The Cat's Out Of The Bag -- Or The Envelope -- Nothing About The Bakken -- Monday, February 27, 2017

Updates

March 2, 2017: the two PricewaterhouseCooper individuals who have handed out the envelopes for the past several years will no longer have that gig. Announced yesterday or thereabouts. Had there not been a snafu for the best-picture announcement, imagine the possible speech. Conspiracy theorists might be right on this one.

Original Post 

From a first-person account of what happened at the Oscars, best movie, February 26, 2017:

Within moments of Dunaway announcing La La Land as the Best Picture winner, it was clear something was awry.

“Oh my god, it’s Moonlight!” a stage manager said aloud, and into a headset, while starting to pace. “Oh my god! Oh my god!” As the seconds passed and the La La Land producers, Oscars aloft, were well into their acceptance speeches, the low-level confusion backstage turned into jaw-dropping disbelief.

“Oh my f—king God, it’s not La La Land, it’s Moonlight! He’s got the wrong envelope!” said someone from the production crew, hands on head in shock.  “They read the wrong envelope!”

(While both Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, representatives from PricewaterhouseCooper, the accounting firm responsible for tallying the Oscar votes and delivering each envelope to the respective presenters, were backstage throughout the show, I did not witness the envelope hand-off.)

Does anyone else see the problem here?

Let's run through this.

Over and over and over we are told only two people know the results. Only two people. PricewaterhouseCooper. And the list is not written down. It's memorized. That's what we're told.

Hold that thought.

Okay, let's run through the first-person account.

Warren is handed the envelope. Obviously no one can see what's printed on the envelope; even Warren would have missed it had he not pointedly decided to look at what was printed on the envelope. He thought it was a misprint.

He handed the opened card to Faye who read the winner as La La Land -- looking at YouTube videos of this debacle, there was no delay, no hesitation, no questioning -- Faye read the card and then ...

Within moments of Dunaway announcing La La Land as the Best Picture winner, it was clear something was awry.  [Why is it clear that "something was awry?"]

.... according to the first person account above, at least half a dozen folks -- none of them PricewaterhouseCooper employees, but "someone from production crew" ("hands on head in shock" -- "they read the wrong envelope") and "the low-level confusion backstage turned into jaw-dropping disbelief." ["low-level confusion" -- obviously when there is "confusion backstage -- it's more than just a single person]

NOTE: it was not the PricewaterhouseCooper folks standing backstage that came out on-stage to correct things.

So, how any many folks actually do know the results? It sounds like practically everyone involved in production knows the results.

Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems, from the first-person account, that as soon as Faye read the "best picture goes to...." everyone on the production crew knew she read the wrong card. Considering that La La Land practically won every award but the last award, it would seem that everyone -- if they did not already know the results -- would have had no second thoughts about Faye's words.

This stinks to high heaven. On several levels.

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Hollywood

Sixteen Reasons, Connie Stevens, Mulholland Drive

Daily Activity Reports For Friday, Monday -- February 27, 2017

Note: when you get down to the DUCs reported as completed, down below, quick, what's the first thing you notice? Yes, all with incredible IPs. That's been my experience, also. It seems DUCs have higher IPs as a rule than the norm.

Active rigs:

	2/27/2017	02/27/2016	02/27/2015	02/27/2014	02/27/2013
Active Rigs	41	38	119	194	181

Three new permits (Friday and Monday):

• Operators: Whiting (2), WPX
• Fields: East Fork (Williams), Reunion Bay (Mountrail)
• Comments: this is quite amazing -- how many permits Whiting has over the past month, compared to all other operators in the Bakken;

Sixteen (16) permits renewed:

• Marathon (5): a Winnie USA permit; a Black USA permit; a St Pierre USA permit; a Robin USA permit; and, a Robin USA permit, all in McKenzie County
• QEP (4); four Moberg permits, McKenzie County
• Petro-Hunt (3): three Harry Dunne permits, Stark County
• Whiting (2): two Bartleson permits, Mountrail
• NP Resources, LLC (2): two Ellison Creek Federal permits, in Billings County

Six (6) producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 31148, 3,005, Whiting, Loomer 44-33-2TFH, Poe, t2/17; cum --
• 29926, 1,395, Statoil, Paulson 36-1 7THF, Briar Creek, t1/17; cum --
• 29927, 1,938, Statoil, Paulson 36-1 6H, Briar Creek, t1/17; cum --
• 30226, 1,560, BR, Old Hickory 42-32TFH, 4 sections, Sand Creek, t1/17; cum --
• 31038, 1,136, Statoil, Vachal 3-34 7H, Alger, t1/17; cum --
• 31149, 2,585, Whiting, Loomer 44-33 2H, Poe, t2/17; cum --

One permit canceled:

• SM Energy: a Christianson permit in Divide County

MRO Re-Fracks; EOG Reports -- February 27, 2107

Some years ago there were a number of posts on the blog about MRO re-fracks. Then, I sort of lost interest.

Here's another one.

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EOG Reports: 4Q16 And Full Year

Press release here. Must have been a good report; shares up over 2% after-hours. Right around $100/share. Summary at the press release:

• exceeds high-end of fourth quarter and full year 2016 crude oil production targets
• beats fourth quarter and full year 2016 targets for lease and well, transportation and DD&A expenses
• achieves record capital efficiency gains in 2016
• replaces 163 percent of 2016 production at low finding cost of $5.22/Boe (excluding price revisions) and increases total net proved reserves by 1.4 percent in 2016
• targets 18 percent crude oil production growth for 2017 within cash flow at flat $50 oil
• forecasts flat to lower well costs in 2017

At $50 oil: EOG wins; Saudi Arabia loses.

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The Literary Page

From The Wall Street Journal, over the weekend, a review of Lauren Elkin's Flaneuse.

Female pedestrians became common only in the 1880s, when department stores begat publice bathrooms for respectable ladies. 

I was a flaneur before I knew I was a flaneur. We were living in San Antonio when I read a book in which that word was used, and I saw it for the first time -- or at least recalled seeing it for the first time.

And a nod to one of my favorite authors and one of her best (if not her best) books, Mrs Dalloway:

Ms Elkin points that "I love walking in London" is the first sentence spoken by Clarissa Dalloway, Woolf's eponymous heroine whose very name is a dawdle. 

I think I've mentioned more than once, that I've read Mrs Dalloway three times, and have typed the entire book out in blank verse. Along the way I discovered some interesting things about Mrs Dalloway. The novel is a prose poem. It took me about six months, a couple hours each evening. I also typed out one of Virginia Woolf's other books also, The Waves. 

Four Reasons Why Production / Rig Is Increasing -- RBN Energy -- February 27, 2017

Today's post from Rusty Braziel (RBN Energy) is a must-read. The article will be archived.

The writer posits the four reasons why oil production / rig is increasing at incredibly fast rates:
larger leaseholds: I think this has more to do with economics than with oil production / rig, but "whatever"

• longer laterals: sort of an obvious explanation; regular readers of the blog have known this for years
• extra sand: ditto
• more "choking back": I'm glad he used this term; I often used this term on the blog but never knew if it was correct, and I didn't really think about the derivatives from this phenomenon

It seems to me that almost everything we've learned about tight oil production was learned in the "Bakken."

Nothing was said about re-entry and re-fracking. Or about taking wells off-line for two months every now and then.

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Salt: A World History

Mark Kurlandsky

c. 2002

DDS: 553.63 KUR

See this post, also.

Chapter Eight: A Nordic Dream

Time: 13th and 14th centuries
Location: Scandinavia

One of the major commercial uses of salt: to preserve herring, second only to salt cod, in the  European Lenten diet (see earlier chapter).

Fish dealers in Paris, 12th century: harengeres -- herring sellers.

Herring is a Clupeidae, a member of the same family of small, forked-tailed oily fish with a single dorsal fin known as sardines. Anchovies are of a different family but of the same Clupeiforme order as sardines and herring.

Greeks called it alexiium, from the word als or hals, as in Hallstatt, meaning "salt."

Herring became important in the 14th century precisely because north Atlantic countries were becoming important in the 14th century.

A peculiarity of English language: most fish swim in schools; herring swim in shoals -- a word of the same meaning derived from the same Anglo-Saxon root.

Herring can be hard to find due to their peculiarities of feeding behavior.

The reason for the explosive growth of herring 13th and 14th centuries in Scandinavia: greater access to salt (not greater access to herring).

Holland: learned to pickle herring using brine, fresh with no drying at all -- eliminates the risk of its fat turning rancid from exposure to the air.

Poor people at lenten food -- salted, dried fish. Rich people had access to fresh fish.

Cured herring had an even lower standing than salted cod.

Zelle: Hollanders; burning peat that was impregnated with seawater.

The Dutch: green herring.

East Anglia: red herring.

Findon haddocks: near Aberdeen, Scotland.

Surstromming: Bay of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland.

Sweden: both a north coast and a south coast. On the north coast, herring, sill; and on the south coast, stromming.

Russians: a Baltic salaka and an Atlantic sel'd.

Like garum (see earlier chapter), stromming is fermented, not rotten.

Hanseatic League: 1250 - 1350 -- helped solve the problem of salt shortage.

The Hanseatic story. Hanseatics known as Easterlings, because they came from the east. Easterlings is the origin of sterling -- of "assured value."

The oversupply of herring, and then the American fisheries, helped end the Hanseatic cartel.

The Bakken Is Not Dead -- Mike Filloon At SeekingAlpha -- February 27, 2017

Link here. 

Summary:

• On a per-well basis, Bakken wells continue to see improved production from 2014 through 2016
• The Bakken play has seen production decreases due to low oil prices, but when the number of completions are considered, production has held up quite well
• The Bakken does have headwinds when compared to other U.S. plays, but differential improvements are expected once the DAPL is completed

Will be archived.

From the post:

In 2015, the number decreased to 1541. It does show an improvement in production per well. Operators started to target gassier geology, as they found it drove more resource up and out of the well bore. More importantly, well design continues to adapt. These wells produced 13K more barrels of oil and 38K Mcf of natural gas.

In 2016, wells improved by another 8K BO and 22K Mcf.

The improved production continues. Some believe well results are declining because all the best areas (they believe) are drilled out. This doesn't seem to be the case as improvements to design continue to outperform as well costs decrease.

Nothing about re-entry, re-fracks. 

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Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution

Richard Fortey

c. 2000

DDS: 565.39 FOR

The author is a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. He is the author of several natural history books, some of which have won major prizes or been on short lists for major awards.

This is a fun book to read. He uses the subject of trilobites to discuss many other topics. It's a great book for summer reading. 

Self-Ordering Kiosks -- The Next Big Story -- So Yesterday (2013, To Be Exact) -- February 27, 2017

This  is really quite remarkable. One of the top business stories that broke yesterday and continues to have legs today is the story that Wendy's will install self-ordering kiosks at 1,000 locations. Over at the sidebar on the right, I have something called "the next big thing." At that link, you have to look for it, you have to scroll down quite a bit to get to this:

June 15, 2013: kiosk ordering in fast-food restaurants, perhaps in sit-down fancy restaurants; employers don't have to buy health care insurance for iPads.

The link, by the way, takes you to a WSJ op-ed by Trump's first pick for labor secretary, Big Bob's Andy Pudzer. Amazing. Just one more reason why I love to blog. 

I don't know about you, but when I go to McDonald's I order the same thing, every time (occasional exceptions). I can imagine the day when I walk up to a kiosk; the face-recognition technology recognizes me, and automatically brings up my usual order and asks if I want any changes. It may even throw in a few "offers" for a better deal.

By the way, I spoke with a software engineer over the weekend: it turns out facial recognition is going to get better and better with a) artificial intelligence; and, b) quantum computing (which by the way, is a component of AI). 

The Political Page, T+38 -- February 27, 2017

Updates

Later, 1:55 p.m. Central Time: Matt has his fingers on the pulse of the American electorate. His page has not been refreshed since this morning. Americans are still pre-occupied with the debacle over the Oscars last night. Meanwhile, Trump has had his televised reality show, and the Dow is on to its 12th consecutive record-setting day.

Original Post

Last night's Oscars: so "yesterday." It is quite amazing how fast things are moving. Over at The Drudge Report it's still all about the flub at the Oscars and the incredibly shrinking ratings. But in the real world, it's all back to Trump. He is hosting the nation's governors and the market goes from -40 to almost flat. Will it go green? Whatever. I digress. It is amazing how fast Trump can change the conversation. Whenever Obama came on, folks changed the channel. Now folks are looking for Trump twitters and/or speeches.

This is truly bizarre:

While typing this, I was listening/watching to Trump's speech to the governors. This guy never quits working. His reality show is every morning. While watching -- over the course of the last 10 minutes or so -- the market went a -40 points to up over 10 points now. Really, really quite remarkable.

Trump: in the last two administrations, the US has spent $6 trillion fighting "wars" in the Mideast.

Stu Varney notes that the Sunday New York Times business section had not one story on the Trump rally:

• not mentioned: $3 trillion increase in American company market value
• not mentioned: 11 consecutive days of recording Dow
• top story: deforestation in the Amazon (you have got to be kidding)

Wendy's kiosks: previously reported -- this is the "sleeper" story of the decade. Think about this: in a few years we have gone from not even hearing about the technology to driverless cars on the road. But relatively nothing about kiosks at fast food restaurants. Compared to driverless cars, how difficult can self-ordering kiosks be? Everybody is looking at the $15 minimum wage as driving this. Wendy's said kiosks will pay for themselves in less then two years -- that's that challenge. Hiring workers / turnover of workers is pretty "steady-eddy" -- no real change from quarter to quarter so investors are not surprised. But putting kiosks in has a huge up-front cost that can spook investors. But what if companies are allowed to write-off that entire investment in the year in which they are bought, rather than depreciating over years or decades. That could be driving Wendy's decision.

In addition, self-ordering kiosks has increased opportunities for data mining. Folks may enter additional information; perhaps take a short survey while / after ordering. Perhaps loyalty rewards. Perhaps Wendys could go cashless. Or CBE (cash by exception). Apple stores are 99% cashless, I assume. One can pay with cash, but there are no visible cash registers.

Issa is an idiot: he calls for a "special prosecutor" to investigate "ties" between Russia and the Trump campaign team. The "special prosecutor" law "expired" in 1999. Issa: an idiot, or clever like a fox.

The Energy And Market Page, T+38 -- February 27, 2017

The Bakken:  not dead yet -- Mike Filloon over at SeekingAlpha.  Will follow at stand-alone post.

Staggering:

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The Market

That's a wrap: twelfth (12th) consecutive day of record-setting closes; breaks 30-year record. I believe one more day and it's an all-time record.

Trump speech to the governors: during the speech the market went from a -40 to a positive 10 points. Now about 5 points into the green. 

Opening: after eleven consecutive days of record-setting Dow, the market crashes at the opening -- down 12 points. -- Alt-left headline.

WTI: up 43 cents, and now at $54.43. The tea leaves suggest we could see pretty significant move on oil.

Stone Energy incurs wider-than-expected losses in 4Q16.

EOG Will Report After Market Closes Today -- February 27, 2017

Active rigs:

	2/27/2017	02/27/2016	02/27/2015	02/27/2014	02/27/2013
Active Rigs	40	38	119	194	181

RBN Energy: four things driving 2017's "different kind of recovery."

Scott Adams: the climate science debate illusion.

EOG; reports after the market closes today.