Morning Note Posted, Thirteen Wells Coming Off The Confidential List -- April 29, 2019

Fitzsimmons on XOM: link here --

• Investors hoping for a post-Tillerson turnaround (miracle?) at Exxon are likely hard to find after the company's dreadful Q1 EPS report.
• New CEO Darren Woods' strength was supposedly the refining segment - where he rose through the ranks. Refining lost $256 million in Q1.
• Worse yet, Woods and Exxon are taking none of the proven steps to unleash shareholder value (spin-off downstream assets or form an MLP for instance).
• As a result, Chevron continues to be a superior option for those investors looking for an international integrated major oil company.

Worst refining performance in years: that's Bloomberg's take on ExxomMobil. 

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s worst refining performance in almost two decades may revive questions from analysts about the the so-called integrated model engineered by founder John D. Rockefeller and espoused by every CEO in the company’s 149-year history.

A surprise loss in a business line Exxon typically relies on to prop up more volatile units eroded first-quarter profit and cast doubt on the strength of the oil titan’s comeback from its annus horribilis in 2018.

In the last decade, when other oil companies spun off refining businesses to concentrate of drilling for crude, Exxon steadfastly adhered to the wells-to-retail model. The refining loss is particularly stinging for Exxon Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, who rose through the ranks of the fuel-making side of the company rather than the oil-exploration business of his chief competitor for the top job, Senior Vice President Jack Williams, and predecessor Rex Tillerson.

First of many: Anadarko will be the first of many buys in 2019 -- Rigzone.  Clickbait -- it's simply a story of a single analyst saying this.

Huge Russian pipeline shutdown: crude oil contaminated with organic chlorides; corrosive; damaging to pipelines, refiners. One million bopd from the Urals into eastern Europe (Poland, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czech Republic).  [Update, April 30, 2019: Poland releasing emergency oil stocks.]

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Back to the Bakken

Wells coming off the confidential list this weekend, Monday -- Monday, April 29, 2019: 92 wells for the month; 92 wells for the quarter

• 34552, 1,006, EOG, Austin 414-2919H, Parshall, t10/18; 70K 2/19;
• 34551, 387, EOG, Austin 112-2919H, Parshall, t10/18; cum 31K 2/19;
• 34498, 909, EOG, Austin 85-1929H, Parshall, t10/18; cum 52K 2/19;
• 29799, SI/NC, Zavanna, George 19-30 4H, Stockyard Creek, no production data,

Sunday, April 28, 2019: 88 wells for the month; 88 wells for the quarter

• 34499, 667, EOG, Austin 75-1929H, Parshall, t10/18; cum 63K 20/19;
• 34496, 648, EOG, Austin 85-1929H, Parshall, t10/18; cum 84K 2/19;
• 34464, 1,628, CLR, Peterson 6-29H, East Fork, t1/19; cum 35K 41 days;
• 33879, drl, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC David 3-29-32-157N-99W MBH, Lone Tree Lake, no production data,
• 35205, SI/NC, Slawson, Stallion Federal 5 SLTFH, Big Bend, no production data,
• 34861, SI/NC, MRO, Atkinson USA 31-17TFH, Reunion Bay, no production data,

Saturday, April 27, 2019: 82 wells for the month; 82 wells for the quarter

• 34784, 1,098, Nine Point Energy, Missouri 152-103-4-2-2H, Eightmile, t11/18; cum 108K 3/19;
• 35206, SI/NC, Slawson, Stallion Federal 1 SLH, Big Bend, no production data,
• 34862, SI/NC, MRO, Turkey Feet USA 41-17TFH, Reunion Bay, no production data,

Active rigs:

$62.96	4/29/2019	04/29/2018	04/29/2016	04/29/2015	04/29/2014
Active Rigs	64	62	29	86	189

RBN Energy: the many factors influencing LPG export volumes.

The biggest driver of generally rising LPG exports is the widening gap between how much LPG the U.S. consumes and how much it produces — there’s simply too much of the stuff, and LPG-hungry European and Asian markets beckon. But month-to-month export volumes are often erratic, affected by a wide range of variables. Winter weather in Wisconsin. Steam cracker economics in Germany. Propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant outages in China. Not to mention lingering fog or a tank-farm fire along the Houston Ship Channel, or the startup of a new NGL pipeline to the Marcus Hook terminal near Philly. Add to all this the export-volume spikes that may come later this year and in 2020 when new dock capacity comes online along the Gulf Coast. Today, we take a look at what drives the monthly ups and downs in exports.

hanks to the Shale Revolution and the burgeoning production of NGLs, the U.S. flipped from being a net LPG importer to a net exporter back in 2012. Since then, LPG exports by ship have soared — to a record 1.375 MMb/d so far in April, and further gains are likely as NGL output continues to rise and domestic demand for propane and butane (the “purity products” that make up LPG) remains close to flat on an annual basis. But it hasn’t been a smooth, steady rise in export volumes; there have been a lot of ups and downs along the way, most of them tied to the long list of variables that can affect how much LPG is loaded onto ships each day, week and month.

One important factor, of course, is how the prices of propane and butane in the U.S. compare with prices in key destination markets such as Asia and Europe. For example, the combination of rising propane prices in Europe in early April and rock-steady prices for propane at Mont Belvieu (the Texas NGL fractionation and storage hub) increased the arbitrage value (or “arb”) for propane exports from the Gulf Coast to Europe to more than 20 cents/gal (c/gal) by mid-April (blue line in Figure 1). At the same time, still-higher propane prices in Asia increased the Mont Belvieu-Asia arb (red line) to nearly 40 c/gal in recent days, pulling more propane from the Gulf Coast to that part of the world.