Russsia is "Ordering" OPEC+ To Cut Production -- Oil Rises Nicely -- Natural Gas Prices Go NEGATIVE In The Permian -- March 25, 2024

Locator: 46839EVS.

EVs: NYTimes on the day Fisker shares are halted on the exchange. Link here.

Or go direct to TNYT.

You just gotta love the NYT analysis:

The electric vehicle, a breakthrough achievement in automotive technology, has driven into this year’s presidential election, inflaming partisan fights that have come to define much of American culture.

One reason is that President Biden has made electric vehicles central to his strategy to combat climate change.

This week, his administration announced the most ambitious climate regulation in the nation’s history: a measure designed to accelerate a transition toward electric vehicles and away from the gasoline-powered cars that are a major cause of global warming.

The political war over electric vehicles has been fueled by an incendiary mix of issues: technological change, the future of the oil and gas industry, concerns about competition from China and the American love of motorized muscle.

And in the rural reaches of America, where few public charging stations exist, the notion of an all-electric future feels fanciful — another element to the urban-rural divide that underlies the nation’s polarization.

Mr. Biden’s opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, has for months escalated attacks on electric vehicles broadly and the new regulation in particular, falsely calling the rule a ban on gasoline-powered cars and claiming electric cars will “kill” America’s auto industry. He has called them an “assassination” of jobs. He has declared that the Biden administration “ordered a hit job on Michigan manufacturing” by encouraging the sales of electric cars.

I've followed this story fairly closely over the years, and 've never thought of it as a political issue -- whatever. This article, by the way, is an op-ed piece made to look like a news story -- fairly typical of The New York Times.

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Back to the  Bakken

Locator: 46839B.

Active rigs: 37.

WTI: $81.98.

Natural gas prices, link here.

This month, the spot natural gas prices at the Waha hub in West Texas, in the Permian, have been negative, sinking to as low as -$1.16 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) on March 18, per EIA data.

The negative price, meaning producers have to pay for the gas to be moved out of production areas, was due to oversupply, a lack of enough takeaway infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance of the El Paso Natural Gas Company (EPNG) pipeline system, which delivers natural gas westbound out of the Permian Basin.

Meanwhile, the U.S. benchmark price at the Henry Hub, has traded in recent days at around $1.6 per MMBtu, which is around 75% lower than the average price in 2022.