstreamers at work on a variety of projects along the way. A prime example would be NuStar Energy, whose capital spending plan for 2019-20 is focused on helping to resolve three bottlenecks: between its crude oil gathering system and takeaway pipelines in the Permian, between takeaway pipes and export docks in the Corpus Christi area, and between South Texas refineries and refined products customers in Mexico. Today, we look at a leading midstreamer’s multifaceted expansion effort in the Lone Star State.

It’s fair to say that the Shale Revolution changed everything, and that its application to the Permian took it all up a few notches. For the past four years in particular, the expectation — and then, the reality — of phenomenal production growth in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico has spurred the development of many new gathering systems for crude oil and natural gas, as well as new gas processing plants, takeaway pipeline capacity, fractionation plants, refinery capacity, export docks and liquefaction trains — new refined-product pipeline capacity too. And don’t forget new storage tanks and new steam crackers. Amazingly, after all that’s been accomplished on the midstream front since the start of 2016, there’s still a lot more to do, as evidenced by NuStar Energy’s capital expenditure plan for 2019-20.