Someone's Head Just Exploded -- August 3, 2021

Link here. Or go direct to Argus Media.

Two New Permits; Four Permits Renewed; One DUC Reported As Completed -- August 3, 2021

Active rigs:

$70.49	8/3/2021	08/03/2020	08/03/2019	08/03/2018	08/03/2017
Active Rigs	23	12	58	64	58

Two new permits renewed, #38448 - #38449, inclusive:

• Operator: MRO
• Field: Bailey (Dunn)
• Comments:
• MRO has permits for a Rustad well and an Augusta well, both in SESE 9-146-93;
• Rustad will be sited 404 FSL and 1286 FEL; Augusta will be sited 404 FSL and 1206 FEL

Eight wells approved for confidential status:

• CLR: six Irgens Rexall wells in Williams County
• CLR: one Carson peak well in Dunn County
• Hess: an EN-Rice well in Mountrail County

Four permits renewed:

• BR: four Ivan permits in McKenzie County

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 36904, loc/NC, Petroshale, Bridger Federal 1TFH, Bear Den, no production data,

Notes From All Over -- Tuesday Night -- August 3, 2021

Covid: from a reader in Denmark whose American family owns mineral rights in North Dakota.

Hi Bruce,  

You mentioned something about Sweden but in Denmark we don't use masks any more, either. The last COVID-19 restrictions will be over by September 1, 2021. 

In July, 2021, we had 12 deaths and a average of 48 people hospitalized on any given day.

83,3% from 12 years have had one shot of Pfizer or Moderna and 93% from 50 years are now fully vaccinated. 

We are about 6 million people.

North Dakota:

• DAPL: expansion to start this month. Link to ArgusMedia. 
• currently: 570,000 bopd
• later this month: +180,000 to 750,000 bopd
• ultimately, possibly: 1.1 million bopd
• ET: the operator will hold an earnings call later today, Tuesday, August 3, 2021

• Steffes, will invest in North Carolina manufacturing site. Link to AP.
• Steffes: established in 1947
• manufactures oil equipment and agriculture "stuff"
• will invest $21 million into updating a facility in Shelby, NC
• Steffes has two additional manufacturing facilities in ND and customer support facilities in Wyoming, Texas, and Oklahoma

Investing, oil and gas:

• NOG: cash dividend increased by 50% over prior quarter; link here.

• HFI Research: link here.
  

• investors care not for stock buyback plans;
• investors want to see the money; investors want to see dividends and dividend increases;
• if 3Q21 is like 2Q21 for the oil companies, "prepare for an onslaught of dividend hikes in 3Q21;

• PSX: 2Q21 earnings beat estimates. Link here. 
  

• EPS: 74 cents vs 71 cents
• revenue: $27.885 million vs $20.652 million (huge beat)
• one year ago: $11.183 million

• COP: posts highest profit since 2018, link here. Transcript here.
  
• EPS: $1.27 vs $1.13 estimate
• beats by 14 cents; SeekingAlpha; 
• production guidance, SeekingAlpha;
• Reuters;
  
• cash pile: $7 billion
• among several suitors looking at Royal Dutch Shell's Permian Basin assets, worth as much as $10 billion
• COP: secured the biggest Permian deal to date with the $13 billion stock purchase of Concho Resources
  

Investing, other than oil and gas:

• Clorox (CLX): crashes, link here.
• biggest drop in more than twenty years

• AMD: great deal, Motley Fool; 
• XLNX

• NKLA: topped expectations, but stock dropped;
  
• EPS: a loss of 20 cents vs a 30-cent loss

Off The Net For Awhile -- August 3, 2021

I've hit a wall. 

I have several posts in draft ready to be posted but they don't have anything to do with the Bakken so once I put some more Bakken posts up those other non-Bakken posts will be posted.

I doubt I will be off the net very long, but at least for now, I'm taking a break. 

I'm sitting here watching a Lana Del Rey video laughing my head off. I love it when LDR is smiling, having a great time, perhaps before her dark period, I don't know.

And when she's good, she's incredible, and her fans would tell me she's always good. LOL. She drops a lot of southern California "jargon." I doubt I catch very much of it, and what I do catch generally takes several sittings listening to her songs, watching her videos. I would give examples but I don't want my California readers think I'm really that "uninformed," for lack of a better word. 

Things that fascinate me but concern me not:

• EVs
• the numbers simply do not add up (and people much smarter than I must know that)
  
• Covid-19
• Louisiana is most fascinating: fourth wave; deaths not yet tracking new cases
• Arkansas was the poster child for failed policy two weeks ago and today? No one even mentions Arkansas and Covid-19 in the same sentence; second wave; deaths tracking new cases
• Sweden: needs to be fact-checked, studied, but it's being reported that mask-free Sweden is trending toward zero Covid-19-related deaths; corroborates what I've been saying all along; everyone will eventually be vaccinated and/or test positive for Covid-19, one variant or another; twenty years from now, it's very possible, the Schumer/Cuomo/Fauci handling of the virus was the worst possible choice
  

Things that no longer interest me in the least:

• global warming

Folks with the least job security:

• Biden / Kamala Harris staff
• the clock runs out in less than three years and it's hard to believe the former will serve a second term;
• if he does serve a second term, does he do so with a new VP?
• I would assume their staffs are maintaining robust relationships with DC movers and shakers;

Investing: chips.

• chips: something is going on but I don't know what; better said, "I don't know why."
• AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Apple
• one chip company on "no one's radar" -- an enigma
  
• something just popped up with AAPL: on a "red" day for the market, AAPL is having one of its best days in weeks. Something's up. Sometimes it takes decades, billions of dollars, a bit of luck, to finally break through. MarcketWatch, within the hour, just posted a most interesting op-ed piece which lays this out.
  

Investing: pharmaceuticals, vaccines -- 

• something tells me Big Pharma stumbled into something beyond their wildest imaginations. Two companies just increased the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines. I think a lot of folks think that these vaccines are free to the public. They aren't. Someone is paying for them. The initial series (one jab or two) will be followed by annual boosters. All those folks who are vaccinated and experienced no adverse effects (99%+) will eagerly get their boosters. 

Oil: what can I say? It's a fool's errand to predict the price of oil.

No Wells Coming Off Confidential List; WTI Dips Below $70 Before Recovering; LL At $74.45 -- August 3, 2021

Thirteen days: that's how long that Petro-Hunt pad fire has been burning. 

WTI: dipped below $70 earlier this morning. However, Louisiana Light is solidly above $74. 

Natural gas: one of the most relentless natural gas (bull side) markets I've seen in a very long time -- HFI Research. From the archives, link here:

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

Active rigs (because the NDIC database has been undergoing "maintenance" since July 14, 2021, this information may or may not be current0:

$70.33	8/3/2021	08/03/2020	08/03/2019	08/03/2018	08/03/2017
Active Rigs	23	12	58	64	58

No wells coming off confidential list:

RBN Energy: reality or myth? Carbon-negative crude from EOR, part 7. 

What if crude oil could be extracted from the ground, refined into gasoline and diesel, trucked to your local service station, and used in your SUV to take that next road trip, all the while resulting in LESS CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere? That would mean carbon-negative crude. Crazy talk from a relic of the fossil (fuel) generation? Not so! Carbon-negative crude is being produced today along the U.S. Gulf Coast, assuming you buy the logic of how carbon accounting works for capturing CO2 and using it for enhanced oil recovery — EOR. In today’s blog, we’ll explore what it takes to achieve carbon-negative crude, and why there is vast potential for expanding this pathway to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

That Petro-Hunt Pad Well Fire North Of Charlson -- It's Still Burning -- Update -- August 3, 2021

Updates

August 6, 2021: still burning. 

Original Post

See this post for background to this story. 

See also this post.

12th consecutive day: the oil well fire continues to burn. 

This story was posted at 6:05 p.m., August 2, 2021, Monday night. Twelve days and they "hope" to have the fire out by the end of the week. Are we talking almost three weeks? Eighteen days?

Responders have continued to battle intense flames and temperatures in an effort to extinguish fires in three oil wells near Lake Sakakawea in McKenzie County. Officials are aiming to regain control of the wells and douse the fires by the end of the week. 

... in order to get three ruptured wells under control.

... fire began July 22, 2021, Thursday ...

... and the company operating the wells said they have few updates to report on the status of the fire since the end of last week ...

... one-half mile south of the lake ..

... NDIC Lynn Helms said the fires were due to the failure of a blowout preventer ...a valve used to stop the uncontrolled release of oil ...

... an unsuccessful attempt to plug the first blown-out well, Graf said, and are expecting to make a second attempt in the next couple of days.

.... As of Monday afternoon, Wild Well Control was still moving burnt equipment out of the way to establish a clear path to the wells, Department of Mineral Resources spokesperson Katie Haarsager said in an email. Graf said that responders have successfully killed the fourth well on the site to avert another blowout preventer failure, and have constructed a barrier blocking the three burning wells from the fourth. 

...one of the three wells has blown-out more severely than the others, making that one the highest priority to plug. 

BP Boosts Dividend, Buybacks As Profit Soars -- Source -- August 3, 2021

BP: boosts dividend, buybacks as profit soars. Link here.

• profits: $2.8 billion vs $2.15 forecast;
• 1Q21: $2.63 billion, profit
• 2Q20: a lot of $6.68 billion -- after taking large non-cash charges

****************************
Venice Bitch

Lana in an interview with Variety:

“I played it for my managers and I was like, ‘Yeah, I think this is the single I want to put out.’

And they were like, 'It’s 10 minutes long. Are you kidding me? It’s called Venice Bitch. Like why do you do this to us? Can you make a three-minute normal pop song?'

I was like, 'Well, end of summer, some people just wanna drive around for 10 minutes, get lost in some electric guitar.'”

Lana Del Rey, Venice Bitch.

The funny thing: it is too short. Someone needs to upload it as a continuous loop.