By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Eagle Media
Crude prices are on the rise in advance of tariffs and threatened tariffs. On Friday, the near-month NYMEX contract for light sweet crude settled at $69.36 per barrel, up 56 cents on the day and eight cents a barrel higher than a week ago. But tariff deadlines and new threats of possible tariffs on Russian oil sent crude prices higher. By lunchtime Monday, NYMEX crude was trading over $71 a barrel, up more than two dollars on the day. The expiring Brent contract for May was fetching just under $75 a barrel. The June contract was a few pennies higher.
US crude production dipped slightly in January, according to the latest monthly release from the government. The Energy Information Administration reports total production nationwide of 407,537,000 barrels in January, which is down nearly 10 million barrels from the best month ever in December. Output dropped more than 23 million barrels from January last year. EIA estimates Kansas's output of just over two million barrels in January. That's 67-thousand barrels a day, compared to 72-thousand the month before. The top producing states were all lower. Texas drops 105-thousand daily barrels, pumping just under 5.6 million barrels a day.
Weekly crude production in the US was the fourth-best ever last week. At 13,574,000 barrels per day, output is up nearly half a million barrels a day from a year ago. The Energy Information Administration reports a four-week average over 13-and-a-half million daily barrels for a third week in a row. Cumulative production is just a few barrels shy of that mark.
The government added another 300,000 barrels to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, now topping 396 million barrels. That's up more than 33 million barrels from a year ago. Commercial crude stockpiles were down 3.3 million barrels to 433.6 million barrels as of March 21st. That's about five percent below the five-year average.
The US Energy Information Administration reports total crude imports last week increased by 810,000 barrels a day, after dropping 1.3 million the week before. Net imports are also higher. Crude imports from our northern neighbor averaged just under four million barrels a day in the week through March 21, up 849,000 daily barrels from the week before. Total crude imports averaged 6.2 million daily barrels. Exports were up slightly to 4.6 million. That makes the US a net crude importer by nearly 1.6 million barrels a day...up from 741,000 last week.
The rig count from Baker Hughes is 592, up one gas rig cut down two oil rigs. Ohio was up one rig while Pennsylvania drops one rig. New Mexico was also down one rig from last week.
The Kansas Rig Count from Independent Oil and Gas Service is up three at eight rigs east of Wichita, and up three at 15 rigs in Western Kansas. The tally is up nearly 92 percent from a month ago, but down 28 percent from a year ago. Drilling was underway on Friday on one lease in Ellis County, one in Barton County, two in Stafford County and three in Finney County.
Operators completed 25 new wells in Kansas in the week though March 27th. That's 294 wells so far this year, compared to 278 through the last week in March last year.
Independent Oil and Gas Service reports eleven new well completions in eastern Kansas and 14 west of Wichita. Kansas regulators gave their okay to 15 new drilling locations. That's 173 new permits so far this year, compared to 210 a year ago.