How To Keep Track Of The Number Of Stages In A Fracked Long Lateral -- September 25, 2019

This turns out to be more complicated than I first thought. After posting this picture yesterday, I had a couple of comments / queries -- one anonymous and two by e-mail.

I honestly did not know what they were doing in the photo above.

Today, when I took Sophia into her Montessori classroom -- we arrived early before her teacher was there -- so she could have a second breakfast with her classmates -- I asked her to show me what she was doing.

She pulled out the project.

I don't know if you can see it in the photo below but each of the little "tabs" have a number. Each number was a multiple of "2" so, randomly, 2, 4, 6, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. Or maybe better said, all (?) the even numbers.  

Sophia said that one had to put the numbers in a certain order to make a chain.

In the photo below, one sees a chain with beads of the same color. Apparently they had to match the tabs with numbers on them with the number of beads in each section of the chain. And then total them up as they went along -- sort of like an abacus.

She appeared to know exactly what she was doing. In fact, it appeared she was surprised that I was confused. She said, "it's easy. Don't you get it?" She could have added, "you dummy." LOL.

It really is bittersweet to see one's granddaughters grow up. By age eight they don't need you any more except as an Uber-driver.

So, anyway, it turns out to be much more complicated than I originally thought. It appears that one could also use this method to describe how many stages CLR uses when fracking a long lateral.

Is It Time For Saudi Arabia To Panic Yet? -- September 25, 2019

Let's see what the EIA numbers were:

• EIA US crude oil inventory, week-over-week: an increase of 2.4 million bbls; Big_Orrin was off by a country mile, or as much as a long-reach horizontal lateral
• EIA US crude oil inventory: 419.5 million bbls; supposedly at the 5-year average
• but look at this: refineries operating at 89.8% capacity (a rainstorm called Imelda shut down the Exxon refinery in Houston)
• even so, gasoline production increased last week, who wudda thought?
• distillate fuel production decreased last week but not by much

WTI: after the EIA report -- down a whopping $1.26; down 2.2%; and now trading at $56.03. Even worse for Saudi Arabia, who is not yet back in business, is selling what they have with a Brent price of barely breaking $60.

US shale, the swing producer:

• Saudi loses half (or more) of its export capacity
• a rainstorm shuts down (some) operations along the US coast 
• crude oil imports dropped an astounding 672,000 bopd (over a denominator of about 6.5 million bopd, or 10%)
• and, yet, US gasoline production actually increased last week, albeit not much
• US gasoline production over past four weeks averaged 9.4 million bbls; last week production came in at 10.2 million bbls -- an 8.5% increase -- and that's with Exxon's largest refinery along the coast shut down for the week (assuming that was the week that was, and I could be wrong) -- Focus on Fracking will sort this out in the weekly Sunday note

Re-balancing:

Week	Week Ending	Change	Million Bbls Storage
Week 0	November 21, 2018	4.9	446.9
Week 1	November 28, 2018	3.6	450.5
Week 2	December 6, 2018	-7.3	443.2
Week 3	December 12, 2018	-1.2	442.0
Week 4	December 19, 2018	-0.5	441.5
Week 5	December 28, 2018	0.0	441.4
Week 6	January 4, 2019	0.0	441.4
Week 7	January 9, 2019	-1.7	439.7
Week 8	January 16, 2019	-2.7	437.1
Week 9	January 24, 2019	8.0	445.0
Week 10	January 31, 2019	0.9	445.9
Week 11	February 6, 2019	1.3	447.2
Week 12	February 13, 2019	3.6	450.8
Week 13	February 21, 2019	3.7	454.5
Week 14	February 27, 2019	-8.6	445.9
Week 15	March 6, 2019	7.1	452.9
Week 16	March 13, 2019	-3.9	449.1
Week 17	March 20, 2019	-9.6	439.5
Week 18	March 27, 2019	2.8	442.3
Week 19	April 3, 2019	7.2	449.5
Week 20	April 10, 2019	7.0	456.5
Week 21	April 17, 2019	-1.4	455.2
Week 22	April 24, 2019	5.5	460.1
Week 23	May 1, 2019	9.9	470.6
Week 24	May 8, 2019	-4.0	466.6
Week 25	May 15, 2019	5.4	472.0
Week 26	May 22, 2019	4.7	476.8
Week 27	May 30, 2019	-0.3	476.5
Week 28	June 5, 2019	6.8	483.3
Week 29	June 12, 2019	2.2	485.5
Week 30	June 19, 2019	-3.1	482.4
Week 31	June 26, 2019	-12.8	469.6
Week 32	July 3, 2019	-1.1	468.5
Week 33	July 10, 2019	-9.5	459.0
Week 34	July 17, 2019	-3.1	455.9
Week 35	July 24, 2019	-10.8	445.1
Week 36	July 31, 2019	-8.5	436.5
Week 37	August 7, 2019	2.4	438.9
Week 38	August 14, 2019	1.6	440.5
Week 29	August 21, 2019	-2.7	437.8
Week 30	August 28, 2019	-10.0	427.8
Week 31	September 5, 2019	-4.8	423.0
Week 32	September 11, 2019	-6.9	416.1
Week 33	September 18, 2019	1.1	417.1
Week 34	September 26, 2019	2.4	419.5

Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- September 25, 2019

Updates

Later, 9:58 a.m. CT: so, "Big_Orrin" suggested that US crude oil inventories would increase by 6.8 million bbls -- and apparently most of that along the coast because Cushing was forecast to only increase by 1.1 million bbls. Let's see what the EIA numbers were:

• EIA US crude oil inventory, week-over-week: an increase of 2.4 million bbls; Big_Orrin was off by a country mile, or as much as a long-reach horizontal lateral
• EIA US crude oil inventory: 419.5 million bbls; supposedly at the 5-year average
• but look at this: refineries operating at 89.8% capacity (a rainstorm called Imelda shut down the Exxon refinery in Houston)
• even so, gasoline production increased last week, who wudda thought?
• distillate fuel production decreased last week but not by much

WTI: after the EIA report -- down a whopping $1.26; down 2.25; and now trading at $56.03. Even worse for Saudi Arabia, who is not yet back in business, is selling what they have with a Brent price of barely breaking $60.

Original Post

My #1 hope today: the rooster goes home without meeting with Trump. There's no reason for Trump to meet with guy -- sets pre-conditions to meet with Trump -- LOL.

EIA weekly petroleum report due out later this morning. Link here. Forecast:

Quick: who was Bill Clinton's VP? No, it was not Hillary.

Existentialism: Ice Brent crude oil futures fell to $62.20/bbl (8:30 GMT), their lowest levels since before the 14 September 2019 attacks on key oil facilities in Saudi Arabia ....

• Saudi cannot survive on $60-Brent, no matter what they say
• on top of that, they don't have as much oil to sell, and won't, for several weeks
• US shale: the swing producer

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, career, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

What are futures doing? Looks like a slightly negative opening for the Dow.. Stockpicker's market. WTI is down another $1.02/bbl, down almost 2%, trading at $56.27 (WTI). Fascinating.

Cartoonist's dream:

Beto: I keep waiting for a post-third Democrat debate Texas poll, but so far no new poll. Themost recent Texas poll was September 9, 2019, a few days before the September 12, 2019, "hell, yes, we're going to take your guns away," moment. Vanity Fair has a nice piece on this. It begins:

Then an NBC/WSJ poll came out, revealing a post-debate crash: O’Rourke had officially joined the 1 percenter’s club, behind even oddball candidate Andrew Yang. 

I did not know that the millennials considered Andrew Yang an "oddball candidate."  I knew the rest of us did (consider him an oddball).

Nine Point Reports A Great Eckert Foundion Well In Elk Oil Field -- September 25, 2019

The well:
34824, 976, Nine Point Energy, Eckert Foundation 152-102-22-15-6H, Elk, t4/19; cum 95K 7/19;
Production:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	7-2019	31	23348	22920	50900	23584	21859	1725
BAKKEN	6-2019	30	25429	25495	55452	25609	16417	9192
BAKKEN	5-2019	25	18813	18787	47375	16741	13982	2759
BAKKEN	4-2019	30	22380	22590	62583	14385	11611	2774
BAKKEN	3-2019	31	4791	4337	27456	2510	2000	510
BAKKEN	2-2019	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2019	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

In the graphics below, some observations:

• note how "wide open" this area is; relatively little development to date
• another "sweet spot" in the Bakken -- well away from better-known areas
• there are four wells on this pad
• joins six other wells already producing
• ten wells altogether and still much room for many more

The graphics:

Three Wells Coiming Off Confidential List Today -- September 25, 2019

Howdy, Modi: for those interested in connecting the Modi-India-Houston-energy dots, this short article is a must read.  Data points:

• Tellurian's proposed Driftwood LNG liquefaction and export facility near Lake Charles, LA
• Petronet LNG Limited INDIA (PLL) 
• Petronet: India's largest LNG importer
• Petronet: has developed a 17.5-mtpa receiving and gasification terminal at Dahej in the country's Gujarat state and a 5-mtpa facility at Kochi, in Kerala state
• Driftwood Project
• unusual funding scheme
• 27.6-mtpa project
• includes a 96-mile Driftwood Pipeline
• FERC-approved
• gluten-free
• Tellurian hopes to finalize the transaction agreement with Petronet by March 31, 2020
• Driftwood LNG: to begin operations in 2023

***********************************

Back to the Bakken

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Wednesday, September 25, 2019: 64 for the month; 196 for the quarter:
35896, conf, Slawson, Slasher Federal 3-27-22MLH,
35311, conf,  CLR, Putnam 7-25H,
35310, conf,  CLR, Putnam 6-25H1,
Active rigs:

$56.42	9/25/2019	09/25/2018	09/25/2017	09/25/2016	09/25/2015
Active Rigs	57	66	58	33	71

RBN Energy: the Caliche storage project in Beaumont, part 2. Archived.

A build-out of NGL fractionators, steam crackers and export terminals for ethane, LPG and ethylene is actively in progress along the Gulf. This growth is spurring the development of new storage capacity — not just at the Mont Belvieu NGL hub, but in other, nearby areas with access to fracs, crackers and export docks. Much of this new storage capacity is being developed by companies that fractionate mixed NGLs and sell so-called “purity products” to meet their internal needs. However, at least one project is being built by what you might call an “independent,” whose aim is to connect to multiple pipelines and provide storage services to customers, without taking title to products alongside their customers. Today, we continue our series on existing and planned NGL storage facilities along the Gulf Coast with a look at Caliche Development Partners’ new storage complex in Beaumont, TX.

Storage capacity and the ability to quickly move mixed NGLs (also known as y-grade) and purity products to where they need to be are critically important to those whose assets rely on a steady stream of these commodities for operation, production, transport, fractionation and export, as well as to those who crack NGL purity products to make ethylene and other products. For example, y-grade coming out of gas processing plants and being piped to a fractionation hub (or individual fractionator) needs to be put in storage until it is called upon. Then, mixed NGLs are pulled from storage and delivered to fractionation facilities. Once y-grade is fractionated, each of the resulting purity products needs to be put into its own distinct storage facility until demand — which can be lumpy — pulls it further down the supply stream. Also, steam crackers and export terminals receive and store purity products (ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline) to stage them for consumption (at crackers) or for loading onto ships. Steam crackers also need a place to store ethylene once it’s produced.