By JOHN P. TRETBAR

The Midyear Meeting of the Kansas Independent Oil & Gas Association is scheduled April 18-20 in McPherson. Sponsorship forms and trade-show contracts are available at their website (www.kioga.org) and are due by next Thursday, March 15th. The event will feature a tour of the CHS Refinery, an educational outreach program called “Petro Pro Class,” some great food, plus sporting clays and golf tournaments.

The Kansas Geological Survey says the state’s energy operators produced nearly three million barrels of crude in November of last year. The total statewide for the year through November was 32.97 million barrels. Ellis County led the way with a total through November of 2.43 million barrels, adding 223,000. Haskell and Finney counties were next. Then Barton County with 1.562 million barrels through November, an additional 147,000 barrels. Russell County added 129,000 barrels for an 11-month total of 1.46 million. Stafford County added another 92,000 barrels to bring its cumulative total to 963,000 barrels.

Baker Hughes reported 981 active drilling rigs across the US last week, up three. The count in Canada fell by four to 302 active drilling rigs. Independent Oil & Gas Service reported a more than 21% drop in Kansas: seven east of Wichita, down five, and 22 in western Kansas, down three. Operators report drilling about to commence at one site in Barton County and three in Stafford County.

Operators filed 31 permits to drill at new locations across Kansas last week, 12 in the eastern half of the state and 19 west of Wichita. There are two new permits in Stafford County. Independent Oil & Gas Service reported 35 new well completions for the week, 15 east of Wichita and 20 in western Kansas, including one in Barton County, three in Ellis County and one in Stafford County.

The Kansas Corporation Commission reports 146 intent-to-drill notices filed across the state during the month of February, including four in Barton County, three in Ellis County and seven in Stafford County.
Oklahoma regulators hope to reduce the number of earthquakes, mostly too small to be felt, in the so-called SCOOP and STACK plays. They blame fracking for the smaller quakes in those areas, where wells produce much less wastewater than those in northern Oklahoma. Oklahoma Corporation Commission officials argue that the threat of induced quakes from fracking and other completion activity is much smaller than the threat linked to wastewater disposal. But, under the new rules, if a tremor of magnitude 2.0 or greater is detected, the producer must take action. If the tremor is over 2.5, they must pause fracking operations for at least six hours.

A new study by the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie asserts that booming US shale oil production will soon overwhelm our current refining capacity, and suggests that within five years, three-fourths of our additional production will be exported to Europe and Asia. Reuters reported that the additional oil could also bottleneck at Gulf Coast ports unless new infrastructure is built.

Revised numbers from the government show the US set an all-time crude production record last November: 10.057 million barrels per day, beating out the prior record set in November of 1970.

Texas energy regulators say total crude oil production in the state last year topped 1 billion barrels and daily production in December was 5 percent higher year-on-year. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported the number of drilled, but uncompleted wells rose 4 percent in the Permian shale between December and January and more than doubled year-on-year, far outpacing the rest of the country.

A trade group in Texas reported the state’s oil and gas industry paid just over $11 billion in state and local taxes and royalties last year. The Texas Oil & Gas Association translates that into $30 million a day for the state’s schools, universities, roads, and first responders. Public school districts received $1.1 billion in property taxes for the fiscal year. TxOGA says counties received $336 million.

In Washington state, a project to build a massive oil-by-rail terminal officially ended last week when the project’s developers and the Port of Vancouver terminated the lease for a site along the Columbia River. Vancouver Energy said it would not appeal the Governor’s decision to reject a permit for the terminal, and said it would donate its $100,000 March lease payment to a fund that helps local nonprofits.

What’s billed as the biggest bribery trial in history opened briefly Monday, but has been postponed until May. Prosecutors in Italy charge oil majors Shell and Eni, and some of their executives, in connection with a $1.1 billion bribery scheme to win one of Nigeria’s most lucrative oil blocks.

According to Reuters, people were audibly gasping when Royal Dutch Shell bid more than $343 million for nine Mexican offshore oil blocks last month. What they didn’t know was that six months earlier, Shell had struck a giant oil reservoir in adjoining US waters. Shell didn’t tell anyone about the so-called “Whale” well until after the auction. The Whale could contain upwards of 700 million barrels of oil, about half of Shell’s production last year, and is likely one of the biggest discoveries in the industry in the last ten years.

Every seasoned Kansan knows we live in smack-dab in the middle of tornado alley. The Heartland of America boasts one of the most tornado active regions in the world.

If you’re like me, you’ll never forget May 4, 2007. On that fateful day the town of Greensburg, in Kiowa County, was all but wiped off the face of the earth. This EF5 tornado demolished the small Kansas community of 1,500 killing 11 people and injuring dozens more.

Ninety percent of the town was destroyed including 961 homes and businesses. Another 216 received major damage. Wind speeds more than 200 miles per hour accompanied this storm.

This killer tornado roared through Comanche and Kiowa counties for 26 miles and ranged nearly two miles wide at one time resulting in damage in $250 million worth of damage.

Other killer tornadoes occurred that day with a death in Pratt County and another in Stafford County. Eleven tornadoes occurred on May 4.

The next day another 36 tornadoes rampaged across Kansas, falling just short of the record of 39 tornadoes in one day set in June 1992.

The Sunflower State nailed down a record 137 twisters in 2007 with 137 tornadoes ripping through Kansas.

Sixty tornadoes occurred in Kansas in 2017. This is near the long-term average, but well below more recent 10 and 20-year averages.

Fortunately, no tornado-related fatalities occurred in Kansas last year, but two injuries were reported. Both injuries happened May 16 as an EF3 tornado tracked for 26.64 miles across Pawnee and Barton counties. This tornado was also the costliest at an estimated $658,000.

The most active month in 2017 transpired in May with 29 tornadoes observed. This is 98 tornadoes below the one-month record high (127 in May 2008). April, May, and June, typically the core of the tornado season, remained quiet last year.

As tornado season approaches, it’s important to remember to tune in, stay informed and keep an eye on the sky.

Remember, pay attention when you hear a tornado watch because this means severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are possible over a wide area. Tornado warnings are issued when Doppler radar indicates tornadoes are forming or a trained weather spotter has sighted a twister. This warning will tell the location, and if possible, movement, estimated speed and the towns in the tornado path.

Think ahead during this upcoming severe weather season. Listen to forecasts daily, key into local weather conditions in your area. Know where your nearest shelter is and remember when a tornado threatens, immediate action may save you and your loved ones’ lives.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

The Kansas Supreme Court may…depending on when…inadvertently weigh in on the Democratic gubernatorial primary election with its decision on the constitutionality of an abortion restriction law.

That law, which prohibits dilation and evacuation abortion procedures, the most-used technique in second-and third-term abortions, essentially will define Kansas abortion law. And, though there will be scraps, and even a potential effort to put an anti-abortion constitutional amendment before voters this year or next, the high court’s ruling may well end the issue save for special interest groups.

How’s this a Democratic gubernatorial issue? Just one contestant for the party’s nomination has an anti-abortion voting record, from more than a decade ago—former State Rep./Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty, who held a House seat as a Democrat from Republican-weighted western Kansas.

While a strong candidate who gives good speeches, his previous anti-abortion votes have sprung to the surface again, and for many Democrats that issue is the bright yellow line that overshadows every other issue…at the primary election level. Whether that is the right issue to virtually abandon a candidate is one that Democrats will decide at their primary election.

But there’s more to operating the state than abortion, and that single disqualifier from party support may tilt the race and deny Democrats a candidate that is on board everywhere else and could potentially give the party a state government leader.

While Democrats support choice for women, this is still either an anti-abortion state or one in which abortion is seen as a woman’s decision, which can be broadened to other decisions women make. Or, maybe Republicans, even pro-choice Republicans, will vote for pro-life Republicans (and have in the past) to take the reins of state government for a broad list of other issues ranging from tax policy to highways to school funding and the other 99 percent of what Kansans expect from their government.

Democrats, of course, have several candidates for their party’s nomination for governor, and so far in the relatively collegial battle for the primary election, none has brought up the life issue. Look for that to come from pro-choice organizations within the party, and to be stirred further from anti-abortion partisans who aren’t party-based and will use Svaty’s record to eliminate a potential challenger to their favorite Republicans.

Now, abortion isn’t the only one that Democrats have in the past used to sink a candidate in intra-party primary election scraps. House Minority Leader Jim Ward, D-Wichita, has taken an early swing at Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, for some gun rights votes in her past. At some point, look for that to be used by outside-the-party interests to be targeted, though in her Senate district, she’s apparently weighed the effect of those votes and has been elected to four terms in a district which includes parts of rural Pottawatomie and Wabaunsee counties.

You gotta be elected to represent your district’s and party views…

So, there’s an interesting little issue here…do parties ditch candidates on one or two issues when they are on board with most of a party’s issues, or do you strain out candidates who have represented the party philosophy on most issues?

Is there a hole in that bright yellow line of party viewpoints…or does a party lose seats in the Legislature or the chance for a governorship for walking outside the line?

Is being elected better than being party-perfect?

We may see…

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com