The Market And Energy Page, T+87 -- April 18, 2017

A real nice way to start the day. No yard light -- it's a good place to be (link here):

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Energy and The Market

As predicted: US shale oil output in May (next month) is predicted to rise the most in over two years -- Reuters.

Production is predicted to drop in the Bakken but remain over 1 million bopd. The Permian will rise by nearly 76,000 bopd to 2.4 million bopd. Eagle Ford will rise almost 40,000 bopd to produce 1.2 million bopd. Overall, shale production should increase by 123,000 bopd to 5.2 million bopd. Note (from two days ago): "Saudis continued their over-compliance (with the agreed-upon cuts), cutting production to 9.9 million bopd in March, around 100,000 bopd below the agreed-upon monthly quota."

As predicted: Permian shale producers taking the strain of lower prices -- Bloomberg.

Pipeline: Blackstone to buy Permian Basin pipelines for $2 billion -- Bloomberg. Data points:

• seller: EagleClaw Midstream Venture LLC
• $2 billion in cash
• 375 miles of natural gas pipeline
• will retain name and operate as a Blackstone portfolio company 

Iran boosts gas-output capacity with new projects at giant field -- Bloomberg. Data points:

• Iran: holder of the world's biggest natural gas reserves boosted output
• the giant South Pars offshore field
• raised production to almost 600 million cfpd, putting it on par almost with Qatar
• $20 million to complete the six phases 
• Iran back on track to out-produce Qatar, world's biggest exporter of LNG
• even so, Iranians don't export much LNG because they use it themselves
• new production can barely keep up with domestic demand
• consumption almost doubled to nearly 200 billion cubic meters in 2015 from about 100 billion cubic meters in 2005
• Qatar announced earlier this month that it was ending a 12-year ban on new projects at its section of the shared field
• Qatar calls their part of the deposit the North Field, which together with the South Pars forms the world's largest reservoir of non-associated gas

UnitedHealth's earning beat on higher revenues. Getting the best of both worlds: raise premiums due to cost of ObamaCare and then getting out of ObamaCare? Earnings per share of $2.37 easily beat forecasts of $2.18.

Goldman Sachs stunned Wall Street today with a rare shortfall in bond-trading revenue, a traditional strength, in  a quarter when rivals gained momentum -- Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, Bank of America's revenues surged 40% as fixed-income trading beats estimates -- Bloomberg. 

IBM? What happened? Company misses revenue forecast -- first time in five quarters.

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Not Good ... But ...

Not Unexpected

Across the US, GDP has averaged a 0.6% increase in growth (GDP?) ... two states were stand-outs ... but not for a good reason:

Michigan and Massachusetts: growth "contracted." 

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GDP Now -- Latest Forecast 1Q17

Unchanged -- REMAINS AWFUL

Link here:

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2017 is 0.5 percent on April 18, unchanged from April 14.

The forecast for first-quarter real residential investment growth inched up from 12.0 percent to 12.4 percent after this morning's new residential construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to first-quarter growth declined from −0.71 percentage points to −0.76 percentage points after this morning's industrial production release from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.