Buyout Candidates in the Bakken -- Filloon; Other Monday Morning Links; ATT iPhone Breaks Records; Shell Gives Up

Shell Gives Up: Won't Hit the Arctic in 2012
The Permitorium Was Just Too Much

For those interested, the article is linked here. I'm not (interested). I'm tired of reading about the permitorium.

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From Bloomberg: 
Oil Trades Near Four-Month High on Signs of Improving Economy 

That is the headline, as incredible as it sounds: "oil trades near four-month high on signs of improving economy."

We all know the price of oil jumped this past week due to the US printing more money with no collateral to back that money up; the printing is referred to as QE3. The jump in the price of oil had nothing to do with signs of an improving economy as suggested by the headline.

The article itself reflected a bit more reality. In addition, the article said that it was likely that oil would continue to move up in the near future. 

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Bakken Buyout Candidates

This is part IV in a Mike Filloon series on Bakken buyout candidates.

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ATT/iPhone Break Records

Apple noted on Friday that it was "blown away" by demand for the iPhone 5, and today AT&T tells MacRumors that the iPhone 5 broke sales records over the weekend. AT&T customers ordered more iPhone 5 models than any previous iPhone, breaking records both for first day preorders and for the whole weekend. Apple pre-orders top 2 million; doubling record -- Bloomberg. Similar story at the WSJ.


Meanwhile: Apple will be opening five (5) new stores during the week of the iPhone 5 roll-out.

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Future of Refining

RBN Energy: summarizes a new 100+ page report on the future of refining.
The article is another impressive primer on explaining the nuances of refining the current Bakken light and Canadian heavy oil: one takeaway -- the future holds too little diesel and too much gasoline.

This was noted by those writing the original report:

Increased crude production in North Dakota and increased imports of Canadian crude have accumulated a growing stockpile of crude in the Midwest at the Cushing storage hub. More crude is being produced than can be consumed by Midwest refiners and the infrastructure to carry this crude to the Gulf Coast where sufficient refining capacity is located, has yet to be built out.

Without the whole report, one does not see what they wrote about CBR. But RBN Energy always does a great job putting the story together, so my hunch is the report completely missed the fact that BNSF now has the capacity to ship 1 million bopd, far in excess of the 670,000 bopd currently being produced. Pipeline capacity is around 460,000 bopd if I remember correctly, and growing, even without the Keystone XL. In addition to BNSF's 1 million bopd shipping capacity, CBR also provides for flexibility that pipelines don't.