The price of oil and natural gas have taken hits in the last few weeks.  Oil is down below $45/bbl and natural gas is hanging out around $3.00/MMBtu.  It’ll be interesting to see where things go as the summer progresses.

This article at Energyfuse.org suggests that shale drilling is hitting a ceiling as far as productivity per well is concerned.

Some drillers are ready to slow down activity if prices continue to decline.

Wind and solar electricity generation exceeded 10% of U.S. total for the first time in March, according to the EIA.  We expect that growth trend to continue for the next few years at least.  It seems that renewable power generation has reached a critical mass of sorts, and will continue to grow regardless of the price of fossil fuels.

Russia believes that oil markets will rebalance by the time the current OPEC/Russia production cut agreement is over.

OPEC says rebalancing is happening slower than expected.

Fracking technology has improved significantly over the last few years.  Companies are getting more product from each foot of lateral than they used to.  Now they are going back and using current techniques on older wells and getting increased production.  It’s called refracking, and it’s going to add significant supply at very little additional cost in the way of money, time, and environmental impact.

One reason oil prices are declining is that Libya and Nigeria have begun producing more oil.  They are excluded from the OPEC/Russia production cut agreement because their production has been tiny due to civil war.

West Virginia Senator Capito has introduced a bill that would expedite permitting for a gas storage hub, and Senators Capito and Manchin have introduced a bill that would make it possible for West Virginia to get a loan guarantee from the federal government for the project.