Drilling ///
The shale industry is getting at least $2.4 billion in loans from the U.S. government’s Paycheck Protection Program aimed at helping businesses that are struggling with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Railroad Commission of Texas issued a total of 312 original drilling permits in June 2020 compared to 1,001 in June 2019. The June 2020 total includes 262 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, three to re-enter plugged well bores and 21 for re-completions of existing well bores.
Neptune Energy and its partners announced the discovery of hydrocarbons at the Dugong well (PL 882) in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
More than 200 North American oil and gas producers, owing over $130 billion in debt, have filed for bankruptcy since the beginning of 2015, according to a May report from law firm Haynes & Boone. This year alone, at least 20 have gone under after oil prices plunged amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation announced that the company has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas to facilitate a comprehensive balance sheet restructuring.
World Oil editors review the Dallas Fed's recent oil production survey among U.S. operators and service companies, and discover a "split personality" between production estimate and pricing models that could lead to an oil supply shock in 2021.
A recent survey by the Dallas office of the Federal Reserve System reveals a very somber and wary mindset by U.S. producers toward the upstream oil and gas (O&G) market. And that attitude is reflected in their plans for coping with the Covid-19-affected O&G market.
Occidental has been under pressure ever since outbidding Chevron to win the purchase of Anadarko Petroleum last year. The deal saddled Oxy with some $40 billion of debt that was looking hard to pay off even before Covid-19 reduced global oil demand.
According to EIA research, increases in drilling efficiency pushed U.S. crude oil and natural gas production to establish new records of 12.2 MMbpd and 111.5 Bcfd, respectively, in 2019.
Looking out 18 months, U.S. output will still be around 16% below its peak in February, according to an average of surveys from the IEA, Genscape, Enervus, Rystad and IHS Markit. It will probably be at least 2023 before the U.S. again hits its record close to 13 million barrels a day.
Almost a third of U.S. shale producers are technically insolvent with crude at $35 a barrel, according to Deloitte LLP, highlighting the industry’s acute financial strain even as oil prices rebound from a record low earlier this year.
Drillers idled 10 oil rigs in onshore U.S. fields this week, bringing the total to 189, according to data released Friday by Baker Hughes Co. Despite this week’s rise in crude prices to a three-month high around $40 a barrel, they still are more than 35% below the January high.
The layoffs are coming roughly equally from the company’s offices in Calgary, Denver and The Woodlands, Texas, as well as from field staff, said Cindy Hassler, a spokeswoman for Ovintiv. Hassler declined to immediately provide a number of how many jobs were cut.
The collaboration agreement will provide CNPC Logging with a license to manufacture fit-for-basin wireline technology. As part of the agreement, Schlumberger will support CNPC Logging on the manufacturing and sustaining activities for ThruBit through-the-bit logging technology at the CNPC Logging technology center in Xi’an, Shaanxi province.
Neodrill and Baker Hughes announced completion of the world’s first cut and recover operation for Wintershall Dea Norge in the Norwegian Sea. Rig time was reduced by an estimated 12 hours, with work to cut the surface casing moved off the critical path of the rig schedule.
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Per Canada’s CBC News, a report this week has stoked some optimism in the Newfoundland and Labrador oil and gas sector, with a description of another “potentially commercial discovery” in the Flemish Pass Basin.
As fields across the nation shut amid a relentless U.S. campaign to cut Venezuela off from global oil markets, the number of rigs drilling for crude fell to just one in May, according to data from Baker Hughes. Another lone rig was drilling for gas.
As the remnants of shale’s turn-of-the-century heyday turn to dust, it’s unclear who will step into the void.