The TOTAL number of US oil and natural gas rigsslid by four to 771 last week, as the oil rig countshed 10 units for its largest drop since September 2021 and the natural gas rig countrose by six to 156, Baker Hughes data show. Separately, the Energy Information Administration reported last week that the drilled-but-uncompleted well inventory across the top seven US shale formations increased to 4,577 in December as producers drilled the most wells since March 2020.
Eagle Ford Shale Production On A Steady Growth Trajectory
The Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas is growing again after experiencing a production collapse in 2020,...
The Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas is growing again after experiencing a production collapse in 2020, with monthly oil output gains averaging about 17,000 barrels per day in the second half of 2022, according to government data, while the rig count stood at 69 last week, the highest since March 2019. The region could see oil production increase by 25,000 to 40,000 bpd this year, Rystad Energy Head of Shale Well Research Alexandre Ramos-Peon forecast.
Upstream Oil, Gas Sector Moving The Needle On Emissions
Carbon dioxide emissions in the US upstream oil and natural gas sector declined by 37.4 million short...
Carbon dioxide emissions in the US upstream oil and natural gas sector declined by 37.4 million short tons between 2019 and 2021, despite an increase in emissions associated with drilling and completions activity in 2021, an Enverus Intelligence Research analysis found. EIR analysts estimate that flaring emissions fell by 30% year over year to 16.3 million short tons of CO2 equivalent in 2022 and expect voluntary emissions reductions combined with the Environmental Protection Agency's planned changes to pneumatic controller emission reporting rules to support this downward trend.
By: Forbes - China is increasingly looking like the top beneficiary of President Joe Biden’s decision...
By: Forbes - China is increasingly looking like the top beneficiary of President Joe Biden’s decision to sell down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to lower domestic fuel prices.
Chinese-owned companies have lapped up oil from America’s emergency stockpile since the Biden administration decided to sell 180 million barrels last year to lower prices ahead of the midterm elections.
The SPR, which has a capacity of around 700 million barrels, currently has about 372 million barrels stored in salt caverns along Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. That’s down from 594 million barrels, or nearly 40 percent, from a year ago.
And while congressional Democrats benefited at the polls from falling prices, the biggest winner may be our nation’s greatest adversary.
By: NPR - Russia has been avoiding sanctions by shipping its oil with a shadow fleet of tankers. Erik...
By: NPR - Russia has been avoiding sanctions by shipping its oil with a shadow fleet of tankers.
Erik Broekhuizen, an analyst at Poten & Partners, a brokerage and consulting firm specializing in energy and maritime transportation, says the shadow fleet consists of 200 to 300 ships.
"A lot of those ships have been acquired in recent months in anticipation of this EU ban," he says. "The sole purpose of these ships is to move Russian crude just in case it would be illegal for sort of regular owners to do so."
Broekhuizen says the use of shadow fleets is common practice and has long been used by Iran and Venezuela to avoid Western oil sanctions.
"So the Russians are just taking a page out of that same book and they're sort of copying what the Iranians and the Venezuelans did," he says. The main difference is Russia is the world's top oil exporter.
Most vessels in the shadow fleets are owned by offshore companies in countries with more lenient shipping rules, such as Panama, Liberia, and Marshall Islands, says Basil Karatzas, CEO of New York-based Karatzas Marine Advisors, a shipping finance advisory firm.
