WTI Remains Below $40; Saudi's Official Selling Price Continues To Drop; Two Wells Coming Off Confidential List -- September 30, 2020

First things first, sports: I didn't see the final but when I last looked it was New York Yankees, 11 and the Cleveland Native Americans, 2.  First of three games in this wild-card series.

First things first, comfort food: I only had one item to pick up at the neighborhood grocery store last night -- ice cream. I always try to keep a half-gallon of Blue Bell natural vanilla ice cream in the freezer. It's Sophia's favorite and her favorite treat is ice cream with her homemade brownies.

The grocery freezer was almost completely sold out of all Blue Bell ice cream. Where there might be 30 to 40 "tubs" there were only a handful literally. What was going on? Then I saw. Blue Bell was on sale. Normal price: $7.99. Through yesterday, Tuesday, September 29: $3.99. I bought two tubs. First time in my life I bought more than one tub of ice cream at one time.

Ohio: apparently something happened last night. Scrolling through twitter, apparently not suitable for children. C'mon man, we should be able to do better than that.

Coronavirus:

• tracking like Spanish flu, 1918 - 1920; see this link;
• only four new deaths in New York! no wonder the mayor is so concerned about relaxing lock down measures; eight new deaths in NY and the headlines will blare: NY death rate doubles;
  
• compare with five new deaths in South Dakota, North Dakota (each, not combined)
• Chicago: visitors from 22 states must quarantine; includes both Dakotas; most of the south;
• will not quarantine visitors from New York, New Jersey, Florida, or California
• will add four states on October 2, 2020: Nevada, Wyoming, Texas, and Tennessee
  

Investing: the only historical precedent we have is the Spanish Flu. Why I have never been so excited by a market. Graphic pending. Link here.

Nikola: sounds like GM wants to review the video of that truck rolling downhill.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

Naive: Robert Rapier. Link here.  As soon as his argument included, "hey, we've been fracking since the 1940s" -- that's when I knew this was a worthless op-ed.

Oil draw: another "surprise" draw. But gasoline inventories grew. Not surprising if one has been following the weekly gasoline demand numbers.

OPEC basket, link here: continues the downward slide, now at $41.46. This is unsustainable for Saudi Arabia. Absolutely unsustainable.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$39.14	9/30/2020	09/30/2019	09/30/2018	09/30/2017	09/30/2016
Active Rigs	11	58	67	58	33

Two wells coming off the confidential list:

Wednesday, September 30, 2020: 148 for the month; 219 for the quarter, 665 for the year

• 34660, drl/A,  Whiting, Wold Federal 44-1-1H, Sand Creek, t--; cum 80K over three months;
• 34659, SI/IA, Whiting, Wold Federal l44-1TFHU, Sand Creek, 16K over 14 days extrapolates to nearly 35K over 30 days;

RBN Energy: E&Ps plot lean second-half investment after second-qarter CAPEX retreat. 

Battered by seismic economic shocks from sudden demand destruction and plummeting prices in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, exploration and production companies (E&Ps) abandoned their carefully crafted 2020 strategic plans and financial guidance and shifted into emergency survival mode to protect their financial stability. 

First-quarter earnings calls sounded more like FEMA disaster briefings than standard financial reporting as the companies announced aggressive capital and operational cost-cutting measures. But few E&Ps detailed the timing and duration of the investment reductions and the degree to which they would impact oil and gas production for the remainder of the year. Now, with second-quarter calls behind us and the third quarter about to end, there’s a lot more clarity on the capital spending and production fronts. Today, we discuss the evolution of E&Ps’ 2020 spending plans and how the changes will affect production for the balance of the year.

CAPEX retreat: remember all those op-eds four years ago about the dire consequences of the demise of off-shore drilling? Wow, talk about a mis-read. Haven't seen any of those op-eds about the planned cutback in shale oil CAPEX.