Oil producers in the North Sea, home to one of the world’s key crude-price benchmarks, are poised to ship the most crude in more than four years. The surge takes place just as OPEC tries to contain a global surplus with coordinated output cuts.

Shipments of North Sea grades will increase 10 percent month-on-month to about 2.16 million barrels a day in December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. If all the cargoes load as planned it would mark the most crude oil shipments from the region since May 2012. The increase just from September, when there was field maintenance, would be almost 360,000 barrels a day.

The surge poses yet another challenge to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as it seeks to curb production to steady markets in a world with plenty of oil. OPEC ministers will meet in Vienna on Nov. 30 to decide how to trim output to a range of 32.5 million to 33 million barrels a day. Libya, Nigeria and Iran are claiming exemption from cuts because of their own circumstances, and Iraq has contested how its output has been measured.

“Rebalancing the market is going to be an uphill task,” in part because North Sea supplies are adding to the surplus, Ehsan Ul-Haq, senior market consultant KBC Energy Economics, said by phone. “If OPEC is really interested in reducing stocks and bringing the market into balance, they’ll have to make deeper cuts than promised before.”

Brent crude fell extending its slide to a sixth day. It was down 7 cents at $46.28 a barrel at 8:41 a.m. in London.

While supplies from some nations outside of OPEC are indeed falling, non-members boosting their crude output include Kazakhstan, Brazil and Russia, which last month pumped oil at a post-Soviet era high. OPEC itself increased production to a record 34.02 million barrels a day in October, according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data. In addition, the U.S. is now freely shipping its oil across the globe, following the removal of export restrictions last year.

The wave of North Sea crude will come just as a pile-up of tankers storing or transferring oil in the region dwindles, clearing out a previous surplus. Only one supertanker, Front Ariake, remains floating with North Sea crude off the coast of England. This compares with as many as five Very Large Crude Carriers last month which were holding crude, or preparing to receive it via ship-to-ship transfers.

While shipments of Brent crude are expected to slow in December — due to maintenance at the Cormorant Alpha platform north of Scotland, scheduled to begin later this month — exports of other grades are set to increase. Loading plans are subject to significant change and reorganization.

At least 25 shipments from the U.K.’s Forties field are now scheduled for December, the most since February 2011. Loadings from Norway’s Grane field next month are set to rise to 10, the most since Bloomberg began tracking the grade in 2010. The programs show December exports of 483,871 barrels a day for Forties and 193,548 for Grane.

Further new North Sea oil production may be on the way. Statoil ASA this week submitted to the Norwegian government its plan for development of the Trestakk field. Lower-than-expected costs and a low-risk operating environment are providing a “window of opportunity” for more investment in the region, analysts at BMI Research, a unit of Fitch Group Inc., said Thursday in a note to clients.

https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/123444/prepare-north-sea-oil-flood-opec-plans-output-curbs/

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Attached Files

Exxon's bid for InterOil in doubt after Canadian court ruling

InterOil Corp said on Friday an appeals court in Canada had overturned approval of the natural gas producer's $2.5 billion sale to Exxon Mobil Corp, throwing the deal's viability in doubt.

The Supreme Court of Yukon ruled for Phil Mulacek, InterOil's founder and second-largest shareholder, who had objected to the all-stock deal announced in July.

The Supreme Court approved the deal in early October, but Mulacek filed an objection saying it did not properly remunerate InterOil shareholders.

InterOil is incorporated in Yukon, Canada, with operations in Papua New Guinea and headquarters in Singapore.

An InterOil representative said on Friday that Canadian approval was all that remained to close the deal.

Exxon representatives were not immediately available for comment. A representative for Mulacek was not immediately available for comment.

InterOil said it still believed that the Exxon deal represented "compelling value" for its shareholders and was considering options to close the deal.

Shares of InterOil fell 5.8 percent to close at $45.75, and Exxon edged down 0.1 percent to $83.57.

InterOil owns a 36.5 percent stake in Papua New Guinea's Elk-Antelope gas field, which is operated by Total

The acquisition would give Exxon interests in six licenses in Papua New Guinea covering about four million acres and help the world's largest publicly traded energy company supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asian markets.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-interoil-exxon-mobil-court-idUSKBN12Z2NG

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has finalised the sale of some Murban crude supplies for the first three months next year at lower premiums than the second half of 2016, four sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

The price cuts came after the producer shortened the duration of its sales period to accommodate ongoing oilfield concession talks and as traders suffered losses for most of 2016 when they re-sold the cargoes.

"The market situation is very bad. It's oversupplied and there's high stocks, one of the sources said.

ADNOC has reached an agreement with some buyers to sell Murban crude in the first quarter at 17-19 cents a barrel above the grade's official selling price (OSP), the sources said.

The premiums for the cargoes, which do not have a fixed destination, are down from the 20-cent premium for second-half 2016 supplies, they said, without indicating the volumes being sold under that pricing.

"Everyone is complaining that OSPs are too high. Based on OSPs, traders are not making money," another source said.

ADNOC could not be reached for comment.

The producer has been selling a portion of its Murban output via six-month agreements after concessions at the field operator Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations (ADCO) expired in January 2014.

To accommodate the ongoing talks, ADNOC shortened the duration of its Murban sales by three months, the sources said.

Separately, ADNOC is in talks to sell first-quarter Upper Zakum crude supplies.

It last offered Upper Zakum at 20 cents a barrel above the grade's OSP, but some traders said it would be tough to make a profit over the short period.

http://www.reuters.com/article/oil-emirates-adnoc-idUSL4N1D82UJ

U.S. crude oil exports rose to about 692,000 barrels per day in September, the highest on record, from about 657,000 bpd in the previous month, foreign trade data from the U.S. Census Bureau showed on Friday.

Canada took in the most exports at 243,000 bpd, followed by Singapore at 99,000 bpd. Exports to Europe were also high, with Italy receiving some 81,000 bpd and Spain 41,000 bpd. Other prominent destinations included South Korea and the Netherlands.

The previous record was set in May when the United States exported about 662,000 bpd, according to U.S. government data.

U.S. crude exports have climbed since the lifting of a decades-old ban late last year.

The discount of U.S. crude to Brent crude had widened to as much as $2.67 a barrel in late August, the widest since February.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its closely watched monthly crude figures, which are based on the U.S. Census data, at the end of this month.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-exports-idUSKBN12Z1SY

Drillers put nine oil rigs back to work in U.S. fields last week, with the majority heading to the Permian Basin in West Texas, Baker Hughes said Friday.

The increased drilling activity brings the fleet of U.S. oil rigs up to 450, up by 134 machines since the count fell to its annual low in late May.

Six oil rigs began work in the Permian Basin; two, in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, and two others became active in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas and the Colorado’s DJ Basin. One oil rig went idle in an unnamed field, the Houston oil field services company said.

The number of oil rigs working across the nation has increased in 20 of the past 23 weeks, a reaction to the price of U.S. oil climbing to $50 a barrel last month.

Since reaching an annual peak in mid-October, U.S. crude prices have fallen 15 percent. In mid-day trading Friday, the benchmark price fell 65 cents to $44.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Drillers also dispatched three natural gas rigs last week, one to Oklahoma’s Arkoma Woodford basin, another to the Eagle Ford and a third to the Haynesville in Louisiana. The nation’s total rig count has climbed to 569 units, up from 404 in May.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/11/04/u-s-drillers-dispatch-9-oil-rigs-with-6-in-permian-basin/

Wall Street’s oil analysts are getting harder to impress.

After two straight quarters when the U.S. shale industry posted outsized oil production figures that clobbered expectations, explorers are finding it more difficult to be overachievers. Once-innovative engineering tricks such as drilling two-mile long sideways wells and cracking the rocks with mountains of sand are becoming routine, depriving oil companies of methods to deliver shockingly big output numbers.

For every third-quarter outperformer like Marathon Oil Corp. or Chesapeake Energy Corp., there have been production duds such as Cimarex Energy Co. and Rice Energy Inc., which were slammed by investors on Thursday after their output fell short of analysts’ targets. Cimarex tumbled as much as 7.6 percent for its worst intraday loss in eight months after reporting an output miss; Rice fell as much as 2.6 percent.

“Whereas in the last couple of quarters, everybody smoked expectations, now we’re starting to see more and more misses,” said Gabriele Sorbara, an analyst at Williams Capital Group LP in New York. “I think these companies are reaching limitations on how long they can drill lateral wells.”

For the past 2 1/2 years, shale explorers have been retrenching and reinventing their business plans as the worst oil crash in a generation wiped out trillions in market value and made many of their most ambitious drilling prospects worthless.

As headcounts dwindled and management teams focused on asset sales and keeping lenders at bay, geologists and engineers devised more intensive ways of tapping deep layers of crude, boosting volumes enough in some places to make fields profitable despite low prices.

Target Miss

Cimarex disappointed investors when it reported third-quarter output equivalent to 157,768 barrels a day, below the 162,483-barrel average of 19 analysts’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The Denver-based driller also lowered its full-year production target by 2.5 percent, assuming the mid-range of the company’s forecast. Cimarex closed 5.3 percent lower in New York at $121.53.

Rice likewise reported less-than-stellar production numbers, pumping the equivalent of 747 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, below the average estimate of 759.7 million. The shares rebounded somewhat before the close to settle 0.4 percent higher at $21.74.

Notable Outperformers

While the underpeformers wallowed, Marathon jumped as much as 15 percent for its biggest intraday gain in nine months. Investors rewarded the company for exceeding financial and production estimates; the 11-cent per-share loss wasn’t as bad as the 20-cent deficit analysts’ foresaw, and the company’s 402,000 barrels of daily output beat every single estimate in the survey.

Chesapeake surged more than 9 percent after saying it pumped the equivalent of 638,100 barrels of crude a day in the third quarter, exceeding most of the 23 analysts’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The Oklahoma City-based shale driller closed 1.7 percent up.

EOG Resources Inc., the shale driller expanding its footprint in the sought-after Permian Basin, rosefollowing an earnings report that showed it met output targets for the quarter and is increasing its expectations for growth in coming years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-03/it-s-getting-tougher-for-shale-oil-drillers-to-impress-investors

John Christmann, chief executive of Houston’s Apache Corp., said this week that the company’s top priority next year is the newly discovered Alpine High oilfield in West Texas.

Alpine High, Christmann said, is transformational to Apache and will provide incremental earnings by the end of 2018 that the company has never before seen.

“Things will change significantly for us in the back half of ’18,” he said. “It’s going to be a different profile than we’ve probably had in our history.”

Christmann, speaking to investors during Apache’s third-quarter earnings call, said he was aiming to run four to six rigs in the oilfield next year and build out a pipeline system. The region, surrounding the small town of Balmorhea, has no such infrastructure now.

But Christmann also said that he didn’t want the company to get ahead of itself. Investment, he said, should not outpace a “comprehensive understanding” of the geology nor the company’s ability to get oil and gas to market.

Analysts on the call were skeptical of the company’s ability to pump as much oil and gas as it expected.

Christmann insisted test wells have confirmed that oil and natural gas liquids are present in as much as 5,000 vertical feet of rock, he said, in five underground ribbons — the Bone Springs, Wolfcamp, Pennsylvania, Barnett and Woodford formations. “It’s such a thick column, all we have to do is move up hole and we’ll have more oil,” he said.

The chief executive hinted that Apache may drill more than the 2,000 to 3,000 wells it first anticipated. The company’s initial estimates of well counts only considered two of the five formations, he said. The company also has about 20,000 more contiguous acreage now.

Apache, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the U.S., narrowed losses in the third quarter thanks largely to the increase in oil prices.

It reported on Thursday losses of $607 million, 85 percent or $3.5 billion better than losses in the third quarter last year. The company posted $1.60 in losses per share, in comparison to $10.95 in losses per share over the same period last year.

Revenues dipped 6 percent or $88 million to $1.4 billion. Expenses fell dramatically: Apache cut 60 percent or $3.6 billion to end the quarter spending $2.3 billion, largely because it did not have to write down oil reserves.

Oil production fell 7 percent or 20,000 barrels per day to 271,000 barrels per day. Gas production fell 8 percent or 90 million cubic feet per day to 1.1 trillion cubic feet per day. Total production, including natural gas liquids, fell 6 percent or 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to 520,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/11/04/apaches-christmann-alpine-high-transformational/

A gas pipeline that exploded in Alabama last week is back in service, the pipeline company said Sunday.

Service was restarted at 5:45 a.m. Sunday on the pipeline that transports gasoline from the Gulf Coast to New York City, according to Colonial Pipeline Co.

The pipeline exploded Monday while a crew was making repairs related to a September gas spill, killing one person and injuring four others. It may take several days for the fuel delivery supply chain to return to normal after the service restoration, the company said.

Government officials and Colonial Pipeline have said a piece of excavation equipment hit the pipeline, causing the explosion, but further details haven't been released. Anthony Lee Willingham, 48, of Heflin, Alabama, died in the blast. Four other people were injured and remained hospitalized.

Colonial said it began excavating Wednesday night at the site, located about 25 miles southwest of Birmingham, Alabama.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the pipeline rupture, conducting interviews, documenting the site and surrounding area and collecting physical evidence, the agency said in a news release. The investigators also plan to travel to Colonial's office in Alpharetta, Georgia, to speak to operations and engineering staff, review control room operations and collect data and documents.

Since Monday's explosion, gas prices had rose 7 cents in Georgia and 2 cents in Tennessee, Garrett Townsend with AAA in Georgia said in an emailed statement, but that restarting the line would help ease concerns about supply.

https://apnews.com/26538cdbfaee43ea8e75ecbcd76d48d5/Company:-Blast-damaged-gasoline-line-back-in-service?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

U.S. producers of sand used to extract oil from shale are raising prices due to stronger demand, a sign higher oil prices are improving the outlook for the domestic fracking industry.

U.S. shale oil companies, which pump sand into oil wells to make them more efficient, were ravaged by a 2014 global crude glut that hammered prices from more than $100 a barrel to near $26 in February 2016. Dozens fell into bankruptcy.

However, publicly traded sand companies have pulled thousands of rail cars out of storage after oil hit a one-year high in October, thanks to rising demand, according to recent earnings calls and interviews. Sand companies idled half of the roughly 125,000 frac sand cars they had in service in 2014 after oil plunged, experts said, but nearly all are expected to return to service by 2018.

Companies including Chesterland, Ohio-based Fairmount Santrol Holdings Inc; U.S. Silica Holdings Inc of Frederick, Maryland; Southlake, Texas-based Emerge Energy Services LP; and Hi Crush Partners LP in Houston all saw increased business in the year's third quarter.

Smart Sand held its initial public offering on Friday in another sign of industry confidence.

Rangeland Energy LLC, a privately held logistics company in Sugar Land, Texas, that unloads sand from rail cars to put onto trucks, is eyeing expansion to handle more volumes, said Patrick McGannon, vice-president for business development.

"We'll have three more sets of three silos," he said of the company's sand storage facilities, which take months to set up. He said that will more than double current capacity, which is 26,000 tons of storage, according to the company's web site.

Hi Crush had just over 600 rail cars in storage at the end of the year's third quarter, down from about 1,900 six months ago, chief financial officer Laura Fulton said on an earnings call on Nov. 1.

"What a different picture we see from just six months ago," she said, adding that Hi Crush expects double-digit volume increases in the fourth quarter.

While the increase in sand volume represents a ramp-up of U.S. activity, it does not necessarily correlate with improved global oil demand, said Credit Suisse analyst Charles Foote. Fracking is unique because the sand is instrumental to the process, unlike other types of drilling.

"It's a good little pocket of positive activity, but I don't think you can extrapolate it much," he said.

Still, in increasing prices, sand companies are betting on an improving outlook for the oil industry, said Scott Cockerham, managing director at the consulting firm Huron. "It's a very symbiotic system," he said. However, of late, crude prices have dipped from their recent highs near $52 a barrel; U.S. crude futures on Friday were trading at $43.87 a barrel, a six-week low.

The United States has 450 active drilling rigs, according to oil services company Baker Hughes Inc. It has been steadily rising from a six-year low of 316 reached in May.

"Our customers are talking about actually adding some crews even in Q4 and certainly adding crews into Q1 2017," said Rick Shearer, chief executive of Emerge. "We're very bullish, going forward, that our volumes and our pricing will continue to build.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fracking-sand-idUSKBN12Z2K8

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Woodfibre LNG will start building British Columbia's first liquefied natural gas processing and export terminal in 2017, it said on Friday, a project that would grant Canada a long-awaited opportunity to enter the global market.

The facility near Squamish, north of Vancouver, will export 2.1 million tonnes a year once it is operational in 2020, according to a company statement.

However, Woodfibre is relatively small compared to other proposed LNG projects in the province and will have little impact on weak Canadian natural gas prices, said Samir Kayande, a director at research group RS Energy.

More than a dozen LNG projects have been proposed for British Columbia, but the global slump in energy prices has undermined their feasibility and delayed investment.

In September, Canada approved a proposed C$36 billion, 12-million-tonne-a-year LNG project by Petroliam Nasional Berhad. But Petronas, as the Malaysian state-owned oil company is known, has yet to give the final go-ahead, and Canadian aboriginal and environmental groups have filed lawsuits to stop it.

Privately held Woodfibre said its Singaporean parent authorized funds for the facility after British Columbia offered a competitive electricity rate for LNG projects.

Woodfibre, based in Vancouver, is a subsidiary of Pacific Oil & Gas Ltd, which is part of the Singapore-based RGE Group of companies.

Byng Giraud, country manager for Woodfibre, said in a statement the cheaper rates were what allowed the "go forward" decision to happen. The plant will be powered using electricity rather than natural gas.

The British Columbia government, which is keen to develop an LNG industry, welcomed the green light for the C$1.6 billion project and said it would be one of the largest private sector investments in the southern part of the province.

Gas for the facility will come from northeastern British Columbia via Spectra Energy and Fortis Inc-owned pipelines.

Environmental group the Pembina Institute warned the project would make it harder for British Columbia to meet its 2050 carbon emissions targets.

Squamish Mayor Patricia Heintzman said the announcement was somewhat "jumping the gun" as there are 25 environmental conditions put forward by the Squamish First Nations still being worked out.

Squamish Chief Ian Campbell could not be immediately reached for comment.

Woodfibre has legally committed to and will continue to work to meet those obligations, said company spokeswoman Jennifer Siddon.

http://www.reuters.com/article/canada-lng-woodfibre-idUSL1N1D51Z0

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A deal struck in 2012 to save the U.S. East Coast's oldest and largest refinery seemed to have all of the right elements for success: private investors, big oil and taxpayer funding, and the promise of a private-public partnership that would help job growth and consumers.

Four years after private equity firm Carlyle Group and a partner purchased Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the refinery faces another existential crisis.

A sharp decline in the price of oil sourced in North Dakota has hammered profits across the sector with layoffs mounting. Capital projects are now on ice after an industry-wide earnings slump.

Over this period, Carlyle Group and its partner - Sunoco parent Energy Transfer Partners - have banked hundreds of millions from the refinery in the form of dividend-style payouts, funded in part from a loan that put the refinery's future on less-solid footing, an analysis of corporate filings shows.

These moves, along with the saturated state of the energy sector, have burdened Philadelphia Energy Solutions' (PES) refinery with a huge debt load and a dwindling cash buffer. (For a graphic, click tmsnrt.rs/2feWjUK) Plans to sell stock in an initial public offering were scrapped in September.

The stakes are high. The refinery is one of the region's largest employers, and U.S. energy officials have warned that its closure would lead to price spikes at the pump and even threaten the nation's national security interests.

Carlyle officials say the refiner's misfortunes are not related to its stewardship. They point to macroeconomic factors, including the narrowing discount for domestic crude oil and the rising costs of U.S. renewable fuel regulations.

"With Carlyle's support, PES has invested nearly $750 million to upgrade the refinery, preserve 900 jobs and create hundreds more, and ensure the integrity of the fuel supply on the east coast," Carlyle spokesman Christopher Ullman said in a statement.

Energy Transfer Partners, which merged with Sunoco in 2012 around the time of the deal, declined to comment.

Carlyle put up $175 million in 2012 in exchange for two-thirds of the new company and full responsibility for day-to-day operations. Sunoco agreed to contribute the refinery’s assets and be a non-controlling partner.

For a region contending with global competition, the deal offered potential relief, but the measures have failed to act as a long-term solution that could withstand pressure from fluctuating oil prices and policies.

To be sure, more favorable oil prices and improved demand could boost profits for U.S. independent refiners.

"We are committed to the long term success of PES even in challenging markets," Ullman said.

A NEW BEGINNING

In early 2013, Carlyle took out a $550 million loan for capital projects, as well as payouts to itself and Sunoco parent Energy Transfer Partners, according to filings. In total, between 2013 and 2015 payouts and tax advances reached $480.9 million, all but guaranteeing Carlyle's venture would be profitable.

About $121 million of the loan proceeds were paid as distributions to Carlyle and to ETP. The loan also funded a $25 million payment to preferred unit holders at Carlyle, filings show.

Carlyle said it took out the loan because the firm had confidence that the business plan would be successful, adding they were proved correct in the subsequent two years. The loan payouts were to help reduce Carlyle’s risk, the private equity fund said.

The refinery owners enjoyed a taxpayer-funded rescue package, which included the creation of a tax-friendly zone, $25 million in grants and environmental liability waivers.

A spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, who was a councilman when the initial deal was struck, said public support was justified in light of the payouts "because it meant that the refinery remained opened and nearly 1,000 jobs stayed in Philadelphia."

U.S. Congressman Bob Brady, a Democrat credited for putting deal together, did not respond to requests for comment.

Proceeds from the loan also helped fund construction of a 280,000 barrel-per-day oil rail terminal in 2013 at the north end of the refinery, which connected the refinery to cheap crude oil flowing out of North Dakota. The terminal helped PES generate $210.8 million in net income in 2014, filings show.

BUST SETS IN

The boom turned to bust by the end of 2015, as the supply of cheap crude disappeared and margins shrunk. The timing was poor for Carlyle, as it was preparing to take PES public in August of 2015 just as the downturn worsened. The IPO valued the refinery enterprise at $1.3 billion.

Expecting a boost in cash from an IPO, Carlyle, ETP and other smaller investors took out an additional $260 million in payouts in 2015, regulatory filings show.

But public investors offered to pay “less than half” of the $15 to $18 per share PES was seeking, according to a person familiar with the offering. Investors were wary of PES’s debt load and long-term contracts, two sources familiar with the offering said, and the IPO was eventually scrapped.

PES recorded a $65.7 million loss in its cash balance in 2015, due in large part to the payouts, filings show.

The company’s ratio of net debt to earnings before deducting items such as depreciation and taxes was 1.0 in September 2015, in line with the industry, regulatory filings show. By year’s end, the most recent figures available, it nearly doubled, climbing to 1.9, a Reuters analysis shows.

Moody's Investors Service warned in an April note - its most recent on the company - that "additional aggressive distributions" to Carlyle and ETP posed a risk to the company's B1 credit rating.

Carlyle said the payouts did not hurt PES’s financial footing.

"We believe that leverage levels throughout our ownership have been prudent," Ullman, the Carlyle spokesman, said.

In recent weeks, the refiner has cut about 25 percent of non-union staff, reduced benefits and postponed capital projects, according to sources at the plant. A letter to employees from the company's CEO, Phil Rinaldi, a refinery turnaround specialist, describes the situation in stark terms.

"The company's finances are significantly stressed," Rinaldi said in the letter, sent to employees in September.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-refinery-debt-idUSKBN1320H0

A sharp earthquake centered near one of the world's key oil hubs Sunday night triggered fears that the magnitude 5.0 temblor might have damaged key infrastructure in addition to causing what police described as "quite a bit of damage" in the Oklahoma prairie town of Cushing.

City Manager Steve Spears said a few minor injuries were reported and questioned whether some of the community's century-old buildings might be unsafe. Police cordoned off older parts of the town to keep away gawkers.

"Stay out of the area," Spears told residents during a late-night news conference.

Emergency officials evacuated an assisted living center catering to the elderly in Cushing.

Assistant City Manager Jeremy Frazier said that while damage was reported at the Cimarron Tower after the quake, no injuries were reported among the home's residents.

It wasn't immediately known how many people lived at the building in downtown Cushing. Tulsa television station KOTV said some of those taken from the home were moved to the Cushing Youth Center.

Frazier said the temblor caused the most damage in and around Cushing's century-old downtown. A number of brick facades had collapsed, and window panes in several buildings shattered. Frazier said city leaders could do a better assessment after sun-up.

Cindy Roe, 50, has lived in Cushing all her life and said she's never felt anything like Sunday's quake.

"I thought my whole trailer was going to tip over, it was shaking it so bad," she said. "It was loud and all the lights went out and you could hear things falling on the ground.

"It was awful and I don't want to have another one."

Megan Gustafson and Jonathan Gillespie were working a shift at a McDonald's in Cushing when the quake hit.

"It felt like a train was going right through the building, actually," Gustafson, 17, said Sunday night as she and her co-workers stood behind a police barricade downtown, looking for damage. "I kind of freaked out and was hyperventilating a bit."

Gillespie, also 17, described the building as shaking for about 10 seconds or so.

But he said he wasn't as alarmed as Gustafson because he lives in an area that has experienced multiple earthquakes, especially in recent years.

"I didn't think it was anything new," he said.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission said it and the Oklahoma Geological Survey were investigating after the quake, which struck at 7:44 p.m. and was felt as far away as Iowa, Illinois and Texas.

"The OCC's Pipeline Safety Department has been in contact with pipeline operators in the Cushing oil storage terminal under state jurisdiction and there have been no immediate reports of any problems," the commission's spokesman, Matt Skinner, said in a statement. "The assessment of the infrastructure continues."

Assistant City Manager Jeremy Frazier said two pipeline companies had reported no trouble but that the community hadn't heard from all companies.

The oil storage terminal is one of the world's largest. As of Oct. 28, tank farms in the countryside around Cushing held

58.5 million barrels of crude oil, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The community bills itself as the "Pipeline Crossroads of the World."

The Cushing Police Department reported "quite a bit of damage" in the town of 7,900. Spears said some damage was superficial — bricks falling off facades — but that some older buildings might have damaged foundations that would be difficult to assess until daylight.

Fearing aftershocks, Police Chief Tully Folden said people needed to stay out of downtown, where photos posted to social media showed piles of debris at the base of commercial buildings.

The Cushing Public School District has canceled classes Monday in order to assess the earthquake damage.

Oklahoma has had thousands of earthquakes in recent years, with nearly all traced to the underground injection of wastewater left over from oil and gas production. Sunday's quake was centered one mile west of Cushing — and about 25 miles south of where a magnitude 4.3 quake forced a shutdown of several wells last week.

Spears said at the news conference that earthquakes are no longer out of the ordinary.

"I was at home doing some work in my office and, basically, you could feel the whole house sway some. It's beginning to become normal," Spears said. "Nothing surprises you anyway."

The U.S. Geological Survey said initially that Sunday's quake was of magnitude 5.3 but later lowered the reading to 5.0.

According to USGS data, there have been 19 earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past week. When particularly strong quakes hit, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission directs well operators to seize wastewater injections or reduce volume.

A 5.8 earthquake — a record for Oklahoma — hit Pawnee on Sept. 3. Shortly afterward, geologists speculated on whether the temblor occurred on a previously unknown fault.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-07/urgent-magnitude-5-3-earthquake-hits-central-oklahoma