Two Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- May 7, 2020

Why not? At this link, click on the  "ARROW" on the Google icon to get a bit of music history.

Bored? Google doodle games.

Jobless claims: link here:

• prior: 3.839 million
• revised: 3.846
• consensus: 3.041 million (obviously darts thrown at a dart board; I love the false precision)
• actual: 3.139 million
• trending toward 40 million unemployed over past six weeks
  

Unemployment:

• Arizona has had enough;
• California borrowing money from the feds to pay for unemployment insurance;
  

Also in Arizona:

• Emmy-winning meteorologist reports fake new; twittershot here;
• blocks fact-checkers at her twitter account; can't make this stuff up;

State debt (quick fix: raise state income taxes and property taxes):

• New York: $13 billion in debt. 
• California: could be worse than 2011.

What's up, doc? We've gone from near-perfect daily activity reports from the NDIC for over ten years, and then two days ago, this, and then yesterday the report was not posted. As of 8:14 a.m. Thursday, May 7, 2020, yesterday's report not yet posted. Update: posted. From Wednesday's daily activity report:

OPEC basket: $21.44. Link here and always at the sidebar. This morning, OPEC shows $22.40 up from $21.43 yesterday but still less expensive (and less marketable) than WTI.

Vaca Muerta: may be living up to its namesake -- "dead." Link here, from Rigzone. Vaca Muerta is tracked here. That last entry there, back in December, 2018, suggested the Vaca Muera might produce as much as 60,000 bopd by 2022.

• Argentina unlikely to be able to repay its record $57 billion bailout from the IMF, the government has cut spending (including on developing oil projects)
• rig count has fallen from 43 (August, 2019) to 29 by the end of last year (2019)
• article doesn't say how much the Vaca Muera is producing but says the Neuquén province is producing 167,000 bopd
• Argentina refineries operating at 30% to 40% of normal levels due to 70% decline in gasoline demand and 50% decline in diesel sales;
• it appears a minimum price of $40 to $50 per barrel is needed

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Back to Today's Bakken

Active rigs:

$26.34	5/7/2020	05/07/2019	05/07/2018	05/07/2017	05/07/2016
Active Rigs	22	64	61	49	27

Two wells coming off the confidential list today  -- 

Thursday, May 7, 2020: 23 for the month; 73 for the quarter, 300 for the year:

• 36590, drl, Rimrock, Skunk Creek, 8-2-3-4H, South Forks, t--; cum 10K in 30 days;
• 34165, drl, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUS Njos 5-36-35-157N-100W-LL MBH, Marmon, no production data,

RBN Energy: refineries' options for dealing with extraordinary times.

The COVID-19-induced social isolation and subsequent economic slowdown have caused major drops in U.S. refined products consumption, especially gasoline and jet fuel, which have experienced declines of as much as 44% and 70%, respectively, relative to similar periods in 2019. Diesel fuel consumption has been off as much as 20% on the same basis, and given that COVID is a global crisis, product exports have also fallen.

As a result, U.S. refinery utilization has dropped to less than 70% for the last few weeks, the lowest levels since September 2008 during Hurricane Ike. All this presents refiners with two challenges: (1) reduced total demand; and (2) the disproportionate decline in gasoline and jet fuel. Each refinery is configured differently and has a varying degree of flexibility to react to these challenges. Today, we discuss what refiners can do to adjust operations and product yields, and examine the point at which some refineries might be forced to shut down completely.