WTI Starts The Day At $81.10; One Well Coming Off Confidential List -- October 12, 2021

US: economy can easily handle $130 - $150 WTI. That's why folks are not screaming about $80-WTI. And Resident Biden knows that. 

Europe: energy crisis -- another major manufacturer will stop production November - December, 2021. Link here. Spanish steel maker Sidenor.

India: could soon be on the brink of a power crisis. Coal. CNBC.

NE USA: price of heating oil could surge this winter. Link here. Remember: lack of natural gas pipelines.

ISO NE: link here. Seems to spike every weekday morning from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., then drops back again before spiking again, albeit a bit lower, starting about 7:00 a.m.

US gasoline exports: new seasonal highs in May, June, and July. Link here. Resident Biden's team says they will take all necessary steps to tackle high price of gasoline. Well, this seems like a good place to start. LOL. Of course, the refiners will simply scale back operations. 

High price of gasoline: even the political class in Washington, DC, can't miss it now. Link here.

High price of gasoline: only eight states now average less than $3 / gallon -- OK, MS, TX, AR, LA, KS, AL, MO. Average price across the US: $3.25. The really cool thing about high-priced gasoline: all that cashback on credit cards. LOL.

Saudi Arabia:

• pumping about 9.6 million boepd
• says they have capacity for 11.5 million boepd
• targets new CAPEX to increase capacity to 13 million boepd

California: apparently it passed -- California bans gas lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Link here. One needs to read the law closely but the press is reporting that California bans the sale of these items, not the use. Amazon will have a field day. 

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs, updated COB by NDIC:

$81.10	10/12/2021	10/12/2020	10/12/2019	10/12/2018	10/12/2017
Active Rigs	29	13	58	67	59

One well coming off confidential list --

Tuesday, October 12, 2021: 11 for the month, 11 for the quarter, 235 for the year:

• 36916, conf, Whiting, Satterthwaite 14-35TFHU, Robinson Lake, see this note;

RBN Energy: Did Putin pop the global natural gas bubble, or give Europe a last chance to stock up? 

For six months, European natural gas prices skyrocketed higher almost every day. The soaring prices made sense. Gas inventories in Europe were low following higher-than-normal demand last winter. Economies were recovering from COVID-19. Russia was curtailing gas deliveries. It all added up to a likely supply shortage during the winter of 2021-22. And the market did what markets do: anticipate. Even though the next winter season was months away, gas buyers went to work, stocking up on supplies like squirrels gathering nuts. The more prices increased, the more panic buying kicked in. By last Tuesday, October 5, the European TTF price was up more than 5X what it had been on May 1. Then, on Wednesday, a few comments from Vladimir Putin seemed to pop the bubble, and within a few days the Dutch TTF price was down 27%. Is everything OK now? Was the gas-price run-up all just speculative buying and short covering? Or is a supply crunch still on the horizon, and this is just the calm before the storm? In today’s RBN blog, we explore those questions.