The Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+18 -- August 31, 2018

EU suggests ending all car tariffs with the US. I said the same thing some months ago -- exactly why are there any tariffs between any country (China, Mexico, Canada, US, EU, South Korea, et al) if we're calling it "free trade. Link at WSJ. Any US politician who says "free trade" is alive and well and doesn't need to be changed, needs to be asked if he/she knows the Canadian tariff on US dairy products. I think it's 275%. Trump says it's 375%.

Japan: appears to be giving up the fight to import Iranian oil. Even if they "skirt" US-imposed sanctions on Iran, Japan won't find bankers willing to help them. The bankers will be sanctioned by the US.

US oil: how are US oil companies doing? Very, very, very well. From RBN Energy (see link below):

Our universe of 44 E&P companies earned $10 billion more and generated nearly $7 billion in additional cash flow in the second quarter of 2018 compared with a year earlier.

All but one producer were in the black for the period; EQT Resources reported the sole loss because of write-downs related to the closing of its acquisition of Rice Energy.

The primary determinate of the improved peer group profitability was the $5.77/boe in additional revenue the peer group received ($34.29/boe vs. $28.52/boe) due to stronger oil prices.

However, a near $5/boe reduction in write-downs provided a significant uplift to second-quarter pre-tax operating income.

Reductions in normal depreciation, depletion and amortization ($0.37/boe) and exploration expenses ($0.42/boe) also added to the bottom line.

Lifting costs — $0.94/boe higher — were the only expense that impaired profitability: production costs were $0.50/boe higher, while oil and gas price-influenced production taxes added another $0.44/boe to lifting costs. All this resulted in pre-tax operating profits of $9.86/boe and $23.30/boe in cash flow.

As I've said before: if you read RBN Energy daily and view Vern Whitten's aerial photographs you will know everything you need to know about the Bakken. Period. Dot.

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Back to the Bakken

No wells come off the confidential list today.

Active rigs: NDIC site down?

WTI: $69.98

RBN Energy: US oil producers continue to chart path to long-term growth. For anyone interested in US oil, this article needs to be archived; read closely; printed out and read again. Five years from now, folks will re-read this article and will say, "could've; would've; should've."

In the first half of 2018, the U.S. E&P sector continued to reap the benefits of its dramatic evolution from decades of “boom or bust” exploration to large-scale, manufacturing-style exploitation of premier resource plays. Upstream companies halved their break-evens and reserve replacement costs through technological innovation, financial discipline, and ruthless portfolio paring, which allowed them to generate record domestic oil production in 2018 on half the capital outlays expended in 2014.

As a result, the 44 E&Ps we track reported $21 billion in pre-tax operating profits in the first half of 2018, up from $6.2 billion in the first six months of 2017, and over $50 billion in operating cash flow, up from $39 billion a year ago. Most notably, these companies are on pace to garner an astonishing $30 billion in free cash flow. Today, we discuss the ongoing effort by leading E&Ps to maintain financial discipline in a period of strong oil and gas prices.