01-13-2015, 04:29 AM
After six straight months of plunging oil prices, U.S. shale drillers have sent the clearest signal to date that they’re retreating. Horizontal rigs, their weapon of choice for reaching oil deposits in tight-rock formations such as North Dakota’s Bakken shale and Texas’s Permian Basin, slid by 35. It was the biggest single-week drop since a drilling boom touched off six years ago that propelled domestic production to the highest level in three decades and eventually helped trigger the global price war that the U.S. and OPEC find themselves in today.
Shale drillers signal retreat as most rigs idled since 1991
Petrobras is expanding its oil and natural gas production capacity in the Brazilian pre-salt layer in an economically viable manner, the company said in response to a recent press report. The company says that its break-even price, planned at the moment when its pre-salt production projects were approved, is around $45/bbl, including taxes and not including natural gas transportation infrastructure spending. Inclusion of the latter spending may raise the total figure by $5 to $7/bbl.
Pre-salt is still economically viable, Petrobras says
The plunge in global crude oil prices has helped boost U.S. natural gas imports to a five-year high, even as the country prepares to start exporting cargoes. Deliveries to onshore pipelines from LNG terminals in Massachusetts and Maryland on Jan. 7 were the most since Jan. 10, 2010, according to Ventyx data compiled by Bloomberg. Volumes in January are more than six times higher than a year ago, when the polar vortex spurred record consumption.
Oil plunge boosts U.S. natural gas imports to five-year high
The state’s only nuclear plant has stopped sending power to the New England grid after more than 42 years of producing electricity. Bill Mohl, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, said economic factors were the primary reasons for the shutdown.
Shale economics shuts down nuclear plant
New exploration on the bulk of Canada’s oil sands reserves can’t start unless prices are at least $60 per barrel, economists say.
At These Oil Prices, Keystone Pipeline Makes No Sense | MIT Technology Review