By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Eagle Media
Out of seven new drilling permits in Western Kansas last week, three are close to home. Statewide, drilling permits are down 27 percent from a year ago. There are seven new drilling locations in Western Kansas this week, including three in Ellis County. That's nine so far this year in Ellis County and 363 statewide. Independent Oil and Gas Service reported 17 new well-completions statewide.
The weekly rig count from Baker Hughes drops by seven oil rigs and one gas rig to the lowest US tally in nearly four years. The breakout for horizontal drilling is down a whopping sixteen rigs. Oklahoma is down three, Texas and New Mexico are each down two.The Kansas Rig Count is unchanged at 12 rigs statewide but down two in Western Kansas.
The Kansas Corporation Commission reports 82 new intent-to-drill notices across the state last month. That's 307 so far this year. After six months last year we had 506. A search at the KCC Web site turns up four new intents in Barton County, 11 so far this year, compared to 14 a year ago. In Ellis County, two Intents came up for June, noting eight through June, up from five through June last year.
Commercial crude inventories are up nearly four million barrels at 419 million. Stockpiles are nine percent below the five year average for this time of year. EIA reports another 200,000 barrels in refills this week for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. DOE has added 9.1 million barrels this year in weekly increments ranging from 200,000 to 1.1 million barrels, at prices an average $28 cheaper than what we sold it for three years ago.
EIA says we're still a net petroleum exporter, but only by 404-thousand barrels a day. That ratio last week was over 3.7million. A big drop in exports skews reporting on Net Petroleum Imports. Crude exports were down by nearly half, from 4.3 million to 2.3 million barrels a day. Crude imports last week increased by a million daily barrels to just over 6.9 million. Product imports were down slightly. Product exports were down half a million daily barrels or seven percent.
Domestic crude-oil production declined this week after inching upward in each of the last eight weeks. The Energy Information Administration reports output for the week through June 27th of 13,433,000 barrels per day, down two thousand barrels from the week before. The four-week average is up more than 200-thousand barrels a day from a year ago. Cumulative production for this year drops slightly but remains more than a quarter-million barrels a day higher than the same tally a year ago.
The United States set some new milestones in energy consumption in 2024. The Energy Information Administration reports total US energy consumption rose by one percent last year to 94 quads, or 94 quadrillion British Thermal Units. EIA says fossil fuels, including petroleum, natural gas and coal, account for 82% of domestic energy. Renewable energy sources and nuclear energy account for the rest. Petroleum remains the top source, as it has been for 75 years. Natural gas is second. For the first time, nuclear energy consumption surpassed coal to become our number-three energy source.