WTI Plummets; Active Rigs In North Dakota Drops By One; No New Wells Coming Off Confidential List -- March 18, 2021

Fool's errand: predicting the price of oil. Today, WTI fell 4.2% in early morning trading. 

• WTI dropped almost $3.00; now trading under $62.
• Brent: similar story; now trading at $65.32
• OPEC basket: not quite as bad but now trading below $67; Saudi Arabia can't survive on $60 oil

Weekly natural gas fill rate: link here. 

Fast and furious:

• Hope springs eternal: the Fed. 
  
• Plastics really do make a difference:   
• building on the story posted yesterday. 
• plastic prices hit record high to stoke inflation concerns;
  
• Gasoline demand: link here.  
• India: the story builds. Link here.
  
• Renewable energy:
• EV overrated: Charles Kennedy, link here. 
• Hydrogen: German environmentalists corroborate the cost of electrolysis to generate "blue" hydrogen; Germany's plan to make "blue" hydrogen may required coal. LOL. 
• Lordstown: 
• link here; and, here; and, here;
• It's over: why the clean energy bubble is over this time (really). 
• Biden's "make America last" policy; making Mexico great again. Link here.
• Amazon: has become the top US clothing retailer, outselling Walmart, Target. Wells Fargo analysts estimate Amazon will sellm ore than $45 billion apparel and footwear in 2021

*******************************
Back to the Bakken

WTI plummets. 

Active rigs:

$61.85	3/18/2021	03/18/2020	03/18/2019	03/18/2018	03/18/2017
Active Rigs	16	55	65	58	47

No new wells being reported today.

RBN Energy: understanding the volatile relationshiop between LNG and global gas markets.

It’s been an incredibly wild year for U.S. LNG exports. In the past year, global gas prices have seen both historic lows and highs, as markets swung from extreme demand destruction from COVID-19 for much of last year, to supply shortages by late 2020 and into early 2021 due to maintenance outages, weather events, Panama Canal delays, and vessel shortages. 

The U.S. natural gas market has also dealt with its share of anomalies, from a historic hurricane season in 2020 to the extreme cold weather event last month that briefly triggered a severe gas shortage in the U.S. Midcontinent and Texas and left millions of people without power for more than a week. Given these events, U.S. LNG feedgas demand and export trends have run the gamut, from experiencing massive cargo cancellations and low utilization rates to recording new highs. Throughout this incredibly tumultuous year, U.S. LNG operators have had to adjust, managing the good times and bad and proving operational flexibility in ways that will serve them for years to come. 

Here at RBN we track and report on all things LNG in our LNG Voyager report, and we’ve been hard at work enhancing and expanding our coverage to capture the rapidly evolving global and domestic factors affecting the U.S. LNG export market, including terminal operations, marginal costs and export economics, and international supply-demand fundamentals. Today, we highlight how U.S. LNG has changed in the past year and trends to watch this spring.