John P. Tretbar
Tugboat captains blared their horns Monday as that huge container ship blocking ten percent of the world's sea commerce was finally re-floated, six days after wedging itself into the mud along the Suez Canal. But, as so often happens, there are those on the Internet who are not happy with the end of their memes. On Twitter, "PUT IT BACK" has become a trending topic in the United States.
Heavy dirt-movers and multiple tugboats were aided by high
tides, high winds, and a full moon Sunday night and Monday morning, as the
EVERGIVEN finally regained buoyancy and was able to resume it's course
northward through the Suez Canal. Now the ship's owners, its insurers, and its
lawyers are bracing for a raft of lawsuits. There were over 300 ships waiting
in line to use the canal on Sunday. Analysts say that backlog could be with us
for days if not weeks. The traffic jam delayed billions of dollars in trade
every day, causing some big problems for regional hot spots Syria and Lebanon,
where fuel shortages have already prompted rationing and blackouts.
Kansas Crude prices during the month of March have been up and down, between a
low of $48 a barrel and a high of fifty-six twenty-five. But Kansas
Common starts this week at fifty-ONE twenty-five, which is just 25 cents more
than the price at the start of the month.
Oil-by-rail shipments across the U.S. showed another weekly increase. Operators
moved 11,639 petroleum tanker cars during the week ending March 20, up 260 cars
from the week before. That's down nearly four percent from a year ago, marking
the smallest year-over-year decline since since January.
Baker Hughes on Friday reported 417 active drilling rigs across the country, an
increase six oil rigs. The count in Texas was up three for the week.
Independent Oil & Gas Service reported a 40% drop in its weekly Rig Count
in Kansas. There's one active drilling rig in the eastern half of the state,
down five from the week before. In Western Kansas, there are 11 active rigs,
down three.
Regulators okayed 33 new drilling permits last week across Kansas, 26 of them
east of Wichita and seven in Western Kansas. That's 188 new permits so far this
year. Independent Oil & Gas Service reports 26 newly-completed wells across
the state, all of them in Western Kansas, including two in Barton County.
That's 159 completed wells so far this year, compared to more than 300 by the
end of the first quarter last year, as prices plunged and operators began shutting
down production.
The Kansas Geological Society earlier this year recognized and named four new
oil and gas fields in Kansas. One of them is the Kay field in Ellis County,
targeting the Lansing-Kansas City formation. The Kay#1 well is operated by TDI
Incorporated.
The government reported the fifth consecutive weekly increase in U.S. crude-oil
inventories. The Energy Information Administration reports stockpiles of over
502 million barrels last week, up by nearly two million barrels. That's about
six percent above the five-year seasonal average.
The government reports an increase in weekly U.S. crude-oil production of
94-thousand barrels per day compared to the week before. EIA reports an average
of 10.86 million [["ten point eight six million"'']] barrels per day
for the week ending March 19. A year ago this week, domestic output was
just shy of 13 million barrels per day.
The four-week average for U.S. crude imports remains about 13 percent less than
reports from the same four weeks last year. EIA reports average imports last
week were up 41-thousand barrels per day over the week before at 5.9 million
barrels per day.
A huge railroad merger should make it easier to move Canadian crude to the Gulf
Coast, and refined products from there into Mexico. Canadian Pacific Railway is
buying Kansas City Southern. The $25 BILLION stock-and-cash deal would create
the Calgary-based "Canadian Pacific Kansas City," which is touted as
the first rail network connecting the US, Mexico and Canada. The integrated
company would boast 20,000 miles of rail network stretching from the Alberta
oil sands through central Mexico. The merged railroad would represent the
smallest of the six major freight haulers in the United States. Reaction has
been mixed. The Premier of Alberta Province said the deal was a win for crude
oil export capacity from Western Canada following the cancellation of the
Keystone pipeline expansion project. But some longtime crude-by-rail exporters
don't expect it will make much difference, with most oil-by-rail in the region
already shipping via the new company's biggest competitor, Canadian National
Railway.