John P. Tretbar
Crude futures prices on Friday climbed to a settlement above $61, but that still marked the largest weekly loss since October. U.S. crude prices were down slightly in midday trading Monday. At CHS in McPherson, crude prices are up a dollar fifty a barrel. Kansas Common crude starts the week at $51.75 per barrel. That's up from $51 at the first of the month, and a full $13 a barrel higher than at the first of the year.
Two weeks of declining gasoline stockpiles pumped up national pump prices by 40 cents since the winter storm hit Texas. Triple-A reports Americans are paying an average of 14% more to fill up compared to February. EIA says gasoline inventories are now increasing, but stockpiles are about four percent below the five-year average for this time of year. The national average pump price for regular gasoline is just over $2.88, more than seventy cents higher than a year ago. The average across Kansas is $2.67 a gallon. Filling up a 15-gallon tank will cost you two dollars more than last week, six dollars more than last month, and 12 dollars more than a year ago at this time.
The Rig Count in Kansas was up slightly, adding one rig west of Wichita last week. Independent Oil & Gas Service reports operators about to spud a new well in Ellis County. Drilling is underway at one lease in Stafford County and one in Russell County.
Baker Hughes reported 411 active drilling rigs across the US Friday. That's an increase of nine oil rigs including seven new entries in New Mexico.
Regulators gave their okay to 12 new drilling permits across Kansas last week, four of them east of Wichita and eight in the western half of the state, including one new permit in Barton County.
Independent Oil & Gas reported 12 newly-completed wells for the week ending March 18. Five are east of Wichita and seven are in Western Kansas, including one each in Barton and Stafford counties.
The government reports U.S. crude production last week was up one thousand barrels per day over the week before at 10.86 million barrels per day. A year ago this week, operators pumped more than 13 million barrels per day.
The Energy Information Administration reports U.S. crude-oil inventories jumped nearly two-and-a-half million barrels last week, topping 500 million barrels for the first time this year.
Imports were down 332-thousand barrels per day to 5.3 million. The four-week average is down nearly 14% from the same four weeks a year ago.
Oil-by-rail shipments in the United States continue to grow, but still lag behind totals from a year ago. According to the Association of American Railroads, operators shipped 11,379 tanker cars of petroleum and petroleum product by rail during the week ending March 13. That's an increase of 877 cars from the week before, but the total remains about 14% behind last year. In Canada, oil-by-rail traffic increased by about a thousand rail cars week-over-week, but remain about 17% behind the totals from a year ago.
Every two years the Legislative Assembly in North Dakota must approve state spending. As you might expect, predicting income two years in advance is a tall order for a budget that relies largely on oil and gas revenue. In the last two years, we've seen prices above $70 and below zero. On Monday, the lawmakers announced their best guess, marking an increase in expectations, based on an optimistic view of stable oil prices and production. It marks an increase of $95 million from their starting point in July.
New data from an oil-and-gas watchdog in New Mexico show the state had fewer spills from the oil and gas industry last year than in years past, but greater emissions. According to the Carlsbad Current Argus newspaper, last year continued a string of annual declines in oil and wastewater spills reaching the lowest total since 2013. But the report suggests methane emissions were the highest since they began tracking them in 2013.
The world's largest oil company saw profits tumble last year. Saudi Aramco reported earnings of $49 BILLION in 2020, which is down 44% from the $88 BILLION they reported the year before. The state-owned company's CEO described last year as one of the most challenging years in history.