Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Looks LIke Another "Natural" Advantage Of Bakken Crude Oil Over "Permian" Oil -- RBN Energy; Oil Touched Bottom, Reverses -- January 28, 2020

5-4: The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Trump administration can block thousands of immigrants from receiving public assistance while legal challenges continue.
Under the Department of Homeland Security rule, legal immigrants receiving or deemed likely to need non-cash benefits for more than a year, such as food stamps, Medicaid or housing vouchers, can be denied residency or green cards.
XOM: oh-oh. Promised turnaround did not happen Share price lowest in decades.

2020: party like it's 1999. Americans to inherit almost $1 trillion this year ... tax-free. I've talked about this before. I might have to come up with a new tag. We'll see. Related, recently: pipelines; BlackRock; $13 trillion; SecureAct; mandatory distributions.

EVs: a reader sent me a link to "GM to invest $2.2 billion in Detroit plant to produce electric cars." Google it. My reply, not ready for prime time:
The auto manufacturers are all getting ready for the mandates that will be put in place in 2021, or 2025 at the latest, when Trump is out of office.

At some point, the auto manufacturers will have poured so much money into the EV scheme, that "too big to fail" will be "new" again; and the government will have no choice but to mandate EVs for all. If not, a lot of US manufacturers will fail, and a lot of stateside manufacturing plants will close regardless of whether they are Japanese, German, or Korean.

It will be a huge transition for everyone on such a huge scale. The infrastructure alone that is needed is huge: just the neighborhood transformers (GE) that will all need upgrading. The utilities will have to expand exponentially to handle the electricity / grid issues. Solar / wind won't keep up, and natural gas will be the bridge (a bridge that will last at least 50 years) before we transition to small, modular nuclear reactors.

A lot of mechanics, service station attendants, will be looking for new work. A whole ICE supply chain will disappear. NAPA Parts? How about NAPA Departs?

I don't see investing in automobile companies as particularly attractive: the margins won't be huge; batteries are simply too expensive, and no "moat" -- every auto manufacturer will be building them. Competition will be incredibly stiff. But infrastructure investing might be different: utilities, charging networks (copper wiring?), GE transformers, commodities such as lithium, cobalt.

As oil fields mature, they become more "gassy." Thus, the oil fields of the Permian, the Eagle Ford, the Bakken, the D-J, etc. will gradually transition from oil to gas -- competing with the Appalachian region.

I've been transitioning my portfolio from oil to utilities, mostly for the dividends, but also the "writing on the wall."
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

********************************
Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$53.561/28/202001/28/201901/28/201801/28/201701/28/2016
Active Rigs5565573846

Three wells coming off confidential list today -- Tuesday, January 28, 2020: 94 for the month; 94 for the quarter, 94 for the year:
  • 36466, conf, WPX, Skunk Creek 23-14HD,
  • 35886, conf, Liberty Resources Management, Morgen 158-93-20-17-2TFH,
  • 35619, conf, Whiting, Fladeland 44-9-3H, 
RBN Energy: how disparate Permian crude quality impacts new pipeline and export infrastructure.
To say that Permian crude oil quality varies is an understatement at best. In fact, there’s as much variety in the crude coming out of West Texas as there is in the arsenal of a major league pitching ace. Handling those varied crude qualities is the challenge of midstream operators, who, like batters facing down a Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez in their prime, need to do the best they can with what they’re given. With the start of spring training only a month away, we begin a series detailing the current mix of Permian crude oil qualities, how pipelines are handling them, and what it means for exports, the end destination for much of today’s incremental Permian oil production. Today, we discuss Permian crude quality variations and the steps new pipelines are taking to deal with it.

2 comments:

  1. NM nipping at your heels, ND. Rystad thinks they broke into the millionare (state bopd) club in NOV or DEC:

    https://www.rystadenergy.com/newsevents/news/press-releases/new-mexico-flirts-with-1-million-bpd-oil-threshold/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it will be an interesting story to follow. My hunch is that New Mexico won't develop much outside of drilling and pipelines, sending their oil to the Texas coast. Meanwhile, Texas will be a huge manufacturing / processing state, and North Dakota will keep adding more NGL processing capacity.

      Delete