No Wells Coming Off The Confidential List; Total Reports Huge Loss; Maintains Dividend -- February 9, 2021

Qualcomm is dead! Long live Qualcomm!

• just a few weeks ago, Apple announced it would be transitioning to its own chips, moving away from Qualcomm
• December 10, 2020, Bloomberg: Apple starts work on its own cellular modem;
• component would eventually replace mobile chips from Qualcomm
• oh-oh; the end of Qualcomm as we know it?
• today: Qualcomm debuts world's first 10-gigabit 5G modem, destined for 2022 iPhones; link here; 
• Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon X65, the world's first 10 Gigabit 5G modem and antenna system for smartphones, enabling theoretical data speeds up to 10 gigabits per second. Apple will likely use the Snapdragon X65 in 2022 iPhones.

Total Loss: link here to Charles Kennedy. 

• net loss: $7.2 billion
• 2019: a profit of $11.27 billion
• silver lining: production costs -- as low as $5.10 / boe
• dividend unchanged; 80 cents/share
• on a down day for the market: down 3.6%; lost $1.56; trading at $42

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.

***************************
Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$57.79	2/9/2021	02/09/2020	02/09/2019	02/09/2018	02/09/2017
Active Rigs	15	54	63	58	36

No wells coming off the confidential list.

RBN Energy: February polar vortex effect puts $3 / MMBtu gas prices back in play.

Weather is the perpetual wildcard in the natural gas market, but it’s been particularly shifty this winter, keeping market participants — and weather forecasters, for that matter — on their toes. Gas futures prices started this season at $3.30-plus/MMBtu, but then endured some of the warmest weather on record (in November and January), including a couple of polar vortex head fakes over the past month or so — weather forecasts at times in January started off much colder but ultimately reversed course. 

Prompt CME/NYMEX Henry Hub futures prices have seesawed as a result. Despite the weather setbacks, however, prices have held on in the $2.40-$2.70/MMBtu range through much of winter and averaged more than $0.60/MMBtu higher year-on-year in January. And, with an Arctic blast set to unfurl across the Lower 48 this week, prices last Friday topped $3/MMBtu again in intraday trading before settling in the high-$2.80s/MMBtu Friday and Monday. 

Today, we examine the supply-demand factors underlying the recent price action, and prospects for sustained $3/MMBtu gas prices.