Monday Morning And Even More Miscellaneous -- April 13, 2015

Data for wells coming off the confidential list over the weekend, today have been posted. The production profiles are interesting, note, for example, the production profile for this well at the link:

• 25072, 1,449, Newfield, Sand Creek State 153-96-16-2H, Sand Creek, one section, not the production profile, 30 stages; 1.8 million lbs, t1/15; cum 34K 2/15;

Also of interest: wells placed on IA/SI status.

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Oil Looking Good Again

I think this is a re-posting of an earlier story by Bloomberg:

Speculators increased bullish oil bets by the most in more than four years, wagering that the U.S. production boom is slowing. 

Hedge funds boosted net-long positions on West Texas Intermediate crude by 30 percent in the seven days ended April 7, the biggest jump since October 2010, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Long bets rose to a nine-month high, while shorts tumbled 21 percent. 

U.S. crude output and inventories may peak this month amid a record drop in rigs exploring for oil, Goldman Sachs Group said. Refiners returning from seasonal maintenance will add about 500,000 barrels a day of demand by July, the Energy Information Administration forecast, helping ease the biggest glut in 85 years.

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Random comment: based on the Saudi Arabia/OPEC numbers below, had the Keystone XL pipeline been approved, it's very likely the US would have gotten almost all oil, and maybe ALL oil, from the western hemisphere. Canada would have maximized production, filling the Keystone, and it's even possible, another "Keystone" would have been necessary.

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.

Netflix: my favorite story. See "the next big thing" on this blog. I'll link it later if I remember. Netflix is surging 4% on the opening, up over $18. Predicted.

Before market open: Reuters said market would dip at opening -- profit-taking after 3-day run. In fact, the market is already up nicely (it will pull back by 10:00 a.m.) and oil is up over 2%. Think Y-E-M-E-N.

US dollar. Bloomberg is reporting:

Sovereign and corporate borrowers outside America owe a record $9 trillion in the U.S. currency, much of which will need repaying in coming years.

AAPL is up almost a percent. The Apple Watch will do little, if anything, directly for Apple's bottom line, but the Apple Watch will do more for Apple (and already has done more for Apple) than folks realize. In advertising alone, the only technology company in the news for the past week has been Apple. I'm not even sure what Microsoft is selling any more these days. Apple's new MacBook is a direct competitor to the Microsoft Surface; it will take a year or so for the new MacBook to get any traction. It is too far ahead of its time.

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Saudi Crude Oil Imports Into The US

The last time I posted this data was March 1, 2015. The January, 2015, data is out:

788,000 bbls/day.

From wiki:

Motiva Enterprises, LLC, is a 50–50 joint venture between Shell Oil Company and Saudi Refining.  

Motiva Enterprises owns and operates three oil refineries in the gulf coast region of the United States: a 600,000 bbl/d refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, a 235,000 bbl/d refinery in Convent, Louisiana, and a 240,000 bbl/d refinery in Norco, Louisiana. 

On May 25th, 2012, Motiva officially completed its expansion of the Port Arthur refinery to a capacity of 600,000 bbl/d (95,000 m3/d) making it the largest refinery in North America and the fifth largest in the world.

600 + 235 + 240 = 1,075,000 bopd for these three refineries.

Note: I often make simple arithmetic errors. If the above is correct, Saudi Arabia is now providing significantly less oil to its own refineries along the US Gulf Coast. 

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US Crude Oil Imports

The graphic below is for the past six months, from August, 2014, through January, 2015.

Note these story lines:

• imports from OPEC have dropped from 101 million bbls/month to 79 million
• the African countries of Algeria and Angola have taken huge cuts
• Nigeria made up for that African loss for one month; now back to its 'usual"
• Saudi Arabia has maintained (which doesn't quite square with numbers above)
• Ecuador is holding its own, though "volatile"
• Venezuela, down a bit, but not as much as one might expect ("right type" of oil)
• Non-OPEC has jumped; I assume mostly from Canada; some Ecuador, maybe Mexico