Thursday, April 16, 2020

Jobs, link here:

• prior: 6.6 million
• revised: pending
• consensus: 6 million; range as high as 8 million
• actual: 5.245 million

Saudi Arabia: 45 tankers -- no destinations, nowhere to go, no customers, and still producing too much oil. Graph of the day (year? decade? century?). This link is now at the sidebar at the right, near the top:

Hard to beat this price: crude oil goes negative -- and not buy just a little -- Iran is paying China $7.20/bbl to take its oil off its hands -- at least that's how I'm reading this tweet -- it's so incredibly unbelievable, I hope a reader tells me I'm wrong --

Weekly EIA petroleum report, link here:

• US crude oil in storage, week-over-week, change: increased by a (insert adjective here) 19.2 million bbls;
• US crude oil now in storage: 503.6 million bbls; 6% an already "fat" storage number; do we really need the SPR any more? another federal program that should probably go by the wayside (no, I'm not serious); this is simply staggering;
• refiners are operating at 69.1% capacity; something I have never, never, never, ever seen before;
• gasoline production actually increased last week, the EIA said with a straight face; up to 5.9 million bbls/day; should be nearing 10 million bbls per day under "normal" circumstances;
• distillate fuel production decreased week-over-week: averaging just under 5 million bbls/day; amazing it held near 5 milion

Gasoline demand, link here:

Re-balancing:

Week	Week Ending	Change	Million Bbls Storage
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5
Week 2	December 6, 2018	-7.3	443.2
Week 3	December 12, 2018	-1.2	442.0
Week 4	December 19, 2018	-0.5	441.5
Week 5	December 28, 2018	0.0	441.4
Week 6	January 4, 2019	0.0	441.4
Week 7	January 9, 2019	-1.7	439.7
Week 8	January 16, 2019	-2.7	437.1
Week 9	January 24, 2019	8.0	445.0
Week 58	January 3, 2020	-11.5	429.9
Week 59	January 8, 2020	1.2	431.1
Week 60	January 15, 2020	-2.5	428.5
Week 61	January 23, 2020	-0.4	428.1
Week 62	January 29, 2020	3.5	431.7
Week 63	February 5, 2020	3.4	435.0
Week 64	February 12, 2020	7.5	442.5
Week 65	February 20, 2020	0.4	442.9
Week 66	February 26, 2020	0.5	443.3
Week 67	March 4, 2020	0.8	444.1
Week 68	March 11, 2020	7.7	451.8
Week 68	March 18, 2020	2.0	453.7
Week 69	March 25, 2020	1.6	455.4
Week 70	April 1, 2020	13.8	469.2
Week 71	April 8, 2020	15.2	484.4
Week 72	April 15, 2020	19.2	503.6

Jet fuel delivered:

Jet Fuel Delivered, Change, Four-Week/Four-Week
Week	Week Ending	Change
Week 0	March 11, 2020	-12.80%
Week 1	March 18, 2020	-12.60%
Week 2	March 25, 2020	-8.90%
Week 3	April 1, 2020	-16.40%
Week 4	April 8, 2020	-0.22%
Week 5	April 15, 2020	-39.70%

Crude oil imports:

Crude Oil Imports
Week	Week Ending	Raw Data, millions of bbls	Change
Week 0	March 11, 2029	6.4	0.174
Week 1	March 18, 2020	6.5	0.127
Week 2	March 25, 2020	6.1	-0.422
Week 3	April 1, 2020	6.0	-0.070
Week 4	April 8, 2020	5.9	-0.173
Week 5	April 15, 2020	5.7	-0.194

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$20.15	4/16/2020	04/16/2019	04/16/2018	04/16/2017	04/16/2016
Active Rigs	35	65	59	51	29

Two wells coming off the confidential list today --  Thursday, April 16, 2020: 14 for the month; 14 for the quarter, 269 for the year:

• 35818, 763, Oasis, Oasis Meiers 5692 11-19 10T; Three Forks, 40 stages; 6 million lbs; Alger, t10/19; cum 78K 2/20;
• 35704, 2,382, Hess, SC-Hoving-154-98-1003H-8; Three Forks, 36 stages; 10 million lbs; Truax, t10/19; cum 65K 2/20;

RBN Energy: is western Canada suddenly headed for a crude pipeline overbuild?

For most of the past three years, Western Canadian producers have had to deal with crude oil pipeline constraints — takeaway-capacity shortfalls serious enough to spur huge price discounts for the region’s benchmark Western Canadian Select (WCS) that are sufficient to support the higher cost of crude-by-rail alternatives. But things are changing, and fast. WCS prices are at or near historic lows — low enough to convince a number of producers to rein in their capital spending and production. Crude-by-rail use is down, and there’s even space available on the usually maxed-out Enbridge Mainline system, the region’s primary pipeline egress. And wouldn’t you know it, just as production is slipping and constraints are easing, real progress is being made on three big pipeline projects that had long been in limbo: the Line 3 Expansion, the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) and Keystone XL. Today, we provide an update on Western Canadian crude takeaway capacity and examine whether the region may — irony of ironies — end up with too much.

There’s never a dull moment in Western Canada’s hydrocarbon market. Since the earliest days of the RBN blogosphere, there’s been plenty to write about: new oil sands projects, rising bitumen production, the need for diluent, not enough pipeline capacity, steep price discounts for WCS, new rail-loading terminals — wildfires, even. Producers in the Canadian West have been through a lot, but they are now facing some of their toughest times ever. As we said a few days ago in Rock Bottom, while producers in the Permian and other shale plays in the U.S. have been hit by sub-$30 and even sub-$25/bbl prices for West Texas Intermediate (WTI), producers in Western Canada have seen prices for WCS fall to less than $10 and even $5/bbl. In response, a number of oil sands producers have decided in recent days to reduce their planned 2020 capital spending and trim their production; some said they’ll also scale back or even scrap their crude-by-rail programs due to the higher cost of transporting heated bitumen and “railbit” (bitumen plus diluent) by rail. Also, we understand that there’s been a decline in light-oil production in the region, again in response to super-low prices.