A Two-Fer For OIl And Gas Investors -- January 23, 2015

See disclaimer.

For investors with a long term horizon (20 years or so) this is a two-fer and very good news: first, oil companies say they will do what they can to "preserve" their dividends; and, using those dividends for reinvestment, one is buying shares at a great discount. Reuters is reporting:

Europe's oil majors will strike a sober note in their fourth-quarter results and investors will focus on companies' plans to maintain cherished dividends and their strategies to cope with the oil prices collapse that caught many unawares.

Having sold around $120 billion in assets in recent years to boost balance sheets and keep up dividend payouts, companies are expected to increase borrowing and further cut costs as they come to terms with oil prices that have more than halved since June to around $50 a barrel.

Just something I thought I would post.

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EV Charging Corridor

I-95

I-5

Regular readers are aware of this challenge: building out a national EV charging corridor. Part of the problem is that Tesla is going it alone, and others are following suit: proprietary charging stations / proprietary charging systems in their vehicles. The issue has been posted more than once.

Apparently the manufacturers are listening. BWM and Volkswagen are joining hands. The WSJ is reporting:

Two German auto makers are jointly investing in a string of electric-car charging stations along two of the most heavily driven routes in the U.S.

BMW and Volkswagen agreed to work with ChargePoint Inc. to plant 100 chargers along Interstate 95 from Boston to Washington, D.C., and along routes between Portland, Ore., San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

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I See, I See

It's so far under the radar I had forgotten ISIS was still in control of Mosul, Iraq. I wouldn't have thought about that except for the fact that there is now a story that Iraq and the US are planning a summer offensive to re-take the city. With that announcement, we might as well give ISIS our military plans for the offensive.

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Statoil's New Long-Term Project Comes On-Line, Oh-Oh

The WSJ is reporting:

Amid years of high oil prices, Statoil spent $2.67 billion on developing the Gudrun field—a relatively small reservoir of crude buried more than 2 miles under the sea floor here.

But since Statoil approved the development in 2010, crude prices have fallen by 30%. Oil only started flowing last year, and the field is just barely profitable, according to Statoil projections from when the field was approved, and adjusted for current oil and currency prices.

That new math is threatening final investment decisions for several similar fields in nearby waters.

It's going to take some brave bankers to finance oil exploration for projects that take five years to come on-line. Look at that Gudrun field: approved by development back in 2010, and now five years later, production is now flowing (actually four years -- it began production last year).

Did you all see the note from a couple of days ago?

• WPX slashing rig count from 18 to 7 (Bakken, Piceance, San Juan Basins). 5 rigs in Bakken going to 1 but says can easily ramp back up to peak of 30 (thirty). 

I think this is all going to be very, very interesting, five years from now. 

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TurbaTaxTurd

I don't know if folks have been following this story, but it's very interesting. TurboTax tried to pull a "fast one" on its customers, and they were caught.  Now they are offering a refund. It will be interesting to see if they re-price their various editions.