By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Eagle Media
Energy technology company Baker Hughes announced a blockbuster merger with competitor Chart Industries. The sale price is $13.6 billion in cash.
Rig counts are dropping toward five-year lows again, as horizontal drillers post big declines. The latest report from Baker Hughes is down five oil rigs from last week, while the gas tally was up two.
The breakout for horizontal rigs drops a whopping 12 rigs from a week ago, and 49 from a year ago, marking the biggest decline in recent memory.
Rig counts have dropped below this week's 540 only twice since September of 2021. Texas is down four rigs for the week. Oklahoma and Louisiana are each down one.
The Kansas Rig Count from Independent Oil and Gas Service is down one rig in eastern Kansas and up two west of Wichita for a total of 19 active rigs. That's up nearly 60% from a month ago but down nearly 35% from a year ago.
Kansas Common crude starts the week and the month at $57.50 per barrel after falling two dollars on Friday. The average price for Kansas Common at CHS in McPherson in July is $57.44 per barrel. That's 76 cents a barrel cheaper than June, and down from last July by more than $13 a barrel.
Kansas regulators gave their okay to 21 new drilling locations, or 430 so far this year, compared to 591 a year ago. There are seven new permits in western Kansas including one in Finney County.
Operators completed 16 wells last week. Independent Oil & Gas Service reports seven in western Kansas. That's 725 completed wells so far this year, compared to 745 a year ago.
Kansas regulators gave the green light to 91 new drilling locations in July, including three in Ellis County. That's 480 intent-to-drill notices so far this year, down from 655 through July last year.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserves now stand at 402.7 million barrels after taking delivery on 200,000 barrels last week. Strategic stockpiles are up more than 25 million barrels from a year ago.
At 426.7 million barrels, commercial crude inventories are up 7.7 million barrels from last week. The government says stockpiles are about six percent below the five-year average for this time of year.
U.S. crude production for the week increased slightly to just over 13.3 million barrels a day. Cumulative output this year remains above 13.4 million barrels a day.
Crude imports increased to 6.1 million barrels a day last week, up 159,000 barrels a day from a week earlier. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports the four-week average is also 6.1 million, down eleven percent from a year ago.
EIA reports crude exports dropped by 30% from a week ago and 45% from a year ago to just under 2.7 million barrels a day. Four-week average exports are down by 25% from a year ago.
The Republic of the Congo is opening up a huge swath of land to energy exploration, in what's described in The Guardian newspaper as "the world’s worst place to prospect for oil.” It's pristine forests include the habitats of endangered wildlife.
President Donald Trump shortened his deadline for Russia in Ukraine from 50 days to just "ten-to-twelve days." Trump is now threatening Russia with so-called secondary sanctions on its oil export customers, notably China and India.