Coronavirus Statistics For February 14, 2020 -- Delayed

Everyday the "coronavirus" statistics are posted by 8:00 p.m. CT. It's been like clockwork.

Tonight, 8:27 p.m. CT and the statistics have not been reported.

Statistics at this link.

And by the way, those surgical masks? They don't work. Don't even come close.

Later, 10:26 p.m. CT: this is very, very strange. It's now well past the deadline and the statistics for February 14, 2020, have not been posted. See note here:

• China's NHS, on Feb. 14, deducted 1,043 cases and 108 deaths to correct a previous mistake in "repeated statistics."
• How to interpret the 15,152 (+600%) surge in new cases of February 12

At that linked site:

Report from Hubei province for February 14:

• 2,420 new cases (including 1,138 clinically diagnosed)
• 139 new deaths (including 34 clinically diagnosed)
• 54,406 cumulative total cases (including 16,522 clinically diagnosed)
• 38,107 currently hospitalized, of which:
  - 27,955 (73.4%) in mild condition
  - 8,276 (21.7%) serious
  - 1,876 (4.9%) critical

Later, 7:35 a.m. CT, February 15: the overall statistics and the statistics coming out of China for February 14, 2020, were "finally" posted. I'll update the information later.

Managing Their Assets -- December, 2019, Data -- Director's Cut

The December, 2019, North Dakota oil and natural gas production data has been posted.

Comments and commentary here.

Actually, there are two takeaway stories from the December, 2019, data. Hopefully I don't forget what they are when I post my comments later. LOL.

Later, from Platts:

North Dakota oil production fell to 1.475 million b/d in December, down nearly 43,400 b/d, or about 3%, from what is now a record November, the North Dakota Pipeline Authority said Friday, February 14, 2002.

The state has revised upwards its production estimate for November to 1.519 million b/d, up more than 3,600 b/d from its initial estimate last month, making it the state's latest oil output record, breaking the record set in October.

North Dakota natural gas production averaged nearly 3.06 Bcf/d in December, down about 0.08 Bcf/d from November, the pipeline authority said. The authority estimates about 16% of the state's natural gas was flared in December, including 12% flared due to challenges or constraints on existing gathering systems and 4% flared from wells with zero sales.

There were 111 wells completed in December, down three from November, while the number of producing wells fell from an all-time high of 16,110 in November to 15,979 in December, according to the state department.

The number of wells waiting on completion climbed from 919 to 958, while the number of inactive wells climbed from 1,726 in November to 1,920 in December.

Lynn Helms, the department's director, told reporters Friday he expects the number of inactive wells to climb due to declining oil prices and the demand impacts of the coronavirus outbreak.

"My expectation is that at these oil prices, the cashflow for returning inactive wells to production is turned off," Helms said.

Helms said he expects the inactive well count to climb through the middle of this year, adding marginal, low-producing wells will be most vulnerable to low prices. The state allows operators to keep wells in inactive status for one year.

Statewide breakeven prices in the fourth quarter of 2019 averaged $10/b WTI, according to the state agency's latest data. North Dakota's McKenzie County, which accounts for half of the state's rig count, had a breakeven of $8/b, in Q4, according to the state data.

December, 2019, Data -- Director's Cut Posted

See also, "comments and commentary."

See also, "managing their assets."

The Director's Cut

Data For November, 2019 

North Dakota Oil and Natural Gas Production

Disclaimer: usual disclaimer applies. As usual, this is done very, very quickly. It is not proofread. There will be factual and typographical errors on this page. If this is important to you, go to the source.

Link here to past reports.

A huge, huge "thank you" to Lynn Helms and his staff at the NDIC getting this information out in a timely and transparent manner. I am not aware of any other state that does such a good job providing such data. 

Crude oil production:

• December, 2019, preliminary: 1,475,685 bopd (all-time time was November, 2019)
• November, 2019, final:1,519,037 bopd -- new all-time high after final figures come in;
• revenue forecast: 1.4 million bopd
• October, 2019, final: 1,517,936 bopd -- previous all-time high
• September, 2019, final, 1,443,980 bopd -- very, very wet September that impacted oil fields
• August, 2019, final, 1,480,475 bopd (previous all-time high)
• July, 2019, final: 1,445,934 bopd (previous all-time high)
• June, 2019, final: 1,425,230 bopd (previous all-time high)
• month-over-month, bbls: -43,352 bopd  (December-November)
• month-over-month, percent: - 2.9%  (November-October) 

Gas production:

• December, 2019, preliminary: 3,059,835 MCF/day; 84% capture rate (improved, month-over-month)
• November, 2019, final: 3,165,585MCF/day; new all-time high on a per-day basis; all time on a monthly basis, October, 2019)
• 83% capture
• October, 2019, final: 3,070,616 MCF/day
• 81% capture
• September, 2019, final: 2,946,391 MCF/day (note -- fell below the 3-billion threshold previously reported)
• August , 2019, final: 3,014,419 MCF/day -- an all-time high
• July, 2019, final: 2,944,816 MCF/day
• June, 2019, final: 2,885,293 MCF/day

BOE, December, preliminary:

• December, preliminary
• natural gas: 3,059,835 MCF/day = 509,888 boe
• crude oil: 1,475,685 bopd
• total boe, preliminary for December, 2019: 1,985,573 boepd
• all-time high, November, 2019: 2,046,547 boepd

Producing wells:

• December, 2019, preliminary; 15,979
• November, 2019, final:16,110
• October, 2019, final: 16,169
• September, 2019, final: 16,115 (new all-time high)
• August, 2019, final: 15,964 (all-time high was 15,954, July 2019)
• July, 2019, final: 15,954 (another new all-time high)
• June, 2019, 15,752

Wells off-line:

• December, 2019, preliminary:
• inactive: 1920
• DUCs: 958
• total: 2,878
• November, 2019, final:
• inactive: 1,726
• DUCs: 919
• total: 2,645

Permitting:

• January, 2020: 62
• December, 2019: 67
• November, 2019: 79
• October, 2019: 126
• September, 2019: 92
• August, 2019: 127
• July, 2019: 141
• June, 2019: 127

Rig count:

• Today: 56 (all-time high was 218 on 5/29/12)
• December, 2019: 55
• November: 55
• October: 56
• September: 61
• August: 62
• July: 57
• June: 63

Fort Berthold Reservation data partitioned out.

Completions:

• December, 2019, preliminary: 111
• revenue forecast: 90
• November, 2019, final: 114
• October, 2019, final: 102
• September, 2019, final: 117 (revised up from 94) (revised a second time, up from 112)
• August, 2019, final: 102
• July, 2019, final: 137
• June, 2019, 102 (revised, last month's report); revised again, now, 123
• May, 2019, 113 (final)

 Gas capture:

• statewide, captured: 84% (83% reported last month)
• statewide, captured: 
• December, 2019: 2,555,585 MCF/day (preliminary)
• November, 2019: 2,594,922 MCF/day (new all-time high)
• October, 2019:  2,524,405 MCF/day
• September, 2019: 2,429,487 MCF/day
• previous all time high was May, 2019: 2,287,761 MCF/day
• FBIR Bakken:
• December, 2019: 81%
• November, 2019: 81%
  October, 2019, captured: 70% (was 79% in September)(75% reported two months ago, August, 2019)

Off line, to end of December 2019: 2,878 -- up significantly from November -- 2,645 in November; an increase of 233 or an 8.8% increase

• DUCs: 958 (up 39 from the 919 in November)
• inactive well count: 1,920 (up 194 from 1,726 in November)
• wells off line for operational reasons are tracked here;  
• if I recall correctly, December, 2019, was a fairly "mild" winter by North Dakota standards (roughnecks can let me know if I'm wrong)

A year, December, 2018, the "off-line well" data:

• 823, down 134 from last report -- huge decrease
• inactive: 1,509, up 128 from last report -- wow, look at that jump in the number of inactive wells 
• total: 2,332 (down slightly from 2,338 in the last report; but 2,332 wells is still way more than the total number of wells that will be drilled in North Dakota this year)

Enbridge Earnings, News -- February 14, 2020

Seaway Pipeline: old news, link here.

• looking to expand
• 850,000 bopd + 200,000 bopd = around 1 million bopd.
• wiki entry here;
• summary from SeekingAlpha contributor here, posted Feb 12, 2020:
• Seaway Crude Pipeline, the 50-50 joint venture owned by Enterprise Products Partners and Enbridge , has extended the binding open season currently underway to gauge shipper support for expanding system capacity.
• Seaway says it is also considering shipper feedback on the open season terms and may adapt terms to allow for the inclusion of additional crude types, among other modifications.
• the expansion could provide an incremental 200K bbl/day or more of light crude capacity and debottleneck and optimize the system, principally through pump upgrades.
• Seaway says as much as 100K bbl/day of initial expansion capacity could be available beginning in H2 2020 and enter full service in 2022.

Zacks forecast, February 7, 2020, link here:

• expected to post quarterly earnings of $0.50 per share (doesn't say whether US or Canadian, but appears to be US)
• represents a year-over-year change of 2%
• revenues are expected to be $9.54 billio, up 8.9% from the year-ago quarter

Quarterly report, link here, announced today:

• a 5.3% rise in adjusted quarter profit
• adjusted earnings of C$1.23 billion ($929.00 million) or 61 Canadian cents/share in 4Q19
• compared with C$1.17 billion, or 65 cents per share, a year earlier

Notes From All Over, Part 2 -- February 14, 2020

Ex-div today, not too many, but include:

• Chevron, $1.29/share; 8.4% increase over previous dividend;
• Phillips 66, unchanged at 90 cents
• Louisiana-Pacific, at 14 cents/share; up 7.4% from previous dividend;
• Murphy Oil, 25 cents/share; unchanged
• Alaska Air Group, 38 cents/share; 7.1% increase over previous dividend;

United Airlines: pulling Boeing 737 Max from schedule until September 4, 2020.

******************************

New-York-Mike Can't Buy This Kind of Exposure

Global Warming Hoax, Update -- February 14, 2020

With regard to global warming, perhaps one of the best updates ever -- concise and clear, link here.

Climate change hysteria has been dialed up to 11 over the last year or two. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who knows little or nothing about the subject, apparently will continue being nominated for a Nobel Prize until she wins one.

But, hype aside, what is actually going on with the Earth’s climate? The original post is here.

Anthony Watts (the link) offers seven charts that show the effects of the last decade of alleged global warming. The first one has to do with the beneficial effects of increasing CO2–plant food–in the atmosphere.

From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25 2016. 

The greening over the past 33 years reported in this study is equivalent to adding a green continent about two times the size of mainland USA (18 million km2)…

This image shows the change in leaf area across the globe from 1982-2015.


We constantly hear that temperatures are setting new records, but in reality, according to NOAA’s United States Climate Reference Network, average temperatures in the U.S. in 2019 were cooler than they had been at the start of the decade. The two peaks were, as usual, naturally-occurring El Nino years:

The alarmists’ models were created by activists to predict problematic levels of warming. That was the whole point. Unfortunately for the alarmists, enough time has now gone by that we can say, definitively, that the models are wrong. They grossly exaggerated any mild warming that has actually occurred. And a model that produces wrong predictions is worthless.

Much more at the link: five more graphs and great summaries. 

Closer Look At Three MRO Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- February 14, 2020

Three wells coming off confidential list today:

• 36617, conf, MRO, Easton 44-20H, Murphy Creek, 
• 36198, conf, MRO, Parmeter 14-21H, Murphy Creek,
• 36197, SI/NC, MRO, Reagan 14-21H, Murphy Creek, has been producing since 8/19; cum 77K 12/19; API: 33-025-03737; FracFocus; fracked, 7/28/2019 - 8/9/2019; 7.7 million gallons of water; water 90.6% by mass; 

Neighboring wells:

• 17468, 878, MRO, Hendricks 34-20H, Murphy Creek, t7/11; cum 196K 12/19; huge jump in production, from 1,000 bbls/month to almost 9,000 bbls/month; the well had been taken off line over a year ago (10/18) and only recently returned to production (9/19); when this well was originally fracked (back in 2011) it's best month was 8,429 bbls and it quickly declined. It is now having better production than it has ever had; full production at this post;

Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- February 14, 2020

Light rail, north Texas: one-year anniversary of new light rail from Ft Worth to DFW via Grapevine, TX. Link here.

• bottom line: "hasn't worked"
• since 1996, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit has spent $5 billion on the longest light rail in the US
• in addition, the region has three commuter rail lines:
• Trinity Railway Express from Dallas to Ft Worth
• the A-train from Denton to Carrollton
• TEXRail from Ft Worth to DFW
• in two years, DART will finish the Silver Line from the airport to Plano
• forecast: 5,630 riders per day
• $1.2 billion for the line
• $220,000 per rider
• currently:
• DART averages 1,030 daily light rides per mile of route length
• Houston: 2,651
• Phoenix: 1,800
• costs
• Orange Line to DFW, finished in 2014
• 2,975 riders/weekday
• $1.8 billion
• $600,000 per weekday rider
• commuter rail does even worse
• TEXRail: 1,300 riders per day, one-six the original estimate
• $1.03 billion
• $800,000 per weekeday rider
• cost to ride
• cost to ride, A-train, 1,400 riders per weekday: $32.62; 96% paid from tax subsidies
• TRE, 6,600 riders per weekday; each ride 70% subsidized
• local talk radio noted yesterday that "there are no riders on light rail.
• I wonder if there has been a cutback in number of trains running
• I used to see one or two trains every morning on my way into town
• I haven't seen a train in weeks, seriously -- I don't recall when I last saw a TEXRail commuter train

Samsung, link here:

• "everyone" keeps talking about how Samsung makes inexpensive phones, unlike Apple which "only" makes high-end phones
• in fact, Apple is now bringing out smartphones that are considerably less expensive
• now this: Samsung prices its least expensive new Galaxy smartphone at $1,000 -- even after Apple went lower on iPhone

EPD, link here:

• old news
• I assume I posted this, but I can't remember
• EPD won its appeal against Energy Transfer Partners in the Supreme Court of Texas
• reported back on February 4, 2020
• EPD seems to consistently increase its "dividend" by 0.6% to 1.2% every quarter; it currently pays about 6.5%; down a bit today; at $26 today, has a one-year target of $34.40;

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.

Happy Valentines Day -- Number Of Coronavirus-Associated Deaths Updated -- February 14, 2020

Happy Valentines Day. 

Some guys have all the luck. My Valentine's card to my wife:

 
Regarding graphics below: Note the change in numbers for February 12 and 13, just twelve hours apart. Originally it was reported that there were 253 deaths on February 12. Now today, that number changed to 146. Of course the deaths are "all" coming out of China -- and thus the .... well, whatever ... it appears President Xi did not like the "253-number" and had it changed to a more "acceptable number."

Updates

February 14, 2020:

February 13, 2020, 9:47 p.m. CT:

I did not hear this mentioned on any network today -- that the number of deaths -- day-over-day -- decreased by 51%, link here:

February 13, 2020: new names --

• the new name for the virus: SARS-CoV-2
• the respiratory illness it causes: COVID-19 (some call is the "Wu Flu")
• for that other disease:
• the disease: SARS
• the virus: SARS-CoV

February 13, 2020, link:

In 50+ years of studying biology, medicine, and statistics, I have never, never seen an epidemiological graph that looked like this. The only explanation: the Chinese are using the DNC-Iowa app to tabulate deaths.

February 12, 2020:

WTI Clawing Its Way Back Toward $53 -- February 14, 2020

Active rigs:

$52.12	2/14/2020	02/14/2019	02/14/2018	02/14/2017	02/14/2016
Active Rigs	56	65	57	36	41

Four wells coming off confidential list today: Friday, February 14, 2020: 41 for the month; 148 for the quarter, 148 for the year:

• 36617, conf, MRO, Easton 44-20H, Murphy Creek, 
• 36198, conf, MRO, Parmeter 14-21H, Murphy Creek,
• 36197, SI/NC, MRO, Reagan 14-21H, Murphy Creek, has been producing since 8/19; cum 77K 12/19; API: 33-025-03737; FracFocus; fracked, 7/28/2019 - 8/9/2019; 7.7 million gallons of water; water 90.6% by mass;
• 28190, 335, Oasis, Lewis Federal 5300 21-31 6B, 40 stages; 6 million lbs; Baker, t8/19; cum 76K 12/19;

RBN Energy: current bunker-fuel sulfur spreads justify IMO 2020 scrubber investments.

On January 1, 2020 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) implemented new fuel standards for oil-powered vessels, except those equipped with exhaust scrubbers to remove pollutants. In the absence of a scrubber, the IMO 2020 rule stipulates that ships' bunkers contain less than 0.5% sulfur. Using a scrubber allows the vessel to burn cheaper high-sulfur fuel. Last March, a shipowner’s estimated $2.5 million scrubber investment for a 2-MMbbl Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) would take just over three years to recover, based on average fuel prices during the first quarter of 2019. This year, barely a month after the new regulation came into force, the payback period has shortened dramatically, to less than a year, though the coronavirus’s effect on shipping demand and fuel prices, among other factors, could again put payout timing at risk. Today, we look at changing price spreads between high-sulfur and low-sulfur bunker and the scrubber payback economics that suggest a rosier outlook for vessel owners who invested in scrubber installations, at least for now.