CLR With One New Permit; Sinclair Renews Seven Permits; Three DUCs Reported As Completed -- April 11, 2023

Locator: 44366B. 

This guy is incredibly inaccurate but it is what it is. If one really wants to know what's going on, follow the ticker symbol: BUD.

Has SecEnergy Jen Granholm seen this chart?

API moves:

At the close: during the  2023 recession -- 

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 41.

WTI: $81.41.

Natural gas: $2.220.

One new permit: #39814:

• Operator: CLR
• Field: Elm Tree
• Comments:
• CLR has a permit for another Tarentaise Federal well, SENW 19-153-94; 
• to be sited 1651 FNL and 2062 FWL; the CLR Tarentaise wells are tracked here.
  

Seven permits renewed:

• SOGC (Sinclair): six Yauch permits, McKenzie County; and one Bighorn permit Dunn County.

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 38809, 941, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC DeFrance, 4-12-1-158N-100W-MBH,,
• 36946, 2,116, Neptune Operating, Sanders N 150-100-9-10-7H, Sandrocks, no production data,
  
• 36947, 2,130, Neptune Operating, Sanders N 150-100-9-10-6H, Sandrocks, no production data,

How Great Is The Bakken? April 11, 2023

Locator: 44365B. 

How incredible is the Bakken?

Although Russian exports are about 2.5x Bakken’s total production, the “two” are in the same ballpark: lower-single-digit millions.

Bakken sweet light sells at a premium to WTI. Russian Urals sanctioned. Yes, I know. Don’t write me.

Link here.

Not a bit unexpected.

The Bakken, right now, is concentrating its wells on two counties, maybe three. and that’s it.

WTI is up $1.73 today. And this is during a recession. Which is projected to get worse.

The gap between investors and non-investors continues to grow.

Russia: dollar cost of war to Putin.

For Oil Companies To Compete With ESG Stocks .... April 11, 2023

Locator: 44364B. 

For oil companies to attract 'mom-and-pop" traders / investors from ESG 'mojo' stocks, oil companies are going to have to make their shares irresistible.

COP, link here.

April 14, regular dividend pay-date:

• last year: 30 cents / share;
• this year, that has been doubled to 60 cents / share;

Through, April 14, COP has paid:

• calendar year, 2022: 96 cents
• calendar year, 2023: $1.81

The "Goldilocks" Economy -- April 11, 2023

Locator: 44363A.

Not too shabby, considering we are in a recession, The Dow is up 129 points, NASDAQ is down 40 points because one stock was down: AAPL. 

GDPNow: 2.2%.

And just think, once your earned income goes over $160,200 this year, you owe no more social security "tax." What a great country. 

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At Home

Soon to open in our neighborhood: "At Home." I bicycle by this new location almost every day.

Link here.

China, Coal, And EVs -- Aprill 11, 2023

Locator: 44362B.

UPDATES

Later, 12:02 p.m. CT: Social Security and  Medicare —

• Recommendations
• progressive for both SS and Medicare
• no contribution cap based on income
  
• upon retirement, benefits phase out based on income
• additional contributions mandated for entertainers, sports figures, and federal employees, but, again, progressive
• families with children below the age of six exempt from all contributions
• families with dependents in college partially exempt from contributions

ORIGINAL POST

FedEx: increases dividend. Completely unexpected. And FedEx increases their dividend during a recession. See GDPNow.

Link here.

 
This is really a cool story.

I don't think most folks have caught on to this.

As the western world moves away from coal, using natural gas as a transitional fuel, and investing heavily in solar and wind energy, China is clearly taking a different fork in the road: coal.

This is another article that notes that China is switching from gasoline-fueled ICEs to coal-fueled EVs.

Absolutely fascinating.

And Saudi Arabia can clearly see this. 

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Today's Reading

Even by The New Yorker's standards, the article by Larissa MacFarquhar in the current issue of TNY is setting a new record (?) -- seventeen pages. The article is on "adoption" and it is fascinating. Reminds me again how fortunate so many of us are. 

Probably behind a paywall.

On another note, I'm still reading A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan, c. 2023. This should be mandatory reading by all juniors in "red" schools. And all GOP congressmen "investigating" "January 6." Timothy Egan's book certainly puts "January 6" into historical perspective.

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Jon Rahm

For Jon Rahm, social security withheld on his $3-million winnings: $10,000. This works out to 0.3% [0.062*160,200)/$3.24 million].

0.03% for a multimillionaire.

6.2% for a $50K blue-collar worker.

The GOP continues to move farther and farther away from me.

A reader replies: 

His social security contribution as a percent on his his $8 million in 2023 anticipated winnings:

$20,000 in SS contributions.

$20,000 social security / $8,000,000 earned income = 0.25%.

Medicare is even a better deal. Not only is it unchanged from 2022, despite inflation, it's still a whopping 1.45% for individual matched by another 1.45% for employer.

0.029 x 160,200 = $4,646 / $8,000,000 = 0.00058 = 0.06%.

Compared to what he would be paying in Spain, Jon Rahm must think he died and gone to heaven.

Note: I often make simple arithmetic errors.

Again, as noted, the GOP continues to move away from me. 

Social Media Update On That XOM - PXD Story -- April 11, 2023

Locator: 44361B.  

That PXD - XOM story.

Update here.

HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub Update -- April 11, 2023

Locator: 44360B.  

Link here.

US hydrogen hubs. 

DOE: $8-billion lottery.

From the link:

HyVelocity Hub—a US Gulf Coast hydrogen hub being organized by Chevron Corp., Sempra Infrastructure, Ørsted AS, Air Liquide SA, GTI Energy, University of Texas at Austin, and The Center for Houston’s Future, among others—has applied for funding from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) $8-billion regional clean hydrogen hubs program to rapidly scale clean hydrogen supply and demand along the Gulf Coast in Texas and southwest Louisiana. 

The US Congress, in 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, authorized a program of regional clean hydrogen hubs, appropriating the funding for DOE to make awards to support at least four demonstration projects involving networks of clean hydrogen producers and consumers and the connecting infrastructure (OGJ Online, Dec. 5, 2022). 

The Gulf Coast is well situated for a clean hydrogen hub, according to HyVelocity, as it already contains the world’s largest concentration of existing hydrogen production, customers, and energy infrastructure, with a network of 48 hydrogen production plants and more than 1,000 miles of dedicated hydrogen pipelines.

An RBN Energy blog from the other day.

RBN Energy: LIGH2T hydrogen hub seen as platform for industrial-scale decarbonization, part 3.Only because North Dakota is involved am I interested in hydrogen. Archived.

There’s been a lot written about the federal government’s plan to provide billions of dollars in financial support to create a limited number of regional hydrogen hubs but not a lot of insight about how those hub proposals are being crafted to meet the Department of Energy’s (DOE) selection criteria. The details and strategies behind those plans have been hard to come by because few of the initial concept papers were made public while others remain a mystery, even months after the first informal winnowing of candidates. One exception is the Leading in Gulf Coast Hydrogen Transition (LIGH₂T) hub proposal being prepared by a consortium that includes a large group of states, some key commercial partners, several universities and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). In today’s RBN blog, we look at what we know about the LIGH₂T proposal, which will submit a full application by the April 7 deadline, and how it addresses three key factors likely to play a role in the selection process.

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The Art Page

I asked Olivia, now a junior in high school if she remembered this painting she did when she was in kindergarten. She said she did not, but she recalls enjoying drawing sea / underwater scenes along with her friend Kiki when they were in kindergarten together when she lived in the Boston area.

Kiki was also her friend that got Olivia involved in soccer and, now, ten years later, Olivia is on her way "to state" ... wow, I have fond memories of those days. What I would do to re-live those days --

By Olivia, age 5. Probably mixed media: water colour and colored pencil. The detail is remarkable, and the shading is incredible.

Atmospheric CO2 -- March, 2023

Locator: 44360B.  

Before we get started: the earth's oceans are now rising at 0.13 inches per year. That's over a foot over 100 years.

Link here.

No Wells Coming Off Confidential List -- April 11, 2023

Locator: 44359B.

Inflation: clearly transitory. Link here. Cooling off. 

Investing: I'm almost back to "where I was."

North Texas: beautiful, beautiful morning. Bike ride as soon I complete this post. 

Ovintiv: see below. For investors in energy, I think there's a "new" way to think about shale. Maybe I will talk about that later but because this is not an investment site, I have to think twice (or thrice) before posting such notes. 

Blog: if you read only one other blog today, I would recommend this one -- today's RBN Energy blog on SPOT -- it will be available for a limited amount of time and will then disappear behind a paywall:

RBN Energy: Why SPOT will change everything in the U.S. crude oil export market. Archived.

If you think, as we do, that (1) U.S. crude oil production is likely to increase by 1.5 to 2 MMb/d over the next five years, (2) almost all those barrels will be light-sweet crude that needs to be exported, and (3) exporters will overwhelmingly favor the marine terminals that can accommodate Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), it would be hard to ignore the game-changing impacts that Enterprise Products Partners’ planned Sea Port Oil Terminal could have. SPOT, which could be completed as soon as 2026, will have robust pipeline connections from the Permian and other shale plays and be capable of fully loading a 2-MMbbl VLCC in one day, enough to handle virtually all the incremental exports we’re likely to see over the next five years.

In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the fast-increasing role of VLCCs in U.S. crude oil exports and the potentially seismic impacts of the SPOT project. RBN’s middle-of-the-road “Mid” forecast sees U.S. crude oil production increasing to 14 MMb/d by 2028, about 2 MMb/d higher than the 2022 average, with three-quarters of that incremental output coming from the Permian and most of the rest from other shale plays that also produce high-API-gravity, low-sulfur oil. Given that U.S. refineries’ ability to economically process light-sweet crude is essentially maxed out, it’s a good bet that almost all those incremental barrels will be bound for export terminals along the Gulf Coast. At’s just as likely that, on their way to overseas refineries, as many of those barrels as physically possible will be headed through terminals like the Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center (EIEC) and South Texas Gateway (STG) — both in the Corpus Christi area — whose docks can receive and load VLCCs with minimal reverse lightering, the most cost-effective way to move massive volumes of oil to Europe and Asia.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 42.

Peter Zeihan newsletter.

WTI: $79.49.

Natural gas: $2.213.

Wednesday, April 12, 2023: 26 for the month; 26 for the quarter, 281 for the year
39184, conf, Ragnar Exploration, Galt 1-22H,
38875, conf, Ovintiv, Clear Creek Federal 152-97-36-25-8H, Westberg, these wells are tracked here.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023: 24 for the month; 24 for the quarter, 279 for the year
None.

RBN Energy: Ovintiv doubles down on the Permian's Midland Basin. 

It would be an understatement to say we’re sensing a trend here. Over the past couple of years, there’s been an absolute frenzy of producer M&A activity in the Permian, much of it involving big E&Ps getting bigger and private equity cashing in on assets they’ve been developing since the 2010s. The latest multibillion-dollar deal involves Ovintiv, whose recently announced plan to acquire the Midland Basin assets of three EnCap Investments-backed producers will nearly double Ovintiv’s oil and condensate output in West Texas, lower its per-barrel production costs, and add more than 1,000 well locations to its inventory. Oh, and via a separate but related deal, Ovintiv will exit the Bakken by selling its assets there to another EnCap affiliate. In today’s RBN blog, we look at what the M&A artist formerly known as Encana is up to.