CLR Reports Another Huge Wahpeton Well -- June 3, 2020

Active rigs:

$36.44	6/3/2020	06/03/2019	06/03/2018	06/03/2017	06/03/2016
Active Rigs	12	64	60	51	25

Six new permits, #37607 - #37612, inclusive --

• Operator: MRO
• Field: Antelope-Sanish (McKenzie)
• Comments:
• MRO has permits for a 6-well pad in SWNE 34-152-94 in Antelope-Sanish oil field;
• all wells are about 1400 FNL and about 1800' FEL
• Sainte Pierre USA; Robin USA; Shoberg USA; Black USA; Archer USA; Cavanaugh USA;

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 35915, SI/A, CLR, Wahpeton 17-16H, Banks, t--; cum 107K in 2.5 months; see below;
• 35842, SI/A, Equinor, Stallion 33-28 4TFH, Ragged Butte, t--; cum 56K 4/20
• 36134, SI/A, XTO, Arlys 34X-31H, Siverston, t--; cum 44K 3/20; a 41K month; see below;

Note:

• The Wahpeton family of wells: another look at CLR's testing the lower benches of the Three Forks, Banks oil field; 

Initial production.

• 35915:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	4-2020	30	40260	39905	23467	70729	70337	0
BAKKEN	3-2020	31	51198	51068	32292	83562	83562	0
BAKKEN	2-2020	7	15020	14894	10519	21113	21082	31
BAKKEN	1-2020	5	449	449	7154	2123	0	2123
BAKKEN	12-2019	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

From a Continental Resources exhibit. Sent in by a reader:

The Wahpeton wells are sited in section 16, and run north to south, ending in section 21.

• 36134, 41K extrapolates to 46K in a 30-day month:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	4-2020	2	2047	2355	2011	5126	0	5122
BAKKEN	3-2020	27	41205	40528	45135	79448	0	79313
BAKKEN	2-2020	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

New Poll -- Corona Virus Vaccine -- June 3, 2020

Vote at the top of the sidebar at the right.

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Updates

Poll posted on June 3, 2020.


June 13, 2020: that didn't take long. The Motley Fool suggests this merger is not going to happen. Apparently not a good fit and Gilead not interested.


June 8, 2020: AstraZeneca and Gilead in talks over mega-deal merger in light of corona virus vaccine.


June 4, 2020: AstraZeneca ready to deliver 2 billions before Thanksgiving --

• 400 million doses to the US and the UK
• one billion does for low- and middle-income countries

Serendipity -- Where Were You On 9/11? -- June 3, 2020

Talk about serendipity.

I remember exactly where I was at 0900 hrs on Tuesday, September 11, 2001: watching on television,  from an office in the Air Force's Intelligence Agency complex, in San Antonio, the events unfold.

Vern Whitten, of the eponymously-named photography studio was taking photographs.

Today, he sent me the third in his series of of photographs for his virtual coffee-table book, linked at the sidebar at the right.

He says that in the autumn of 2001 he was taking a photograph of a maple tree in a local park, taking a photo every day for about a month. One of the photos just happened to be taken on September 11, 2001.

See photo and his comments at the link. Pretty amazing.

Vern Whitten Photography
www.vernwhittenphotography.com
(701) 261-7658

Threat Update -- June 3, 2020

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Rush Recommends

Turn off cable news for a week.

I quit watching cable news many months ago. It makes all the difference in the world.

I use google to look specifically for what I want to read about. Car radio is set on classical music station.

One exception: I continue to listen to Rush off and on. I never listen to "his" show when he has a guest speaker. I generally tune in to Rush for about twenty minutes. I'm driving with our oldest granddaughter every day from 11:45 to 2:00 -- she has her driver's permit -- and I would never subject her to Rush. She has a different myth of the world than I do. And it will be her world that she inherits, not mine.

One of the reasons we enjoyed our thirteen years overseas with the USAF (Germany, England, Turkey, Africa, Italy) is because we did not have television and we did not subscribe to the local newspapers. The only news we got on a regular basis was Air Force Times.

Ignorance is bliss.

At first I was concerned / upset about what going on in the big-city protests, but I was no longer concerned when the mayor of NYC said he was in control, and did not need any outside help. That tells me all I need to know. In the big scheme of things, it can't be that bad if the mayor of NYC is not all that concerned. I don't have a dog in that fight -- the nightly protests.

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Rush Is Not Often Wrong, But In This Case ....

I sent this not-ready-for-prime-time note to a reader earlier today:

I see Rush Limbaugh continues to push the myth / meme that Sweden did the right thing by not locking down like its neighbors.

NY locked down but screwed up by:

a) the nursing home debacle; and,

b) the failure to "manage" the subways

So, in the big scheme of things, NYC never truly locked down.

Had the rest of the US not locked down (or instituted the same policies as NY) can you imagine the headlines with the number of cases / number of deaths across the US?

Even now, folks are worried about a second wave when, in fact, that was not the purpose of lock downs to begin with.

Now, I see this over at ZeroHedge:

Notes From All Over, The Mid-Morning Editioin -- June 3, 2020

The great flip:

The graphic of the day, link here:

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The Literature Page

Troy. Yes, that Troy.

To visualize Troy, think of Vatican City.

Likely date of destruction based on a marble tablet (parium) from Paros: the seventh from the last day in the month of Thargelion during the 22nd year of the reign of King Menestheus. A recalculation: June 5, 1209 B.C. Other sources suggest that date is very, very plausible. From wiki:

Paros is a Greek island in the central Aegean Sea.

One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about 5 miles wide.

It lies approximately 93 miles south-east of Piraeus, the port city of Athens.

The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets totaling 75 sq mi of land. 

Historically, Paros was known for its fine white marble, which gave rise to the term "Parian" to describe marble or china of similar qualities.

Thargelion: in the spring, May/June time frame.

So, there you have it.

Celebrate with a Greek meal this Friday. And toast your favorite hero of the Trojan War. My favorite is Diomedes.

One of the fifteen is Hector, and Sophia and I read this bedtime nursery story several times a week, although she says she doesn't like it:

Zorba the Greek dance:

EIA Weekly Petroleum Report -- June 3, 2020

Updates

August 7, 2020: be sure to look at most recent comments -- the confirmed figures show that the EIA's weekly reports for oil production in May averaged 1,418,000 barrels per day above what was actually produced, so they were off by more than even I imagined...clarifying...almost 1.5 million bopd OVER-reported...actual May production was only 10 mbpd; remember the negative price quotes? those were for May oil...

June 4, 2020: be sure to look at comments.

Original Post 

Link here. Pending, due out at 9:30 a.m. CT.

Meanwhile, while waiting: ADP data "massively" beats consensus. Okay, we'll go with that.

OPEC basket: quietly goes up to $34.95. Link here. WTI at $36.92.

EOG:

The EIA weekly data:

• US crude oil inventories declined by 2.1 million bbls from the previous week;
• US crude oil inventories now stand at 532.3 million bbls, 12% above the already-fat-five-year average for this time of year;
• refineries were operating at 71.8% capacity, pretty much unchanged;
• US crude oil imports decreased by 1.0 million bbls/day -- an average of one VLCC every two or three day;
• US crude oil imports are down about 18% on average from a year ago
• jet fuel product supplied pretty much unchanged at 68.7% from last year

Re-balancing:

Week	Week Ending	Change	Million Bbls Storage
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5
Week 2	December 6, 2018	-7.3	443.2
Week 3	December 12, 2018	-1.2	442.0
Week 4	December 19, 2018	-0.5	441.5
Week 5	December 28, 2018	0.0	441.4
Week 71	April 8, 2020	15.2	484.4
Week 72	April 15, 2020	19.2	503.6
Week 72	April 22, 2020	15.0	518.6
Week 73	April 29, 2020	9.0	527.6
Week 74	May 6, 2020	4.6	532.2
Week 75	May 13, 2020	-0.7	531.5
Week 76	May 20, 2020	-5.0	526.5
Week 77	May 28, 2020	7.9	534.4
Week 78	June 3, 2020	-2.1	532.3

US crude oil imports:

Crude Oil Imports
Week (week-over-week)	Week Ending	Raw Data, millions of bbls	Change (millions of bbls)	Four-week period comparison
Week 0	March 11, 2029	6.4	0.174
Week 1	March 18, 2020	6.5	0.127
Week 2	March 25, 2020	6.1	-0.422
Week 3	April 1, 2020	6.0	-0.070
Week 4	April 8, 2020	5.9	-0.173
Week 5	April 15, 2020	5.7	-0.194
Week 6	April 22, 2020	5.6	-0.700
Week 7	April 29, 2020	5.3	0.365	-19.700%
Week 8	May 6, 2020	5.7	0.410
Week 9	May 13, 2020	5.4	-0.321	-26.100%
Week 10	May 20, 2020	5.2	-0.194
Week 11	May 28, 2020	7.2	2.000	-16.400%
Week 12	June 3, 2020	6.2	-1.000	-18.300%

Jet fuel delivered:

Jet Fuel Delivered, Change, Four-Week/Four-Week
Week	Week Ending	Change
Week 0	3/7/2020	-12.80%
Week 1	3/14/2020	-12.60%
Week 2	3/21/2020	-8.90%
Week 3	3/28/2020	-16.40%
Week 4	4/4/2020	-0.22%
Week 5	4/11/2020	-39.70%
Week 6	4/18/2020	-53.60%
Week 7	4/24/2020	-61.60%
Week 8	5/1/2020	-66.60%
Week 9	5/8/2020	-68.50%
Week 10	5/15/2020	-67.90%
Week 11	May 22, 2020	-66.60%
Week 12	June 3, 2020	-68.70%

Three Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- June 3, 2020

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Never mind: before the internet, no one ever had to own up to these major mis-calls. Goldman Sachs "tapers" call for stock-market plunge. Link here, FWIW. 

Why the market keeps going up: earnings. Well, duh.

APPL:

Amazon: Christmas in July June. Amazon's annual Prime Day event moves more merchandise than Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon is looking to move the  annual Prime Day event to this autumn. But, and this is a big "but," Amazon is looking to announce "The Big Style Day" sometime later this month (June, 2020). What I find most interesting: with all the demand already being placed on Amazon, it's interesting that Jeff Bezos would increase that demand. Wow. The replies to the Fox Business article were "all" negative -- not sure what this is all about. Fox readers don't like Amazon?

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$37.37	6/3/2020	06/03/2019	06/03/2018	06/03/2017	06/03/2016
Active Rigs	12	64	60	51	25

Three wells coming off the confidential list today -- Wednesday, June 3, 2020: 13 for the month; 158 for the quarter, 385 for the year:

• 36754, 1,322, Kraken Candace 15-22 1TFH, Sanish, t12/19; cum 97K 4/20; see this post;
• 36458, drl/drl, BR, Glacierfill 1E, Clear Creek, no production data,  
• 35190, drl/drl, XTO, Zane Federal 21X-6AXD, Siverston, no production data,

RBN Energy: European and US gas markets look to each other for price direction. Provides excellent update of European gas situation. Archived here.

Natural gas prices in the U.S. were under pressure for many years, long before the COVID crisis gripped the world and threw energy markets into flux. Shale gas production, from both crude- and gas-focused basins, has driven U.S. output to incredible levels over the last 10 years. That growth has led to persistently low U.S. gas prices across the Lower 48, with the benchmark Henry Hub being no exception. The upshot of low gas prices has been steadily increasing demand, both in the domestic market and for exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to various markets around the globe. Until recently, those international markets had often been viewed as an insatiable demand sink, but reality has set in over the past year. Prices in Europe, one of the most popular destinations for U.S. LNG, have crashed below Henry Hub, and are threatening the once-steady flow of LNG. Market participants in the U.S. and Europe now find themselves poring over the fundamental details of both markets to determine how long the price weakness will last, or if it will only get worse from here. Today, we look at the increasingly interconnected gas markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

The gas markets in the U.S. and Europe, linked by ever-growing U.S. LNG export capacity, have kept us busy lately. The convergence of Henry Hub and global gas prices has led to a steady decline in feedgas flows to American LNG facilities and a commensurate drop in the number of LNG cargoes exported from Lower-48 liquefaction facilities. A later blog focused on not only the tightening spreads between U.S. and global prices, but also the various variable costs associated with shipping LNG between those markets.

The RBN Energy blog today also includes this:

Also, a quick aside on TTF, which stands for Title Transfer Facility. The index was established in 2003 by European midstream operator Gasunie and has since grown into one of the most important and liquid trading hubs in mainland Europe. It’s similar to the National Balancing Point (NBP) in the United Kingdom, but is located in the Netherlands, where market participants can access various receipt and delivery points on the Dutch pipeline grid, which is also well connected with the broader European gas infrastructure. 

A Closer Look At A String Of Kraken TFH Wells In The Sanish --June 3, 2020

Many years ago, Lynn Helms opined that all things being equal, Three Forks wells might be better than middle Bakken wells.

Up until now, 90% of the Sanish oil field wells were middle Bakken wells. New permits suggest operators are moving toward half-and-half: new permits in Tier 1 areas are half middle Bakken, and half Three Forks wells.

I don't believe I have ever posted a multi-well pad with all TFH wells. If not, here is the first example:

The wells:

• 36757, 794, Kraken Arrow A 15-22 4TFH, 60 stages, 15.3 million lbs; Sanish, t12/19; cum 108K 4/20; 
• 36756, 732, Kraken Ethan 15-22 3TFH, Sanish, t12/19; cum 82K 4/20;
• 36755, 1,531, Kraken, Penny 15-22 2TFH, Sanish, t12/19; cum 97K 3420;
• 36754, 1,322, Kraken, Candace 15-22 1TFH, Sanish, t12/19; cum 97K 4/20;

Production:

36757, 60 stages, 15.3 million lbs:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	4-2020	30	43308	43395	55496	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2020	31	43282	43171	88510	42200	16508	25321
BAKKEN	2-2020	2	786	786	6985	825	794	7
BAKKEN	1-2020	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2019	31	20877	20687	39475	15303	5473	9396

From the file report (#36767):

• a ten-foot target between 20' and 30' below the top of the Three forks 
• a "toe-down, three-string, double section lateral"
• the build took a bit longer than usual due to a mud motor failure; no big deal;
• the lateral portion: from the evening of October 4, 2019, to TD, early morning, just after midnight, October 8, 2019, without incident (about 3.5 days)
• gas: 
• upper Bakken shale: 1842 units
• middle Bakken: 413 units
• lower Bakken: 2006 units
• Three Forks: 1334 units
• sections 15/22-154-92

From the NDIC map, the wells go to the south, intersecting the following, producing wells:
In same drilling unit:

• 16953, Kraken, Fladeland, off line;
• 22855, Kraken, Kathy, off line;
• 21525, Kraken, Helen, off line;
• 18302, Kraken, Fladeland, off line;
• 21001, Kraken, Debbie, off line;
• 17102, Kraken, Fladeland, off line;
• 21318, Kraken, Lance, has just returned to production; 28 days in 4/20: 1051 bbls; in line;
• 28841, Kraken, Lance, has just returned to production; 30 days in 4/20: 925 bbls; in line;
• 28842, Kraken, Danae TTT, has just returned to production; 21 days in 4/20; in line;
• 28843, Kraken, Dakota TTT, has just returned to production; 30 days in 4/20; 1255 bbls; in line;

parallel, to the east:

• 24994, Whiting, Carkuff; off line 8/19; remains off line 4/20;

Bakken Pretty Much Shut Down To New Activitiy -- June 3, 2020

Active rigs:

$37.35	6/3/2020	06/03/2019	06/03/2018	06/03/2017	06/03/2016
Active Rigs	11	64	60	51	25

New activity in the Bakken has come to a standstill? The daily activity report for Tuesday, June 2, 2020:

• no new permits;
• no permits renewed;
• no DUCs reported completed;
• no anything.