Friday, January 14, 2011

Texas Hold 'Em

My hyperbole gets ahead of me so I know what I am about to say will turn out to be wrong, but it's my two cents worth regarding the events of the past week or so.

The question is this: has the current administration and/or the environmentalists pushed the domestic oil industry beyond the point of no return?

My thesis is this: as long as the price of oil was trading in a $60 - $80 range, and the price of gasoline was staying in the $2.50 to $2.75 range, the administration could make political points and the environmentalists could maintain the support of the moderate center.

The administration and/or the environmentalists had to know that at some point their positions would become untenable but they were willing to push to the edge of the envelope. As long as everything was going okay, they could push the price of oil to $80 and the price of gasoline to $2.75, and then back away a bit if necessary.

But things are all of a sudden, perhaps, spiraling out of control for both the administration and the environmentalists.

The moratorium on any more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico clearly pushed the edge of the envelope. Had things stopped there, the position of the administration and the environmentalists was tenable. It would have remained only a local issue (for Louisiana and Texas) and a corporate issue for a handful of companies (such as Noble and BP).

But then the unexpected happened: the interruption of the Alaskan oil pipeline. It will be shut down again this weekend to put in a bypass line. The pipeline is expected to be shut down not longer than 72 hours, but operators say they will take the time necessary to make sure it's done safely.

The price of oil ended the day higher. Every pundit agrees that in the short term, the price of oil is headed for $100/barrel, and with it, gasoline at $4.00/gallon in California.

Following the oil spill, Noble mothballed ten deep water rigs due to "new" regulations. On January 4, 2011 (ten days ago), another Noble rig was to be taken off line because the contractor in the Gulf no longer wanted it. Noble will either mothball that rig (number 11) or will move it off shore elsewhere, probably Africa, bringing the number of deep water rigs that have been moved out of the Gulf to six (6), at least by my count.

When the rigs started moving out of the Gulf, I opined that they would "never" come back. "Never" is a long time, but in this case, I think "never" can be at least until the price of oil hits $150/barrel, or until the price per barrel outweighs the liability associated with another spill along the American coast.

Up to this point, the position of the administration and/or the environmentalists remained tenable, but hanging by a thread. Any more bad news within the domestic oil industry would make $100 oil a certainty, and maybe worse.

At noon today we were still at a tipping point. It could go either way. Perhaps some good news would be announced that would assure consumers that oil might not hit $100. But, and more ominously, just as much of a chance some bad news would be announced that would assure $100 oil or worse.

Less than four hours later, we were no longer on the cusp. We had passed the tipping point.

BP made a momentous announcement.

BP, whose well it was that blew in the Gulf, and whose pipeline in Alaska that leaked, made a deal with a state-owned oil company. It is being said that this is the "first time in the history of [the] industry that there's been a significant cross shareholding between a major international oil company and a major national oil company."

Some have opined that this deal means that BP has turned its back on drilling in Alaska. I don't know. Money is money. It's unlikely BP would risk losing the pipeline. Or would it?

It is said that under the best of circumstances the Alaska pipeline may no longer be viable by 2017. And if a certain amount of oil does not flow down that pipeline, it must be closed. I don't know the amount, but it was said during the week that the 400,000 barrels of oil flowing through the pipeline at the end of this week was not enough to keep the pipeline open on a permanent basis.

In all of the talk about the BP story and the price of oil going to $100 I have not heard any mention of one of the key players. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or an oil engineer or even a political scientist from Harvard to recognize that Vladimir Putin has been becoming more and more open in his anti-America rhetoric. This BP-Russian deal would not have happened without Putin's okay.

The question is this: has BP "blown off" Alaska?

If BP saw the demise of the pipeline within the next three or four years, was it better to cut its losses now and buddy up with a more reliable partner? It takes a few years to begin the development of a new field in the likes of Russia.

I think this BP-Russian deal is so much bigger than most of us can comprehend. To give you an idea of how big this story is:
And that would be the end of the story, except for one thing.

Back to the beginning of this posting in which I asked: has the current administration and/or the environmentalists pushed the domestic oil industry beyond the point of no return?

I think there is evidence that the administration realizes that if it hasn't pushed the domestic oil industry beyond the point of no return, it is very, very close. Here's the evidence. It has to do with the de facto moratorium for any new drilling in the Gulf:
Michael Bromwich, the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, told a Washington audience that he understands the anxiety within industry and its congressional backers about the changing regulatory landscape -- even as he laid out plans for a new agency that will oversee environment and safety.  
Bromwich said he understands the anxiety about new requirements imposed since the Gulf disaster. 
"The implication is that we have other regulatory requirements up our sleeve that we have not yet unveiled," Bromwich said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "That is not the case. Barring significant, unanticipated revelations from investigations into the root causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that remain in process, I do not anticipate further emergency rule makings -- period." 
When I read between the lines, I am hearing one of two things: either doublespeak from an administration bureaucrat, or a genuine plea to have the rigs brought back to the Gulf and drilling to begin again. If it's a genuine plea, it's similar to the famous trip George Bush took to Saudi to ask for help in keeping the price of oil down. If it's that, the administration is desperate. As I've opined before, Obama's worst nightmare is $100 oil and 10% unemployment, both of which are here except for slight technicalities.

If the oil companies don't come back to the Gulf and if BP turns its back on Alaska, $100 oil will be an obvious outcome in the minds of any thinking American, and with it, $4.00 gasoline on the West Coast. [It's already $3.59 in Los Angeles.] Once the $4.00 threshold is passed, it's easy to get to $4.50. And $4.50 is the same as $5.00 for anyone who can't afford $4.00 gasoline in the first place.

My hunch is that the administration and/or the environmentalists overplayed their hand with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In language any oilman can understand, the spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the flop. The Alaska pipeline was the "turn."

The BP-Russia deal was the "river card."

And Putin won.

*******

Unrelated to this commentary, but a link I did not want to lose:
Amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico last summer will be based on political and legal wrangling, not science.

Three (3) New Permits -- North Dakota, USA

Producers: BEXP and EOG.

Fields: Alger and Antelope.

The wells that have been completed and reported in this daily activity report include:
  • 17918, 2,166, Newfield, Clear Creek Federal 1-26H, McKenzie County
  • 18455, 1,089, KOG, Two Shields Butte 14-21-4H, Dunn County
  • 18497, 1,878, Newfield, Ursus 1-20H, Dunn County
  • 18641, 1,856, Newfield, Megamouth 1-8H, McKenzie County
  • 18989, 958, KOG, Two Shields Butt 14-21-33 1H, Dunn
  • 18365, 1,379, EOG, Liberty 8-01H, Mountrail County
I believe all of these have been reported earlier at this site.

Five Nice Wells Reported By WLL Today -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

These five (5) Whiting wells came off the confidential list today:
  • 18724, 1,251, WLL, Foreman 11-4TFH, Sanish, Bakken, cumulative 46K in 5 months
  • 18639, 2,309, WLL, Iverson 21-14H, Sanish, Bakken, cumulative 114K in 5.5 months
  • 18553, 1,776, WLL, Kannianen 43-31H, Sanish, Bakken, cumulative 78K in 5 months
  • 18507, 1,946, WLL, Lahti 24-22H, Sanish, Bakken, cumulative 127K in 5.5 months
  • 18500, 1,073, WLL, Marmon 12-18TFH, Sanish, Bakken
For the first four wells listed, 365,000 bbls cumulative oil. At $50/bbl = $18 million. Four wells probably cost $28 million to drill and complete. 

The fifth well, the Marmon well, had a great IP, but cumulative oil all not that impressive. Time will tell.

Remember, on a daily basis, I post new wells that report data at this page.

Oil Has To Get to Between $174 and $254 For Volt, Leaf To Be Economical -- Not a Bakken Story

Link here.

Original story here.

And that's with all the incentives. Once the incentives go away, they will never be economical.

Remember: the US government says the price of oil will stay stable through 2035 and might even fall in price.

I can't make this stuff up.

Tiered Electricity Rates: Montana vs California -- Not a Bakken Story

I normally wouldn't follow this and I certainly wouldn't post it under "normal" circumstances, but the irony is too good to pass up.

This is one of those stories that just make "you" feel good. Because most of "you"want to be good stewards but can't afford a $50,000 subcompact.

The "most green state" charges more for charging your "green" car with a social engineering policy that some Montana folks don't want to emulate.

Cowboys are always straight shooters.

Here's the story, based on a year-long study out of Purdue University.

California has a tiered electricity rate: the more electricity you use, the higher your rate.

There is a bill in the Montana legislature that would prevent this social engineering.

Californians already pay a higher rate than "the average" in the US; about 35% higher.
"The tiered system was put in because California wanted to be green and discourage electricity consumption," said Wally Tyner, an energy economist and lead researcher on the study. "The unintended consequence is that it also discourages electric vehicles."

And it gets worse.
  • A plug-in hybrid Volt would increase the average household's electrical usage 60%. 
  • The same principle would apply to all-electric vehicles such as the Leaf.
  • Both the hybrid Toyota Prius, which doesn't need an outlet to charge, and the gas-powered Chevrolet Cobalt are more cost-effective in California; BUT,
  • Oil prices would have to rise from less than $100 a barrel now to between $171 and $254 to make the Volt as economical, even after factoring in thousands of dollars in government incentives.
The Purdue findings, which took more than a year to compile, were published in the Energy Policy journal.

There was only one error in the study. These are not electric cars; these are coal-powered cars.

Seeking Alpha: ERF

Link here.

I held ERF when it was a trust; jumped out when Canada changed its tax laws.

Now, I am ready to get back into ERF.

EPD Increases Its Distribution

Link  here.

I accumulate EPD for its distribution.  I haven't recently looked at my posting that listed my holdings (in a general sense) and investment strategy, so I can't remember if I mentioned EPD at the time, but I'm sure I did. I won't link that commentary and won't direct folks to it. It should be relatively easy to find, but I don't want folks to think I'm pumping my holdings.

During my "working years" (which, by the way, never felt like work), I had discretionary income with which to invest. In retirement, I don't have discretionary income, and I tweaked my investment strategy to include high-distribution and high-dividend payers for cash for reinvestment elsewhere.

*******

The rest of this posting is purely reminiscing. Skip it unless you want to read a bit about my background.

Speaking of my "working years." I was in the Air Force for thirty years (you can see that at my profile, I think; I haven't checked my profile in months, but the photo shows me in uniform). During those thirty years it never felt like work. I missed three days of work in those 30 years due to illness -- due to the nature of the illness, absolute bed rest was mandated. It was in my fourth year with the Air Force. Never missed a day of work after that.

One day, I had a fever to 102 degrees or something like that, and felt quite ill with the "flu." I was walking into work (we were deployed at the time) to let my boss know I probably wasn't going to be too useful that day. We had no phones, so I couldn't "call in sick." It was a mile or so from billeting to the flight line and most of us had no cars. On the way in, the base commander picked me up and offered me an opportunity to fly backseat in a high performance jet, an opportunity I could not pass up, and so I ended up not "calling in sick." He never knew how ill I was. (The "flu" turned out to be a mild pneumonia.)

[Funny things about coincidences. I posted this about 12:00 noon on Friday, January 14, 2011. A couple hours later I was surfing the net and ran across a headline story in Wired.com on the F-15, the plane I flew in that day referenced in the preceding paragraph. Funny how things happen.]

As a rule I went in to work seven days a week except when I was on leave (I never took my full allotment of leave [vacation] days -- in fact, many [most?] military folks don't use all their leave in any given year, particularly when deployed).

Early on in my career, I was responsible to my unit 24 hours/day every other day (alternating with 12 hour days), and then starting about 15 years before retirement, responsible to my unit 24 hours/7 days a week (except when on leave). And yet it never felt like work. The mission was exciting, the travel was phenomenal, the feeling of camaraderie is impossible to share or articulate.

The worse years of my Air Force career were the last seven years in which I had a Monday-Friday,  "9-to-5" job with minimal responsibilities after hours.

My experience was not unusual. I think the vast majority of folks in the military never think of it as a job or work. Most look forward to going into "work." At least that was my experience. Probably rose-colored glasses. Now I wear oily-colored glasses. Smile.

Just reminiscing.

Motley Fool: Oil Is Poised to Go Higher

So, what's new?

Link here.

And this was the headline story on DrudgeReport, Friday, January 14, 2011, going into the 4-day weekend.

Idaho, Megaloads, and the Highways: Good News for the OIl Companies

Note: for complete time line and updates of the Idaho megaloads, click here

For those following this story, the "headline" will remind you what this story is all about. It's been going on for the past year.

[Update, January 18, 2010: Idaho official approves megaloads. I assume someone will find yet another way to stop this shipment. Sheesh.]

Investopedia: The Bakken Will Still Rule in 2011 -- North Dakota, USA

Link here.

Not much else to say. That's what this entire blog is all about.

Bakken Companies Could Face Further Price Pressure (Downward) -- North Dakota, USA

Link here.

This is the thesis:
U.S. oil, the cheapest in almost two years relative to other grades of crude, is poised to extend its discount.
This is a difficult story for me to follow. I certainly don't trade in oil futures.

However, there are some interesting tidbits in the story.
  • West Texas Intermediate (Bakken oil, for the most part) has averaged $1 a barrel more than Brent in the past 10 years, but is currently about $7.00 lower and could drop to $8.50 below Brent.
This is the reason:
The difference between the two crudes has more than doubled this month amid swollen stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, the main delivery point for Nymex futures.
Inventories have jumped 18 percent since November as TransCanada Corp. started a pipeline bringing Canadian supplies to the region. At the same time, outages in the Norwegian section of the North Sea have placed a premium on the earliest deliveries of Brent, the benchmark grade for two-thirds of the world’s oil market. 
A related story with regard to over-supply at Cushing.
Other tidbits:
  • The spread will persist -- advantage to Brent -- until the TransCanada Keystone pipeline is completed -- but this doesn't happen until 2013 -- a "long" way off
  • As much as 156,000 barrels of additional crude a day will arrive in Cushing from next month once the Keystone pipeline starts
  • More may come in during February and March as Enbridge carries out maintenance on the 290,000 barrel-a-day line between Indiana and Ontario
This may explain the reason why Enbridge recently announced that it will ship only sweet oil in the future. With more than enough oil in the pipeline, it might as well ship the "best" stuff (the Bakken oil)

Whiting: Looking to Drill Inside National Forest System -- North Dakota, USA

Link here.

Near Belfield, inside National Forest System. Initially eight acres disturbed and then down to 2.5 acre pad. The gathering system will be a pipeline, so no road. There was an old well there some years ago but the area has been reclaimed.

Now, this is going to show my ignorance. I almost hate to post this for fear of the comments that will come in.

I am not aware of "National Forest" inside North Dakota.

Actually, that's not quite true. There are at least two huge "You Are Entering National Forest" signs in North Dakota, probably on US Highway 85, if I remember correctly. I always got a kick out of those signs, because as you "entered the forest" there were no trees.

When I was a junior in high school, I had a wonderful English teacher. She must have been from New York. She told us one day that when we grew up we should go to New York (state, I assume), and just stand in front of a tree, waiting for a New Yorker to ask you what you were doing. She told us to tell the New Yorker that we were from North Dakota and had never seen a tree before.

Speaking of which, some years ago, my brother asked me if I wanted to see his horse running wild somewhere on the North Dakota prairie north of Williston. He told me to drive about fourteen miles north of Williston on US Highway 85 and when I saw a tree -- yes, it would be the only tree -- that would be at the intersection of the gravel road that I was to turn right on. And so I did. I drove about fourteen miles north, and there it was: a lone tree. And a gravel road. Some miles down that road I saw two horses running wild, including my brother's horse.

At wikipedia, where all national forests are listed, North Dakota is not included. When  you pull down a Google map of the National Forest System, Teddy Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) pops up, as does Little Missouri National Grassland (LMNG).

I assume the National Forest System has jurisdictional / admin control for National Grassland. I don't know where TRNP starts/stops with relation to the LMNG (perhaps the "park" is inside the LMNG).

My hunch is that the well will be outside the park itself. Idle chatter. I post this mostly to help educate folks that may be unfamiliar with North Dakota geography. And to reminisce.

SSN Continues to Surge

No explanation. I don't think it has anything to do with the Bakken, but I could be wrong. For these small companies, it only takes one good well.

Up 17 percent yesterday; up 8 percent today.

This, from Motley Fools, may shed some light. Maybe it is all about the Bakken.

TPLM and GEOI also up today. TPLM recently recommended by ZMAN and GEOI with new share offering.

TPLM has just released a presser identical to that of SSN's regarding price action.

Bloomberg's Chart of the Day: North Dakota Could Surpass Alaska in Oil Production

I've posted this story back on January 2, 2011, and at least once more after that, but I missed the Bloomberg story from yesterday. A big thank you from a reader in Minnesota who caught it and sent it to me.

At the link:
The Chart of the Day shows production from North Dakota could increase to between 450,000 barrels and 700,000 barrels a day in the next three to seven years, according to a December report from the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, citing a forecast from the state’s Department of Mineral Resources. Alaska’s output may fall to 450,000 barrels daily by 2017, the Energy Department said Dec. 16 in its Annual Energy Outlook.