Oasis To Sell Off It's Non-Core North Dakota/Montana Assets -- September 16, 2017

Oasis To Sell Off It's Non-Core North Dakota/Montana Assets

Link at Oil and Gas Investor.

A huge thanks to Don for sending me the link; I would have missed it.

From the linked article:

The offer is described as a consolidated held-by-production (HBP ) acreage position covering nearly 17,900 net acres in North Dakota and Montana, excluding Bakken/Three Forks rights. Additionally, the sale includes shallow decline production primarily from the Madison Formation.

Highlights:

• 594 barrels of oil equivalent per day (more than 90% oil) net production forecasted in October, primarily from the Madison Formation;
• $303,000 projected October cash flow;
• 49 operated and 15 nonoperated producing wells;
• Long life proved developed producing reserves due to less than 8% annual decline;
• Consolidated acreage consisting of 17,893 net acres excluding Bakken/Three Forks rights;
• All acreage HBP with many tracts also held by Bakken production;
• Net revenue interests greater than 85% on 15,000 acres; and
• Includes two saltwater disposal wells and associated systems.

$300,000 monthly cash flow.

18,000 bbls of crude oil / month.

Not ready for prime time, this is what I replied to Don when asked about the likely sale price:

Let's see, 18,000 acres of Madison. $500 / acres = $9 million. With all the infrastructure in place, et. and deals like this getting a premium/acre, that brings it to $15 million.

With cash flow at $300,000 / month, the high end would be $36 million, so my final offer ....

$25 million.

I occasionally provide updates regarding the Madison at a link at the sidebar at the right.

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Other Business News

Amazon. Toys 'R' Us preparing for potential bankruptcy filing before holidays. WSJ link.

Staring down Elon: Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi to "go big." WJS link.

The chairman and chief executive of the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance is pushing ambitious targets for the auto makers in an effort to leapfrog Silicon Valley and swipe market share, even as some of his biggest rivals look to scale back.

Mr. Ghosn said Friday he has set a goal of combined sales of 14 million vehicles for Nissan Motor Co.; Renault SA RNO; and, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. by 2022, a 40% increase compared with 2016.

He is also planning 12 new electric cars, forays into robotaxi fleets and the debut of a fully autonomous car within six years.

“With the explosion of technology that is coming, it is going to make it very difficult for smaller players to follow,” Mr. Ghosn said. “You’re going to have a premium for the large car manufacturers because we are the only ones who are going to be able to invest in all the fields, all the products, all the markets, all the technology without making any shortcuts or without having any blind spot.”

The largest car companies currently sell 10 million vehicles annually, but some, including General Motors Co., are cutting back car-selling operations. Those companies want to free up capital to compete with Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. in developing shared-vehicle fleets or services that could allow, say, a car to order your morning coffee or drive across country without any human intervention.

Worth repeating: as far as I could tell, only Jim Cramer caught this one on Friday over at CNBC:

• In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said industrial production declined 0.9 percent in August. That was the biggest drop since May 2009 and followed six straight monthly gains.

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For The Granddaughters

Wow, what a treat! In today's "Review" section of The Wall Street Journal, "The Logistical Feat of Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party." This is part of the "new exhibit at the Phillips Collection in DC."

Not many months ago -- when was it -- ah, here it is, back in May, 2017, the Kimbell Arts Museum in Ft Worth, just down the road from where we live, had an exhibition of The Phillips Collection. We saw the painting that is the subject of the linked article in The WSJ.

I can't recall if we saw the painting earlier during a special Monet exhibit at the Kimbell but if it was not there, it was certainly "referenced" in "Monet: They Early Years."

Monet was part of a "gang of four" as I call them. The other three: Renoir, Pisarro, and Sisley. Around the time Monet married Camille, the two of them depended on the generosity of Renoir and Bazille to literally survive. Had it not been for Renoir and Bazille, the newlyweds may have literally starved to death.

At the time of the painting featured in today's WSJ, Renoir and Monet painted side-by-side for two months along the river banks outside Paris.

Until today, I did not realize that the wealthy socialite and self-described amateur painter Gustave Caillebotte was in the boating party that Renoir painted.

Also: Charles Ephrussi, a writer, critic and collector born in 1849, is thought to be the model for the man in a black coat and top hat, chatting in the background. In fact, I think I've seen Charles Ephrussi in other Caillebotte paintings, or certainly men that looked like him.

[Note: the note on Charles Ephrussi reminded me of the biography of Marcel Proust and it reminded me of my notes on Edmund de Waal's The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, page 35 in my hardcover copy].

The painting gets me even more excited about my upcoming trip to Flathead Lake, Montana, planned for this October. I was just back to Flathead a few months ago having not been there in decades. I now plan to return to Flathead at least three times yearly and hopefully, before it's all over, to make it my second home. Short term, the luncheons and evening barbecues will be at the grassy area between the house and the lake, but I could imagine when the scene will move to a pontoon boat on the lake.