By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Eagle Media
Crude-oil prices haven't been this high since June of 2022. Thursday's closing price for near-month NYMEX crude was over $111.00. That contract was over $112 a barrel by lunchtime on Monday, $98 if you can wait a month and take delivery in June. London Brent was rising toward $110 a barrel at midday.
At CHS in McPherson, Kansas Common crude fetches $101.75 per barrel (4/2). The average price in McPherson last month was a few cents under $82 a barrel, and that was $27 and change higher than the average in February.
Gasoline prices continue a relentless pursuit of higher ground, but diesel is rising faster. The current national average price of $4.11 for regular gasoline is up 86 cents or 26 percent from a year ago. Diesel's national average pump price is now five sixty-one ($5.61), up two dollars, or 54 percent from last year. In Kansas, the statewide average for regular gas is up 16 percent from last year at three thirty-six ($3.36) per gallon. At $4.70 per gallon, Kansas diesel prices are up a dollar-thirty-seven ($1.37) or 41 percent from a year ago.
The Energy Department reports the first 400,000 barrels from our strategic reserves swapped out into the marketplace this week, as part of an international effort to tame prices.
Commercial inventories, not including SPR, increased by 5.5 million barrels to just over 461.6 million. That’s about one-tenth-of-one-percent above the five-year seasonal average.
U.S. crude production was down slightly in Alaska, and up slightly elsewhere. The average for the week is unchanged at just over 13.6 million barrels a day.
The Rotary Rig Count from Baker Hughes rises to 548 rigs this week, an increase of two oil and three gas rigs. Texas is up two, while Utah, New Mexico, and Louisiana are each up one. North Dakota drops one rig. The national total is down 42 rigs from a year ago. The tally in the Permian Basin drops 52 rigs from a year ago.
Independent Oil and Gas Service reports another, slight, uptick in drilling activity this week. The Kansas Rig Count is 19 active rigs, up one at ten rigs in eastern Kansas, and unchanged west of Wichita at nine rigs. The tally is up more than 72 percent from last month, but is down about 17 percent from a year ago. Drilling was underway on Friday on a well in Rush County.
Despite reduced rig counts, and fewer wells, US crude production set another new record last year, and the government predicts more records to come. Domestic output last year grew by three percent, or 350,000 barrels per day, to an all-time high 13.6 million barrels a day. The Energy Information Administration reports fewer wells doing the heavy lifting, with just over 909,000 producing wells, down 9,000 wells or one percent. EIA says the number of active rigs per month dropped by five percent. Well and rig counts have dropped steadily since 2014, as improvements in technology pumped up production.
US crude-oil imports are down slightly at 6.5 million barrels a day. The average over the last four weeks is up nearly 13 percent from the same four weeks last year. Crude exports increased by about 200,000 barrels a day to just over 3.5 million. The four-week average is down about 300,000 barrels a day from last year.
Kansas regulators report 70 new intent-to-drill notices in March or 148 so far this year, compared to over two hundred by the end of March last year. We spotted one new intent in Ellis County, two in Haskell County, one in Russell County and one in Stafford County.
Operators in Kansas complete 17 new wells this week, for a total of 176 so far this year. That's roughly half the total reported a year ago. Independent Oil and Gas Service reports one new well each in Ellis and Gove counties, out of nine in Western Kansas.
The Kansas Corporation Commission okays 27 new drilling permits in Kansas, including one in Russell County out of seven west of Wichita. The state has okayed permits for 134 new drilling locations so far this year, compared to 199 a year ago.