Bakken Production Holding, But Winter Declines Expected Before Uptick
End of 2020 statistics showed North Dakota’s Bakken Shale production holding relatively steady and other indicators, including oil prices, turning upward. But the state’s chief oil and natural gas official said production likely will drop for January and February.
“The drilling rig count [15 as of last Friday] is substantially short of what we need to maintain production [at 1.2 million b/d] off of drilling and completions,” said Lynn Helms, director of the state Department of Mineral Resources. “We really need to have 30 to 35 drilling rigs to be putting out 70 completed wells monthly.
The natural gas storage report from the EIA for the week ending February 5th indicated that the amount of natural gas held in underground storage in the US fell by 171 billion cubic feet to 2,518 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our gas supplies 9 billion cubic feet, or 0.4% below the 2,527 billion cubic feet that were in storage on February 5th of last year, and 152 billion cubic feet, or 6.4% above the five-year average of 2,366 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been in storage as of the 5th of February in recent years..the 171 billion cubic feet that were drawn out of US natural gas storage this week was a bit less than the average forecast of a 175 billion cubic foot withdrawal from an S&P Global Platts survey of analysts, but way more than the 121 billion cubic foot withdrawal from natural gas storage seen during the corresponding week of a year earlier, and also more than the average withdrawal of 125 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have ty
Equinor Hammered by Norwegian LNG Outage, but Net-Zero Emissions Portfolio Gains
Equinor ASA continued to advance its worldwide energy portfolio during 2020, with a long-term strategy set on becoming a net-zero emissions leader relying less on fossil fuels.
The management team held court with analysts and investors on Wednesday to share results for 2020 and the outlook going forward. Mirroring comments made by Big Energy CEOs during fourth quarter calls, CEO Anders Opedal acknowledged that last year’s operations were beaten down by the “market turmoil” brought about by Covid-19.
Still, the Norwegian operator captured “strong cost improvements and capital discipline” as the pandemic unfolded, helping to deliver more than $3.7 billion in savings. The gains from efficiencies and cost cuts, he said, were “well above our ambition for the action plan we launched in March to strengthen financial resilience.”