Whiting Bankruptcy Plan Okay'd; Only One Well Coming Off Confidential List; Home Depot, Walmart Post Records; ISO CA Could Face 4,000-MW Deficit Today -- August 18, 2020

First things first: bankruptcy court approves Whiting's reorganization plans, The Williston Herald.

Under the plan approved by the Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court, Whiting will shed $2.4 billion of its debts, in a $3.4 billion bankruptcy reorganization that will leave 97 percent of its ownership in the hands of private equity firms and investors and 3 percent with existing stockholders. 

• revolving fund's credit limit will be $1.5 billion
• target date: September 1; until then, changes possible

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. 

Homebuilder sentiment: jumps to record high.

Builder confidence in the newly built, single-family home market jumped 6 points to 78 in August on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. Anything above 50 is considered positive sentiment.

The index is now at the highest level in the 35-year history of the monthly series and matches the record set in December 1998. Builder sentiment plunged to 30 in April, when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the U.S. economy, but it recovered quickly as consumers suddenly sought more space in less urban areas.

Home depot: smashes 2Q20 earnings forecasts.

• posts record sales;
• biggest rise in quarterly same-store sales in at least two decades;
• EPS: $4.02, up 26.8% from same period last year
• forecast EPS: $3.71
• net income rose 24.5% to $4.33 billion;

Walmart: earnings soar, led by nearly 100% surge in e-commerce;

• adjusted EPS: $1.56 vs $1.24 forecast
• revenue: $137.7 billion vs $135.6 billion forecast
• pre-market: shares jumped 6%

ISO California (and later, see this note):

• yesterday, demand for today forecast to be 50,485 MW;
• historic peak: 50,270 MW, July 24, 2006;
• today, demand has increased from 50,485 MW to 50,553 MW; link here;
• capacity expected to be: 46,619 MW
• forecast deficit: =3,914, which will be close to a record deficit this year, if not a record deficit; I think I recall governor of California citing a 4,000-MW deficit earlier;
  

Record demand, record prices: Permian supply concerns push Southern California winter gas prices toward record highs. Link here. 

• winter strip averaging $4.58 / MMBtu
• Permian production down 200 MMcf/d vs July average
• midstream growth to boost competition for Permian gas

OPEC basket, link here: $44.94.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$42.68	8/18/2020	08/18/2019	08/18/2018	08/18/2017	08/18/2016
Active Rigs	12	61	59	53	33

Only one well coming off confidential list --Tuesday, August 18, 2020: 55 for the month; 126 for the quarter, 572 for the year:

• 36464, SI/A, Whiting, Michael John 12-13XH, Sanish, t--; cum 54K 2 months; a 25K month;
  

RBN Energy: is New England's on-and-off-embrace of gas-fired power headed for a fall?

The U.S. power sector’s shift to natural gas over the past few years has been a boon to gas producers across the Lower 48, especially in the Northeast. Scores of new gas-fired power plants have been built there during the Shale Era, and a number of coal-fired, oil-fired, and nuclear plants have been taken offline. New England is a case in point; gas-fired power now accounts for about half of the installed generating capacity in the six-state region (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) — three times what it was 20 years ago. But New Englanders have a love-hate relationship with natural gas, and with renewables and energy storage on the rise, gas’s role in the land of the Red Sox, hard-to-understand accents, and lobsta’ rolls may well have peaked. Today, we discuss recent developments on the natural gas and power generation fronts in the northeastern corner of the U.S.