Week 32: August 2, 2020 -- August 8, 2020

Best graphic of the week:

• Social distancing.
  

Best 30-second elevator speech all week:

Ness pointed out the route of the DAPL pipeline parallels the route of a high voltage power line and the existing Northern Border Pipeline, which was installed in the 1980s. He also points out that DAPL crosses the Missouri River twice in North Dakota, with the other being near Williston, upstream from that city's water intake. Ness suggests the lawsuit filed on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is more about shutting down the oil industry than protecting the environment. -- Ron Ness, President, North Dakota Petroleum Council

Top story of the week: 

• DAPL stays open; here; here;
• Apple, Inc, overtakes Saudi Aramco as most valuable company;
  

Most under-reported international energy story:

• Chinese oil imports spike; off the chart;
  

Most under-reported US story: 

1. US ISM manufacturing expands at fastest pace since March, 2010;
   

Most over-reported US story:

• Hurricane Isaias;

Top energy story of the week:

Top international non-energy story:

• Colonels, terrorists, and fertilizer; the Beirut explosion;
• Saudi foreign exchange reserves drop again;
  

Top international energy story:

Top national non-energy story:

• US health secretary to visit Taiwan;
• Chinese sympathizer steps down from CALPERS to spend more time with family; 
• NASDAQ hits 29th record close of the year;
• "7-11" to buy Marathon's Speedway;
  

Top national energy story:

• V-shaped curve flattens out: gasoline demand plateaus; 
• MPC to close two refineries;
• North Dakota fracking sand source;
  

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

• Housing industry booming in North Dakota;
  

Top North Dakota energy story:

• NOG reports; 
• MDU reports;
• MPC to close two refineries; is Mandan's next?
  

Geoff Simon's top North Dakota stories:

• DAPL "gets another reprieve" 
• Two Keystone XL pipeline workers get virus, but work continues
• New border wall contract awarded to Dickinson-based Fisher Industries
• Wyoming's rig count falls to zero for only second time in 136 years
• US senators aim to ease pipeline permitting after latest Keystone XL setback
  

Operators:

• BR to put 15 wells in one drilling unit;
  

Operations:

• Zavanna's Panther wells coming off confidential list;
  

Colonels, Terrorists, And Forgotten Fertilizer -- Worth A Read -- August 7, 2020

This is story is now being reported "everywhere." But the "best" version is probably at Breitbart. If you want to see it at Breitbart, google: 

Lebanon Revisits Mystery Death of Colonel After Urging Removal of Combustibles from Port of Beirut Breitbart

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Complete Nonsense

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Please, Come Back

 

 

Algore Efforts To Control Global Warming Appear To Be Working -- "Even Colder Than Antarctica" -- August 7, 2020

Coldest temperature ever recorded in Tasmania, link here:

Not just for the date and not just for the particular location, but the coldest for any date on record, and for the entire country.
__________

Liawenee, in Tasmania’s Central Highlands and already one of the coldest places in Australia, has just broken its own record.

Temperatures dropped to -14.2C (6.4F) yesterday morning, a new record low for the state and even colder than Antarctica.

Michael Lasko from the Bureau of Meteorology said the Liawenee temperature was 2C colder than the town’s previous record low of -12.2C, set back in 2013.

“It looks like that -14.2 is the coldest minimum for all of Tasmania,” Mr Lasko said.

The previous record for Tasmania was -13C at Tarraleah and Butlers Gorge back in 1983.

Notes From All Over -- Part 3 -- August 7, 2020

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.   

 Market:

•  SLB: director Mark Papa "scoops" up shares in his biggest purchase in nearly two  years, Barron's
  

Meng Quits -- Notes From All Over -- Page 2 -- August 7, 2020

Breaking, literally: trouble at Calpers -- abrupt exit hits $400 billion fund. From Bloomberg:

The news landed just after 9 p.m. U.S. Pacific time: the investment chief at California’s massive state pension fund was abruptly stepping down. Before dawn the next day, Sacramento was abuzz -- and a sense of crisis was descending over the mighty California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

Wednesday night’s shock departure of Ben Meng reverberated through the state capital and then across Wall Street on Thursday, where the $400 billion Calpers is a powerful player in everything from the stock market to private equity. Meng, in an interview, said he’d left to focus on his health and family. But a statement from the state controller pointed to something else: an unspecified lapse in judgment that breached conflict-of-interest rules and, even more, hinted at wider oversight problems inside the organization.

The controller, Betty Yee, has called for an emergency board meeting to review the funds’ policies....

A veteran of Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, and Barclays Global Investors, Meng first joined Calpers in 2008. Born in China in 1970, he became a U.S. citizen in 2010 and returned to the country of his birth in 2015 to work as deputy CIO at the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). He began his job running Calpers’s assets in January 2019 “to serve those who serve California,” he said in an interview shortly after he started.

What may have been a dream job soon turned sour for Meng. He faced not only the immense pressure ....

Earlier this year, he was accused by Republican Congressman Jim Banks of being a tool for the Chinese government, funneling American money into Chinese hands due to his role at SAFE. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, both Republicans, expressed support for Banks’s inquiry into Calpers’s and Meng’s ties to the Chinese government.

Harder to dismiss was Calpers’s failure to hit its annual 7% target during his tenure. The fund reported a return of 4.7% for the latest fiscal year, after gaining about 6.7% in fiscal 2019.

US unemployment rate: falls to 10.2%. Link here. 

Market news.

BRK, link here: 

• ready to buy? has recently bought:
  
• Dominion natural gas assets in July
• BofA equity in July
• earnings this Saturday, tomorrow, August 8, 2020, forecast:
  
• net income: a record $37.7 billion
  
• record cash pile in March, 2020
• share buybacks: 
• $5.3 billion between April 23 and July 7, 2020
• a total near that level would surpass Berkshire's record quarterly repurchases sinces loosening its buyback policy in 2018

Uber: posts $1.8 billion loss in 2Q20; deliveries skyrocket. Link here. 

NOG Reports -- Notes From All Over --- Early Morning Ediiton -- August 7, 2020

First things first: Grenora High School football, which co-ops with Westby District 3 in Montana as the MonDak Thunder, will be switching to 8-man football after competing in 6-man for nearly a decade. -- The Williston Herald.

NOG earnings report, 2Q20, link here: 

• total debt reduced by $52.2 million in the second quarter, resulting in over $3 million in interest savings per annum
• strong risk management drove realized commodity hedge gains of $77.4 million in the second quarter
• cash flow from operations totaled $53.1 million, excluding $48.5 million received from changes in working capital
• total capital expenditures were $34.5 million in the second quarter
• wells in process remain near record levels at 26.7 net wells
• production averaged 23,804 barrels of oil equivalent (“Boe”) per day, driven by material curtailments and shut-ins
• approximately 26,500 barrels per day of remaining 2020 oil hedged at over $58 per barrel average prices
• approximately 21,500 barrels per day of 2021 oil hedged at over $54.50 per bbl average prices 
• NOG is tracked here;
  

Oil: weekly gain, Bloomberg via Rigzone;

Oil in New York is poised for the biggest weekly advance since early July after U.S. stockpiles plunged further, but the market is facing more OPEC+ supply and still contending with virus-driven demand weakness.

Futures rose above $42 a barrel this week to the highest level in five months with support from a weaker dollar and as U.S. crude inventories posted the biggest back-to-back weekly decline in a year. OPEC and its allies are set to test the appetite for demand as they start returning some supply this month after historic cuts, although Iraq has pledged to trim its output further in August to compensate for missing its target in previous months.

Meanwhile, crude imports into China dropped in July from a record the previous month, with vessels delayed in unloading cargoes as ports became congested with tankers carrying cheaper oil purchased earlier in the year.

 NASA nonsense, link here:

• white drawrfs, black holes, Eskimo nebula, now considered suspect, politically incorrect 
• coming: the Intuit (sic) nebula
  
• have we lost our collective minds?
• from the link -- "These nicknames and terms may have historical or culture connotations that are objectionable or unwelcoming, and NASA is strongly committed to addressing them," said Stephen T. Shih, Associate Administrator for Diversity and Equal Opportunity at NASA Headquarters. "Science depends on diverse contributions, and benefits everyone, so this means we must make it inclusive."

Lonesome Friends of Science, John Prine

Two Wells Coming Off Confidentail List -- August 7, 2020

Trump, earlier this week: big numbers Friday, for July, link here:

• forecast: 1.48 million
• actual: 1.763 million

Market: stock futures cut losses after stronger-than-expected US jobs report:

• prior to report: Dow down about 150 points; all major indices in the red;
  
• after report: all indices turn green (though most are now back to red); Dow goes green

OPEC basket, link here:  $45.17

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Back to the Bakken

NOG: reports 2Q20 earnings, link here. 

 Active rigs:

$41.45	8/7/2020	08/07/2019	08/07/2018	08/07/2017	08/07/2016
Active Rigs	12	60	66	59	34

Wells coming off confidential list -- Friday, August 7, 2020: 16 for the month; 87 for the quarter, 533 for the year:

• 36749, drl/NC, XTO, FBIR Lawrence 24X-26D, Heart Butte,
  
• 35143, SI/A, CLR, Durant 2-12HSL, East Fork, t--; cum 27K one month;
  

 RBN Energy: a saga of NGL storage -- RBN's greatest hits. 

Over the past five years, the production of natural gas liquids from gas processing plants has soared by almost 2 million barrels per day (2 MMb/d), or about 60%. That has been great news for natural gas producers, processors, and end-use markets. But there is a catch: the rate of production does not match up with demand. While production is a steady, “ratable” volume, demand is anything but ratable. Demand swings with the gasoline blending season, cold weather (or lack thereof) in the propane market, export demand, petchem feedstock economics, the impact of COVID-19 on transportation fuels, and a myriad of other factors. The flywheel that balances supply and demand on any given day is storage. Not just any storage, though. For NGLs, storage of large volumes means salt caverns. Huge caverns thousands of feet below the surface. 

Today, we update one of RBN’s Greatest Hits blogs and take a deep dive into the history of NGL storage — all the way back to Smoky Billue.