The Big Moon Tonight — April 7, 2020

Just a reminder.

Gas Buddy -- Who Has Bragging Rights Tonight? -- April 7, 2020

Consumers would love it -- if they had anywhere to drive:

• Michigan: 94 cents;
• Wisconsin: 95 cents;
• Ohio: 95 cents;
• Kentucky: 99 cents;
• Louisiana: $1.09;
• Oklahoma City: 98 cents
• Indiana: 92 cents
• San Francisco: $2.69 
• Beverly Hills: $2.99

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EV Sales

From Inside EVs:

Note that BMW has decided for some time to no longer give model breakdowns or a final EV number, but rather a percentage decrease YoY, which has been huge in the last few months. But now, the automaker isn't even sharing its EV sales numbers/percentage at all. Still, i3 and i8 numbers will be official as reported by BMW.

While Mercedes is willing to provide IEV with a "total" number of plug-in vehicles sold for the month, the totals for each model are unverified by the automaker.

Many other automakers like Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, Volvo, Porsche, and Jaguar don't reveal any EV sales figures.

Tesla reports its overall global deliveries every quarter, but that doesn't help with U.S. sales.

GM (Chevrolet and Cadillac) and Ford, among others, have chosen to just report on a quarterly basis, but again, there's often no breakdown of EV models delivered.

Toyota stopped reporting Prius Prime sales and has instead made the decision to just post overall Prius sales.

Honda has never broken down Clarity sales either.

So, basically, we have a few EV sales numbers to add from the past few months and will have a few more after the end of the quarter.

Aside from that, "You get nothing, you lose, good day, sir!" Sad but too true.

Nonetheless, look for some minor updates coming soon. As always, thanks for your support and understanding.

Hopefully, as automakers begin to find success with EVs (many, many years away as it stands right now), we'll see a change in reporting practices.

The WPX Young Bird Wells; Spotted Horn Oil Field; Random Update -- April 7, 2020

These wells were completed one year ago, January, 2019.

One year later, all have gone over 330K bbls crude oil cumulative; one is trending toward 400K bbls crude oil cumulative; one is at 364K -- that's all in one year.

• 34974, t1/19; cum 383K;
• 34741, t1/19; cum 365K;
• 34740, t1/19; cum 330K;
• 34739, t1/19; cum 339K;

18948, halo effect, will finish tomorrow;

Three wells:

• On confidential in the immediate area, but sited in an unusual location; there are three wells; they are sited in the middle of section 22, but appear that they are 1280-acre wells, drilling to the north, sections 22/15-150-94; the wells in that drilling unit are the Sweet Grass Woman wells (#22629 shows a bit of a halo effect);
• 36696, conf, WPX, Pronghorn 22-15HX, Spotted Horn;
• 36697, conf, WPX, Pronghorn 22-15HA, Spotted Horn;
• 37162, conf, WPX, Pronghorn 22-15HUL, Spotted Horn;

Whiting's Rolla Federal Goes Over 500K Bbls Crude Oil Cumulative -- April 7, 2020

Whiting's Rolla Federal wells in Twin Valley are tracked here and have been updated. One of the Rolla Federal wells has recently gone over 500,000 bbls crude oil cumulative. 

The well:

• 32329, 2,861 (scout ticket has a typo; it's been corrected), Rolla Federal 11-3-1TFHU, API 33-053-07420; bottom hole: section 10; t10/16; cum 551K 2/20;  TF B2

CLR Suspends Dividend; CLR With Two New Permits; ND Rig Count Drops To 36 -- April 7, 2020

CLR: announces suspension of dividend and production update.

Weekly crude oil build: API estimates 11.938 million bbls vs a forecast of 9.27 million bbls. We will see EIA's crude oil report tomorrow.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$24.31	4/7/2020	04/07/2019	04/07/2018	04/07/2017	04/07/2016
Active Rigs	36	62	58	49	31

Two new permits, #37499 - #37500, inclusive --

• Operator: CLR
• Field: Indian Hill (McKenzie County)
• Comments:
• CLR has permits for two Harrisburg wells in SESE 34-153-101, Indian Hill

Three Kraken wells with name changes:

• no significant change

A BR Dodge Well Tracking To Hit 500K Bbls Crude Oil -- April 7, 2020

The BR Dodge wells in Dimmick Lake are tracked here.

The BR Dodge wells, like most BR wells, are really good wells. The reported IPs are generally low, and they may "start off slow," but they turn out to be great wells.

Most of them were off line recently for a couple of months (or parts of a couple of months) but they all seem to be back on line.

Note: in addition to all that follows, there are six additional Dodge wells in that same section on confidential list, ready to be fracked. 

A reader alerted me to this well which is trending toward 500,000 bbls crude oil cumulative:

• 33338, 420, BR, Demicks Dodge 1A MBH-ULW, 33-053-07949; 4 sections, fracked 9/30/19 - 10/24/19; 62 stages; 10.4 million lbs, all mesh, t12/17; cum 413K 2/20;

This well is currently producing about 12,000 bbls crude oil / month. If that holds, let's say 7,500 bbls/month, this well will hit 500,000 bbls sometime next year -- or 500,000 bbls in less than 3.5 years.

File report:

• an extended reach single lateral, middle Bakken; on a 2-well pad;
• the drilling target formation was 41 feet thick;
• the lateral: 
• above drilling target footage, 1,201' (12.14%)
• in drilling target footage, 8,689' (87.86%)
• below drilling target footage, 0', (0.00%)
• spur: April 8, 2017
• 7' casing point, drilling out of the shoe: March 24, 2017
• TD reached; march 27, 2017; 
• lateral gas high of7,740 units;

Fracking:

• 12.1 million gallons of water; 89.86% water by mass;

This well has the production profile of a Charlson oil field well. It may not have a huge initial production but it maintains great production for many, many months. 

Production:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	2-2020	29	11083	11074	4410	46542	46470	0
BAKKEN	1-2020	31	15426	15380	5209	42303	41962	264
BAKKEN	12-2019	16	6211	6256	3156	14440	14400	0
BAKKEN	11-2019	26	10361	10389	5021	33608	33543	0
BAKKEN	10-2019	31	13008	13188	4904	19858	19781	0
BAKKEN	9-2019	30	14382	14349	4877	27129	22430	4625
BAKKEN	8-2019	31	16111	16028	5869	30065	29988	0
BAKKEN	7-2019	31	13244	13236	4263	26083	26006	0
BAKKEN	6-2019	30	16495	16520	5076	32024	30688	1262
BAKKEN	5-2019	31	17095	17099	4836	39430	38597	756
BAKKEN	4-2019	30	18241	18223	5512	35427	28293	7060
BAKKEN	3-2019	27	12312	12188	6495	26107	17735	8305
BAKKEN	2-2019	18	3449	3435	1575	5889	5844	0
BAKKEN	1-2019	31	3673	3656	1317	28744	28667	0
BAKKEN	12-2018	31	16657	16718	5705	29757	29680	0
BAKKEN	11-2018	30	16025	15989	4437	32779	32705	0
BAKKEN	10-2018	31	20265	20315	6856	27321	26330	914
BAKKEN	9-2018	30	16956	16904	4587	24022	23948	0
BAKKEN	8-2018	31	20273	20422	7919	7833	7756	0
BAKKEN	7-2018	31	30197	30147	10349	20479	20402	0
BAKKEN	6-2018	30	27533	27441	9746	39089	38188	827
BAKKEN	5-2018	16	20328	20380	8119	39557	39443	74
BAKKEN	4-2018	30	22613	22584	5910	34723	31977	2672
BAKKEN	3-2018	31	17223	17265	3800	30080	29975	28
BAKKEN	2-2018	28	23310	23722	9193	37562	37492	0
BAKKEN	1-2018	31	9635	9066	5386	14664	14587	0
BAKKEN	12-2017	31	684	684	140	2064	1987	0

Random Note Re: CLR Wells In The Bakken -- April 7, 2020

A reader replied to a recent comment regarding cumulative production of CLR wells over the years.

The original comment is at this post. The original comment:

According to shaleprofile.com, CLR has 54 wells over 500,000 bbls crude oil cumulative, restricted to North Dakota, horizontal, and 2005 or later first production).

Of those 54 wells, 26 are Red River (Red River, West Red River, Red River B, etc) in Bowman and Slope counties.

The shaleprofile data is a month or two old and there were a couple wells at 499, so the tickers have probably gone to 56 or higher by now.

Note of course that this is a tiny fraction of CLR's overall wells. They have 1,782 horizontal wells (post 2005, ND). The 54 wells represent 3% of their well population.

Just an important thing to keep in mind when look at exuberant posts here...not representative.

After posting that comment, another reader responded with this:

Quick follow up to that comment regarding Continental's wells' cumulative production. 

Up until about 2013 or so, virtually EVERY well that Continental frac'd used a 30 stage, sliding sleeve configuration. 

This practice continued LONG after Bakken consensus recognized the relative efficacy of plug and perf versus sliding sleeve.

On several quarterly conference calls, Hamm was asked why Continental continued to complete wells with a knowingly inferior design. 

His repeated explanation shows his wisdom, long term view, as well as the impacts of on-the-ground operational realities.

(These attributes are sorely lacking (IMHO) within the vast army of ankle biters that seem to populate the "Peak Oil' mob.)

To wit ...

With - generally - a 36 month time frame from contract signing to first production, early Bakken operators were furiously fighting the clock to get leases held by production (HBP) so as to protect long term DSU production. 

The MUCH faster sliding sleeve design (versus p 'n p) enabled Continental to complete wells quickly across its vast acreage. 

The repetitive familiarity also enabled completion crews to expeditiously frac wells. 

Biggest reason to forego higher initial production using sliding sleeve, though,  was to produce a set 'baseline' metric with which to compare/contrast the relative productive potential across wide swaths of acreage.

This early, consistent approach of using a somewhat inferior completion design is now paying off in spades as Continental has the most precise, granular assessment of rock potential in the Bakken.

The reader added a few more comments on a somewhat related but different theme. I may post those later. 

But back to the reader's observation.

In addition, it should noted that CLR has first-hand knowledge of not only its own wells but all the wells in which it has an operating interest but where the well is operated by another oil company. Without question, CLR has more knowledge across the entire Bakken than any other operator by a large margin. 

More to follow.

US Supply Of Crude Oil -- Days -- EIA -- April 7, 2020

Link here.

This will be quite interesting to follow. It almost appears, that due to storage, there is a maximum number of days of supply of US crude oil. One might have thought the number of days of supply could be "infinite" if Saudi Arabia maximized production "forever," but that's unlikely. When storage is full, storage is full. The EIA definition of US supply of crude oil in days does not include foreign oil (or domestic oil, for that matter) being "stored" in VLCCs -- a rather new phenomenon.

Note the relative narrow range of days of US supple of crude oil at the link:

It appears US supply of crude oil as measured in days was re-set after 2015 with "30 days" becoming the new norm. With US exports increasing in the late 20-teens, the US days of supply trended upward until production, export terminals, and availability of VLCCs caught up with global demand.

That's probably what Saudi Arabia saw in late 2019. US was taking market share away from traditional crude oil suppliers.

One wonders if there will be an incentive for "someone" to start adding more storage in the US. VLCC's are leasing for $50,000 / day. My hunch? Someone is doing the math. But until the EIA either re-defines how storage is calculated (off-shore VLCC's, for example) and/or the US starts putting in more storage at traditional locations (west coast; Gulf coast; Cushing), days of US supply is finite, not "infinite." Perhaps US supply, measured in days, will max out at the Biblical forty days and forty nights.

Closing The Loop: The 5G Rollout And The Wuhan Flu Pandemic -- April 7, 2020

This is really, really deep into the weeds, but it tells me I'm pretty well keeping up with things, with the help of my readers and a few well-chosen social media sites and blogs, all of which are linked at the sidebar at the right.

Some weeks ago a reader asked me about the association between rollout of 5G and the Wuhan flu pandemic. I can't remember my reply but I knew there was no association. What I did not know: where was this "idea" coming from.

We now have the answer. Following the "rabbit trail" (as one reader would call it) the MacRumors page to this link: WhatsApp imposed new limit on bulk media forwarding to slow spread of misinformation.  It begins:

WhatsApp today implemented new restrictions on the mass forwarding of messages in an effort to slow the spread of misinformation on the chat platform.

The new limits on bulk forwarding mean if a user receives a message that has been forwarded more than five times, they will only be able to send it on to a single chat at a time.

The previous limit was five chats at once, which WhatsApp introduced last year. Obviously the restriction doesn't completely prevent mass forwarding, but anyone wanting to do so now has to put a lot more repetitive manual effort into it. 

And then this:

The move comes after several hoaxes went viral on the platform, including false stories about the current global pandemic one of which linked the outbreak to the rollout of 5G networks.

At least 20 mobile phone masts across the U.K. are believed to have been set on fire or vandalized as a result of the baseless theory.

Wow, wow, wow. Who knew? The Brits are nuts. They have great music but a lot of them wear aluminum / tin hats. Speaking of which, was the source of tin for the Romans? Yup, England. It started by adding tin to copper to get bronze, and adding any of a number of other metals, such as zinc to get such things as brass.

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Music

Alexa and Siri work great together. I'm listening to Liberace on Echo/Alexa. Wow. Every so often I hear a particularly good piece -- but can't name it. But Siri can. The amazing thing: Siri not only names the tune, but she recognizes who is playing it. This means that Siri, probably through iTunes, has access to "every" music recording ever made. Running through that immense library, Siri can find the exact recording. And, remember, Alexa and Siri are not related. Well, at least they are not sisters; maybe, first cousins twice removed. LOL. Alexa is an Amazon product; Siri is Apple Inc.

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Lunar Gazing

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Clair De Lune

Clair de Lune, Liberace

WCS Producers -- How Do They Do It? -- April 7, 2020 -- No New Wells Come Off NDIC Confidential List Today

Active rigs:

$26.91	4/7/2020	04/07/2019	04/07/2018	04/07/2017	04/07/2016
Active Rigs	37	62	58	49	31

Second day in a row, no new wells coming off the NDIC confidential list.

RBN Energy: will record-low WCS prices spur oil producers to reduce output? Without question, I've always found the WCS story absolutely fascinating. To paraphrase a great line in an episode of Columbo, "how do they do it?"

The crash in global crude oil markets has meant low prices for all producers, but no place more so than in Alberta’s oil sands.

Transportation, blending and quality differentials mean that benchmark Western Canadian Select (WCS) is priced at a significant discount to light, sweet West Texas Intermediate. With WTI prices seemingly stuck below $30/bbl, the absolute price of WCS last week tumbled to all-time lows below $5/bbl.

If they persist, will WCS prices south of $10/bbl generate wide-scale production shut-ins in the oil sands? Today, we continue our series on the challenges facing Alberta’s oil sands.

The collapse in heavy oil prices to record-low levels has presented a crisis for Alberta’s enormous oil sands industry unlike any it has ever seen before. This collapse is even worse than in late 2018, when price differentials for Alberta’s WCS benchmark blew out versus WTI in response to severe transportation constraints. So bad was the pricing for WCS 15-plus months ago that the Alberta provincial government intervened and mandated oil production curtailments to restrict supplies. This, combined with the increased use of crude-by-rail, eventually lifted WCS prices out of the cellar last year.

Over the same period, benchmark light oil prices like WTI remained relatively healthy, meaning the change in the price spread was almost entirely driven by regional dynamics affecting WCS.

This time around, things are different — the prices for all varieties of crude are down to their lowest levels in years.

It’s one thing for WCS to sell at a $17/bbl discount to WTI when WTI is priced at more than $60/bbl, as it was two years ago this week.

When WTI is priced at only $25-30/bbl, however, that same $17/bbl spread can be disastrous to an oil sands producer. As we previously mentioned, the broader oil market collapse and the record-low WCS prices already are spurring capital spending cuts. Still, while these spending reductions may delay some planned production additions, there have been few signs — so far, at least — of a major dialing back of production from existing oil sands projects.

Take a look at US crude oil imports from Canada over the past few months. Refiners are more than happy to take Canadian oil at such discounted prices. Canadian exports to the US continue to set all-time records. Currently, Canada is exporting about 4.6 million bopd to the US. WCS oil is more like Saudi oil than US oil. Saudi's problem is not the US, it's Canada. 

Notes From All Over, The Early, Early Morning Edition -- April 7, 2020

Wow, this got to be a long note. If nothing else, be sure to watch the Biden koan. This page is now, finally, complete.

Note: in a long note like this, there will be content and typographical errors. If this is important to you, go to the source.

Another Biden koan: I think I could listen to Joe Biden all day long. Another of his koans. My favorite reply to that tweet:

Personally, I'm excited for the fact-checkers. It's a pretty bold claim to say that our democracy never saked second fiddle. During the window between the Civil War and and pandemic of 17 or 16? Maybe, but never? I'm no historian, but I'm pretty sure that's Mostly True at best. 

LOL.

Most interesting overnight data point: Italy's retail sales.

I believe Italy has the second biggest economy in the EU (after Germany) and Wuhan flu took its greatest toll on its most important industrial region, but yet retail sales, month-over-month (February-over-March) beat expectations by a huge margin. In fact, looking at the graph, one would have never guessed there was a huge Wuhan flu outbreak in the country. This simply blows me away, link over at TradingEconomics. Of all things, Italy is doing so much better than Saudi Arabia, see below, although that is really, really comparing olives to camels, as they say:

Cash reserves, fascinating. Every data point I find suggests the House of Saud is in deep doo-doo:

What I love best about this: I don't think Trump really cares much about oil in the big scheme of things. He's concerned about American workers and keeping gasoline prices low, but I don't think he has a huge ideological bent regarding oil like Valerie Jarrett did. He's willing to let it play out.

Saudi Arabia's oil production:

• Saudi has said it plans to increase production to 12.3 million bopd. It should also be noted that the country:
• has not yet completely fixed that terminal that was hit back in September, 2016 (based on latest report last month);
• has a huge cash flow problem;
• is affected by Wuhan flu (April 7, 2020: KSA imposes 24-hour curfew)

• It's not worth the time to screenshot the graphics, but the data at the links is/are very interesting. Note: two different sources for same data, same time period. Maybe more on this later. In all cases, note the false precision:

• Saudi Arabia crude oil production, TradingEconomics, through February, 2020; 
• an increase, month-over-month
• February, 2020: 9.784 million bopd
• January, 2020: 9.748 million bopd
• recent high, October, 2019: 10.303 million bopd
• outlier, September, 2019: 9.129 million bopd
• average appears to be about 9.7 million bopd
• Saudi Arabia crude oil production, CEIC, through February, 2020:
• a decrease, month-over-month
• February, 2020: 9.683 million bopd
• January, 2020: 9.739 million bopd
• based on 218 observations
• all-time high, November, 2018: 11.021 million bopd
• record low, February, 2002: 7.121 million bopd

Previously posted: I find it amazing that the "oil analysts" over at twitter haven't been able to see what is actually going on with regard to the Saudi surge.

Saudi Arabia GDP, and we haven't even gotten to 2020 data yet. Look at this. Most recent data is through the end of 2020 before the price war even began and before Wuhan flu took its toll. A huge source of Saudi income is "tourism" -- the pilgrimages -- which has now come to a screeching halt. So before all that even began -- link here. All I can say is that if Saudi's GDP improves in January - February - March (2020), someone's cooking the books, as they say.

OPEC production, March, 2020: we'll see if these numbers hold up when TradingEconomics and CEIC report their data a month from now. But month-over-month (March-over-February, 2020), there was absolutely no significant change in production, except perhaps for Saudi Arabia and UAE. Over at twitter:

• OPEC, total, 28.97 million bopd in March vs 27.99 million bopd in February
• Saudi Arabia: 10.15 million bopd (March) vs 9.69 million bopd (February)
• UAE: 3.45 million bopd (March ) vs 3.01 million bopd (February)
• Kuwait: 2.90 million bopd (March) vs 2.67 million bopd (February)
• the other ten members, inconsequential
• Venezuela: 0.65 million bopd (March) vs 0.82 million bopd (February) -- ouch

Clickbait: over at Rigzone, this headline -- "Apache makes significant oil find." Link here. Apache looking for any good news to post. As for me, this article told me absolutely nothing. After Alpine High, I take a lot of these forward-looking prognostications with a grain of salt. Show me the money, or in this case, show me the oil. A second thought on Alpine High: it wasn't bad enough that Apache took a $3 billion hit on Alpine High, but that was their Lower 48 future. Pffft.

Similarly, more clickbait: over at Rigzone, again, this headline -- "New discovery made in GOM." Link here regarding Equinor and its Monument exploration well into the Paleogene sandstone. It told me absolutely nothing. Show me the money, or in this case, show me the oil. Paleogene? That could be anywhere from the Silurian to the Devonian to the Mississippian/Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) to the Permian. Stratigraphic map here.