Oil: North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources Says Half of Drilling Regions Below Breakeven

West Texas Intermediate is down another 4% and Bakken oil is priced at a discount to that.
Feb. WTI $46.16 down $2.20 after hitting $45.90.
From ZeroHedge:

While talking heads and TV personalities reassure the investing public that low oil prices are "unambiguously awesome" for everyone, it seems the cracks in this narrative are starting to show. From falling wages, surging job cuts, plunging rig counts, and crashing capex, it's becoming a lot harder to 'pretend' that everything's fine. One wonders, when the companies themselves are slashing workweeks and cutting rig counts, when will 'investors' believe... perhaps now that Lynn Helms, Director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources explains to the House Appropriations Committee that at least half of its shale regions are already below breakeven.

From a 12 page presentation...

The following shale regions are below breakevens (at which new drilling would cease)...

Which likely explains the accelerating collapse in rig counts...

And as we noted previously,
...while his monthly gas bill for his Chevy pickup truck has dropped, he admonishes, "That’s not going to replace a paycheck... and I don’t know why this is happening."

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