A Bigger Story Than First Reported -- Noble Oil's Challenge In The Permian -- August 6, 2018

On Friday it was reported:

EOG Resources and Noble Energy said Friday they will shift well completions from the Permian Basin to their other oil assets, as the lack of sufficient pipeline capacity from the prolific shale play weighs on results.

EOG said completions at its Delaware operations in the Permian will fall to 30% of total work in the second half of the year from 40% in the first half.

EOG's completions in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, North Dakota's Bakken, and Colorado's DJ basin will account for 20% of work vs. 10% in the first half of the year.

Noble Energy said it would reduce Permian completions during the second half of the year and instead focus on the DJ basin.

Today, this story from Reuters via Rigzone: Noble Energy gives in to Permian and transport challenges --

Noble Energy Inc said on Friday it would shift some investments outside of the Permian Basin and cut back on planned well completions as the company adjusts to ongoing transportation bottlenecks plaguing U.S. oil companies.

During the quarter, a record output from the Permian Basin created a supply log-jam in the shale-rich basin, keeping U.S. oil prices below international grades.

The company, which is going to reallocate some resources to the DJ Basin, expects full-year sales volume to be near lower end of its forecast, while raising its capital expenditure budget slightly, blaming higher costs of drilling.

The company said, in February, it expected volumes to grow to about 525,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in 2020.

Total sales volumes at the end of 2017 was 381,000 boe/d.

The producer now expects full-year 2018 total sales volume to be near the lower end of its forecast of 350,000-360,000 boe/d.

Apart from the Permian Basin, which is at the center of the shale revolution in the United States, Noble also operates in the Eagle Ford and DJ basins.

Noble's total sales volumes in the reported quarter fell 15.2 percent to 346,000 boe/d.

Wow, this is a bigger story than first posted last week. This is exactly the opposite of what is being reported in the Bakken --

• in the Bakken:
• drilling prices are coming down
• volumes produced are increasing
• at times, Bakken oil is selling at a premium to WTI (Cushing)

in the Permian:

• drilling prices are going up (and fracking is going to get more expensive)
• in the Permian it's boe; in the Bakken it's bo
• volumes for some operators are coming done
• Permian is selling at huge discount to WTI

But look at Noble:

• production fell well below what was expected

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site, but I'm curious -- just how did Noble's shares do on Friday?

• NBL fell amost 8% on Friday. Wow.

Other companies:

• OAS: down 0.65%
• NOG: up over 2%
  COP: down 0.38%

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The Book Page

I don't know if I've ever experienced something like this before.

By he middle of chapter 8, page 122 in a book that spans 650 pages, I could read no further. The atrocities were too much for me. It was impossible for me to continue.

I can truly say that having read the book I am ashamed to be part of the human race. My life cannot end soon enough after having read what I've just read. I have no idea how Sarah Helm could have had the "strength" to write that book.

Ravensbrueck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women, Sarah Helm, c. 2014. Link here for my notes.

[Update: I did go back to the book. I read the epilogue and then read some of the later chapters. The "politics" that the International Red Cross played near the end of the war were truly pathetic. Most of what I recall, the Swedes were some of the true heroes, rescuing many prisoners, though the process was such that it added an additional dimension to the suffering and atrocities.]