News from the Oil Patch, June 15
By John P. Tretbar
The weekly supply report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration offers some surprises:
*Over the last six weeks, Saudi Arabia and Iraq together shipped nearly 1.5 million barrels to US shores. Both countries export mostly by sea, from ports within the Persian Gulf, on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.
*EIA reports Venezuela, currently under US management, has managed to ship us more than three million barrels since the first of May.
*Crude-oil imports from Canada, our number-one supplier, recover after dropping last week. But they remain below four thousand barrels per day for a fourth consecutive week.
*Total US crude imports drop half a million barrels a day from last week to 5.9 million. The four-week average is down just under six percent from the same four weeks last year. Crude exports drop by a million barrels, or 17%, to 4.8 million barrels a day. Last week, exports vaulted 32 percent to the second biggest weekly tally ever.
The government reports the tenth-highest weekly crude-oil production average ever, at just under 13.8 million barrels a day. That's up 92,000 daily barrels from a week ago and 371,000 barrels a day higher than a year ago. It marks the highest production total since January and the second-highest this year. The government swaps another 7.9 million barrels from US strategic stockpiles into the international marketplace this week, dropping the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to just over 349 million barrels. EIA says SPR inventories are down 53 million barrels, or 13 percent, from a year ago.
US commercial inventories drop more than seven million barrels, to just over 426 million as of June 5. Commercial crude stocks in the US have declined every week since the end of April, dropping more than 39 million barrels in that time.
This week's Rotary Rig Count from Baker Hughes is down three gas rigs. The oil count is up two. US rig counts have been rising steadily since dipping to a recent low in early April, with eight weekly increases since then. The total for US inland, on land, and offshore, is 562 rigs. Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico were each up one rig. Utah is down one; Louisiana is down three. The count across the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico is down one from last week, and down 17 rigs from a year ago.
The Kansas Rig Count from Independent Oil and Gas Service is down twenty percent from last week, down six percent from last month, but up by 33 percent from a year ago. At five active rigs, the tally in eastern Kansas is down four. Western Kansas reports eleven active rigs, which is unchanged from a week ago. Operators were spinning drill-bits or about to spud on Friday on leases in Finney, Haskell and Rooks counties and two leases in Gove County.
Independent Oil and Gas Service reports the number of wells drilled from spud to full depth so far this year is down nine percent from a year ago, at 318 wells. Total footage is down 32 percent, year-over-year. Operators complete eleven new wells this week, 319 so far this year, down from 546 a year ago. New service wells in Ellis and Gove counties are included among the three in Western Kansas.
Kansas regulators okayed permits for drilling at 27 new locations across the state this week, with 19 in eastern Kansas including 13 new permits in Anderson County. That's 344 new drilling permits this year, compared to 308 a year ago. Permits have for the last several weeks been one of the only metrics to surpass comparisons to a year ago. Out of eight new drilling locations West of Wichita this week, we spotted permits in Russell, Gove and Haskell counties and two in Graham County. The current tally of new oil fields discovered and named in The Sunflower State is way down from the tally a year ago, which was nothing to write home about.
Last month the Kansas Geological Society's Nomenclature Committee met virtually to recognize and name three new oil fields and one new in-field wildcat discovery. That's five new fields so far this year. By June of last year the committee had named 21 new fields, which was less than half the 57 fields reported the year before that.