ND Monthly Oil Production Statistics -- May, 2020

This will be a most interesting spreadsheet to follow over the next few months.

Link here. At that link click on this:

• Historical monthly oil production statistics

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The Nature Page

Ten years ago, when our oldest granddaughter was six, and her sister was three, I had a 5-minute "learning" binder that we would go through every afternoon after school.

The 5-minute "learning" binder was a binder with about ten document protectors each with a document devoted to a single subject. If they were not interested, we could go through the binder in about five minutes, flipping through each page with a reminder / agenda of items to explore.

If they were interested, we could stop on any one document and spend as much time as we wanted. For example, one document was "weather." The girls learned how to give a comprehensive weather report, and something I still do with Sophia on the way into Tutor Time each morning.

Another document was "birds of prey."

Because of the newly identified Swainson's hawks in the area, I recently reviewed the "birds of prey" document and updated it, placing it on the internet for easy access.

One of the birds of prey that always intrigued me is/was the "secretarybird" -- no space between "secretary" and "bird." I've never seen one, in a zoo or in the movies. Until tonight.

How coincidental. Tonight while watching Mogambo on TCM, there was a short scene of a secretarybird -- so now I can say I've actually seen a secretarybird -- even if it was on film.

But talk about a coincidence.

Another coincidence. I would absolutely have had no interest in this movie except for the fact I recently spent quite a bit of time reading / studying / researching White Mischief by James Fox which made Mogambo so much more relevant for me. Pretty amazing. Filmed in Kenya. Most likely in/near Nairobi.

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Word For The Day

Palfrey. 

I had never seen this word before. Of all things I stumbled across it in Bettany Hughes' "biography" of Helen of Troy. 

Distillate Fuel Inventories -- July 24, 2020

A reader suggested I take another look at the EIA weekly petroleum report. Link here. The reader suggested I look at distillate fuel inventories, table 6 at this link. This is the link the reader sent me.

I'll post the narrative and the reader's comments later, but there is so much to do tonight, I have to get the links posted, move on to the next item, and then come back to these.

The "energy data" being reported is truly incredible.

From the EIA weekly petroleum report:

Distillate fuel inventories increased by 1.1 million bbls last week and are about 27% above the five-year average for this time of year.

Not only that, except for that spike in 1982, almost forty years ago, the distillate fuel in storage set an all-time record. But there's more to it than that. I will post that at the bottom of this post, something a reader noted.

Here's the graphic.

Hint: go to the linked report, and then note when the peaks and valleys occur in the graphic above.

Table 6 (click on the table to enlarge it, to see the percent change):

Did you note what was most interesting about this "distillate fuel inventory" report? 

From a reader:

Do you see that annual high / low pattern across most of the history of that graph?

Whhen you check the spreadsheet, you'll see that the yearly high most often occurs when heat oil is stockpiled just before midwinter [generally between October and January], while the annual low most often occurs in late springs after cold winters have depleted the heat oil stockpile, or in mid-summer [generally in July], when diesel fuel consumption is strongest... that makes this week's 38-year-high in distillate inventories all the more remarkable.

To repeat: not only did this record high eclipse every past high (since 1983) but it occurred in the middle of summer when it should have been at a low, based on historical patterns.

Now, the $64,000 question: why?

It may be counterintutive but I think I can provide at least one reason. But I won't post it, at risk of looking like a fool, but I bet I'm correct. 

The July, 2020, Dashboards Have Been Posted -- The Bakken Hits An All-Time High -- July 24, 2020

Wow, I thought it was going to be a quiet Friday night. Not! Wow. First of all, the July, 2020, EIA drilling productivity reports (the "dashboards") have been posted. I've only looked at the Bakken. The graphics blow me away. I saw it coming; I thought we would see this but was afraid to say anything and look like a fool. Anyway, enough for now. I'll come back to this later. Too much to do and it's already 9:02 p.m. CDT. 

The link is here.

The EIA dashboard links:

• EIA pdf, Bakken: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/bakken.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Permian: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/permian.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Eagle Ford: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/eagleford.pdf

Re-posting: from July 17, 2020 --

From HFI over at SeekingAlpha: the ND Bakken will never be the same.

• Summary
• since 2017, Bakken has surprised to the upside.
• but with DAPL stuck in legal court battles and uncertainty around takeaway capacity continuing, Bakken's production base will fall.
• lower completion activity for 2021 and beyond will result in lower projections of ~250k b/d.
• with the rest of the US shale oil basins wounded, Permian will be the only basin left to carry the US. We see Q4 2019 as peak US oil production.

HFI was so correct: the ND Bakken will never be the same. In fact, it will be better than ever.

There is a reason "everyone" is trying to shut down the Bakken. LOL. 

Disclaimer: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken. I often misread things. I often see things that aren't there.

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. 

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We Will Never Run Out Of Energy Again

While watching Peacock / "The Bourne Ultimatem," I just saw an ad for Amazon's $2 billion climate fund. Link here.

Good, bad, indifferent, "we're" never gonna run out of inexpensive, reliable, accessible energy again. "We" may have other problems going forward, but energy won't be one of them.

Glad to see Jeff Bezos working on earth's problems rather than flying to Mars. LOL. Yes, he's doing that, too, just not airing commercials for interplanetary travel yet.

By the way, I saw a bit of "Soylent Green" last night on TCM. Based loosely on a 1966 novel, released in 1973, and set in 2022 (next year) -- wow, was this dystopian universe way off base. Amazing how wrong the writers were on this one.

Sort of reminds me of the "global warming" predictions for the year 2100.

No New Permits; Eight Permits Renewed; Eight Canceled -- July 24, 2020

Active rigs:

$41.29	7/24/2020	07/24/2019	07/24/2018	07/24/2017	07/24/2016
Active Rigs	13	58	66	59	32

No new permits.

Eight permits renewed:

• Crescent Point Energy: four CPEUSC Burgess permits and four CPEUSC Sylven permits, all in SESW section 11-158-100, Williams County

Eight permits canceled:

• Petro-Hunt: three Chip Diller permits; one Robert The Bruce permit; two Dudley Dawson permits; one Lloyd Chrismas permit, and one Joel Goodsen permit, all in McKenzie County;

Covid-19 In Williston -- Random Update -- July 24, 2020

Chinese Geography -- July 24, 2020

Following the US demand that China close its consulate in Houston, TX, the Chinese have directed that the US consulate in Chengdu in western China be closed. Apparently, the Chinese considered closing the US consulate in Wuhan, but opted for Chengdu (although I assume "things" are in flux).

This is likely to be the end of consulate closures for the time-being. The remaining four consulates in the US/China are too "important" to close.

Chinese consulates in the US, excluding Houston:

• NYC
• Chicago
• San Francisco
• Los Angeles 

The four remaining consulates in China if Chengdu is closed:

• Shenyang: northeast of Beijing, just across the border from North Korea;
• Shanghai: central China, on the Pacific Coast
• Guangzhou: southeast China, near Hong Kong
• Wuhan: coincidentally, about where Atlanta, GA, would be on that same map

If a map of the US were placed over a map of China, Chengdu would be about where St Louis, MO, is:

Three Wells Coming Off The Confidential List -- July 24, 2020

BRK: contributor over at SeekingAlpha. Monthly update of dividend-paying stocks held by Berkshire Hathaway. I have not read of the article, mostly the summary, and even not much of that.

AAPL: profit-taking. Contributor over at SeekingAlpha. I have not read the entire article.

VZ: beats estimates; EPS, $1.13 per share, vs $0.95 per share a year earlier.

SLB: revenue tumbles 35%; falls short of estimates; to cut 21,000 jobs, 20% of total workforce.

Trucks: Nikola pilot plant to speed electric truck production. EV trucks are being tracked here, for now.

Boeing:

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.

Coffee: consumers shifting to cheaper coffee beans. The Arabica (Starbucks) / Robusta (others) ratio. 

The shift in coffee demand is bad news for Starbucks, that's why it announced, last month, over 400 stores will be closing in the next 18 months. The world's largest coffeehouse must shrink its corporate footprint as the economy evolves to where workers are staying home and are reducing costs to weather the economic storm.

The shift in demand is being seen in surging Robusta coffee prices on ICE. In the last 19 sessions, September contracts have gone parabolic, up 19%, hitting 1,363 on Thursday morning (July 23, 2020), or a six month high.

The latest upswing in prices is because the virus-induced recession is "prompting a shift in consumption toward cheaper, instant coffee blends," reported Reuters.  

Equinor: 2Q20 Johan Sverdrup update.

Profits soared for some oil majors who bet on storage. Link here. 

Well, that didn't work out. Saudis gain nothing in first month after price war ends. Bloomberg via Rigzone.

Saudi Arabia gained no financial reward in the first full month after ending its oil-price war with Russia. The kingdom earned 23.9 billion riyals ($6.4 billion) from oil exports in May, the Riyadh-based General Authority for Statistics said Thursday (July 23, 2020). [One riyal = $0.26778 or about 25 cents.]

That was even less than the previous month, when the price war was at its height, and down more than 60% from last year’s monthly average of $16.8 billion.

The government slashed exports to 6.2 million barrels a day in May from a record 9.3 million in April as it came under pressure from world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, to change tack and rebalance an energy market battered by the coronavirus pandemic. 

US crude oil supply, days: 37.7 days; pretty much unchanged week-over-week;

OPEC basket, link here: $44.24.

Bird-watching: Swainson's hawks are still flying over Grapevine/DFW area, but seeing fewer of them. Two juveniles, based on lighter color than adults, were spotted on Wednesday, July 23, 2020. 

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$41.30	7/24/2020	07/24/2019	07/24/2018	07/24/2017	07/24/2016
Active Rigs	13	58	66	59	32

Operators with active rigs:

• BR (2) -- baseline
• CLR (2) -- baseline
• WPX (2) -- baseline
• MRO (1) -- baseline
• Petro-Hunt (1) -- baseline
• Hess (2) -- up one
• Slawson (2) -- baseline
• XTO (1) -- baseline

Three wells coming off confidential list -- Friday, July 24, 2020: 63 for the month; 63 for the quarter, 509 for the year:

• 37069, loc/NC, WPX, Wolverine 21-22HD, South Fork, no production data,
• 35874, SI/A, Whiting, Fladeland 12-10HU, Sanish, t--; cum 86K 5/20; a 27K month;
• 33425, loc/NC, Sinclair Oil, Crosby Creek 6-5H, Little Knife, no production data;

RBN Energy: the ongoing build-out of MPLX's NGL/condensate pipeline network in the midwest. Archived.

Since the mid-2010s, MPLX has been developing a far-reaching pipeline system for delivering heavier natural gas liquids and field condensate from the Utica and “wet” Marcellus plays to Midwest refineries for gasoline blending and refining, and to the Alberta oil sands for use as diluent.

The multi-year, multi-project effort, which has involved the construction of new pipelines, the repurposing of existing pipes, and the development of new storage capacity, will reach another milestone next month, when MPLX starts batching normal butane and isobutane through most of the pipeline system. And further enhancements are on the horizon. Today, we provide an update on the master limited partnership’s long-running strategy for moving Marcellus/Utica-sourced liquids to market more efficiently and at a lower per-barrel cost.

Moving the increasing volumes of NGLs and other hydrocarbon liquids produced in eastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, and northern West Virginia to market has been a major midstream challenge — the region hadn’t been a major producer of NGL-rich gas until the start of the Shale Era, and the pipelines in place to handle the resulting flows were few and far between.

For midstreamers, a need is an opportunity, and a number of companies stepped up.

Between 2013 and early 2020, Enterprise Products Partners developed the Appalachia-to-Texas Express (ATEX) pipeline to transport ethane to Mont Belvieu, TX; Energy Transfer built out both the Mariner West pipeline to move ethane to Sarnia, ON, and the Mariner East system to pipe ethane, propane, and normal butane to the company’s Marcus Hook, PA, marine terminal near Philadelphia; and Kinder Morgan brought online the Utopia Pipeline to send ethane to Windsor, ON. Also, Shell is building the Falcon pipeline system to transport ethane to the company's planned steam cracker in western Pennsylvania.