Late Start To Blogging But I'm Here! Two Wells Coming Off The Confidential List; Hess Reports Yet Another Nice Well In Beaver Lodge -- January 5, 2021

Late start but I'm here. 

WTI: WOW! WTI up $2.06. Didn't I allude to this recently? Can't remember.  Here it is: Russia supports OPEC+ decision to maintain reduced production. Wow. [Later: now I remember it. Yesterday I suggested WTI might reach $50; it didn't and I was a bit surprised, but I guess I was just a day early in my prognostication. LOL.]

Cleveland Browns: shut facility. Coach tests positive for Covid-19. Surprise, surprise! Not.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$49.68	1/5/2021	01/05/2020	01/05/2019	01/05/2018	01/05/2017
Active Rigs	13	55	63	54	39

Two wells coming off the confidential list --

Tuesday, January 5, 2021: 5 for the month, 5 for the quarter, 5 for the year.

• 36707, drl/A, Hess, Bl-Amelia-156-95-1514H-10, Beaver Lodge, first production, 7/20; t--; cum 64K 11/20;
• 36241, loc/NC, BR, Stortroen 1C TFH, Dimmick Lake,
  

RBN Energy: ethylene margins skyrocket: how long will it last?

How about some good news to start the year? Over the past few weeks, ethylene margins have blasted into the stratosphere. These are good times for steam crackers, those petrochemical plants that use mostly NGL feedstocks to produce ethylene and other building-block chemicals. As you might expect, this newfound prosperity has a lot to do with ethylene’s price. In December alone, the price of ethylene was up 50%; versus April it’s up a whopping 4X, coming in yesterday at 37.5 cents per pound (c/lb). There are a whole range of factors responsible, including petchem outages due to the hurricanes, new downstream derivative units coming online, robust exports from the Enterprise Morgan’s Point dock, and, oh yes, strong demand for downstream products — everything from food packaging to construction materials. Is the spike in ethylene prices going to last? And what does it mean for NGLs, which account for more than 95% of the feedstock supply for U.S. ethylene. We’ll explore those questions and more in this blog series we begin today.