The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline climbed another penny Tuesday to $2.648. That’s 27 cents higher than a week ago and the highest average price thus far this year. Motor club AAA reports the average across Kansas was $2.485, up more than 25 cents from a week ago. We spotted $2.49 in Great Bend and $2.48 at most outlets across Hays.
Drillers in Ellis County continued to lead the state in oil production, according to new numbers released Aug. 28 by the Kansas Geological Survey. Kansas operators produced about 3.1 million barrels of oil statewide in May, compared to 2.97 million in April. Total production statewide through May is just over 15.04 million barrels. Ellis County leads the state with over 234,000 barrels of new oil production in May, for a total this year of just over one million barrels. Barton County produced just over 154,000 barrels in May for a year-to-date total of 714,000 barrels. In Russell County, operators produced over 141,000 barrels of oil in May, 668,000 so far this year. Stafford County production in May was over 90,000 barrels, which brings their year-to-date total to 436,000 barrels of oil.
Top oil production by county through May 2017:
Ellis County 1.09 Million bbl
Haskell County: 970,000 bbl
Barton County: 714,000 bbl
Finney County: 675,000 bbl
Russell County: 668,000 bbl
Rooks County: 662,000 bbl
Ness County: 636,000 bbl
Harper County: 462,000 bbl
Stafford County: 436,000 bbl
Barber County: 419,000 bbl
(KGS)
Baker Hughes reported 943 active drilling rigs across the US Friday, an increase of three gas rigs. Canada reported 201 active rigs, which is down 16 from last week. Independent Oil & Gas Service reported ten active drilling rigs in eastern Kansas, down three, and 23 west of Wichita, up one for the week. They’re drilling on two leases in Barton County and moving in completion tools at a pair of sites in Ellis County and two more in Stafford County.
Last week there were 51 permits filed for drilling at new locations in Kansas, 38 east of Wichita, 13 in western Kansas. There was a permit filed in Barton County, and one more in Ellis County last week.
Operators across Kansas completed 18 new wells last week. Independent Oil & Gas Service reported 13 well completions in western Kansas, including one in Barton County, one in Russell County and one in Stafford County,. There were five newly-completed wells east of Wichita last week.
Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota is urging the US Geological Survey to do another survey to determine just how much oil and natural gas are available in his home state. According to Inside Energy dot org, the USGS did such a study in the Bakken shale formation in 2008, and concluded the play contained 3.7 billion barrels of oil available for operators to extract. By 2013, another survey doubled the estimate to 7.4 billion barrels, thanks to advances in technology. Senator Hoeven says he’d like to ensure his state continues to receive the jobs and dollars that have boosted the state over the last decade. Agency officials say they will reach a decision in a week on whether to update their estimate for North Dakota’s oilfields. That decision depends, in part, on whether enough has changed in the oil patch here since 2013 to make that new survey necessary.
A report in Forbes Magazine suggests that OPEC’s role in managing the price of oil will be over if Russia ever “hops on the shale bandwagon” in Siberia. There are sanctions in place that currently restrict US companies from showing the Russians how to recover shale oil. The Siberian Bazhenov formation has hydrocarbons just 98 feet deep. The formation is larger than the Bakken and Eagle Ford plays combined. Because of that formation, Russia is home to the second largest shale oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 74.6 billion barrels, compared to 78.2 billion in the U.S., according to US government figures.