This Is Not An Investment Site. Do Not Make Any Financial Or Investment Decisions Based On Anything You Read Here Or Think You May Have Read Here -- June 23, 2015

Over at SeekingAlpha: Oasis - A high-intensity story.

So far, initial production results show an increase of 22%-45% versus its previous designs across Oasis' acreage, which has translated into a 10%-30% EUR (estimated ultimate recovery) rate increase depending on the location. Roughly 60% of Oasis' wells will be completed with one of its high-intensity completion designs this year, making it the new standard going forward.

As an added bonus, Oasis Petroleum's high-intensity well costs are trending lower faster than expected. Currently, its average high-intensity well costs $9 million to drill and complete, half a million less than its original guidance called for. Looking ahead, there is room for further cost reductions.

Many, many story lines. Maybe some other day.

I normally would not archive this one, but it will be an important article to have a couple of years from now to see how / if Oasis weathers the slump.

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At Least It's Hard To Catch

The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

Two new Ebola cases have been identified in Sierra Leone's capital in recent days, frustrating hopes that the deadly virus may have been defeated there.

The announcement by the country’s National Ebola Response Center followed a resurgence of cases in the northeast of the country, where President Ernest Bai Koroma this month ordered troops to enforce quarantines and a nighttime curfew in the districts of Kambia and Port Loko.

I was surprised to see the story. There's an embargo on news stories on the current Ebola outbreak.

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Yesterday, A 15-Year High; Today, An 18-Year High

Everybody's Happy With Greece

CNBC is reporting:

Japanese stocks clinched an 18-year high amid a higher open in the region early Wednesday, as optimism around Greece's debt talks continues to buoy sentiment.

But all this coverage on Greece causes us to lose site of the rising risks in Italy and France -- Financial Times. 

According to John Maynard Keynes “the expected never happens; it is the unexpected always”.

Obsessed with the problems of Greece and the European periphery, financial markets are ignoring the rising risks of the core, especially Italy and France.

Italy and France face mounting problems of high debt, slow growth, unemployment, poor public finances, lack of competitiveness and an inability to undertake necessary adjustments. Reductions in energy prices combined with low borrowing costs and a weaker euro, engineered by the European Central Bank, cannot hide deep-seated and unresolved problems forever.

Italian total real economy debt (government, household and business) is about 259 per cent of gross domestic product, up 55 per cent since 2007. France’s equivalent debt is about 280 per cent of GDP, up 66 per cent since 2007. This ignores unfunded pension and healthcare obligations as well as contingent commitments to eurozone bailouts.
Italy is running a budget deficit of 2.9 per cent. Government debt is around €2.1tn, or 132 per cent of GDP. French public debt is just above €2tn, or 95 per cent of GDP. The current budget deficit is 4.2 per cent of GDP. France’s budget has not been balanced in any single year since 1974.

Italy’s economy has shrunk about 10 per cent since 2007, as the country endured a triple-dip recession. Italy’s unemployment is more than 12 per cent, with youth unemployment about 44 per cent. French GDP growth is anaemic, with unemployment above 10 per cent and youth unemployment of more than 25 per cent.

And, as a reader reminds me, Spain and Portugal are not in much better shape.