EIA Dashboards For November, 2019, Posted

The November, 2019, dashboards have been posted, with projected data through December, 2019.

A lot of takeaways here:

• Bakken: 
• new wells, oil/well continues to increase month-over-month
• new wells: 1,542 bopd, greatly exceeds that of the Permian
• Oasis using these incredible Bakken wells to fund their Permian operations (previously reported)
• new wells: natural gas production continues to increase month-over-month; exceeds that of the Permian
• by the end of the year, North Dakota production will come very close to 1.5 million bopd; data will be released in February, 2020
• Permian:
• new wells, oil/well month-over-month, flat 
• new wells: 793 bopd (51% that of the Bakken)
• that 793 is so low, I needed to triple check it
• new wells: natural gas production flat month-over-month
• Eagle Ford:
• all that talk about the demise of this field appears to be premature

The links:

• EIA pdf, Bakken: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/bakken.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Permian: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/permian.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Eagle Ford: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/eagleford.pdf

Bakken:

Permian:

Eagle Ford:

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The Vocabulary Page

Marches.

Years and years ago I began a very, very intense reading program, chronologically from Homer through Ovid to the great female writers of the 18th century and culminating with Virginia Woolf. It a while to move onto the great 20th century male writers to include Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and Ernest Hemingway.

Along the way I read George Eliot's Middlemarch. It was there that I followed the history and etymology of "marches." Had I not spent so much time on "marches" during and after reading that book, it is likely I would have completely skipped over this sentence (bel0w(, not thinking much about it.

From The Vikings: A History, by Robert Ferguson, c. 2009:

Charlemagne's authority, and that of the Christian Church, reached its limits at the Saxon marches, in the northeast of the Frankish kingdom. Beyond lay the territories of the Ganes and the ...

Marches: another word to add to the list of vocabulary words I have developed for Arianna.

If DAPL Expansion Denied -- This Is Not Rocket Science -- November 20, 2019

I posted this data yesterday.

This may be the big story coming out of the Director's Cut for September, 2019, data: the number of wells off line for operational reasons (DUCs and "inactive" wells):

• Wells that were off line, at the end of September, 2019: 3,020 -- this may be an all-time high since this data was first reported for the Bakken; this is amazing; due to a very, very wet September; wettest on record, some say

• DUCs: 916 (down 14 from the 930 in August)
• inactive well count: 2,104 (up 429 from 1,675 in August)
• wells off line for operational reasons are tracked here; 

Others are now posting it, including The Williston Herald and The Bismarck Tribune:

North Dakota saw a jump of more than 400 wells idled from August to September. Now the state has 2,100 inactive wells, a number that’s concerning to Helms as the state is trying to put in place greater safeguards surrounding idle wells to prevent companies from abandoning them and shirking their cleanup responsibilities.

“Inactive wells tend to turn into abandoned wells, which tend to turn into orphaned wells,” he said. “It’s the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, that could potentially be a large liability for companies.”

Helms attributed the change, in part, to the wet weather and producers shutting in some lower-producing, less-profitable wells ahead of winter. He said some of the idle wells could also be the result of companies that handle the pipeline and processing side of the natural gas industry moving away from accepting what’s known as “sour” gas. Sour gas contains higher concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, which can be poisonous to humans who breathe it.

Older oil wells that have been operating for decades tend to have more hydrogen sulfide than newer wells, given the geologic makeup of the rock formations they target, Helms said. But even some newer wells in western North Dakota are showing higher concentrations as companies experiment with larger hydraulic fracturing treatments.

“They started sometimes fracking out of zone into neighboring formations that have hydrogen sulfide in them,” Helms said.

Not mentioned: North Dakota's seemingly ambiguous support for more takeaway capacity. 

If the DAPL expansion is denied, operators in the Bakken will see just how serious North Dakota is about promoting the oil sector. 

 

EIA Weekly Petroleum Report -- November 20, 2019

Updates

Later, 10:01 p.m. CT: a reader sheds a bit of light on the "increase" in storage -- see first comment --

There was a net withdrawal of crude from storage...did anyone report that?
The 85,000 barrel per day net withdrawal from our total crude inventories was due to a withdrawal of 282,000 barrels per day from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was only partially offset by a 197,000 barrel per day addition to our commercially available stocks of crude oil. 

Original Post

Link here.

• US crude oil in storage: increased by 1.4 million bbls
• US crude oil in storage: at 450.4 million bbls is about 3% above the five-year average which continues to increase (the 5-year average continues to increase)
• WTI up slightly on the news; still below $57/bbls
• crude oil imports are averaging 18% less than same four-week period a year ago
• would be lower except that California legislators prefer Saudi crude to their own crude -- let's tak about the CO2 emissions from very large crude carriers -- LOL -- but at least we're getting a handle on those plastic straws
• refineries are operating at 89.5% of their capacity; gradually increasing over the past six weeks, but still historically very, very low

Re-balancing (note: some weeks are hidden to make the spreadsheet manageable):

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 43	September 18, 2019	1.1	417.1
Week 44	September 26, 2019	2.4	419.5
Week 45	October 2, 2019	3.1	422.6
Week 46	October 9, 2019	2.9	425.6
Week 47	October 17, 2019	9.3	434.9
Week 48	October 23, 2019	-1.7	433.2
Week 49	October 30, 2019	5.7	438.9
Week 50	November 6, 2019	7.9	446.8
Week 51	November 14, 2019	2.2	449.0
Week 52	November 20, 2019	1.4	450.4

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The Viking Age: Heathendom

From The Vikings: A History, Robert Ferguson, c. 2009, pages 47 - 48:

On the question of why raiding on northern Britain began in 793, and not fifty years earlier or forty years later, Norwegian historians and archaeologists have been increasingly attracted in recent years to an idea that looks outside Scandinavia for an explanation and takes into account the political tensions in northern Europe at the close of the eighth century.

The three major political powers in the world at that time were the Byzantine empire in the east, which had survived the break-up of the Roman empire and its disappearance in the west; the Muslims, whose expansion during the years 660 to 830 under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates had taken them eastward as far as Turkistan and Asia Minor to create an Islamic barrier between the northern and southern hemispheres; and the Franks, who had established themselves as the dominant tribe among the successor states after the fall of the Roman empire in the west.

The Byzantine empire, with its capital Constantinople, was remote from the Sandinavian lands and would be more or less able to dictate the terms of its encounters with the Viking phenomenon.

The Islamic expansion into Europe via the Iberian peninsula in the first half of the eighth century pushed European trade routes northwards, a developement which increased trading opportunities for the Scandinavian lands and also created ideal conditions for piracy in the North Sea area.

Of tth three major powers it was the Franks who would be most profoundly involved with the Vikings.

It was entirely coincidental to have picked up the history of Constantinople at the very time I picked up the history of the Vikings. Wow. I can't wait to talk to Arianna about this, but my hunch: she already knows. LOL.

And, although it's a stretch, if one connects enough dots, one will end up here:

Denis, Blondie

Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- November 20, 2019

US shale rocks! US shale will keep breaking records -- oilprice. 

Europe, not dead yet. European car sales up almost 9% in October, 2019.

California to Texas migration continues. Apple starts construction on its $1-billion Austin campus.

Mark Perry talked about this years ago. Do we have another nominee for the Geico Rock Award? Jimmy Sengenberger enlightens us: how US student debt became such a big issue.

9:24 a.m. CT: daily activity report from yesterday still not posted. 

Graphic panic. This is a keeper. Warren Buffett probably has a copy hanging in his bedroom. Screenshot to follow.

End of an era. Re-posting. From Bloomberg via Rigzone --

California is one step away from banning drilling for oil in their state. Meanwhile, the state has commissioned a multi-million dollar study to find out why gasoline prices are so high (a study that is undertaken every several years, usually when a new governor takes office). I find the whole thing fascinating, if not bizarre.

Big plans: COP unveils its 10-year operational plan. From Rigzone.

• average annual CAPEX: less than $7 billion
• free cash flow of $50 billion
• anticipates annual production growth of three percent
• plans to seel 25% of its Alaska assets
• question: do they hold any "dead" assets in California; most likely

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.

4% is not nearly enough. From Rigzone, update on Encana's proposed plan to flee Canada --

• one of its largest investors will vote against the producer's plan to moves its headquarters to the US
• this is the "Ovintiv" story -- previously posted
• moving to Denver, CO, if I recall correctly
• Canada has declared itself a "no-growth" country 

Only one piece missing: names of speakers. LOL. 

Maybe The Bakken Really Is Shut Down -- Daily Report From Yesterday Still Not Posted -- November 20, 2019

NDIC still reporting 55 active rigs in the Bakken, so apparently someone is working.

$55.73	11/20/2019	11/20/2018	11/20/2017	11/20/2016	11/20/2015
Active Rigs	55	62	56	39	65

RBN Energy: rising baseload demand for natural gas means more price spikes, volatility.

U.S. natural gas prices are increasingly susceptible to periodic spikes and volatility as baseload demand for gas — or the minimum level of demand that must be met on a daily basis — specifically from power generators and liquefaction plants, has rapidly climbed in recent years, and is still rising. The power sector has upped the ante on its gas consumption, with gas replacing coal as the most cost-effective go-to fuel for meeting baseload electricity demand. On top of that, feedgas deliveries to LNG export terminals have added 7 Bcf/d of demand to the gas market in the past three years, much of which is flowing at high, baseload-like rates, and that demand is set to increase further as more liquefaction projects are completed. These two market components together — LNG exports and gas-fired power generation — will take a bigger slice of domestic gas supplies, making the gas market ever more sensitive to weather, maintenance and other factors that disrupt that baseload level of demand or the supplies that serve it. We’ve already begun to see the effects of this phenomenon on Henry Hub and other regional gas prices. Today, we delve into this fundamental shift and what it could mean for the gas market.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019: 67 for the month; 162 for the quarter:

• 35577, 2,017, CLR, Carus 9-28H, Cedar Coulee, t8/19; cum 113K 9/19;
• 35550, 1,063, CLR, Carus 4-28H1, Cedar Coulee, t10/19; cum 5K after 7 days;
• 34772, SI/NC, XTO, Lonnie Federal 31X-3G2, Hofflunc, no production data,
• 31967, SI/NC, Petro-Hunt, Klevmoen Trust 153-95-17D-7-3H, Charlson, no production data,