Natural Gas As Low As 73 Cents/MMBtu In Appalachia; No Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- September 23, 2020

Chart of the day:

US traffic: sluggish recovery.

Tesla: EVs are still a luxury, Elon Musk. This is probably one of the best articles on status of EVs today. Link over at The WSJ. Stand-alone post later. And, yes, it's still a battery issue.

Batteries: running out of fingers and toes. Now we have yet another battery start-up, this one backed by Bill Gates. Data points:

• QuantumScape
• "a $4.3 billion EV battery startup based in .... where else ... but California
• backed by Volkswagen AG
• 10-year-old startup
• NYSE ticker: QS after merging with shell company Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp
• says it uses "pure lithium"
• battery will charge in 15 minutes, cost less than most of today's conventional batteries, and allow mass-market EVs to travel about 90% further than contemporary EVs; and will solve world hunger

From the same article as above:

"The problem is that batteries are big and heavy," Gates wrote in a blog post. 

"Even with big breakthroughs in battery technology, electric vehicles will probably never be a practical solution for things like 18-wheelers, cargo ships and passenger jets. Electricity works when you need to cover short distances, but we need a different solution for heavy, long-haul vehicles."

But the best, saved for last, from that same article:

Word of the day: hustings. From American Thinker, "Biden stiffs the local media ... one of the principal benefits of a presidential campaign visit to the hustings is supposed to be the opportunity for the candidate to appear on local media, talking to locally prominent reporters and anchors who reach viewers ...

hustings: second definition -- "the proceeding or locale of an election campaign" .... but look at the "provenance" of the word -- an OLD NORSE connection.

The term traces to an Old Norse word meaning "house assembly," and 1000 years ago hustings were judicial assemblies where Anglo-Saxon kings and their followers held council and resolved civil disputes. Over time, "hustings" came to refer not only to the assembly but also to the platform where the leaders of such gatherings sat, and in due course the term was applied to the entire campaigning process as well. 

Nowadays, "on the hustings" is synonymous with "on the stump," and it can refer to any place along the campaign trail where a candidate makes a pitch for public office.

So, now you know.

OPEC basket, link here: down again, but not by much. OSP at $41.32.

**********************************
Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$39.86	9/23/2020	09/23/2019	09/23/2018	09/23/2017	09/23/2016
Active Rigs	11	59	66	57	33

No wells coming off the confidential list.

RBN Energy: seasonal demand declines, production curtailments hit Appalachian gas market, part 3. 

As U.S. natural gas spot and futures prices retreated in the past week, the price of gas at Appalachia’s Dominion South hub fell as low as $0.735/MMBtu, the lowest since fall 2017, before partially rebounding yesterday to about $1.10/MMBtu, according to the NGI daily gas price index. 

Moreover, the forwards market indicates sub-$1/MMBtu prices are in store for October as well. The regional supply hub didn’t weaken quite as much as prices at the national benchmark Henry Hub, which collapsed in recent days on demand losses — from cooler weather, storm-related power outages, and disruptions to LNG exports — and storage levels in the Gulf Coast region that are well above average and approaching peak capacity levels. 

The relative support for prices in the Northeast is in part due to a second round of production shut-ins by EQT Corp., which took effect September 1. But seasonal demand declines are underway; the Dominion Energy Cove Point LNG facility in Maryland just went offline for its annual fall maintenance, placing additional pressure on already-packed storage fields and takeaway pipelines; and pipeline maintenance events are reducing outflow capacity and curtailing production. Altogether, that signals more volatility ahead. Today, we provide an update on the fundamentals driving the Northeast gas market.