Headlines — November 12, 2023

Locator: 46029HEADLINES. 

Devon earnings: Rigzone.

Record grain production: global warming, folks.

US crude oil production: new records.

Saudi Arabia crude oil direct consumption vs exports: Jodi.

Renewable stocks have collapsed: what next? And here at The WSJ.

Renting vs buying: cost analysis.

Stocks: FOMO is back. Leading story today over ar The WSJ. 

Chipotle’s founder moves on: no meat, more automation.

NVDA; the cloud. China saw it coming. Zacks. Wells Fargo. Arms race — pun intended. Reports November 21, 2023.

TSLA: America’s biggest pension fund bets on Tesla.

Taylor Swift: not clickbait. Wow. Buenos Aires? Bueno.

AAPL: I completely missed it. AAPL had an incredible day at the end of the week — trending toward an all-time high — and with 4Q23 earnings behind it, nothing but tailwinds. Except for one thing and all investors are aware.

Broadcom: wow. Along with WMT and MSFT, hit new highs. BRK-B? Down. We’ll post the graphics later. 

Broadcom: the $69-billion deal with VMware deal delayed by China. Deadline: November 30. Xi visits Biden November 15.

Oregon and drugs: too late. That fentanyl train has left the station.

Ketamine: clickbait.

Lisa: YouTube documentary.

Reagan: the Ticketmaster story. With a Swiftie connection.

California City, California: wiki. The state’s third “largest” city.

Oregon health director: fourth in about a year.  

Dr. Sejal Hathi will take the reins at the Oregon Health Authority in January, becoming the agency's fourth leader in about a year. Hathi has incredible credentials. Good for her; I’m impressed. 

The state hasn’t reported a Covid-19 case or death in six months. The state of Washington with also incredibly low Covid rates. Minnesota? A fair number of Covid-19-related deaths but very few new cases.

Dr Sejal Hathi

Prior to Oregon, she was New Jersey’s deputy for state health. Prior to New Jersey, she was the White House’s senior policy advisor for public health, which includes public health preparedness, the medical supply chain and climate health policy.

A board-certified internal medicine physician, Hathi has been an assistant professor on the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 2013, Hathi was appointed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s expert advisory group on women’s and children’s health, tasked with evaluating the global progress against maternal and child mortality.

Hathi received her medical degree and master’s of business administration from Stanford University. She received a bachelor’s degree with honors in molecular biology from Yale University.

She trained in internal medicine and primary care at Massachusetts General Hospital while also serving on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. During her residency, she cared for COVID-19 patients.

She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area with parents of Indian origin from Uganda and Tanzania, according to a Daisy and Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which she won in 2013. She grappled with anorexia when she was young that prompted her to create a nonprofit at the age of 15, called Girls Helping Girls, that spurred a worldwide movement.

DEVON

Story:

Devon Energy Corp. posted a net income of $920 million for the third quarter, rising some 31.8 percent over the previous quarter this year.

The company said in a media release that its average daily production went up eight percent year over year.

However, looking at the net earnings of $1.89 billion for the third quarter of 2022, the company’s profit more than halved.

“This growth was highlighted by production per share increasing 10 percent over the past year and we more than doubled our free cash flow during the quarter, reaching our highest level ...

“Looking ahead to 2024, we plan to refine our capital allocation by further concentrating investment in the Delaware Basin”, Muncrief commented. “By shifting more capital to the core of this world-class basin and high-grading activity across our diversified portfolio ...

Production averaged 665,000 barrels of oil equivalent barrels per day (boepd) in the third quarter, representing an increase of eight percent year over year. This result was one percent below midpoint expectations due to select well performance in the Williston Basin and temporary constraints in the Delaware Basin. Oil totaled 321,000 barrels per day in the quarter, which was 48 percent of total volumes.

In the third quarter, the company said it took steps to strengthen its financial position by retiring $242 million of outstanding debt. The company also increased its cash on hand by $273 million in the quarter to a total of $761 million. Outstanding debt declined to $6.2 billion and the company’s net debt-to-EBITDAX ratio was 0.7 times.

Capital spending excluding acquisitions totaled $896 million in the third quarter, a 12 percent decrease from the previous quarter. The decline in capital was driven by the timing of completions in the Delaware Basin, where the company temporarily reduced activity to three completion crews for the second half of the year.

Looking ahead, Devon expects its fourth quarter capital to range from $870 million to $930 million. With this level of investment, the company expects to bring online around 100 gross operated wells during the quarter. Fourth-quarter production is expected to range from 640,000 to 660,000 boepd, with oil production approximating 315,000 barrels per day. 

This decrease in production from the third quarter is driven by declines in the Williston Basin and timing of completions in the Delaware Basin.

In 2024, the company plans to sustain oil production at around 315,000 barrels per day, with total volumes approximating 650,000 boepd. Capital requirements are expected to decline approximately 10 percent from 2023 levels to a range of $3.3 billion to $3.6 billion. 

This program is estimated to be funded at pricing levels below $40 per barrel.

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