The Week In Pictures -- February 1, 2020

The week in pictures, Power Line, link here.

My favorite:

Oasis Midstream Partners Increases Quarterly Dividend -- February 2, 2020

Something to note:

Oasis Midstream Partners: increases dividend to 54 cents, up from 51.5 cents; pays 12.63%; shares at $15.54; one-year target at $20.33; 

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

Over-Done -- February 1, 2020

Coronavirus. A "flu" that will probably kill less than what "annual flu" kills, in a province with "no" public health infrastructure, and the media is reporting each case, 99% of whom survive (or did not have in the first place). As of Saturday, January 31, 2020, there were 259 deaths reported from coronavirus, all of them in China. Through January 31, 2020, the total number of confirmed cases in China to 13,742 out of 13,874 confirmed cases worldwide. SARS mortality was 9.6%; at this point, coronavirus mortality is 2.1%.

Kobe Bryant. When will it all end? I'm waiting for his local pharmacy to release his medication list.

The annual Lutefisk Dinner in Williston, ND, originally scheduled for February 22, 2020, will be moved to 8-24 -- August 24, 2020 -- to honor Kobe Bryant. Kobe used to say, "I don't usually eat lutefisk but when I do, I enjoy it in Williston. Along with the meatballs."

Impeachment. Oh, Alfie, what's it all about? Almost over? LOL. It will never be over.

From A Reader -- Update On US Oil And Natural Gas Production -- By State -- Monthly Revisions -- February 1, 2020

These came in as three separate comments from a reader posted elsewhere. I will bring them up as a stand-alone post for easier access, commenting and the archives. This has to do with record-setting oil and gas production in the US.

First comment, actual November, 2020 crude oil data:

EIA 914 for NOV:

www.eia.gov/...

US was up over 200,000 bopd from October (slightly revised up).

Oil states and changes in order of current size down to 50,000 bopd:

State November, 2020: change in thousands of bbls

• U.S. Total :12,879 203 (up 200,000 bopd from October)
• Texas: 5,329 65
• Federal Offshore Gulf of Mexico: 1,995 91
• North Dakota: 1,479 (3)
• New Mexico: 1,063 59
• Oklahoma: 575 (17)
• Colorado: 562 7
• Alaska: 485 10
• California: 425 (6)
• Wyoming: 293 2
• Louisiana: 122 2
• Utah: 102 1
• Kansas: 87 (1)
• Ohio: 78 (8)
• Montana: 68 4
• West Virginia: 51 (2)
• Others: 168 (2)

TX made a nice showing at +65. So much for the "peaked Permian. I sorta want +75s. But +65 is still commendable.

As I expected, FGOM made a nice rebound at almost +100. One that I warned the naysayers about. Now, if they can do a bit more (gotta be above 2 MM for street cred), that will still help with the 13 banger.

ND flat (down slightly) as expected. We get the NDIC early so know the directionality. DEC may be tough too because of winter, could even be down some reasonable amount (-25?).

NM...ah the Land of Enchantment! OCT was actually revised UP and crossed the 1 MM bopd marker. And then we got an outstanding +59 from them for the NOV number. I sort of count on them for +25 each month, so that was great work. Just no slacking off in DEC please. Need at least another +25 to get my 13 banger, with taunting rights.

OK: I can't figure this state out. And neither can anyone else. It's even funkier than CO in how the numbers move. But...well the bloom is off the rose hard for the Anadarko. Seems like it's showing in the rig counts and then the production (-17). Still...a quixotic jog up next month would help the cause.

CO: Eh...close to flat (+7). Could use a little bit more next month. Especially since I sort of group OK and CO together. So put down the doobies and cover up for your slacking mountain boomer brethren.

AK: Up +10 and every bit helps. But most of it's seasonal rebound was a couple months ago. At this point, we actually know the AK figures for DEC (from STEO/weeklies) off of pipe flow. And should be flat in DEC.

CA: Down a bit. Still lots of oil left in this state but impossible to do business with the liberals in control. Continues it's slow decline. Probably flat in DEC.

WY: Close to flat at +2. Flat seems reasonable expectation for DEC.

LA: See WY.

UT and KS: See WY but +1, -1.

OH: Kind of a big drop. But they have a lot of recent wells that are high decline. And have been extremely sensitive to oil (and even gas) prices in the past, both up and down. Given situation, have to expect another small decline in DEC.

MT: Kind of strange how this state has been stealthily climbing up, last few months. Nice +4 gain and in striking distance of three-quarters of 100,000 bopd. Realistically DEC will probably be small decline, based on weather and activity.

WV: Down a couple but hanging in the 50+ club. How many people realize the App makes significant oil! Paging James "I have more citations than you do" Hamilton!

Others: Down 2, close to flat and only 168,000 left total. Nothing significant within the states to get that down 2. Expect continued small declines, maybe a couple more, in DEC. Tired old states like IL and MI and the like. MS is the closest to crossing into the 50+ club (at 48), but there's no activity there, so not gonna happen.

Second comment: forecast data, crude oil, for December, 2020:

By state or region:

• TX: +65 (like +75 but being reasonable)
• FGOM: +25 (I still think there is more to give back from hurricane return.)
• ND: -25 (flat would be nice, but being reasonable given weather)
• NM: +25 (worried about a relapse after so much growth...but then also the growth is a Bayesian indicator for more...so fine, +25)
• AK: +5 (too lazy to check, but think there's a little more maintenance recovery)
• All others: -10 (matching last month change)

Total change: +85.

This would give us a 12.964. Sorta rounds out to a 13.0. But I'm not sure if I can taunt based off of that. Perhaps not. It's not really a 13-handle.

Still, it will be a nailbiter. If ND could "hold the line" that would be an extra 25 and get us up to 12.989. Then...if TX could scrunch down and give us the +75 instead of the +65, that would get us to 12.999! Ai yi yi! Need OK/CO to do some little statistical randomness wiggle and give us an uptick (any uptick) and all others hold the line in order to get our taunting rights.

Third comment, natural gas, November data and some December forecasts:

Not gonna analyze the gas in detail.

www.eia.gov/...

But still, you're looking at over 107 BCF/d wet in lower 48. (Always have to separate out AK gas as it is stranded.)

PA is kissingly close to 20 BCF/d (19.911). Has a chance to hit it in DEC.

TX went up ~0.2 BCF/d last month and is close to 30 BCF/d. But probably a bit too far to get there in DEC. "Only" 29.337 now.

New Mexico Goes Over One Million BOPD -- February 1, 2020

From a reader's comment elsewhere:

New Mexico says hello. Hello, TX, US-GOM, and ND.

Coming into the millionaires club now. 

Could have busted in here a couple months ago. Just got SEP and OCT revised up."

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPNM2&f=M.

Amazing how fast that happened. 

ZeroHedge "Permanently" Suspended From Twitter -- Bloomberg -- February 1, 2020

Link here.

The libertarian financial website Zero Hedge was permanently suspended from Twitter on Friday after it published an article questioning the involvement of a Chinese scientist in the outbreak of the deadly novel coronavirus.

On its website, Zero Hedge’s pseudonymous author “Tyler Durden” said he received a notification from Twitter that he had violated “our rules against abuse and harassment.”
Earlier on Friday, BuzzFeed reported that the Zero Hedge website shared the name and personal information of a scientist who it said may have knowledge about the source of the virus, whose details then spread across the internet.

In a piece titled ‘Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?’, Durden included a picture of a scientist at Wuhan’s Institute of Virology and suggested users could pay him “a visit” to find out more about what caused the outbreak.

I didn't follow ZeroHedge on twitter, but I have it linked at the sidebar at the right. I rarely check in.

On another note, you will have to google this if you want to read the article by Victor Davis Hanson: chaos in Europe -- it's tricky being world's largest importer of gas, oil and critic, too.

This is so cool. I first started talking about Europe being the first continent to become completely dependent on foreign energy imports many years ago. So, now Victor Davis Hanson has also noted the irony:

Despite its cool Green parties and ambitious wind and solar agendas, Europe remains by far the world’s largest importer of oil and natural gas.

Oil output in the North Sea and off the coast of Norway is declining, and the European Union is quietly looking for fossil fuel energy anywhere it can find it.

Europe itself is naturally rich in fossil fuels. It likely has more reserves of shale gas than the United States, currently the world’s largest producer of both oil and natural gas. Yet in most European countries, horizontal drilling and fracking to extract gas and oil are either illegal or face so many court challenges and popular protests that they are neither culturally nor economically feasible.

The result is that Europe is almost entirely dependent on Russian, Middle Eastern and African sources of energy.

The American-Iranian standoff in the Middle East, coupled with radical drop-offs in Iranian and Venezuelan oil production, has terrified Europe — and for understandable reasons.

Over at the sidebar at the right, "the big stories." Page 1 of the big stories will take one to "Europe at a tipping point." This is the very first data point:

European Energy became a big story on May 18, 2013, when the EU Council President predicted that  Europe might become the only continent in the world to depend on imported energy.

How prescient.

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My Book For The Week

The 60s: The Story of a Decade, The New Yorker. This is the third in a series of reprints from The New Yorker. The 40s and the 50s were very, very good. What little I have read of the 60s seems not quite as interesting. Not sure why that would be.

But we will press on for awhile. I got this book several years ago, read some of the articles, but not many. Will try again.

SeekingAlpha On Record US Crude Oil Production -- February 1, 2020

I haven't seen a SeekingAlpha article in ages until a reader sent me a link earlier this week. Now, a second SeekingAlpha article shows up regarding the report that US oil production set a new all-time production record.

I don't think there's much new there, and I don't particularly care for the contributor, but it is what it is. It's mostly an advertisement for the contributor's newsletter or research reports.

Having said that, here's the summary:

• US oil production came in at ~12.88 mb/d according to the latest EIA 914, which was ~100k b/d higher than our preliminary estimate of ~12.75 to ~12.8 mb/d.
• The higher than expected production increase came primarily from a jump in the Gulf of Mexico production of +90k b/d m-o-m.
• According to our production matrix, US oil production in November was the peak with December tracking around ~12.8 to ~12.85 mb/d or slightly down versus November.
• The key for US oil production trajectory this year will be where US oil production bottoms out going into H2 2020.
• We continue to think the global energy agencies are overestimating US oil production for Q2 2020.

He's probably right with regard to that last bullet -- but due to the coronavirus scare more than anything else.

Week 5: January 26, 2020 -- February 1, 2020

Top story of the week:

• Microsoft carbon-fail in Fargo, ND;

Top international non-energy story:

• Britain officially out of the EU;

Top international energy story:

• Oil prices plunge on coronavirus health scare; also, here;

Top national non-energy story:

• January comes to an end; impeachment trial vote yet to be held

Top national energy story:

• Record crude oil production; surprised analysts; GoM added an additional 90,000 bopd;
• US ethane exports by destination; 
• Chevron, XOM: quarterly losses, huge; Chevron announces dividend increase;

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

Top North Dakota energy story:

Geoff Simon's top North Dakota stories:

• Note: there are several stories that won't be listed here but will have a stand-alone post
• Wind farm developers to argue for an exemption from ND lighting law
• Bighorns released on Ft Berthold Reservation in "nice homecoming"
• The cost of decommissioning wind turbines, wind farms is huge
• US proved reserves of crude oil increased to 47.1 billion bbls, up another 12 percent

Operations:

• Bruin reports a 100K well first month of production;
• Bruin's huge FB James pad in Spotted Horn;
• A WPX Hidatsa well approaching 600K bbls of crude oil cumulative;
• BR Mathistad well produces 500K bbls crude oil in less than two years;
• Three huge MRO wells;
• CLR reports a great Boulder Federal well, Banks oil field; and, here;
• CLR looking to put 22 wells in one drilling unit;
• Nine Point Energy active out in Eightmile;
• Update on EOG permits in Clarks Creek;
• Happy 54th birthday, North Dakota C A 3;

Fracking:

• Random look at DUCs from 1Q18;

Natural gas:

• RBN Energy updates Bakken natural gas sector; 

Advantaged oil:

• Halo effect pushes this old well over 500K bbls crude oil;
• Jump in production: the XTO Christiana wells;

Bakken economy:

• Hess to boost spending in 2020;