Locator: 48501B.
USPS: to cut 10,000 jobs! OMG. Links everywhere and not one story provided the denominator.
- total USPS employee count: 640,469 (2023)
- of which 115,000 ar`e non-career
- 10,000 to be cut
- 10,000 / 640,469 = 1.56%
- in other words, if a meeting for local USPS employees was called in Bismarck, ND, to explain the cuts:
- 100 employees in the audience
- of the 100 employees in the audience, 18 would be non-career
- of the 100 employees, onepointsix (1.6) employees would be cut and because one can't cut 0.6 employees, it's possible two employees out of that 100 would be cut; or possibly one, or even more likely none.
- and if one employee or two employees were cut, it might be non-career employees
- in other words, this "top story" is not even "a story" and it won't even begin to make a dent in the USPS debt.
- cost of a first-class forever stamp? 73 cents.
**********************************
Back to the BakkenWTI: $66.94.
New wells:
- Sunday, March 16, 2025: 41 for the month, 157 for the quarter, 157 for the year,
- 40866, conf, BR, West Kellogg 4B-MBH-B,
- 40302, conf, Hess, GO-John-156-98-0508H-2,
- 40033, conf, Hunt Oil, Shell 153-89-5-8H 1,
- 40030, conf, Hunt Oil, Oakland 154-89-31-30H 3, Parshall oil field, see this post;
- Saturday, March 15, 2025: 37 for the month, 153 for the quarter, 153 for the year,
- 41050, conf, BR, Phantom Backbone 7D-ULW,
- Friday, March 14, 2025: 36 for the month, 152 for the quarter, 152 for the year,
- 40875, conf, Oasis, Barnes Federal 5202 43-11 3B,
RBN Energy: PADD 4 pipeline connections, higher output help it balance crude market. Archived.
The Rocky Mountain region (PADD 4), with a population that is both
smaller and more spread out than other parts of the Lower 48, consumes
only around 650 Mb/d of refined products — just one-fourth the volume of
the next-smallest PADD. That limits the need for refinery capacity,
which matches the region’s average annual consumption and is only
outstripped in the summer months. Yet, the Shale Revolution has impacted
the Rockies as much as any other region, boosting production in the
Denver-Julesburg (DJ) and Uinta basins, and the Montana portion of the
Bakken. At the same time, the area has also seen increasing volumes
coming in from PADD 2 and Canada. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at how
PADD 4 dispenses these barrels and its role in balancing continental
crude oil supply and demand.
In Part 1
of this series, we explained how the U.S. is divided between five
Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts, or PADDs (see Figure 1
below). With no production to call its own, PADD 1 relies on imported
crude oil to supply its shrinking refinery base. But the East Coast’s
population density also makes it the largest consumer of refined
products. In Part 2,
we put the spotlight on PADD 2 and how a 10% tariff on U.S. imports of
Canadian crude oil could impact refineries in the Midwest and Great
Plains. PADD 2 pipelines transport most Canadian exports, and its 25
refineries (combined capacity of 4.3 MMb/d) are, in many cases,
significant consumers of heavy and light crudes from up north. In our PADD 3
blog, we looked at the critical role the Gulf Coast plays in crude oil
and refined products markets, with its refineries being, on average, the
most efficient and cost-advantaged in the world and its geography and
infrastructure providing it ample export opportunities.
Figure 1. U.S. PADD Map. Source RBN
Today, we will look at PADD 4, the Rockies, a region without much
refined product consumption but which has been expanding its crude oil
production since the Shale Revolution. The five states in the Rockies
consume about 650 Mb/d, which is evenly matched with its 644 Mb/d of
in-region refinery capacity (see Figure 2 below). A little less than a
third of that, 209 Mb/d, is in the Salt Lake City area, positioning “The
Crossroads of the West” as PADD 4’s top refining center. Close behind
is Billings, MT, host to 191 Mb/d of refinery capacity, which benefits
from Canadian crude oil imports. The rest of the region’s capacity is
spread across Colorado, Montana and Wyoming, with the largest refinery
in the region being in Commerce City, CO. However, it is actually a
combination of two or three smaller refineries, depending on how you
count them.
