For Investors Only -- MRO To Accelerate Rig Activity In The Bakken; EOG Well Positioned

Early Morning Market

In early trading, the market is up, and oil is right at $100/bbl -- probably helped by the problems in the Houston channel.

Some reports of interest:

• SRE: trading near it's all-time high
• MDU: up slightly
• CVX, COP, XOM: all up slightly; trading as a group
• PSX: up slightly, despite fact spot oil is up slightly
• KOG, EOG, OAS, CLR: mixed, but mostly up; OAS is outlier (down)
• UNP, BRK-B: down
• ENB, WMB, EPD: mostly up
• AAPL: up $6.00 (now at $539)

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here. The companies I follow are not necessarily companies I invest in. For example, I do not invest in AAPL (never have, never will). I thought I woudl never get back into MDU but earlier this year, I finally broke down and bought a bit of MDU (long, not for trading).

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Marathon Oil updates progress on strategic priorities for 2014; initiating additional $500 mln share repurchase:

• President and CEO Lee M. Tillman, at the 2014 Howard Weil conference today in New Orleans, will outline progress the Co has achieved in executing its strategic business plans. In his remarks Tillman will update the status of three key priorities for the Co's 2014 plans, which were announced at its Dec 2013 Analyst Day meeting:  
• accelerated rig activity in Eagle Ford, Bakken and Oklahoma Woodford; successfully ramped up to 28-rig program in Jan 
• opened data room for marketing of North Sea businesses with bids due in the second quarter completed second phase of $1 bln share repurchase associated with close of Angola Block 31 divestment; initiating an additional $500 mln share repurchase

Northern Oil & Gas executes on the repurchase of ~ 5% of its outstanding stock since beginning repurchases in August 2013 under its stock repurchase program: As of March 21, 2014, a total of 3,055,280 shares have been repurchased at a total cost of $39.8 million, or an average cost of $13.04 per share.

Over at SeekingAlpha: EOG well positioned in the Bakken and Permian Basin -- the article begins:

EOG is the largest acreage holder and a top producer in the Eagle Ford Shale. It also has one of the best core positions in North Dakota's Bakken. Similarly, the company has an emerging position in the Permian Basin. Altogether, EOG is by far the best-positioned oil company in America. It is the strong position of the company that has enabled it to grow its production by an average of 43% over the past three years.

With regard to the Bakken, the article states --

Bakken has also transformed from a steady development to a high growth play through completion improvements and cost efficiencies. During 2013, the Bakken contributed gross production of 86 MBoed, reflecting an increase of 38 percent.

The successful drilling results in the Three Forks formation have led the company to test additional benches during 2014. It plans to drill 80 net wells this year up from 54 in 2013. The company will be focusing on two areas: the Bakken core and the Antelope extension. During 2013, the average well performance of the Core and Antelope increased by 50 percent from 894 Bopd to 1,342 Bopd by the end of 2013. Similarly, the average cumulative oil production (100 days) also improved by 63 percent.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Other

Twelve companies announce increased dividends/distributions including Permian Basin Trust.

The Wall Street Journal

This is the lead story, front page: Apple, Comcast discuss streaming-TV service.  Link here. For folks who have followed the Apple philosophy over the years, this makes complete sense.

Mortgage tax breaks helps the wealthy trade up, rather than boost homeownership. But we already knew that, didn't we?

same-sex marriage on hold in Michigan. Can't the courts get together on this thing? Can't we just get along?

This is not good. Turkey shoots down a Syrian "warplane."

Another oil refiner says it will cut CAPEX: Sinopec.

Ahead of the tape: Shiller metric carries warning for stocks: According to a valuation measure associated with the most famous living student of investment bubbles, stocks are undeniably expensive.

The Los Angeles Times

"Cosmos" recap: the meaning and math of comets.   (A complete recap of last night's show.)

 We get some tying up of loose ends in the final segment. Hooke died and Newton replaced him as president of the Royal Society, and may have destroyed his predecessor’s portrait as a final act of revenge against his rival. Halley died at the ripe old age of 85; legend has it that he called for a glass of wine and drank it before breathing his last. But their intellectual legacy lives on. Tyson gets to wax philosophical now, urging us to “feel the wonder and not the fear” when we contemplate the universe, and marveling at how far human ingenuity has taken us: “The baby in the basket is learning to walk – and to know the cosmos.”

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Why Warmists Have Lost Their Way

Mother Jones: One Reason It May Be Harder to Find Flight 370: We Messed Up the Currents, March 21, 2014; the earth's temperature has changed not a bit during this time period; "humans changed the currents?" give me a break. 
Minneapolis Star & Tribune. (article no longer available)
National Geographic: the cover with the Statue of Liberty underwater.