shut-ins

Well, here we are. The last day of 2020. We are tempted to say “unprecedented” to describe the year. But the word is so overused — there’s been an unprecedented use of the word “unprecedented” — let’s just say it will be good riddance to have this one behind us. After all, we’ve seen a collapse in transportation fuel demand, an oil price war between major producers, negative $37/bbl crude prices, massive LNG cargo cancellations — the list goes on — all in the context of a global pandemic and much of the world committed to weaning itself off fossil fuels over the next few decades. How do you make sense of all that? How do you anticipate when it’s going to be “all right” again? Well, one thing we can do is to heed the events and trends that captured the market’s attention during all this chaos. In other words, to put a spotlight on the things that the market considers top priority — crowd-sourced market intelligence, if you will. Well, at RBN we have one way to do that. We scrupulously monitor the website hit rate of the RBN blogs that are fired off to over 30,000 people each day and, at the end of each year, we look back to see which topics generated the most interest from you, our readers. That hit rate reveals a lot about major market trends. So, once again, we look into the rear-view mirror to check out the Top 10 blogs of the year based on the number of rbnenergy.com website hits.

Natural gas economic shut-ins! Shutting off a producing well on purpose, because the market won’t take the produced volume at a reasonable price. There was a time, back before gas commodity decontrol, when shut-ins were standard operating procedure, but that practice went the way of the dodo bird 40 years ago. Until earlier this year that is, when amid crushingly low prices, Appalachian producers said: enough is enough — and shut off the spigot themselves. In the months that followed, various producers have continued to see-saw their production in response to weather-related demand and regional market prices. The behavior signals that Appalachia’s shale gas producers are increasingly employing a light-switch approach in dealing with short-term weakness in demand and prices. Today, we take a closer look at the price-driven curtailments in the Northeast and potential implications for the market.

Just as U.S. LNG exports were beginning to recover from months of market-driven cargo cancellations, major Hurricane Laura has cut the rebound short. With Laura taking aim at the Texas-Louisiana border — the location of two large-scale LNG export terminals, including the U.S.’s largest export facility, Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass Liquefaction terminal — total feedgas flows to U.S. terminals the past two days dived to fresh lows for 2020 and the lowest since February 2019. Gas production is also way down, with offshore Gulf of Mexico production shut-ins compounding the effects of already depressed drilling and completion activity this year. But production has the potential to rebound more quickly than LNG exports, which could exacerbate the onshore demand effects of the storm; It already will bring cooler weather and drench gas demand for power generation as it moves inland over the Southeast and into the Mid-Atlantic states. Today, we look at how LNG exports are being affected by the storm and what that could mean for the overall gas market balance in the coming days.

Bakken associated gas production volume, after falling to its lowest levels in three years in early May and remaining depressed through June, has surged by 500 MMcf/d, or about 45%, in the past month and a half to 1.7 Bcf/d. However, the gains have occurred in the absence of a meaningful change in rig counts or well completion activity, which remains sluggish. Similar to the Permian, the Bakken production recovery has been almost entirely driven by existing wells returning to service after being shut in earlier this year in response to the oil price collapse. With little in the way of new drilling and completion activity, how long will it be before natural declines of existing wells begin to take a toll on Bakken output? Today, we examine prospects for continued strength in Bakken gas production volumes.

Associated natural gas production out of the Permian Basin rebounded sharply a few weeks ago, indicating production curtailments that went into effect in May in response to low crude oil prices are coming back online. Just as abruptly as gas production dived in early May, it lurched upward in late June, nearly back to where it was before the shut-ins began. But the rig count has continued falling to a record low, and indications are that many of the wells drilled over the past few weeks have not been completed. The meager drilling and completion activity suggests that the natural declines of existing wells, which were temporarily exaggerated by the shut-ins, will now be felt — and felt for as long as rig counts remain depressed — not just in the Permian but also in other oil-focused basins. Daily gas production volumes in the Permian in the past 10 days or so already are slipping, despite shut-ins tapering. Today, we examine the latest production trends in the Permian and what it will mean for the gas production outlook.