Crude oil production in October from seven major US shale plays is expected to drop 80,000 b/d to 5.21 million b/d, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s latest Drilling Continue Reading
US commercial crude stocks are expected to have decreased 200,000 barrels in the week that ended Friday, a survey of analysts showed Monday. The US Energy Information Administration is scheduled to release its weekly data at 10:30 am EDT (1430 GMT) Wednesday. The EIA five-year (2010-14) average shows inventories fell 270,000 b/d barrels for the same reporting period. Crude stocks typically decrease through the summer until late September, when demand drops because of the autumn refinery turnaround season. However, this year’s refinery activity has slowed down since early August, suggesting an early start to the maintenance period. Crude runs have fallen five weeks in a row. For the week ended September 4, the amount of crude processed equaled 16.1 million b/d, which was 6% below the summer peak of more than 17 million b/d at the end of July. Analysts do not believe refinery activity picked up last week. […]
WILLISTON, N.D., Sept 14 (Reuters) – North Dakota’s oil regulators said on Monday they may allow more wells to be temporarily abandoned, a step that would permit producers to delay fracking beyond the typical one-year window and prevent even more crude from flooding onto global markets. The change would fuel massive savings for oil producers in the state who have amassed a backlog of almost 1,000 wells that have been drilled but not completed with processes needed to get the oil flowing. The delays are designed solely to ride out the roughly 50 percent drop in crude prices since last year. Any regulatory change in North Dakota also would assuage market concerns about supply continuing to outstrip demand at a time when Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members show little sign of curbing their own output. While no decision has been reached, the North Dakota Department of Mineral […]
Unused oil tank cars are pictured on Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad tracks outside Hinsdale, New York August 24, 2015. Total U.S. shale oil production for October is forecast to decline by 80,000 barrels per day to 5.21 million bpd, compared with 5.29 million bpd in September, according to data released on Monday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The drop in October – the first in five months not to be bigger than the previous month’s – was slightly less than the 80,200 bpd decline in September, data shows. Production in the Eagle Ford is expected to fall for a seventh consecutive month, by 62,000 bpd to 1.42 million bpd, according to the EIA’s monthly drilling productivity report. Oil production from the Bakken region of North Dakota is expected to fall 21,000 bpd to 1.18 million bpd in October. It is the fourth month consecutive declines. In […]
Workers prepare drilling pipe on a deep sea crude oil platform in the waters off Veracruz, Mexico. Shale producers in the U.S. have learned to do more with less. Last year’s price crash forced drillers to cut budgets, reducing the number of rigs in U.S. oil fields by 59 percent from the peak. Crude production, though, has fallen only about 5 percent. Part of the reason for that is a spurt of innovation driven by desperation. Rig productivity increased last month in all shale oil plays, the Energy Information Administration said in a report Monday, as companies drill more wells in less time. Wells being drilled this month will be able to pump about 389,000 barrels a day of new production, down 39 percent from last November, a much shallower drop than the overall rig count, according to Austin, Texas-based Drilling Info Inc. “The amount of producibility per rig […]
Magnum Hunter CEO Gary Evans says the company is selling a pipeline to raise cash. U.S. energy companies have defied financial gravity for more than a year, borrowing and spending billions of dollars to pump oil, even as crude prices plummeted. Until now. The oil patch is expected to finally face a financial reckoning, experts say, with carnage occurring as early as this month. One trigger: Smaller drillers are bracing for cuts to their credit lines in October as banks re-evaluate how much energy companies’ oil and gas properties are worth. But with oil trading below $45 a barrel, bigger oil outfits are struggling to stay profitable, too. Jim Flores, vice chairman of Freeport-McMoRan Inc., FCX -2.11 % which pumps oil in the Gulf of Mexico, explained the industry’s conundrum this way: “It’s raining and it’s going to rain for a long time. We’re all going to get wet. […]
In shale strongholds of North Dakota and Texas, physical crude grades are trading at the highest premiums to futures prices in years, offering a glimmer of hope that a pickup in global oil markets might follow. While crude futures hover around 6-1/2-year lows, the cash markets, where producers and refiners buy and sell physical barrels of oil, are sending a more optimistic, if short-term, signal. West Texas Intermediate crude delivered to Midland, Texas, at the heart of the Permian Basin, is trading at a record $2.75 premium to benchmark U.S. futures. North Dakota’s Bakken crude fetches more than 50 cents more, the highest in two years. The two areas produce more than 60 percent of U.S. shale oil. Many cash crude traders say the relative strength of these markets most likely reflects local, short-term factors: newly built pipelines in Texas are increasing demand for local crude, while Midwest refiners […]
U.S. oil-and-gas producers have written down the value of their drilling fields by more in 2015 than any full year in history, as the rout in commodity prices makes properties across the country not worth drilling. A group of 66 oil and gas producers have taken impairment charges totaling $59.8 billion through June, according to a tally by energy consultancy IHS Herold Inc. That tops the previous full-year record of $48.5 billion set in 2008, IHS says. In 2008, oil prices plummeted from above $140 a barrel at midyear to below $37 by year-end as the financial system’s near collapse sent the global economy into recession. The drop was steep but relatively short-lived as growing demand from China and other emerging economies was expected to suck up global supplies. Now, with China’s economy sputtering and U.S. production at its highest level in decades, prices aren’t expected to return to […]
Goldman Sachs says the world has more oil than it had thought and expects prices to slip below $40 per barrel, and maybe lower, because the glut may linger deep into next year. On the same day, the International Energy Agency said production outside OPEC countries will drop sharply in 2016 with prices so weak. Goldman analyst Damien Courvalin says these cuts may not be enough. He lowered his forecast for 2016 to $45 per barrel from $57. He says prices could collapse to around $20 if production decreases too slowly. Oil markets been unusually volatile, with the price of crude down 26 percent in three months. Prices have risen or fallen more than 3 percent on 14 trading days during that stretch.
Federal energy report finds rough road may be ahead for companies working in U.S. shale basins. Photo by photostock77/Shutterstock WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (UPI) — Companies contributing most to U.S. onshore oil production are expected to cut capital spending as the weak oil market endures, a federal energy report said. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for crude oil prices, closed Thursday at $48.89 per barrel, more than 17 percent below the start of July and more than 50 percent below peak prices in June 2014. Most oil companies are cutting spending on exploration and production and shedding staff. Though some sectors are performing well, the economy in Texas , the No. 1 oil producer in the nation, is feeling pressure from the downward trajectory for crude oil prices. The U.S. Energy Information Administration analyzed financial data from 44 companies focused heavily on shale oil production in the United States. […]
