Two Wells Coming Off The Confidential List; WTI Hits A Seven-Year High -- October 4, 2021

Breaking: WTI has just gone over $77. At $76.99 a barrel, WTI hit the highest in more than seven years. Brent is trading, again, above $80/bbl. Later, mid-morning: WTI surges three percent. Traders can do the math. See below. WTI breaks through $78. Who.hoo.

Resident Biden: will announce a new committee to look into high price of gasoline. It looks like he was correct to kill the Keystone XL. That pipeline would not have been big enough. Most likely Resident Biden wanted to see a "bigger" Keystone XL.

Focus on fracking: posted. 

• US natural gas hits highest price since 2008;
• US natural gas closes at 7 1/2 year weekly high;
• European and Asian prices are five times higher.

OPEC meeting adjourned:

• Saudi Aramco CEO Nasser said natural-gas-to-oil shift (due to high price and availability of natural gas) added 500,000 bbl to global oil demand:
• all reports suggest OPEC has no plans to ease cuts more than the previously planned 400,000 bopd
• do the math; it's pretty simply; even a caveman could do that math

UK drivers: may soon see record petrol prices.

Covid-19 vaccine rollout data, as of Sunday, October 3, 2021, link:

• delivered: 478,410,525
• administered: 395,934,825
• at least one dose: 215,233,625
• fully vaccinated: 185,492,579
• percent of US population, fully vaccinated: 55.9%

India, coal link here:

• coal: only four days worth of coal for power plants on hand;
• coal stocks are rated critically low at 104 out of a total of 135 power plants
• coal stocks are rated critically low at 127 GW out of a total of 165 GW of capacity
• India Power Review: says no shortage; the coal is stockpiled at the pitheads; India has 3x the 2019 level during the last storage; so, we'll see
  

ISO NE: early morning, spiked to $85. Back to a more manageable $45 but the mix is atrocious: 89%for nuclear and natural gas. Only 6% renewables. At 89% nuclear and natural gas, renewable energy is irrelevant no matter what "they" say.

UNP: upgraded by Barclays.  Closed up $.73/share on Friday; up almost three percent. Pre-market today, up another $3; up about 1.65%; pre-market at $205. Still off its highs by quite a bit.

MRK: pre-market, among the leaders. Up over three percent with heavy volume. 

Equinor: nice update. Link to Felicity Bradstock.  

Rivian: better to own Cathie Wood's ARKK or Amazon? And, here. Asking for a friend.

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

WTI: flirting with $76 this morning.

Active rigs, updated at COB daily. 

$75.92	10/4/2021	10/04/2020	10/04/2019	10/04/2018	10/04/2017
Active Rigs	25	11	58	64	59

Wells coming off confidential list (the stringed instrument pad is tracked here):

Monday, October 4, 2021: 5 for the month, 5 for the quarter, 229 for the year:

• None.

Sunday, October 3, 2021: 5 for the month, 5 for the quarter, 229 for the year:

• 37025, conf, Enerplus, Harp 149-94-02C-01H-TF,

Saturday, October 2, 2021: 4 for the month, 4 for the quarter, 228 for the year:

• 37026, conf, Enerplus, Guitar 149-94-02C-01H, 

RBN Energy: US, international gas markets strap in for a wild winter ride.

Last week, panic over gas availability and energy reliability this winter sent international natural gas and LNG prices above $30/MMBtu for the first time. Asia’s Japan Korea Marker (JKM), Europe’s Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) and the UK National Balancing Point (NBP) once again had multiple days in a row of all-time high settlements, as the undersupplied market struggles to find balance. The global shortage has also impacted the gas-rich U.S. market, which is linked to it through LNG exports. The U.S. markets are tight and might also face undersupply this winter, albeit, probably not to the point of triggering reliability issues that are already emerging abroad. If it did, the U.S. exports nearly 10 Bcf/d of LNG, which could be throttled back to free up additional supplies for domestic use. Nonetheless, Henry Hub prices climbed to nearly $6/MMBtu last week and hit post-2008 record highs. 

This is by no means the first-time various markets have faced considerable imbalance. 

In fact, last year at this time we were coming out of a period of widespread oversupply and record-low gas prices. But it’s certainly foreboding that it’s not even winter yet, and prices are skyrocketing to new heights. So the big question on everyone’s mind is how bad could this get? The answer of course is complicated and heavily dependent on weather. In today’s RBN blog, “To the Moon and Back – U.S., International Gas Markets Strap in for Wild Winter Ride,” Lindsay Schneider takes a look at how we got here, how LNG has intertwined the international energy markets more than ever, and what that means for the winter ahead.

The two Enerplus stringed instrument pad wells coming off confidential list. Note: NDIC is no longer updating production. NDIC stopped reporting production in July, 2021. Only data we have is from July, previously reported:

• 37025, conf, Enerplus, Harp 149-94-02C-01H-TF, Mandaree:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
7-2021	17472	20406
6-2021	29850	34429
5-2021	29683	32438
4-2021	29122	21227

• 37026, conf, Enerplus, Guitar 149-94-02C-01H, Mandaree:
  

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
7-2021	10	0
6-2021	7	0
4-2021	26697	19460