By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Kansas Common crude at CHS in McPherson starts the week at $49.75 per barrel after jumping nearly two dollars on Friday. Prices in McPherson are up nearly $3 from a week ago, and are six dollars higher than at the first of the month.
Nymex crude futures on Monday were trading over $60 for the first time since early January. WTI prices have advanced 25 percent so far this year. The benchmark contract was up 66 cents in afternoon trading Monday to $60.13 per barrel. London Brent was up 78 cents at $63.21 per barrel.
Of the 195 drilling rigs in Kansas this week, 138 are inactive and cold stacked, an increase of three rigs in that category over the week before. Independent Oil & Gas Service says there are nine active rigs in Western Kansas, which is up one for the week. The count east of Wichita is unchanged at seven active rigs. Drillers reached total depth on a well in Ellis County and an operator is about to spud a new well on a lease in Stafford County.
Baker Hughes reports 397 active drilling rigs nationwide, an increase of seven oil rigs in its weekly Rotary Rig Count. The count in Texas was up four rigs. Canada was up five at 176 active rigs.
Regulators approved five new drilling permits last week. That's 90 so far this year.
Independent Oil & Gas Service reports 10 newly completed wells across Kansas, 73 so far this year. There were four new completions in eastern Kansas, and six west of Wichita, including one in Barton County and one in Ellis County.
The government said domestic crude-oil inventories rose 6.6 million barrels last week to 469 million. That's about two percent above the five-year average for this time of year.
EIA reported an uptick in U.S. crude production last week. Production jumped nearly 100,000 barrels per day on the week to just over 11 million barrels per day. Output remains remain nearly two million barrels per day behind the record-setting pace of a year ago. when U.S. operators pumped just shy of 13 million barrels per day.
The Energy Information Administration reported imports of 5.9 million barrels per day for the week ending February 5. That's down 700,000 barrels per day from the week before. The four-week average for crude imports remains 12% below the same four-week period a year ago.
In a monthly report, the Energy Information Administration reported worldwide oil prices in January were $5 per barrel higher than the month before, $9 per barrel lower than a year earlier. EIA said consumption worldwide was down 2.8 million barrels per day from a year earlier.
Democratic politicians in a slew of oil-dependent states are now forced to reckon with a clash of progressive ideals: Their support for President Biden’s plan to fight global warming could damage the fossil-fuel economy that has been a huge source of revenue for schools in New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, coastal hurricane remediation, and other government programs. That was upwards of $1.8 billion total last year. Biden last month paused new leases on federal lands, and could soon deliver on a campaign promise for a permanent ban.
OPEC confirmed what we've been telling you, that the world's major benchmark prices have increased roughly ten percent month over month. The cartel credits the rise on improving market fundamentals, including the prospect of shrinking global oil stockpiles and tighter supplies.
Oil-by-rail shipments are up for the week ending February 6th, but still trail the totals from the same week last year. The Association of American Railroads reports 11,453 tanker cars moving petroleum and petroleum products last week, up from 11,291 the week before.
Industry sources say the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline will likely result in a spike in oil-by-rail deliveries, but just how big a spike is still up in the air. Analysts say the price spread will remain the biggest driver of Canadian heavy crude shipments.
The wobbly fate of the Dakota Access Pipeline is propping up oil prices in North Dakota, as operators there rein in output and charge higher premiums. The pipeline is the main artery running crude oil out of the region. Reuters reports Bakken prices have surged to their highest levels in about six months. A court hearing scheduled last week was postponed until April by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is working on a new review of the impact of the line’s passage under a key source of water for indigenous communities in the Dakotas.
It's not political or ethnic differences blocking oil exports in Libya; it's unpaid salaries. Bloomberg reports a tanker had to leave a Libyan export terminal without any oil after members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard stopped them from loading. Security guards are on strike for unpaid salaries. This is the second tanker blocked from loading this year. Last year Libya ended a decade-long civil war, and was able to ramp up oil production from zero to more than a million barrels per day. But they've been unable to keep that up due to the strikes, leaky pipelines, and the lack of maintenance funding.