Notes From All Over; The Friday Late Afternoon Edition -- April 30, 2021

Vitol: largest independent, privately-held, energy trader in the world. Wiki entry.

• just bought 44,000 acres in the Permian from Hunt Oil Co.
• purchase price not disclosed
• earlier, Hunt said its acreage could command a price of $1 billion
• so, that's all we have to go on
• $1 billion / 44,000 acres = $23,000 / acre which seems to be in the ballpark for Permian mineral acres
• currently the Hunt acreage is producing about 1 boe per mineral acre.
• this is Vitol's first step into the USL48 = US lower 48 -- the continental US, excludes Hawaii (no oil) and Alaska (lots of oil but producing increasingly trivial amounts)
• I guess the L48 also excludes federal offshore production but I don't know;
• it just seems that all of a sudden the writers and analysts are using L48 as if it's a new term for them
• for me, the L48 is only applicable if reporting from Alaska
• from Hawaii: it's the mainland
• from NYC it's fly-over country (California isn't producing much oil any more)
• our very clever younger adult daughter would argue that "lower" 48 suggests there's an "upper" 48 somewhere?

Alaska: what great timing. Up above I noted that Alaska oil production is becoming increasingly trivial. Literally, less than 30 minutes after writing that, I come across this Rigzone article: 

Crude oil production in Alaska fell to about 500,000 bpd last year, the lowest level since 1976 and down 75% from the peak of 2 million bpd in 1988. [In fact, that 500,000 bopd may be an average rounded up; by the end of the year, I think production had fallen slightly below 400,000 bopd.]

Carbon capture projects, by country. Link here. Readers each get three guesses which country has the most carbon capture projects in the works, and the first two guesses, if wrong, don't count. Hint: the country is not China, Russia, Germany, Norway, Saudi Arabia, or Lichtenstein. 

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$63.58	4/30/2021	04/30/2020	04/30/2019	04/30/2018	04/30/2017
Active Rigs	15	31	64	61	49

No new permits today.

Ten permits renewed:

• BR (5): two Shafer permits; two Sandie permits; and, one Ole permit, all in McKenzie County;
• Whiting (3): three Lacey permits in Mountrail County;
• Lime Rock Resources: one Robert Sadowsky permit in Dunn County;
• SHD Oil & Gas: one War Eagle permit in McLean County;