productivity

On Friday, global energy markets entered uncharted territory. Already facing declining demand due to the impact of COVID-19, markets then were dealt a body blow with the collapse of the OPEC-Plus alliance and the resulting prospect of a significant increase in supply. Saudi Arabia wanted to manage supply to balance against lower demand, but Russia was having none of it. Instead, reports from the OPEC-Plus meeting indicate that Vladimir Putin has declared war on U.S. shale. Then on Saturday, the plot thickened. Saudi Arabia made huge cuts in the price of its crude oil, presumably in a high-stakes move to bring Russia back to the negotiating table. Even though we are witnessing unprecedented market conditions, it’s not Armageddon. Crude oil will continue to be pumped, piped, shipped and refined. Most infrastructure projects under construction before the collapse in oil prices will be completed. The big question is, how will the market adapt? In today’s blog, we’ll begin an exploration of that question.

Associated natural gas production from North Dakota’s oil-focused Bakken Shale is rising as rigs are being added in the region. Bakken gas output reached a record 1.18 Bcf/d this past May. The incremental gas production in the area is intensifying competition with imports from the already-beleaguered Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), which share the same pipeline capacity and target the same Midwest demand markets. The trend also is prompting calls for more pipeline capacity out of the Bakken. How much more capacity is needed and by when? Today, we look at existing natural gas takeaway capacity and flows out of the Bakken.

For as long as producers have been drilling in the Bakken Shale — the oil-rich formation straddling North Dakota and Montana (plus Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada) — associated natural gas, an inherent byproduct, has taken a back seat to crude oil production from the play. In fact, at one point nearly 50% of Bakken’s produced natural gas was being flared, in large part due to limited midstream capacity to gather, process and move the gas to market. But that’s changed in the past couple of years. Substantial midstream capacity has been built. Flaring has eased considerably, and with the shift in drilling activity to the best, most productive acreage, the gas-to-oil output ratio has increased. Add to that rising rig counts and productivity gains in those sweet spots and that phenomenon becomes amplified. The result is that while oil production has largely stagnated this year below peak levels, associated gas volumes from the play climbed to a record high this past May. But will this trend be sustained, and, if so, what will it mean for gas flows, takeaway capacity and gas-on-gas competition at the Canadian border? Today, we begin a blog series looking at gas production trends in the Bakken and implications for gas pipeline flows as well as competing supplies.

Energy markets will long remember 2015.  For producers and midstreamers, the memories won’t be pleasant. But it was not all bad news.  Particularly if you happen to be an energy buyer or refiner. As we’ve done for the past four years, today is a day for looking back over the past twelve months in the RBN blogosphere – to see which blogs have generated the most interest from you, our readers.  We track the hit rate for each of our daily blogs, and the number of hits tells you a lot about what is going on in energy markets.  So once again we have taken a page out of the late Casey Kasem’s playbook to look at the top blogs of 2015 based on numbers of website hits.

In connection with third-quarter earnings announcements, North American exploration and production companies (E&Ps) continued to announce large reductions in 2015 and 2016 capital budgets. But the most dramatic news is that RBN’s analysis of a study group of 31 E&Ps fourth quarter forecasts indicates that oil and gas production is now expected to level off in the fourth quarter of 2015 and into 2016. Today we update our analysis of E&P capital spending and oil and gas production guidance.

Yesterday the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released their 2015 Annual Energy Outlook that forecasts U.S. demand for natural gas to increase by as much as 42% from 2014’s 26 TCF/year to 37 TCF/year by 2040. That translates to 101 BCF/d and is predicated on long term supplies of relatively cheap gas! Can the U.S. produce that much gas over the long term?  Last week a group that is little known outside the natural gas industry – the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) provided an answer to that question when they announced their latest estimate of economically recoverable natural gas resources in the U.S. Today we analyze the impact of the latest PGC estimate and its long-term implications for the natural gas industry.

<p>Last year was a banner year for the sand mining companies that cater to the U.S. shale drilling services industry.</p>

If you work for a producer or oil field services company, you might have a bit of an issue with that title.  But just for a moment, put your worries aside and consider the silver lining – huge improvements in our industry’s productivity over the last few years.  Things are getting better and better.  In fact that is part of the problem.  Producers have just become too productive for their own good. We’ve seen the consequences of this kind of productivity improvement before, not in the energy industry, but in electronics.  Moore’s law, remember?  In today’s posting we’ll look at some of the evidence of huge productivity improvements, what it has meant for production volumes, and the implications for U.S. producers now facing many of the same issues that electronics companies have dealt with for decades.

By Friday (January 9, 2015) crude prices had fallen 55% since June 2014, natural gas prices are at the lowest since 2012 and natural gas liquids are suffering as well. The potential revenues from U.S. shale oil production in 2015 would be a whopping $66 billion lower at $50/Bbl than when oil was  $100/Bbl last year. In this new world where prices may not return close to pre-crash levels for a number of years, producers are scrambling to reconfigure drilling budgets and locations. The exercise is all about rates of return and figuring out breakeven prices. Today we start a new series looking under the hood at production drilling economics including results from our own models.