Locator: 50203B.
Friday The Thirteenth.
Iran: there are now reports that Iran is not mining the strait. Regardless, the allies will sort that out quickly. It takes specialized boats to lay mines and the US has planes that can loiter indefinitely in an area where they have air dominance.
Iran: new leader probably wounded in an earlier attack; loss use of legs?
Iran, the nuclear option:
- closing the strait of Hormuz; and,
- striking every neighbor in the mideast to create a multi-regional war.
- both were a sign of desperation.
US KC-135: mid-air over friendly skies, western Iraq? One plane lost; four airmen killed. On the 13th day of the conflict.
Cuba: has begun negotiations with the US. Unnamed but credible source.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $94.31 pre-market; $95.07 in late morning trading.
New wells reporting:
- Sunday, March 15, 2026: 17 for the month, 123 for the quarter, 123 for the year,
- 41374, conf, Hess, EN-Hanson-156-94-3130H-8,
- 40058, conf, CLR, Brakken FIU 4-6H,
- Saturday, March 14, 2026: 15 for the month, 121 for the quarter, 121 for the year,
- 41652, conf, CLR, Rose Federal 4-34H,
- 40059, conf, CLR, Brakken FIU 5-6HSL,
- Friday, March 13, 2026: 13 for the month, 119 for the quarter, 119 for the year,
- 42237, conf, BR, Sandie 2C MBH-R,
- 41821, conf, BR, Rolla 6I,
- 41603, conf, BR, Sivertson 6F,
RBN Energy: US E&Ps increasingly see LNG as way to get a piece of the arbitrage pie. Link here. Archived.
Ever since U.S. LNG exports commenced in 2016 from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass facility, upstream gas producers have carefully followed price differentials between Henry Hub and the prices at which LNG can be sold in other markets, notably Asia and Europe. Initially, opportunities for shippers to realize a significant arbitrage were limited, as a high proportion of U.S.-produced LNG was lifted by Asian utility players to meet their baseload supply requirements rather than traded in the burgeoning spot market. Things changed dramatically in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which not only led to the demise of Russian pipeline gas supplies to Europe and caused prices to spike, but also created new arbitrage opportunities for LNG shippers. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the different approaches that the “natural born drillers” in the U.S. upstream have adopted in response, each of which has a different risk/reward profile.
Gas prices at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF; green line in Figure 1 below) jumped to unprecedented levels after the Ukraine invasion, undoubtedly amplified by the fact that Russia’s state-owned Gazprom had depleted its holdings of gas in European Union (EU) storage, adding to fears of a major supply shortage. (In the year before the invasion, Russian supplies met nearly 40% of EU gas demand; see You Don’t Own Me.) That fear inevitably spilled over to other gas markets, notably Asia, causing prices — based on the JKM index (orange line) to spike — increasing the premium to the Henry Hub price in the U.S. (blue line).
