No New Permits; Eight Permits Renewed; WTI Trending Toward $80-Floor -- September 21, 2022

Active rigs: 48. Note the gradual increase over the past couple of months.

WTI: $82.87. If WTI drops below $80, there are folks who suggest "freefall" to $60.

Natural gas: $7.719.

No new permits.

Eight permits renewed:

• CLR (5): two Miles permits and three Kennedy permits, all in McKenzie County, same pad, I believe;
• MRO (3): permits for an Arnew well, an Erbe well, and an Archie well, all in Dunn County;

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 38340, 2,046, Enerplus, Backhand 149-92-31C-30H, Heart Butte, no production data provided;
  
• The Enerplus "Tennis" pad is tracked here. 
• I believe the following well is the parent well; it is on line and I see no evidence of any significant jump in production; it was off line for only a few days from late June, 2021, to late August, 2021, about sixty days. This well is a "steady Eddy" but has never shown much monthly production:
• 22240, 603, Enerplus, Net (as in "tennis net") 149-92-30B-31H, Heart Butte, t7/12; cum 367K 7/22;
  

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Meanwhile

Oil and the Fed: oil traders hate "uncertainty," and that's what they got in "the Fed" statement, a huge amount of "uncertainty." 

But there's one thing oil traders hate even more than "uncertainty," and that's when they get the feeling that no one knows what's going on. And listening to "the Fed" summary statement today, one certainly gets the feeling no one knows what's going on.

Brussels: thousands take to the streets protesting soaring energy prices; this will make Covid-19 demonstrations look like a cakewalk as they say.

Russia-China: Gazprom will suspend pipeline natural gas deliveries to China for one week. 

This was announced about the same time Putin announced mobilization of 300,000 troops for the Ukraine war, but this was apparently scheduled maintenance, September 22, 2022 - September 29, 2022. 

The pipeline: Power of Siberia; went into operation in 2019, after eight years of construction. Timing is interesting, but apparently routine:  

Under the sales and purchase agreement between Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for gas supply via the route, preventive maintenance of the equipment along the pipeline is carried out twice a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, according to Gazprom.