Big Oil Ready To Surge -- January 12, 2017

DAPL forecast: again, North Dakota is pretty much shut down for the day. Darn that global warming!! It will be so much better 83 years from now when it's 18.8 degrees below zero instead of 20 degrees below zero.

 

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Why I Love To Blog

I had to quit early last night. I was overwhelmed by one photo that a reader sent me. I will post it later. About the same time I was receiving so many e-mails from readers I was simply unable to keep up. There is so much good stuff out there. On top of that, the fifteen new permits by Whiting is a perfect example of what I mean by "Bakken 2.0." I wanted to dedicate a stand-alone post to those fifteen permits but simply ran out of steam. Perhaps I will get to it today.

So that I don't forget anything today, I may just provide some links with minimal commenting and see how it goes.

First the photographs that completely overwhelmed me. Look how far this cattle herd stretches; you cannot see the end at it stretches into the far horizon. It's  mind boggling. The photographs will be sharper at the original site where they were posted.

The rancher says they are generally able to leave the cattle out during the winters in the past; historically there has not been that much snow cover. But this year, the snow was overwhelming and the rancher(s) had no choice but to bring the cattle "in" to make sure they were able to be fed. This is from Gil Red Angus facebook site. The ranch is located in/near Timber Lake, SD. Timber Lake is about 50 miles due south from the Standing Rock Reservation along the ND/SD state line. By road, it it is about 90 miles south of Cannon Ball, ND, site of the DAPL protests.

Cattle are not able to fend for themselves in snow like this; American bison ("buffalo") are able to fend for themselves even in deep snow.

Cattle Call, Eddy Arnold

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Big oil ready to surge: projects started before price crash are now coming on line, Bloomberg via Rigzone.

• seven of the world’s largest energy companies will together boost oil and natural gas output by 398,000 barrels a day, the most since since 2010
• the oil majors aren’t increasing their drilling budgets. Instead they’re benefiting from money invested before the rout. Lower costs combined with higher output would allow companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc to maximize their gains from improved oil prices. Should crude remain above $50 a barrel, 2017 could be a break-out year, eliminating the need to borrow to pay dividends
• after reaching an intraday low of $27.10 a barrel on Jan. 20, Brent oil prices more than doubled to a high of $57.89 on Dec. 12. Futures traded Wednesday at $53.97 a barrel, up 0.6 percent, as of 11:46 a.m. London time. The global benchmark rose 52 percent last year, its biggest yearly gain since 2009. Shares in the majors, meanwhile, rose across the board, led by Shell, whose B shares gained 53 percent in London, the best annual increase since at least 1990

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. 

Oil, gas investment to grow in 2017 for first time since price crash, Rigzone.  Projects will be smaller, more efficient.

Iraq cuts oil production by 160,000 bopd under OPEC deal, via Reuters.

Update on development of Mediterranean natural gas oil field off Israel. This was a big story some months ago; now an update. Tagged: Energean Oil & Gas; Tanin; Karish; US-Israeli partners Delek Group and Noble Energy.

Iso Express, New England: the price of electricity -- "normally" about $30/MWh appears to have hit almost $500 / MWh overnight.

Anyone charging their Tesla in their residential garage in New England last night just before midnight could be in for a huge surprise on their utility bill, I suppose.

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Mexico

Investors are "bolting" Mexico. Peso in free fall. The road to Venezuela? The Wall Street Journal.

Mexico "ready" to negotiate with Trump. First agenda item: the "wall." Reuters via Yahoo News. 

For newbies, I've been saying for the past few months, two big stories being under-reported by mainstream media: Mexico and India.

Jobs:

• first time unemployment claims: 247,000 vs 255,000 estimate; that was the headline
• the real story: claims surged 10,000; estimate was for an eighteen-thousand surge -- wow
• not only that, previous week was revised upward by 2,000
• 97 consecutive weeks below 300,000
• four-week average: fell 1,750 to 256,500

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

	1/12/2017	01/12/2016	01/12/2015	01/12/2014	01/12/2013
Active Rigs	36	54	156	192	182

RBN Energy: impact of changes to the Mexican heavy crude benchmark. This article takes us back to the Keystone Pipeline and why it was so incredibly important to the US oil industry's long-term planning. The fact that it would be killed by the Obama administration was the farthest thing from the oil industry's mind when the pipeline was being planned. Not only did killing the Keystone completely disrupt strategic (40+ year-vision) plans for North American energy independence it led the way for keystoning the entire US crude oil and natural gas pipeline planning process.

Maya, Mexico’s flagship heavy crude, has been a key staple in the diet of U.S. Gulf Coast refiners for a long time, and it has faithfully served as a price benchmark for nearly all heavy crude oil traded along the U.S. Gulf, and points beyond.  

Maya’s price, relative to lighter benchmark grades such as Louisiana Light Sweet (LLS) or Brent, provides ready insight into the profitability of heavy oil (coking) refiners. But production of Maya peaked in 2004 and has declined considerably since then, raising questions about its continuing efficacy as a price benchmark.

Now it’s come to light that a component of the Maya price formula was changed effective January 1, 2017. Although the change—related to the formula’s fuel oil price component—might be viewed as a relatively minor tweak, it raises new questions about this important heavy oil price benchmark. Today we begin a two-part series on Maya crude, the new price formula and its potential effects.

Mexico currently produces about 2.2 million barrels a day (MMb/d) of crude oil, which makes it the 12th largest-producing country in the world. P.M.I. Comercio Internacional S.A. de C.V. (PMI) is the crude oil marketing entity of state-controlled Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) and manages exports that currently comprise about one-half of production, ~1.1 MMb/d.

PMI exports four distinct quality grades of crude oil, ranging from Altamira (an asphalt grade) and Maya on the lower end of the quality spectrum, to Isthmus in the middle, and Olmeca at the higher end. PMI reports that its typical customer base includes a total of about 25 refiners in the Americas, Europe, and the Far East.

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A Note For The Granddaughters

When I look back on my life, and I think many folks do the same thing, I look at the forks in the road that really, really changed my life.

I can actually remember one event in first grade (elementary school) that foreshadowed my "life."

The next fork in the road of my life, without question, was two years of Latin in 8th and 9th grade, at Central Junior High. Without question, Latin was the most important course I ever, very took. It got me excited about world history. It made my ability to read English that much better. It introduced me to classical Greece and Rome. Mythology. I remember very clearly my Latin instructor telling us that the most difficult thing about teaching Latin was having to "teach English grammar" to students. Latin prepared me for college, and it really, really paid off in graduate school. I have trouble understanding students who plan a major in science in college who do not take Latin. If they don't take Latin, I consider it a failure of adult leadership, particularly school "counselors." Latin is available everywhere -- if not actually "offered" by middle or high school, it can be taken on-line.

On her own, our oldest granddaughter, now an 8th grade student, is taking Latin. She takes it during "zero hour." Her middle school day starts with first period and runs through six or seven periods. But for those who want, they can take an elective at the high school which starts an hour earlier than her middle school and is called "zero hour." She opted to take Latin in "zero hour" and says she loves it.

One of our favorite topics of discussion on the drive to school is the etymology of words, and then to think of other words that have the same base. It's amazing where the discussions lead.

Which takes me to another story.

I wish I had tracked language development of our two daughters, and the language development of our three granddaughters, but for various reasons (mostly too busy) I did not.

Because of the way things worked out, I spend three to fours with Sophia (2.5 years old). We are joined at the hip. She loves to talk and it's been a real joy to hear her development.

I can't articulate this well, but how toddlers figure out language is very enlightening. When something is happening, we add "ing" to the base verb: running, laughing, cheering, growing, baking. When we add "ing" to run, it means that "running" is happening. When we add "ing" to laugh, it means that "laughing" is happening.

We don't say it is "getting laughed", or "getting baked." Someone is "laughing" or something is "baking."

Sophia and I go to the park almost every day. We stay until its becomes too dark to see anything, although lately we have even gone back to the park after dark.

Over the past three days when it was time to start heading home, I noted how Sophia referred to the coming darkness. She did not say it was "getting dark." She said it was "darking." It's possible she meant to say "it is darkening" but whether it was "darking" or "darkening" she figured that if you say something is baking, running, laughing, then with night time coming on, one says it is "darking."

I don't correct her. We just continue the conversation. I'm not interested in necessarily teaching her English. I'm interested in conversations.

Last night the moon was full, or almost nearly full. I had her look in that direction and she immediately told me it was the moon. I told her several times that when the moon was that big, it was a "full" moon. She remembered that for the rest of the stroller ride home. It will be interesting if she remembers that term tonight when the moon will be just as big / full.