ND Active Rigs More Than Doubled Year Over Year; One Well Coming Off Confidential -- December 14, 2021 - December 15, 2021

NYC to ban natural gas in new buildings: link to Reuters here. 

A shale comeback in the cards for 2022? Link to David Messler, another of the handful of columnists following the Bakken that is credible and interesting.

Masking: Apple once again requiring masking at all locations in the US.

CarPlay: all-new Golf GTI and Golf R headline VW's 2022 lineup with wireless CarPlay. Link here. 

WTI: slips below $70. Someone remarked we've flipped from backwardation to contango this week. I do not know. 

Permian just keeps on trucking: see RBN Energy below. 

Note: Brandon administration says "banning oil exports is off the table." And Secretary of Energy tells oil companies to "drill, baby, drill." When asked about the rig count her reply: "I don't have the numbers in front of me."

Jet fuel: inventories / storage at levels not seen since 2014 - 2015. Less production and more demand have significantly decreased stores. Link here to EIA graph.

Tesla and the infamous "McNeally Quote": link here. It doesn't mean a thing to me; I have no dog in this fight, but the "history" is interesting, and worth it to have in the archives for the grandchildren (for some odd reason, I suppose).

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

Active rigs:

$69.85	12/15/2021	12/15/2020	12/15/2019	12/15/2018	12/15/2017
Active Rigs	32	14	53	67	53

Wednesday, December 15, 2021: 69 for the month, 72 for the quarter, 324 for the year:

• 38187, conf, CLR, Tallahassee FIU 5-21H,

RBN Energy: Permian gas production spurs still more infrastructure projects. Archived.

In early December, natural gas production in the Permian has been averaging a record 14.2 Bcf/d, a gain of 1 Bcf/d in only six months. That rapid pace of growth is putting pressure on every aspect of midstream infrastructure — gas gathering systems, processing plants, and takeaway pipelines — and resulting in a variety of efforts aimed at ensuring there will be sufficient capacity in place to support the increasing gas volumes being produced. New gas-gathering mileage is being added, some new processing plants are being built, and at least a couple of new large-diameter pipelines from the Permian to the Gulf Coast are being considered. However, reflecting the midstream sector’s financial discipline, there’s also a big push to make fuller use of existing assets, in some cases by relocating processing plants, compressors, and other assets to where they are needed most. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the latest gas-related infrastructure developments in the Permian’s Midland and Delaware basins.

As we said a few months ago, Permian natural gas production has roughly doubled in the past four years, spurring the build-out of billions of dollars in gas-related assets. These projects include innumerable miles of new gathering pipeline, more than new 50 gas processing plants, and a number of new takeaway pipelines, most recently the 2.1-Bcf/d Permian Highway Pipeline and the 2-Bcf/d Whistler Pipeline, which started up in January and July of this year, respectively.