U.S. Department of Energy said last week it will discontinue purchases to replenish the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve even though the SPR is only about half full.  DOE said the decision is based on increasing oil and gasoline prices.  DOE was scheduled to purchase 3 million barrels for August delivery and another 3 million barrels […]

Baker Hughes’ count of active drilling rigs in the U.S. declined as of April 5 for the third consecutive week.  It’s the first three-week decline since September-October 2023.  Baker Hughes said there were 620 rigs in U.S. (down 1 in the past week, down 131 in past year).  The U.S. count is down 9 during […]

Santa Clara-based Oklo, a fast fission clean energy power technology and nuclear fuel recycling company, said Monday it reached agreement with Midland’s Diamondback Energy to power Diamondback’s Permian Basin operations with emissions-free electricity from fission reactors.  Oklo said it intends to license, build and operate power plants capable of generating 50 megawatts of electric power […]

Occidental Petroleum and Pioneer Natural Resources are the top two operators of active drilling rigs in Permian Basin, according to Enverus.  Occidental had 24 active rigs in the week ending March 29 followed by Pioneer with 21 rigs.  Other Permian leading operators were Mewbourne Oil with 19, EOG Resources with 17, and ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy […]

Sydney, Australia-based Macquarie Group, global financial services company and investment bank, said it expects U.S. crude oil production to reach about 14 million barrels per day by yearend 2024.  According to Oil & Gas Journal, the projections in a recent report by Macquarie include a slight downward adjustment in the shale outlook offset by anticipated […]

Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners said this week it will expand its natural gas processing capabilities in the Permian Basin with construction of the Mentone West 2 plant in Loving County in Delaware Basin.  The new facility will have capacity to process more than 300 million cubic feet per day of natural gas and to extract […]

Dallas-based Axis Energy Services said recently it has deployed the industry’s first fully electric well service rig on wells operated by Occidental Petroleum in Permian Basin.  Axis said its EPIC RIG “provides improvements in safety and efficiency as well as the ability to run on grid power for reduced emissions and increased fuel flexibility.”  EPIC […]

New Mexico led gains in count of active drilling rigs last week, according to the weekly report of March 28 from Baker Hughes.  The only major producing state to add rigs last week, New Mexico reported 111 rigs (up 5 in past week, up 7 in past year).  It is the state’s highest rig count […]