By John P. Tretbar
A blockbuster merger moves forward in South America, while another is announced in North Dakota. News reports suggest a breakthrough in the fight between ExxonMobil and Chevron over oil assets off the northeast shore of South America. Reuters reports the two firms have finalized plans for an arbitration panel to address the dispute over Chevron's $53 BILLION purchase of Hess Corp. Chevron and Hess had hoped to complete their merger earlier this year, but now it looks like the dispute will extend into next year.
Devon Energy is spending big bucks to greatly expand its position in North Dakota. The company will shell out $5 billion in cash and stock to buy Grayson Mill Energy. Forecast output from the new acreage exceeds 100-thousand barrels a day.
The weekly Rotary Rig Count from Baker Hughes is down one oil rig and one gas rig for a total of 584 rigs. The count in Louisiana is up one; Texas is down two rigs.
The Kansas Rig Count from Independent Oil and Gas Service shows 30 active rigs statewide including an increase of one rig in Western Kansas. The tally is down six percent from a month ago and 23% lower than a year ago. Drilling continued on a lease in Barton County Friday.
Regulators in the Sunflower State okayed 21 new drilling locations, with eleven in Western Kansas including two new permits in Barton County and one in Ellis County. That's 519 new drilling permits so far this year, down from 666 by this time last year.
Kansas operators completed 23 wells last week. Independent Oil and Gas Service reports seven of them are west of Wichita including one well in Barton County and one in Russell County.
The US imports more crude oil than we export, by more than 2.7 million barrels a day. But, product exports outpace imports by nearly five thousand barrels per day, making the US a net petroleum exporter. Crude exports averaged just short of four thousand barrels per day last week. That's down four-thousand daily barrels from a week ago but nearly double the tally from a year ago. US crude imports averaged 6.8 million barrels a day last week, an increase of 214 thousand daily barrels from the week before. Four-week average imports are up more than five percent from a year ago.
The government reported a huge pre-holiday drawdown in crude-oil inventories. Stockpiles dropped 3.4 million barrels in the week through July 5th. The Energy Information Administration reports stockpiles of just over 445 million barrels, 13 million barrels less than a year ago and four percent below the five-year average. The Energy Department added another half million barrels to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. U.S. crude-oil production averaged 13,284,000 barrels per day. That's up 101,000 barrels per day from a week ago and nearly a million barrels a day higher than a year ago.
Global trade in Liquefied Natural Gas grew by more than three percent last year. A government report says increasing natural gas demand and expanding export capacity drove drove a spike in global LNG trade last year. US export capacity was a big driver. The Freeport LNG facility in the Gulf of Mexico returned to service in February last year after being offline since June of the year before. Other nations increasing LNG trade last year were Mozambique, Russia, Indonesia, Norway and Oman.