By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Tons of oil-soaked soil from the Keystone spill in December wound up in a landfill near Omaha. Environmentalists in the area tell the Nebraska Examiner newspaper that TC Energy is "a foreign corporation using Nebraska as a dumping ground." They're demanding close monitoring of the site. Company officials, along with regulators in Lincoln, insist the soil qualifies as "non-hazardous solid waste," and said the Pheasant Point landfill near Bennington is designed to accept it.
Nymex benchmark crude settled nearly a dollar higher Friday at $76.32 per barrel. Prices were down slightly on Monday. US crude has traded between about $70 and $80 per barrel for over two months. Kansas Common crude at CHS in McPherson starts the week at $66.50 per barrel Monday, after gaining 75 cents on Friday. Kansas prices are $2 cheaper than at the first of the month, and $3 less than at the first of the year.
The weekly Rotary Rig Count from Baker Hughes was down seven oil rigs last week to 753 active rigs nationwide. There were changes across the country, with West Virginia down three and Pennsylvania up three. Oklahoma, New Mexico and California were each down two rigs, and Colorado was down one. The Rig Count in Kansas shows 22 active rigs west of Wichita, up three over last week, with drilling underway on leases in Barton and Stafford counties.
Drilling activity in Kansas so far this year lags behind last year in spuds and footage drilled. Independent Oil & Gas Service reports 150 wells drilled to 445,000 feet through February 16th. Scouting reports show 398 wells in various stages of drilling and completion. Operators in Kansas completed 32 wells last week, fourteen in the western half of the state, including one each in Ellis and Stafford counties. Kansas regulators okayed 23 new drilling locations, including two each in Barton and Ellis counties.
U.S. crude oil inventories have climbed every week since mid-December. The latest government tally showed 479 million barrels as of February 17th, an increase of nearly eight million barrels. The Energy Information Administration says inventories are about nine percent above the five-year average for this time of year.
US Operators pumped 12.347 million barrels of crude oil per day during the week through February 17th. EIA says that's up 91,000 barrels per day from the week before. US refiners imported 6.3 million barrels of crude per day last week, an increase of 94,000 barrels per day. Four-week average imports are about 3.1 percent greater than in the same four weeks last year.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation announced an agreement to sell part of its remaining Eagle Ford assets in South Texas to INEOS Energy for $1.4 billion. The company is selling 172,000 net acres with average output of 36,000 barrels per day. Oklahoma-based Chesapeake is leaving the Eagle Ford to focus on its assets in the Haynesville and Marcellus shale plays.
Crude output in the nation's number-three producing state took a tumble in December due to extreme winter weather. The North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources reports statewide production dipped by 13%, dropping below one million barrels per day for the first time since last April. Natural gas production was also down 13%. Operators captured 94% of the gas produced at oil wells, unchanged from the month before.
Russia is making a lot more money on oil sales following Europe's price cap and other sanctions than was previously thought. Bloomberg cites academic research showing Moscow received an average $74 per barrel over the four weeks following the price cap. That's nearly 25% above the price cap of $60 per barrel set by the Group of Seven on December 5th.
India’s state-owned refiner Hindustan Petroleum is now facing payment issues for its purchases of cheap Russian crude due to a price cap imposed on Russian exports. Bloomberg reports the refiner is unwilling to declare its buying price for Russian oil, and that’s making it difficult to find western banks willing to process payments.