One Well Coming Off The Confidential List; Wow, This Week Went By Fast -- September 25, 2020

Natural gas consumption in US plummets: link here to EIA.

Below $40: so much for $40 oil; WTI breaks below $40.

OPEC basket, link here: reverses; down again; looking like a "dead cat bounce," or (hope springs eternal), a "W" recovery. OSP at $41.22.

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

Active rigs:

$39.95	9/25/2020	09/25/2019	09/25/2018	09/25/2017	09/25/2016
Active Rigs	11	59	66	58	33

One well coming off the confidential list -- Friday, September 25, 2020: 139 for the month; 210 for the quarter, 656 for the year

• 34914, SI/A, Whiting, Wold Federal 44-1-3H, Sand Creek, t--; cum 91K in three months; a 30K month;
  

RBN Energy: more northeast gas production curtailments, part 4.  Fascinating story, absolutely fascinating.

U.S. natural gas production in recent days has plunged more than 3 Bcf/d. While some Gulf of Mexico offshore and Gulf Coast production is still offline from the recent tropical storms, the bulk of these declines are happening in the Northeast, where gas production has dived 2 Bcf/d in the past week or so to about 30.2 Bcf/d, the lowest level since May 2019, pipeline flow data shows. Appalachia’s gas output was already down earlier in the month, as EQT Corp. shut in some volumes starting September 1. But with storage inventories soaring near five-year highs, a combination of maintenance events and demand constraints are forcing further curtailments of Marcellus/Utica volumes near-term. Today, we provide an update of Appalachia gas supply trends using daily gas pipeline flow data.

As we discussed on Wednesday in Part 3 of this blog series, the Northeast gas market has been volatile lately. Appalachian supply prices in the spot market earlier this week fell to three-year lows, despite production shut-ins being in effect. A confluence of factors influenced the downturn, including low weather-driven demand, pipeline outages that are restricting outflows, and the start of an annual fall maintenance event at Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG facility that took another 700 MMcf/d or so of export demand out of the market. What’s making all of that worse is that storage levels are soaring, not just in the Northeast but also in downstream markets, reducing flexibility to navigate supply congestion and forcing production curtailments. In the past couple of days, cash prices have strengthened again as production has pulled back.