Category:

North Dakota rig count near five-year low

Sign up for our daily Energy Newsletter Rig activity in North Dakota is near a five-year low as oil prices reign in operations in the shale-rich state. Photo by David Gaylor/Shutterstock BISMARCK, N.D., March 13 (UPI) — The number of rigs actively exploring for or producing oil or natural gas in North Dakota is down to its lowest level in nearly five years, data show Friday. State data show 111 active rigs in the state as of Friday, down from the 191 reported on this date in 2014 and a historic low. Rig counts, a barometer for the upstream sector in the state, have been on a steady decline for much of the year, down 7.5 percent from the end of February. The North Dakota Industrial Commission in its latest monthly report said oil production in January, the last full month for which data are available, was 1.19 million […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Shale Producer Whiting Draws Exxon, Others as Suitors

Whiting Petroleum Corporation’s South Texas facilities. Source: Whiting Petroleum Corp. via Bloomberg News. (Bloomberg) — Whiting Petroleum Corp., the North Dakota oil explorer, has attracted interest from Exxon Mobil Corp. and Continental Resources Inc. as it explores a sale of the entire company, people with knowledge of the situation said. Hess Corp. and Statoil ASA are also looking at Denver-based Whiting, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Whiting has set up a data room for potential buyers to evaluate the company’s financial information and asked them to submit bids next week, the people said. The discussions are ongoing and there’s no guarantee a deal will be reached. A potential deal for Whiting, the largest producer in North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation, may be the first in an anticipated pickup of merger activity for U.S. energy producers as they grapple with heavy debt and […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Oil industry must join U.S. railroads to boost train safety: regulator

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Rail operators are going to great lengths to prevent oil train derailments but the energy sector must do more to prevent accidents from becoming fiery disasters, the leading U.S. rail regulator said on Friday. Oil train tankers have jumped the tracks in a string of mishaps in recent months that resulted in explosions and fires. Several of those shipments originated from North Dakota’s Bakken energy fields. Officials have warned that fuel from the region is particularly light and volatile. Sarah Feinberg, acting head of the Federal Railroad Administration, said the energy industry must do more to control the volatility of its cargo. "(We) are running out of things that we can put on the railroads to do," she said. "There have to be other industries that have skin in the game." A national safety plan for oil trains, due to be finalized in May, would require […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Bakken oil production is already declining

With the large oil price drop that began last summer, the big question for world oil markets has been: How will U.S. shale drillers respond? There’s been widespread expectations that U.S. shale oil—and hence total U.S. production—would continue rising through the middle of 2015. According to data I compiled for the prolific Bakken shale oil play, production dropped in January—and looks set to drop in the following two months, at least. It could be that U.S. total production is already declining, but the data hasn’t come in yet. Read more in my new post, " Bakken oil production is already declining ." This helps clear up some questions I’d asked in my previous post, " Is U.S. oil production already declining? ", about how recent data from EIA is actually based on forecasts, rather than measurements of real production. This new post also builds on data compilation I did in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Bakken oil production is already declining

Production of oil in North Dakota—home to the vast majority of all wells sunk into the Bakken shale oil formation—declined in January, the latest month with data available directly from the state. The state of North Dakota has yet to release their own compilation of production statistics for January 2015—those are due out March 12 (tomorrow, as of this writing). I expect they will likewise show a drop. This runs counter to expectations from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) that Bakken oil production would continue rising through March, only starting to decline in April. It also raises questions about whether total U.S. oil production may already be declining—and that the decline simply hasn’t shown up yet in available data. To find this out, I compiled the production data from the state, and show it split into three groups: 1. the old wells (mainly conventional drilling), 2. the new wells, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Oil Deaths Rise as Bakken Boom Fades

ENLARGE As crude prices retreat, oil companies have cut the rates they pay contractors who work at sites on North Dakota’s oil-rich Bakken formation by 20% or more. A drilling site outside of Williston, N.D. Photo: Reuters BISMARCK, N.D.—At least eight workers have died since October in North Dakota’s oil fields, more than in the preceding 12 months combined. The uptick in fatalities comes as many oil companies are responding to plummeting crude-oil prices by dialing back their drilling activity in the state, one of the hubs of the U.S. energy boom. Some federal safety officials say they suspect oil’s plunge might be a factor in the accidents because it puts cost-cutting pressure on oil-field services companies, whose employees do much of the work at drilling sites. The rash of accidents in North Dakota, which has the highest workplace death rate in the country, began around the time the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Crude-Oil Price Collapse Takes Toll on Williston

Oil-pump jacks in Williston, N.D., last November. ENLARGE Photo: Associated Press WILLISTON, N.D.—As the epicenter of the North American oil boom, this town was a magnet for blue-collar job seekers. But the collapse in crude prices means truck-choked Williston is no longer the land of opportunity it was less than a year ago. “I tried to get in on the oil rigs, but by the time I got here they were laying off,” says Jimmy Sidwell, who arrived in Williston from Atlanta in January. He had figured the oil fields were one of the few remaining places where he could earn a good salary without having a college degree. Instead, Mr. Sidwell has been digging ditches and sleeping in motels, hoping that something better will open up. “It’s like everyone is here looking for the pot of gold,” he says. In 2008, energy companies figured out how to combine […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple