By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Eagle Media
President-elect Donald Trump announced the nomination of oil industry executive Chris Wright to lead the Department of Energy. Wright is the CEO of Colorado-based Liberty Energy. If confirmed, he takes over a department that oversees the country's energy supplies, research and development of nuclear power, 17 national laboratories and the cleanup of Cold War-era nuclear efforts.
The Energy Department added 600,000 barrels to the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, raising the total to nearly 388 million barrels, down about ten percent from a year ago.
The government reports commercial crude inventories rose by more than two million barrels last week to nearly 430 million barrels. Stockpiles are four percent below the five-year seasonal average.
U.S. crude production dipped by 96,000 barrels a day in the week through November 8. Stockpiles are over 13.4 million barrels for only the eighth time in history. Four-week average production is down about two percent from a year ago. Cumulative production so far this year is up nearly six percent at over 13.2 million barrels per day.
The nation's inventory of shale wells drilled but uncompleted dropped by 19 wells nationwide. The Energy Information Administration reports the list went up in the Permian basin and the Haynesville shale basin in Louisiana. The tallies all dropped from last month in the Eagle Ford play in Texas, The Bakken shale in North Dakota and across Appalachia in the northeastern United States.
The Kansas Rig Count from Independent Oil and Gas Service is down four rigs in the western half of the state at 15 rigs. The tally is down nine percent from a month ago and 23% lower than last year at this time. Drilling was underway on Friday on a least in Barton County. Operators were preparing to spud new wells on one lease in Barton County and another in Ellis County.
The count in eastern Kansas is unchanged at 15 rigs.
Operators in Kansas completed 26 wells last week, bringing the total this year to 1,163 wells. That's down 322 wells from last year at this time. The tally of completions rose by 19 in Western Kansas, adding one well in Barton County, one in Ellis County, and one in Stafford County.
Kansas regulators gave their okay to 20 new drilling locations across the state, with 13 east of Wichita and seven in western Kansas, including one in Barton County and two in Ellis County. That's 1,005 new drilling permits so far this year, down 166 permits from a year ago.
The rig counts from Baker Hughes dropped by one gas rig and one oil rig for a total of 584 active drilling rigs nationwide. Texas was up two while New Mexico dropped by two. Oklahoma and Pennsylvania were each up one rig. Utah was down one.
In response tightened sanctions on Russia, Iran and Venezuela, the OPEC-Plus producers are amassing a huge fleet of shadow tankers to bypass trade restrictions and continue seaborne oil shipments. The so-called shadow fleet now makes up nearly 20% of the global tanker fleet. They tend to be poorly maintained, under-insured, and dangerous at sea due to manipulated tracking signals.
Analysis by S&P Global suggests there are 889 illicit tankers worldwide moving sanctioned oil. They're mostly controlled by Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan state interests that have been able to acquire a large amount of vintage ships in secondhand transactions.
The government now says more than one-third of US natural gas production does not come from gas wells. A new report shows that natural gas produced at oil-wells, so-called "associated natural gas," now accounts for 36.7 of all natural gas produced in the US. Te Energy Information Administration reports associated natural gas production is up nearly eight percent.
The Permian Basin in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico accounts for 46% of US crude production and roughly two-thirds of the associated natural gas produced nationwide.
North Dakota skies used to light up at night, as producers in the Bakken play burning off natural gas created a spectacle visible from space. A government initiative to reduce flaring in North Dakota has created a different kind of spectacle: a massive profit center. Associated gas accounts for 70% of the natural gas produced in North Dakota.