U.S. Rig Count Falls to Lowest Level EVER – Since Records Began
Baker Hughes, one of the largest oilfield services (drilling) companies in the U.S. and the world, began keeping records on rig counts starting in 1987. As of May 12, 2020, producers operated 339 rigs in the U.S. That’s the lowest number of operating rigs since Baker Hughes began publishing its venerated rig count. It’s not the kind of record we like to see broken.
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We’ve been eagerly anticipating this month’s edition of our favorite report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), to see how much gas production in the Marcellus/Utica will decrease. The DPR estimates how much oil and natural gas each of the country’s seven largest shale plays produced in the previous (current) month, and how much each will produce in the coming (next) month.
Enverus (formerly Drillinginfo) is a leading data, software and insights company that provides information to upstream, midstream, and downstream companies. Enverus experts have just published an “Oil and Gas Fundamentals Update” featuring the impacts of COVID-19. VP of Strategic Analytics for Enverus, Bernadette Johnson, says “there will still be more painful announcements, but we are seeing the bottom” of the current oil and gas price crash. It will be painful and slow, but we now begin to crawl back up out of the hole we are in.
Everyone is still trying to get their heads around what has and is happening to the economies and energy markets around the world, suffering huge blows from being shut down due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Everyone has their own models and predictions. The latest is the International Energy Agency which has just published its World Energy Review–an analysis of how the virus pandemic is likely to affect world energy markets based on what has happened over the past 100 days.
A partnership between Penn State EMS Energy Institute researchers and a Pittsburgh-based start-up company may hold the answer to reducing so-called greenhouse gas emissions while also paving the way to disrupt the chemical and material industries. The collaboration has resulted in several research projects that aim to “reinvent” both coal and natural gas as clean, cost-effective sources of fuels and high-performance materials.
Simon-Kucher & Partners, a global strategy and marketing consulting firm along with Rice University surveyed 195 oil and gas industry experts from around the world. They published their findings in a report titled “2020 Oil & Gas Crisis Study.” The upshot, the sentiment, is that the current crisis faced by oil companies is largely homegrown. We did it to ourselves.
The number crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), have analyzed recent additions to the national electric grid–the new power generating plants that have been added. As you know, electricity can be generated by coal, natural gas, water (hydro), nuclear and yes, so-called renewables. At first blush, the report issued by EIA yesterday looks to be a win for renewables. In 2019 onshore wind added 9,100 megawatts of new electricity and solar added 5,300 MW of new electricity (combined total of 14,400). In 2019 natural gas added 8,300 MW of new electricity to the grid. Yet when you look at the bigger picture, how much electricity is generated by any given single source, natgas produces far more electricity than any other source.
Some exciting news is chronicled in a recent post by our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Last year, in 2019, the United States exported more energy (oil, natural gas, coal, and petroleum products) than it imported. That’s the first time we’ve exported more than imported in 67 years!
In late March we told you about the biggest one-week drop in U.S. rig counts in the past four years when the rig count dropped by 47 in a single week (see 
Economists at consulting powerhouse The Brattle Group have released an assessment/report on the impacts through early April 2020 of COVID-19 on the electric and natural gas industries. The report (full copy below) summarizes recent developments in energy commodity spot and forward pricing, electricity demand, and financial markets, and speculates on what will happen if the pandemic persists. One of the surprising findings (for us) is that weather is having far more effect on keeping natgas prices low than COVID-19. There’s plenty of charts and analysis–really good stuff to ponder. Battle Group has a lot of smart people thinking about this stuff.
We’ve been dreading this month’s edition of normally our favorite report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR estimates how much oil and natural gas each of the country’s seven largest shale plays produced in the previous (current) month, and how much each will produce in the coming (next) month. The past few months have seen a big decline in Marcellus/Utica gas production, more than half a Bcf/d (see 
We spotted a new scientific study published in an upcoming edition of the journal Water Research. The study is called: “Sulfate precipitation in produced water from Marcellus Shale for the control of naturally occurring radioactive material.” Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have found a way to strip out radioactivity from produced water coming from Marcellus wells so the water can be boiled to produce clean water and usable minerals/salts.
Enverus, a leading oil and gas SaaS and data analytics company, has just released its latest FundamentalEdge report called, “
After we picked ourselves up off the floor from laughing so hard, it dawned on us the far-left radicals at THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Clean Air Council and PennFuture have done both the PennEast Pipeline and Adelphia Gateway pipeline projects a HUGE beneficial service. Those three nutty groups commissioned and have just released a new “study” (copy below) that uses data to show PennEast and Adelphia together, WHEN (not if) they get built, will mean that PA drillers have to drill and connect another 1,913 to 3,061 new shale wells to feed them. Well duuuh! Of course it means that!! And that’s a GREAT thing for all of PA. More economic stimulus. More jobs. More tax revenues flowing to local municipalities. (Do these groups know they’ve just handed us a new argument in favor of these pipelines?)