Another great article by David Messler. I'll link it now for night owls (is that not redundant), snowy owls and barn owls in time zones different than mine, and will come back to the article tomorrow.
It's a great article, but I do have a pet peeve with one of the sub-themes.
Also this, completely unrelated: US Supreme Court could reverse "Roe vs Wade."
Updates
June 3, 2022: RBN Energy with huge update.
May 20, 2022: Freeport LNG has requested a 26-month FERC extension to place its 5.1-million tpy Train 4 in service. New requeested deadline is August 1, 2028. Link here, though link may break over time.
May 5, 2022: Sempra, FID for fourth train at Cameron on track; decision to be made 2023.
May 3, 2022: EIA -- number 7 -- this should be driving the faux environmentalists nuts -- I'm not sure if the Biden administration knows that oil and natural gas are pretty closely related --
Original Post
I saw the headline. Had no interest in reading the story. I knew what it was all about just from the headline. But several hours after seeing the headline I finally decided to check out the article by Julianne Geiger.
I'm glad I did. I didn't care about the actual story. What interested me was the "update" of the US LNG export terminal story that began in 2016.
That story is absolutely fascinating. Prior to 2016, the US wasn't building LNG export terminals, it was building import terminals. But then things changed. I honestly don't remember the tipping point -- I assume it was the Permian and the Eagle Ford. They were producing so much natural gas -- on top of the fields/plays in Appalachia that the US no longer needed to worry about natural gas. Wow, what a turn of events. But I digress.
[There is some irony here. At the time the US/FERC was questioning whether to approve these projects and the developers were deciding whether to make the final investment decision to go ahead with building them, little did they know what would transpire in 2022 -- Putin's War -- pure serendipity.]
[More irony: now that diesel if trending toward $6 / gallon, and gasoline is trending toward $5 / gallon, it's a shame that the Keystone XL was canceled. By itself, "we" might still be where "we" are today with very expensive gasoline, but "killing the Keystone" has become a metonym for Biden's efforts to curry favor with the "greens": "killing the Keystone" is a metonym for all the obstacles Washington (DC) is putting ii place to kill the North American oil sector: the killing the Keystone XL, banning new drilling on federal land, slow-rolling fracking on federal land, adding new environmental regulations for future pipelines, etc.]
Back to the linked article.
Soaring demand for U.S. LNG has now rebooted export projects that had previously languished, and the Biden administration has approved new export licenses for projects under development.So, there's the update.
Last week, the Biden administration authorized more LNG shipments from two U.S. plants under development. The move came as Russia cut off gas to Poland and Bulgaria for refusal to pay in roubles.
One of those plants is Texas-based Golden Pass LNG, which is owned by Exxon and Qatar Petroleum and is expected to go online in 2025. The second is the Louisiana-based Magnolia LNG, owned by Glenfame Group LLC and expected to launch in 2027.
Another factor adding to U.S. LNG exports in the coming months will be the ramp-up launch, on April 29, of the Louisiana-based Calcasieu Pass export terminal, which is the seventh export terminal to begin production in the United States since 2016. This terminal can turn around 3.1 billion cubic feet per day, according to the EIA, with two shipping berths that can load up to 185,000 cubic meters.
Calcasieu shipped its first LNG on March 1st, and natural gas deliveries to the terminal have steadily increased since the beginning of the year. Three blocks are still awaiting approval at this plant, expected by year’s end.
" ... the Louisiana-based Calcasieu Pass export terminal, which is the seventh export terminal to begin production in the United States since 2016."
There they are, the seven terminals, several with multiple trains or phases.
And, I never noticed it before, but this is where Ms Geiger got her data point, the seventh export terminal since 2016. Pretty cool.
So, now we have to update that graph -- to add the Golden Pass LNG (Texas) and the Magnolia LNG (LA) export terminals. RBN Energy has gone over the export terminals in much great detail, but seeing that graph again and correlating it with Ms Geiger's story sort of brings it all together for me.
The graph at the above link, updated:
Updates
May 3, 2022: this appeared just after I posted the note below.
Original Post
I'll bet fewer than one percent of Americans are aware of what's really going on with energy in this country. I even think a lot of folks "in" fossil fuel are oblivious to what's going on. I've talked about this often.
Just months ago "we" had three major sources for oil: the Mideast (OPEC), the US, and Russia.
You know, I'm beginning to think that when I talk about US oil, I'm going to start including global production outside of Alaska and the continental US and include oil overseas that is being produced by US companies, like XOM
Now, it's quickly becoming OPEC and the US.
Russia is not only becoming irrelevant, it's become a pariah on the global stage.
Remember how they used to talk about "stranded assets" in the US due to "green energy" politics. That's nothing compared to the stranded assets we're about to see in Russia. I find this simply fascinating. No one talks much about storage but that's going to be next energy story.
Sure, Russian oil is really cheap and China can think about buying all they want, but at some point they run out of storage. Once China runs out of storage, it won't be long before Russia runs out of storage, and they have to start shutting in wells. They will certainly quit drilling before they start shutting in wells. And shutting in a well runs the risk of losing that well forever. "They" say a conventional well really can't be shut in longer than a year or the operator risks losing it. Note: I say "conventional" for a reason.
Yahoo!Finance "Markets Reporter" had a fascinating story today. I have no idea what "The Energy Word" is and I don't know Dan Dicker's credentials but he is noting the same thing I've been thinking about.
"Something serious is going," he says.
I don't care about the pricing, I don't care about the geopolitics; I don't care about any of that -- I just think it's fascinating that Washington (DC) doesn't seem absolutely panicked:
The oil market is undergoing a serious production problem, warns one analyst, even as prices retreat temporarily amid Covid lockdowns in China."From the long term, something far more serious is going on — and that is what's going on in Russia," Dan Dicker, founder of The Energy Word told Yahoo Finance Live.
"The energy companies, Exxon, Total, BP, leaving Russia, stranding assets in Russia. What we've seen is that production in Russia is down more than a million barrels in April alone," said Dicker.
"That's going to be a long term systemic problem with production in Russia," he added. "That's a very very big deal for long term prices."
A million bbls in April and it's barely even started.
I think the s**t is going to hit the fan in July.
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Back to the Bakken
Active rigs:
| $105.20 | 5/2/2022 | 05/02/2021 | 05/02/2020 | 05/02/2019 | 05/02/2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 38 | 15 | 30 | 63 | 60 |
Three new permits, #38919 - #38921, inclusive:
Five producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:
At least this wasn't in Portland, OR.
The Schumer-Pelosi Disinformation Board needs to sort this out fast.
Early this morning, WTI plunged and I was wondering whether it would hold at $100.
Now, it's back to $105.
LOL.
I wonder who is manipulating the price of crude oil? LOL. I sure hope Pelosi-Schumer find out. And soon. Enquiring minds want to know.
I see I-bonds are offering a 9+ percent interest rate for the next six months or so. Wow.
I don't know how analysts manage to evaluate EV companies like EV. Right now, at $30, Rivian is valued at $27 billion.
All I know is that Rivian shares traded as high as $179 in the last 52 weeks.
At $30 -- unless you expect Rivian to go to zero -- one would think Rivian can easily gain $3 over the next six weeks or so, a 10% yield over six weeks. How that translates to an APY is anyone's guess. LOL.
But when a darling of Wall Street has a $179-high and is now trading at $30 ... well, what can one say? This almost seems like a no-brainer.
As an investor, I don't invest in Rivian, though it is tempting. The problem is this: every time Rivian has a bit of a surge, all those folks who bought at $180 are going to sell, driving the price back down.
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.
All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.
I don't know the whole story (obviously) and my heart goes out to the Judd family, but if what I'm hearing is true, I really admire the older Judd. Not being reported very often. More on this later.
If anything, I'm disappointed in the way the cause of death is being reported (or not being reported).
Russia, post Putin's War
May 2, 2022: Rystad Energy -- the inevitable decline of Russia's oil industry.
ISO NE, link here:
ISO NY: link here:
North Texas, my April electricity bill (my only utility bill; I don't have natural gas, only electricity)
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California Covid
The LA Times is reporting:
After months of declining numbers, California has recorded a nearly 30% increase in coronavirus cases over the past week along with smaller rises in hospitalizations, causing some health officials to suspect that the state is headed into a new pandemic wave.
The increase coincides with a loosening of COVID-19 restrictions such as mask mandates and vaccine verification rules, as well as the rise of new subvariants of the highly transmissible Omicron strain. The question now is how much higher cases will go and whether new government intervention will be needed.
Sure, why not? Copy the China model.
The original goal was to "flatten" the curve not go to zero (except in Cuomo's New York state).
I assume The LA Times has more current data or is watching a different database. On the other hand, we are not given a time frame for the more recent data.
The wells:
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 26960 | 49428 |
| 1-2022 | 33634 | 55019 |
| 12-2021 | 6210 | 9029 |
| 11-2021 | 5271 | 7170 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 16850 | 0 |
| 1-2022 | 35280 | 25003 |
| 12-2021 | 34168 | 24609 |
| 11-2021 | 18723 | 12149 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 18344 | 17960 |
| 1-2022 | 28258 | 10580 |
| 12-2021 | 23690 | 13882 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 14611 | 26341 |
| 1-2022 | 25014 | 35549 |
| 12-2021 | 27663 | 35504 |
| 11-2021 | 28065 | 33329 |
| 10-2021 | 0 | 69 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 18170 | 32019 |
| 1-2022 | 27952 | 45350 |
| 12-2021 | 30177 | 45452 |
| 11-2021 | 37925 | 54000 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 16194 | 15198 |
| 1-2022 | 28916 | 11217 |
| 12-2021 | 28516 | 15566 |
| 11-2021 | 60158 | 29646 |
| 10-2021 | 2910 | 724 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 33891 | 62121 |
| 1-2022 | 46456 | 75992 |
| 12-2021 | 43156 | 62745 |
| 11-2021 | 25810 | 35092 |
| Date | Oil Runs | MCF Sold |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2022 | 11325 | 18898 |
| 1-2022 | 25379 | 40045 |
| 12-2021 | 29362 | 47240 |
| 11-2021 | 41413 | 66157 |
| 10-2021 | 2481 | 3744 |
Retirement bill: winding its way through Congress. Link here. I've read somewhere that 15% of adults are still paying off student (education) loans. The number of adults paying off mortgages must be much, much higher. If some are eager to "forgive" student loans, why not forgive mortgages? Certainly the latter would gain a lot more votes than the former. And, then add in loans for EVs. It would all help the economy. Wouldn't it?
EVs, Barron's: combined, the three delivered about 18,000 vehicles in April. That's the worse monthly result since 2021 -- NIO, Li, xPeng. Link here.
XOM / Iraq: sayonara. Exxon has quietly packed its bags and quit its last remaining asset in Kurdistan, Pirmam, without producing a single drop from any of the six blocks it picked up. With West Qurna-1 being quit, Exxon is close to exiting Iraq altogether. Link here.
Oil falls abruptly.
**************************
Back to the Bakken
Paddlefish: season begins.
Economy: passenger traffic in March, 2022, at North Dakota's eight commercial service airports was up 35% from one year ago. Link here.
Active rigs:
| $100.90 | 5/2/2022 | 05/02/2021 | 05/02/2020 | 05/02/2019 | 05/02/2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 23 | 15 | 30 | 63 | 60 |
Monday, May 2, 2022: 8 for the month, 73 for the quarter, 233 for one year
RBN Energy: after a scary plunge in production and prices, the jet fuel market recovers and prices soar.
The jet fuel market has been on a wild ride the past two-plus years. First, demand for the refined product took an unprecedented, COVID-induced nosedive in February and March 2020. By May 2020, Gulf Coast prices for jet fuel had plummeted to less than 50 cents/gal (from just under $2 at the start of that year) and refiners had slashed production to 505 Mb/d (from just under 1.9 MMb/d). It was a tough few months — the recovery from the market’s bottom was neither quick nor consistent. Domestic air travel is finally back, but with international travel slower to rebound, total jet fuel supply and demand are still off of their pre-pandemic levels. Jet fuel prices are taking off, though, last week hitting their highest mark since July 2008. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the jet fuel market: how it’s rebounding, how it works and how it’s changing.
Jet fuel is produced from crude oil at refineries through atmospheric distillation, the most basic of refining processes, in which crude oil (after being pre-treated to remove salt and water) is heated to between 600 and 750 degrees Fahrenheit (°F) by piping it through a heater. The resulting hot liquids and vapors are discharged into a distillation tower, within which the liquids and vapors separate into fractions, according to their weight and boiling point. The lightest fractions (LPG and other NGL gases, light naphtha and heavy naphtha) vaporize and rise to the upper end of the tower, where they condense back to liquids. Middle distillates, including kerosene (jet fuel) and diesel, rise to the middle of the column, and heavier liquids, called atmospheric gas oils, separate lower down. The heaviest fractions with the highest boiling points, called atmospheric bottoms, settle at the bottom.
