Apple Hits $3 Trillion Market Cap (Again); US Jet Fuel Supplied Up An Astounding 13% Y/Y -- June 5, 2024

Locator: 48061B.

Big news stories today:

• jobs data suggests economy slowing; all eyes on Friday's unemployment number.
• EVs plunge in value, y/y
• record dividends and interest income for Americans
• Israel steps up military offensive
• Russia's war in Ukraine has hit Gazprom's revenues hard
• AAPL hits $3 trillion mark again
• HPE surges on 2q24 earnings beat: it's all about AI.
• NVDA: another record high; not today, not tomorrow, but the next day -- a 10:1 split
• NASDAQ and S&P 500 within 1% of all-time highs; Dow struggles
• DOE suggests it may start re-filling the SPR (again)
• jet fuel: up 13% compared with same four-week period last year
• electronic stock exchange proposed for Dallas, TX, to take on the NYSE

EIA weekly petroleum report: link here.

• US crude oil in storage:  4% below 5-year average; an increase of 1.2 million bbls from previous week;
• refinery capacity: 95.4%.
• jet fuel: up 13% compared with same four-week period last year

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $73.57. 

Thursday, June 6, 2024: 55 for the month; 119 for the quarter, 318 for the year
40279, conf, CLR, Thorvald 5-6H,

Wednesday, June 5, 2024: 54 for the month; 118 for the quarter, 317 for the year
40278, conf, CLR, Cuskelly 5-7H,
40245, conf, Empire North Dakota, Walleye 32-8 1H,
39387, conf, BR, Watchman Peak 2-8-11TFH,
38057, conf, Oasis, Wood 5498 12-25 4B,

RBN Energy: push for scale, efficiency drives more consolidation in the Eagle Ford. Archived.

Permian-focused M&A activity may grab all the headlines, but don’t forget about the Eagle Ford. Over the past couple of years, a steady stream of big-dollar deals have been announced in the South Texas shale play, most of them tied to efforts by growth-oriented E&Ps to increase their scale, improve their operational efficiency and expand their inventory of top-tier drilling sites. As we’ll discuss in today’s RBN blog, the dealmaking has continued this spring, most recently with Crescent Energy’s announcement that it will be acquiring SilverBow Resources. 

As we said a while back, the South Texas production area had its glory days in the early years of the Shale Era, slugging it out with the Permian and offshore Gulf of Mexico for the #1 spot in crude oil production and with the then-preeminent Haynesville for top honors in natural gas output. But the mid-decade crash in oil and gas prices hit the Eagle Ford harder than any other U.S. production area and it didn’t rebound the way those other basins did for a variety of reasons. For the past year and a half, however, South Texas gas production has been topping 7 Bcf/d for the first time since 2015 and oil production has been holding steady at about 1.1 MMb/d for even longer — not Permian numbers by any means, but significant nonetheless.

More pertinent to today’s topic, M&A activity in the Eagle Ford has been through the roof. We’ll get to the latest deals in a moment. First, let’s quickly recap some of the nine- and 10-figure deals that have closed the in just the past couple of years involving South Texas acreage and production. (Note that this isn’t an exhaustive list and there were several other high-profile transactions that happened prior to this timeframe.) These include: 

• Devon Energy’s $1.8 billion purchase of Validus Energy, a privately held Eagle Ford producer, which closed in September 2022. 
• Marathon Oil’s December 2022 acquisition of Ensign Natural Resources’ Eagle Ford assets for $3 billion (discussed in Come Back Song). 
• Spanish energy giant Repsol’s February 2023 purchase of the South Texas acreage and production of Japan’s INPEX Corp. for an undisclosed amount. U.K.-based INEOS’s purchase of some of Chesapeake Energy’s South Texas assets for $1.1 billion — a deal that was finalized in May 2023.
• Canadian producer Baytex Energy’s June 2023 acquisition of Eagle Ford pure-play Ranger Oil in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $2.2 billion. 
• The $551 million purchase by privately held Ridgemar Energy of Callon Petroleum’s Eagle Ford assets, which closed in July 2023. 
• The recently announced, $22.5 billion plan by ConocoPhillips to acquire Marathon Oil — as we’ll get to, both companies have a significant presence in the Eagle Ford.