By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Eagle Communications
Nymex crude contracts settled over $78 per barrel Friday for the first time since November 14. WTI reached more than four dollars higher on the week and nearly seven dollars higher than at the beginning of the year. But prices were down nearly two percent by midday Monday. WTI drops below $77 a barrel. London Brent was fetching a few cents over $82 by midday Monday.
Kansas Common crude at CHS starts the week at $68.25 per barrel after gaining 75 cents on Friday. Prices in McPherson are up nearly five dollars on the week and more than $8 higher than on New Year's Day.
The North Dakota recovers from winter weather as it searches for only its second Oil and Gas Director. North Dakota Director of Mineral Resources Lynn Helms is ending his 25-year hitch as the state’s top energy regulator. Helms announced his retirement last week at a meeting of the North Dakota Industrial Commission. Since he took the job the state's output jumped from just under 100,000 barrels per day in 1998 to an all-time high of 1.5 million barrels per day in 2019. Current output had stabilized at about 1.2 million barrels per day by last month.
North Dakota's recovery from extreme winter weather is between 94% and 98% complete. Justin J. Kringstad of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority said in an e-mail statement that, as of Monday morning, output was still down between 10,000 and 40,000 barrels per day.
The Rotary Rig Count from Baker Hughes is up two oil rigs and down one seeking natural gas for a total of 621 rigs. The tally in New Mexico was up one. Texas, and North Dakota were each down one.
The Kansas Rig Count from Independent Oil & Gas Service shows 16 active rigs east of Wichita, which is unchanged from last week, and 20 in western Kansas, which is up one. Operators completed 17 new wells statewide last week with 11 in western Kansas including one in Ellis County and one in Stafford County. Kansas regulators okayed eight new drilling permits last week, with three in eastern Kansas and five west of Wichita. That's 63 new permits so far this year.
U.S crude production dropped by just over a million barrels per day last week, as winter weather shut in production from Texas to North Dakota. The Energy Information Administration pegs U.S. output for the week through January 19 at 12,326,000 barrels per day, down from 13.3 million the week before.
Energy Information Administration says U.S. crude-oil exports dropped by nearly 600,000 barrels per day to just over 4.4 million. Total petroleum and product exports dropped to 11.4 million barrels per day. U.S. crude oil imports averaged 5.6 million barrels per day last week, down 1.8 million barrels per day from the previous week. U.S. commercial crude oil inventories were down by more than nine million barrels from the week before at just over 420 million barrels. Stockpiles are about five percent below the five-year average for this time of year.