One Well Coming Off The Confidential List Today -- October 22, 2020

 OPEC basket, link here: trading at $41.04

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$40.47	10/22/2020	10/22/2019	10/22/2018	10/22/2017	10/22/2016
Active Rigs	14	61	71	54	34

One well coming off the confidential list today: 

Thursday, October 22, 2020: 18 for the month; 18 for the quarter, 683 for the year

• 35970, drl/NC, Enerplus, Isle Royal 148-95-02A-11H-TF-LL, Eagle Nest, t--; cum 103K 8/20; total drilling hours, 115 hours = 4.8 days. frack data not posted;

RBN Energy: rising export demand will reduce US ethane rejection and goose prices, part 4. 

For the past few years, demand for U.S.-sourced ethane has been on the rise as petrochemical companies in the U.S. and abroad developed new, ethane-only steam crackers and retrofitted existing crackers to allow more ethane to be used as feedstock. U.S. NGL production was increasing too, of course, alongside growth in crude oil-focused plays like the Permian and “wet” gas plays like the Marcellus/Utica. But recently, drilling-and-completion activity has slowed to a crawl and NGL production has been leveling off, which means that less of the ethane that comes out of the ground with oil and gas will be “rejected” into natural gas and more will be separated out at fractionation plants. Today, we conclude a series on ethane exports with a look at U.S. NGL production, ethane supply and demand, ethane exports, and ethane prices.

Among the many extraordinary results of the Shale Revolution is that the U.S. has emerged as by far the leading exporter of liquefied petroleum gases (LPG; propane and normal butane) and pretty much the only exporter of ethane. (Norway exports small volumes.) In fact, the U.S. now exports ethane to steam crackers in eight other countries: Canada, India, the UK, China, Norway, Mexico, Brazil, and Sweden. 

The U.S. produced a record 2.2 MMb/d of ethane in July 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), and we estimate that around a million additional barrels per day on average this year has been rejected into the natural gas stream at processing plants and sold (at the price of gas) for its Btu value. 

About 290 Mb/d, or 13% of total U.S. ethane production, is currently being sent to other countries, with about one-third of the exports being piped to Canada and the rest being shipped to other foreign lands. About 80% of the shipped volumes is being sent out of Enterprise Products Partner’s Morgan’s Point export terminal on the Houston Ship Channel and the balance sets sail from the Energy Transfer’s Marcus Hook facility near Philadelphia.