Masters Of War

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963

Sunday, May 21, 2023

oil rigs are below year ago levels for first time of pandemic recovery; April DUC well backlog fell to 4.6 months

Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at a new 39½ year low; oil and horizontal rigs fell below year ago levels for the first time of the pandemic recovery era; April DUCs down 32nd time in 34 months, DUC well backlog fell to 4.6 months

US oil prices finished higher for the first time in five weeks on hope for a debt ceiling deal, ​while widespread wildfires impacted Canadian ​oil ​production and exports to the US….after falling 1.8% to $70.0​4 a barrel last week on weak economic reports from the US and China and on the largest jump in US commercial oil supplies since February, the contract price for the benchmark US light sweet crude for June delivery rose slightly in Asian trading after a earlier decline on concerns over the US debt limit, as the possibility that the US would purchase oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve offset concerns about the us debt limit, and then moved higher in early US trading after Iran said it had seized another oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, and settled $1.07 higher at 71.11 a barrel, supported by news that wildfires in Alberta, Canada were shutting in large amounts of crude supply, and that flows of northern Iraqi crude to Turkey’s Ceyhan port had yet to resume...oil prices rose again in early Asian trading on Tuesday, as U.S. plans to purchase oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) lent support, while raging wildfires in Canada fueled supply concerns. then steadied in London trading as concerns over China’s economic recovery offset bullishness around the U.S. plan to start refilling its depleted strategic reserves, but turned south in afternoon trade to settle 25 cents lower at $70.86 a barrel as weaker-than-expected retail sales and industrial production data from China and the US offset a forecast of higher global demand from the International Energy Agency...oil prices continued to trend lower in overnight trading and posted an early low of $70.04 following a ​late Tuesday ​report by the American Petroleum Institute of an unexpected big build in crude stocks, then pushed higher in pre-inventory trade Wednesday after that same industry survey showed domestic gasoline and distillate fuel inventories fell for a second week, and advanced further as traders embraced risky assets amid optimism on U.S. debt ceiling talks while awaiting the latest data on U.S. stockpiles….oil prices then slipped lower after the EIA reported an even larger unexpected inventory build, and smaller draws on fuel supplies than the API reported, but rallied again late to finish the session $1.97 higher at $72.83 a barrel after Biden voiced confidence that an agreement on the debt ceiling would soon be reached, easing concerns about a potential default and a cascading impact on the economy and energy demand....however, Wednesday's rally dissipated in Asia on Thusday morning, with prices turning south on the build-up of US oil inventories, and on weak economic data from the US and China, then traded in a narrow range in the New York session as markets awaited the outcome of the debt ceiling negotiations, before settling 97 cents lower at $71.86 a barrel, dragged down by a rallying U.S. dollar index after ​a ​better-than-expected reading​ ​for unemployment claims raised the odds for further Fed interest rate hikes this summer....oil prices powered higher early Friday after spreading wildfires in Canada's oil-producing region of Alberta shut-in some 250,000 barrels in daily output, but pared those early gains and settled 31 cents lower at $71.55 per barrel, hit by reports that the debt ceiling talks had paused after Republican negotiators walked out the meeting, offsetting recent optimism about an impending deal, but still ended 2.1% higher on the week...

Meanwhile, US natural gas prices finished higher for the fifth week in six, buoyed by prospects for a production pullback and tighter supplies….after rising 6.0% to $2.266 per mmBTU last week after drillers shut down the most natural gas rigs in seven years,  the contract price of US natural gas for June delivery opened 9 cents higher on Monday as last week’s decline in active drilling rigs provided the momentum for a bullish start, and traded in a narrow range before settling 10.9 cents higher at $2.375 per mmBTU, as traders shrugged off continued mild weather forecasts and elevated supply data, seizing instead on a the potential decline in future production with fewer rigs in the field...after opening higher, natural gas prices faded on Tuesday after Platts forecast a string of triple-digit injections into our already oversupplied storage but still settled a tenth of a cent higher at $2.376 per mmBTU, still supported by expectations for slowing production...natural gas prices opened higher again on Wednesday, but soon started sliding as traders began betting on a larger than expected inventory increase, and settled 1.1 cents lower at $2.365 per mmBTU...however, with most traders on the wrong side of that bet, natural gas prices jumped about 10% to a nine-week high on Thursday following a smaller-than-expected U.S. injection of gas into storage, and settled 22.7 cents higher at $2.​592 per mmBTU, as wildfires kept gas exports from Canada near a 25-month low…natural gas prices held near Thursday's highs on Friday, as a lack of wind power had forced electricity generators to burn more gas this week and settled seven-tenths of a cent lower at $2.585 per mmBTU, but still ended 14.1% higher on the week..

The EIA's natural gas storage report for the week ending May 12th indicated that the amount of working natural gas held in underground storage in the US increased by 99 billion cubic feet to 2,240 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our natural gas supplies 521 billion cubic feet, or 30.3% above the 1,719 billion cubic feet that were in storage on May 12th of last year, and 340 billion cubic feet, or 17.9% more than the five-year average of 1,900 billion cubic feet of natural gas that were in storage as of the 12th of May over the most recent five years…​note, however, that the oft quoted national average obscures the fact that gas supplies are 40.6% below normal for this date in the West, while 32.8% and 29.4% above normal in both the East and Midwest regions of the country at the same time....the 99 billion cubic foot injection into US natural gas working storage for the cited week was somewhat less than the 108 billion cubic feet addition to supplies that was expected by industry analysts surveyed by Reuters, but​ it was​ more than the 87 billion cubic feet that were added to natural gas storage during the corresponding week of 2022, and also more than the average 91 billion cubic feet addition to natural gas storage that has been typical for the same Spring week over the past 5 years…

The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA

US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending May 12th showed that after a big jump in our oil imports, an equally big jump in new oil supplies that the EIA could not account for, and another substantial release of oil from the SPR, we had surplus oil to add to our stored commercial crude supplies for the 3rd time in 8 weeks, and for the 23rd time in the past 37 weeks, even as our exports of crude also rose.sharply... Our imports of crude oil rose by an average of 1,306,000 barrels per day to 6,860,000 barrels per day, after falling by an average of 843,000 barrels per day the prior week, while our exports of crude oil rose by an average of 1,434,000 barrels per day to 4,310,000 barrels per day, which combined meant that the net of our trade in oil worked out to a net import average of 2,550,000 barrels of oil per day during the week ending May 12th, 128,000 fewer barrels per day than the net of our imports minus our exports during the prior week. Over the same period, production of crude from US wells was reportedly 100,000 barrels per day lower at 12,200,000 barrels per day, and hence our daily supply of oil from the net of our international trade in oil and from domestic well production appears to have averaged a total of 14,750,000 barrels per day during the May 12th reporting week…

Meanwhile, US oil refineries reported they were processing an average of 15,990,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending May 12th, an average of 245,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil that our refineries processed during the prior week, while over the same period the EIA’s surveys indicated that a​ ​n​et​ average of 373,000 barrels of oil per day were being added to the supplies of oil stored in the US. So, based on that reported & estimated data, the crude oil figures provided by the EIA for the week ending May 12th appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports and from oilfield production was 1,614,000 barrels per day less than what we added to storage plus what our oil refineries reported they used during the week. To account for that disparity between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just inserted a [+1,614,000] barrel per day figure onto line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet in order to make the reported data for the daily supply of oil and for the consumption of it balance out, a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil”, thus suggesting there was an omission or error of that magnitude in the week’s oil supply & demand figures that we have just transcribed…..Furthermore, since last week’s “unaccounted for crude oil” was at (+771,000) barrels per day, that means there was a 842,000 barrel per day difference between this week's oil balance sheet error and the EIA's crude oil balance sheet error from a week ago, and hence the changes to supply and demand from that week to this one that are indicated by this week's report are complete nonsense...However, since most oil traders treat these weekly EIA reports as accurate, and since these weekly figures therefore often drive oil pricing, and hence decisions to drill or complete oil wells, we’ll continue to report this data just as it's published, and just as it's watched & believed to be reasonably reliable by most everyone in the industry...(for more on how this weekly oil data is gathered, and the possible reasons for that “unaccounted for” oil, see this EIA explainer)….(NB: there is also a more recent twitter thread from an EIA administrator addressing these errors, and what they hope to do about it)

This week's 373,000 barrel per day ​net ​increase in our overall crude oil inventories came as an average of 720,000 barrels per day were added to our commercially available stocks of crude oil, while 347,000 barrels per day of oil were being pulled out of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the same time, the seventh straight draw on the SPR this year, wherein government owned oil is being sold into the domestic markets as part of an earlier budget balancing withdrawal mandated by congress, and as a result the 359,586,000 barrels of oil that still remain in our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now the lowest since September 23rd, 1983, or at a new 39 1/2 year low, as repeated tapping of our emergency supplies for non-emergencies or to pay for other programs had already drained those supplies considerably over the past dozen years, even before the Biden administration's big SPR releases of last year. However, those Biden administration releases amounted to about 42% of what was left in the SPR when they took office, and that left us with what is now less than a 19 day supply of oil at the current consumption rate.

Further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicate that the 4 week average of our oil imports rose to an average of 6,296,000 barrels per day last week, which was 0.3% more than the 6,276,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week period last year. This week’s crude oil production was reported to be 100,000 barrels per day lower at 12,200,000 barrels per day because the EIA's rounded estimate of the output from wells in the lower 48 states was 100,000 barrels per day lower at 11,800,000 barrels per day, while Alaska’s oil production was ​37,​000 barrels per day lower at 405,000 barrels per day​, but still added the same 400,000 barrels per day to the rounded national total​ as it did last week...US crude oil production had reached a pre-pandemic high of 13,100,000 barrels per day during the week ending March 13th 2020, so this week’s reported oil production figure was 6.9%  below that of our pre-pandemic production peak, but was 25.8% above the pandemic low of 9,700,000 barrels per day that US oil production had fallen to during the third week of February of 2021.

US oil refineries were operating at 92.0% of their capacity while using those 15,990,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending May 12th, up from their 91.0% utilization rate during the prior week, and​ a rate that's​ on the high side of normal for mid May... The 15,990,000 barrels per day of oil that were refined this week were 0.3% more than the 15,935,000 barrels of crude that were being processed daily during week ending May 13th of 2022, but 4.1% less than the 16,676,000 barrels that were being refined during the prepandemic week ending May 10th, 2019, when our refinery utilization rate was at 90.5%, close to normal for this time of year...

Even with the increase in the amount of oil being refined this week, the gasoline output from our refineries was lower, decreasing by 341,000 barrels per day to 9,482,000 barrels per day during the week ending May 12th, after our gasoline output had increased by 445,000 barrels per day during the prior week. This week’s gasoline production was 1.0% less than the 9,574,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily over the same week of last year, and 4.3% less than the gasoline production of 9,912,000 barrels per day during the prepandemic week ending May 3rd, 2019.   On the other hand, our refineries’ production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) increased by 250,000 barrels per day to 4,856,000 barrels per day, after our distillates output had increased by 30,000 barrels per day during the prior week. Even with that increase, our distillates output was 0.5% less than the 4,880,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending May 13th of 2022, and 7.8% less than the 5,264,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending May 10th, 2019...

With this week's decrease in our gasoline production, our supplies of gasoline in storage at the end of the week fell for the eleventh time in thirteen weeks, and for the 42nd time in 64 weeks, decreasing by 1,381,000 barrels to 218,330,000 barrels during the week ending May 12th, after our gasoline inventories had decreased by 3,167,000 barrels during the prior week. Our gasoline supplies fell by less this week because the amount of gasoline supplied to US users fell by 395,000 barrels per day to 8,908,000 barrels per day, even as our imports of gasoline fell by 9,000 barrels per day to 844,000 barrels per day, while our exports of gasoline rose by 179,000 barrels per day to 930,000 barrels per day.  After eleven gasoline inventory decreases over the past thirteen weeks, our gasoline supplies were 0.8% below last May 13th's gasoline inventories of 220,189,000 barrels, and about 6% below the five year average of our gasoline supplies for this time of the year…

Meanwhile, with this week's big increase in our distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels increased for the 2nd time in 10 weeks, rising by 80,000 barrels to 106,233,000 barrels during the week ending May 12th, after our distillates supplies had decreased by 4,170,000 barrels to a six month low during the prior week. Our distillates supplies managed an increase this week because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of our domestic demand, decreased by 299,000 barrels per day to 3,736,000 barrels per day, and because our exports of distillates fell by 42,000 barrels per day to 1,236,000 barrels per day​, ​while our imports of distillates rose by 17,000 barrels per day to 128,000 barrels per day.... Even after 64 inventory withdrawals over the past one hundred and three weeks, our distillate supplies at the end of the week were 2.0% above the 104,029,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on May 13th of 2022, but are still about 16% below the five year average of our distillates inventories for this time of the year...

Finally, even with 1.3 million barrels per day of new oil supplies that the EIA could not account for, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage rose for the 15th time in 21 weeks and for the 28th time in the past year, increasing by 5,040,000 barrels over the week, from 462,584,000 barrels on May 5th to 467,624,000 barrels on  May 12th, after our commercial crude supplies had increased by 2,951,000 barrels over the prior  week. Even after several large oil supply increases in the weeks following the Christmas refinery freeze offs, our commercial crude oil inventories are still slightly below the most recent five-year average of commercial oil supplies for this time of year, but are around 30% above the average of our available crude oil stocks as of the second weekend of May over the 5 years at the beginning of the past decade, with the apparent disparity between those comparisons arising because it wasn’t until early 2015 that our oil inventories first topped 400 million barrels. After our commercial crude oil inventories had jumped to record highs during the Covid lockdowns of the Spring of 2020, then jumped again after February 2021's winter storm Uri froze off US Gulf Coast refining, but then fell in the wake of the Ukraine war, our commercial crude supplies as of this May 12th were 11.1% more than the 420,820,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage on May 13th of 2022, but were still 3.8% less than the 486,011,000 barrels of oil that we still had in storage in the wake of winter storm Uri on May 14th of 2021, and 11.1% less than the 526,494,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage after the pandemic effects took hold on May 15th of 2020…

This Week's Rig Count

The number of drilling rigs active in the US decreased for the tenth time in the past fourteen weeks during the week ending May 19th, and is now 9.2% below the prepandemic count, despite increasing ninety-nine times over the past 137 weeks... Baker Hughes reported that the total count of rotary rigs drilling in the US fell by 11 rigs to 720 rigs over the past week, which was 8 fewer rigs than the 728 rigs that were in use as of the May 20th report of 2022, and was also 1,209 fewer rigs than the shale era high of 1,929 drilling rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014, a week before OPEC began to flood the global market with oil in an attempt to put US shale out of business. .

The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 11 to 575 oil rigs during the past week, after the number of rigs targeting oil had fallen by two rigs during the prior week, and there is now one less oil rig active now than was running a year ago, as they amount to just 35.7% of the shale era high of 1609 rigs that were drilling for oil on October 10th, 2014, and while they are now down 15.8% from the prepandemic oil rig count of 683….at the same time, the number of drilling rigs targeting natural gas bearing formations was unchanged at 141 natural gas rigs, which was still down by 9 natural gas rigs from the 150 natural gas rigs that were drilling during the same week a year ago, and as they now amount to just 8.8% of the modern high of 1,606 rigs targeting natural gas that were deployed on September 7th, 2008….

In addition to those rigs specifically targeting oil and natural gas, Baker Hughes shows that four rigs they've labeled as "miscellaneous" are drilling this week: those include a directional rig drilling to between 10,000 and 15,000 feet into a formation in Beaver county Utah, a directional rig drilling to between 5,000 and 10,000 feet on the big island of Hawaii, a directional rig drilling to between 5,000 and 10,000 feet into a formation in Lake county California that Baker Hughes doesn't track, and a directional rig drilling to between 5,000 and 10,000 feet into a formation in Pershing county Nevada, also into a formation unnamed by Baker Hughes. While we haven't seen any details on any of those wells, in the past we've identified various "miscellaneous" rig activity as being for exploration rather than production, for carbon dioxide storage, and for utility scale geothermal projects....Four operating at once is unusual; a year ago, there were two such "miscellaneous" rigs running...

The offshore rig count in the Gulf of Mexico was down by one to 21 rigs this week, with 18 of those rigs drilling for oil in Louisiana's offshore waters, one drilling for natural gas offshore from Vermilion, Louisiana, and two drilling for oil in Texas waters....that Gulf rig count is up by 4 from the 17 Gulf rigs running a year ago, when all 17 Gulf rigs were drilling for oil offshore from Louisiana…however, since there was a rig drilling offshore from Alaska during the same week a year ago, the national total of 21 rigs drilling offshore is up by 3 rigs from the national offshore count of 18 a year ago..

In addition to rigs running offshore, there are still two inland water based deployed this week...one is a vertical rig drilling for natural gas to between 10,000 and 15,000 feet on a lake in Jefferson Parish Louisiana, while the other is a directional rig drilling for oil at a depth of between 10,000 and 15,000 feet through an inland body of water in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana...a year ago, there was just one such rig drilling on inland waters...

The count of active horizontal drilling rigs was down by ten to 650 horizontal rigs this week, which was 14 fewer rigs than the 664 horizontal rigs that were in use in the US on May 20th of last year, and only 47.3% of the record 1,374 horizontal rigs that were drilling on November 21st of 2014…at the same time, the directional rig count was down by 1 to 51 directional rigs this week, but those were up by 12 from the 39 directional rigs that were operating during the same week a year ago....on the other hand, the vertical rig count was unchanged at 19 vertical rigs this week, but those were down by 6 from the 25 vertical rigs that were in use on May 20th of 2022…

The details on this week’s changes in drilling activity by state and by major shale basin are shown in our screenshot below of that part of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes that gives us those changes…the first table below shows weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major oil & gas producing states, and the table below that shows the weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major US geological oil and gas basins…in both tables, the first column shows the active rig count as of May 19th, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week’s count (May 12th) and this week’s (May 19th) count, the third column shows last week’s May 12th active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Friday and the number running on the Friday before the same weekend of a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting week a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 20th of May, 2022...

this week we'll start by checking the Rigs by State file at Baker Hughes for the changes in the Texas Permian…there we find that there were five rigs pulled out of Texas Oil District 8, which overlies the core Permian Delaware, and that another rig was pulled out of Texas Oil District 8A, which includes the counties over the northern Permian Midland, while one rig was added in Texas Oil District 7C, which includes the counties over the southern Permian Midland.....since those changes indicate the Texas Permian rig count was down by 5 while the national Permian count was down by four, we can thus conclude the that rig added in New Mexico was set up in the far western Permian Delaware in the southeast corner of that state...meanwhile, in the Texas oil districts that include portions of the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas, which was down by 3 oil rigs this week, we find that three rigs were pulled out of Texas Oil District 1,  that two more rigs were pulled out of Texas Oil District 2, and that another rig was pulled out of Texas Oil District 3, while two rigs were added in Texas Oil District 4, with all of those not all necessarily targeting the Eagle Ford...the net loss of four rigs in those four districts, plus the loss of 5 rigs in the Texas Permian thus accounts for this week's nine rig decrease in Texas drilling....

in other states, Colorado saw the removal of two oil rigs that had been drilling in the DJ Niobrara chalk, while Wyoming added a rig targeting that formation in Laramie County....the oil rig pulled from Oklahoma's Ardmore Woodford, meanwhile, must have been offset by the addition of another oil rig elsewhere in the state for the Oklahoma count to remain unchanged...at the same time, Louisiana was down a rig with the removal of an oil rig from the state's offshore waters, and California was down a rig with the removal of a shallow vertical oil rig that had been drilling in Kern county...

oddly enough, after last week had seen the largest drop in drilling for natural gas in over seven years, this week saw no net changes whatsoever among the natural gas rigs, although it's always possible that there were offsetting changes among gas rigs someplace that wouldn't show up in the totals..

DUC well report for April

Monday of the past week saw the release of the EIA's Drilling Productivity Report for May, which included the EIA's April data on drilled but uncompleted (DUC) oil and gas wells in the 7 most productive shale regions (click tab 3)....that data showed an decrease in uncompleted wells nationally for the 32nd time out of the past 34 months, as both well completions and drilling of new wells fell in April, and remained well below the average pre-pandemic levels...for the 7 sedimentary regions covered by this report, the total count of DUC wells decreased by 42 wells, falling from a revised 4,905 DUC wells in March to 4,863 DUC wells in April, which was also 8.0% fewer DUCs than the 5,288 wells that had been drilled but remained uncompleted as of the end of April of a year ago...this month's DUC decrease occurred as 1,021 wells were drilled in the 7 regions that this report covers (representing 87% of all U.S. onshore drilling operations) during April, down one from the 1,022 wells that were drilled in March, while 1,063 wells were completed and brought into production by fracking them, down from the 1,075 well completions seen in March , but up by 190 from the 873 completions seen in April of last year....at the April completion rate, the 4,676 drilled but uncompleted wells remaining at the end of the month represents a 4.6 month backlog of wells that have been drilled but are not yet fracked, down from the 4.7 month DUC well backlog of a month ago, but up from the 7 1/2 year low of 4.4 months of six months ago, despite a completion rate that is now about 13% below 2019's pre-pandemic average...

Oil basin DUCS fell in April while natural gas basin DUCs were a bit higher, as three out of the seven basins covered by this report saw DUCs increase....the number of uncompleted wells in the Permian basin of west Texas and New Mexico decreased by 36, from 951 DUC wells at the end of March to 915 DUCs at the end of April, as 474 new wells were drilled into the Permian basin during April, while 510 already drilled wells in the region were being fracked....at the same time, DUC wells in the Bakken of North Dakota were down by 12 to 565 by the end of April, as 79 wells were drilled into the Bakken during April, while 91 of the drilled wells in the Bakken were being fracked.....in addition, DUCs in the Eagle Ford shale of south Texas decreased by 8, from 502 DUC wells at the end of March to 494 DUCs at the end of April, as 110 wells were drilled in the Eagle Ford during March, while 118 of the already drilled Eagle Ford wells were fracked...on the other hand, DUC wells in the Niobrara chalk of the Rockies' front range increased by 7, rising from 702 at the end of March to 709 DUC wells at the end of April, as 117 wells were drilled into the Niobrara chalk during April, while 110 Niobrara wells were completed....at the same time, the number of uncompleted wells remaining in Oklahoma's Anadarko basin increased by 1, rising from 739 at the end of March to 740 DUC wells at the end of April, as 65 wells were drilled into the Anadarko basin during April, while 66 Anadarko wells were completed....

among the natural gas producing regions, the drilled but uncompleted well count in the Appalachian region, which includes the Utica shale, decreased by five wells, from 708 DUCs at the end of March to 703 DUCs at the end of April, as 102 new wells were drilled into the Marcellus and Utica shales during the month, while 107 of the already drilled wells in the region were fracked....on the other hand, the uncompleted well inventory in the natural gas producing Haynesville shale of the northern Louisiana-Texas border region rose by 11, from 726 DUCs in March to 737 DUCs by the end of April, as 73 wells were drilled into the Haynesville during April, while just 62 of the already drilled Haynesville wells were fracked during the same period....thus, for the month of April, DUCs in the five major oil-producing basins tracked by this report (ie., the Anadarko, Bakken, Niobrara, Permian, and Eagle Ford) decreased by 46 to 3,423 DUC wells, while the uncompleted well count in the major natural gas basins (the Marcellus, the Utica, and the Haynesville) increased by 4 to 1,440 DUC wells, although as this report notes, once into production, more than half the wells drilled nationally will produce both oil and gas...

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Note:  there’s more here..

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