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By JOHN P. TRETBAR
Eagle Media
US operators return to the record books. June output topped 13.6 million barrels a day according to the latest government updates. Crude output this week came close to another record. At 13,639,000 barrels a day, this is the second-highest weekly average ever. The first week in December of last year was 2,000 barrels a day higher.
The Kansas Geological Survey reports monthly output in June dropped slightly across Kansas. The average for the first six months of the year is 70,135 barrels per day. The average for all of last year was over 73-thousand daily barrels. Ellis County is the top producer with 5,417 barrels per day through June of this year. Last year’s tally in Ellis County was about 200 barrels higher. Haskell County is number two with 4,767 barrels per day. Finney County is third with 4,132 barrels a day. Barton County produced 3,780 barrels a day, which is down about 60 daily barrels from the total from last year. Russell County pumped 3,317 barrels a day, compared to 35-hundred last year. Stafford County produced 2,430 barrels a day. Crude output nationwide in June was the best on record, at over 13.6 million barrels a day.
The top operators list in Western Kansas from Independent Oil and Gas Service includes some familiar names. for the first three quarters of the year, Merit Energy is the top operator, followed by Berexco, Shakespeare Oil, Murfin Drilling and American Warrior. The next five start with Ritchie Exploration, followed by Mull Drilling, Darrah Oil, Mai Oil, Carmen Schmitt, Patterson Energy, Downing-Nelson and Grand Mesa.
The state adds 14 new drilling permits this week, with nine in eastern Kansas and five west of Wichita, including one in Ellis County. Regulators have approved 537 new drilling permits this year, compared to 839 by this time last year.
Operators completed 15 wells across the Sunflower State, six of them east of Wichita and nine in Western Kansas. Independent Oil and Gas Service reports 877 completed wells so far this year, compared to over a thousand a year ago. Drilling activity in Kansas has declined by an average of 36% compared to the same period last year.
The Kansas Rig Count from Independent Oil and Gas Service is unchanged statewide after increasing by one in eastern Kansas and dropping by one west of Wichita. The tally is down nearly 50 percent from a year ago. Drilling was underway or about to begin on leases in Ellis, Russell and Haskell counties.
The Rotary Rig Count from Baker Hughes shows an increase of two gas rigs, but a decrease of four oil rigs, for a total of 547 active drilling rigs. Texas is down six rigs and Oklahoma is down three. New Mexico increased by four rigs.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve added 300,000 barrels this week to bring the total to 407 million barrels. That’s up more than 24 million barrels from a year ago and nearly 43-million barrels higher than in April of last year when refill operations resumed.
Commercial crude inventories rose by 3.7 million barrels to just over 420 million as of October 3. Stockpiles are about four percent below the five-year average for this time of year.
Inventories of regular gasoline are down for the week. The five-year average is down nearly three percent from last year. Diesel stockpiles are also lower.
Crude imports increased by more than half a million barrels a day, rising to 6.4 million barrels this week. Exports dropped by about 150,000 barrels a day to just under four million barrels a day.
For the last ten years or so, so-called Big Oil has been promising high returns to stockholders in order to keep their business. Now falling oil prices are prompting cuts, and new debt, to keep that support. The five biggest oil majors are cutting costs, cutting jobs and cutting share buybacks to make the payouts sustainable. According to a report from Reuters, those payments have topped $100 million a year since 2022, and many companies are increasingly borrowing funds to pay for it.
Americans are changing the way they heat their homes. The Energy Information Administration reports an increasing share of US households are using electricity for heating. Natural Gas remains the most common, but 42% of US homes last year used electricity as their main space-heating fuel. Natural Gas accounts for 47% of American households.