Monday, Monday -- Walmart Split Takes Effect -- February 26, 2024

Locator: 46909B. 

Walmart: splits today, 3 - 1. First since 1999. My hunch: this may start a trend. 

Tech: AVGO, QCOM surprisingly high today. 

Picking winners and losers, good news for Walmart and Target: Biden's FTC sues to block Kroger's takeover of Albertson's. Everybody knows.

Mortgages: home sales rebounded in January after last yearr's sharp decline. JPow noted, no doubt.

EVs: a snowball rolling down hilll

• see this post;
• once I wake up, we'll add Part 2 -- it looks like this is turning out to be a huge story

NATO: Sweden's in. Next: Ukraine.

Iran: has reduced its stockpile of near-weapons-grade nuclear material over the past 3.5 months, defying expectations. Received no headlines in the news.

PCE: link here. Even if accurate, won't matter. Won't change JPow's mind.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $76.79.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024: 63 for the month; 122 for the quarter, 122 for the year
37487, conf, CLR, Gibb 4-24H1,

Monday, February 26, 2024: 62 for the month; 121 for the quarter, 121 for the year
39616, conf, Whiting, DE YK 12-33-2TFH,
37486, conf, CLR, Gibb 3-24H,

Sunday, February 25, 2024: 60 for the month; 119 for the quarter, 119 for the year
38641, conf, Hess, GO-Knudson-156-97-2017H-3,
37485, conf, CLR, Gibb 2-24H1,

Saturday, February 24, 2024: 58 for the month; 117 for the quarter, 117 for the yea
39617, conf, Whiting, DE YK 12-33-2H,
39340, conf, Enerplus, Cushion 148-93-04A-09H-LL,
37343, conf, Whiting, Bigfoot LS 23-22 8H,

RBN Energy: the US NGL production, fractionation, and export juggernaut rolls on. Archived here.

Way back in 2018-19, U.S. NGL production was rising fast, new ethane-only steam crackers were coming online along the Gulf Coast, and new fractionation capacity wasn’t being added quickly enough — the capacity shortfall sent the NGL market into near-panic. Fast forward to now: NGL production is still rising but domestic demand is flat, resulting in an NGL-exports surge and a race to develop new export capacity. And fractionation capacity in Mont Belvieu and elsewhere? The market learned its lesson five years ago and, to avert another capacity crunch, midstream companies have been adding new fractionators at an almost frenetic pace. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the ongoing fractionation-capacity buildout — and the need to quickly expand NGL export terminals. 

Having sufficient infrastructure in place is, of course, a critical need in each and every U.S. hydrocarbon market. There’s no way around it — you need the processing plants, the pipelines, the storage, and (especially in the Shale Era) the export docks to deal with the massive volumes of crude oil, natural gas and NGLs being produced. And don’t forget to build in a cushion, not just to deal with the daily and weekly ups and downs in supply and demand, but also to anticipate production growth.