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Monday, April 22, 2024

NDIC's Daily Activity Report Was "Empty" Except For Noting That The Number Of Active Rigs Stands At 39 -- April 22, 2024

Locator: 47059B.

Focus on fracking: link here. The lede:

  • 1,166,000 barrel per day crude oil balance sheet error;
  • number of DUC wells rise first time in 13 months;
  • DUC backlog at 5.3 months 

That 1.2-million-bopd crude oil error: "as bad as it gets"? It's actually worse - see below:

... after accounting for all the oil produced, exported, imported, refined, and stored... the EIA was forced to plug in a [+1,166,000 ] barrel per day figure onto line 16 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet, in order to make the reported data for the supply of oil and for the consumption of it balance out, a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil,” .…
Moreover, since 518,000 barrels of oil demand per day could not be accounted for in the prior week’s EIA data, that means there was a 1,684,000 barrel per day difference between this week's oil balance sheet error and the EIA's crude oil balance sheet error from a week before, and hence the changes to supply and demand from that week to this one that are indicated by this week's report are off by that much, and therefore nonsense...

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $82.85.

Active rigs: 39.

And that was it. That was all that NDIC reported today.

US Markets -- April 22, 2024

Locator: 47058INV.

 
At the close:


This tells me several things:
  • the US equity market is not "a bubble"
    • much of the market is undervalued
  • movers and shakers are "happy" with their expectation of what the Fed will do
    • current rate is acceptable, manageable 
    • higher for longer
    • it's still hard to believe that many think the Fed will begin cutting this year
  • "rotation" is complete
    • movers and shakers ready for the next move in the market
  • geopolitics are manageable
    • the Mideast is quiet
    • Ukraine has a new lease on life

Investment thesis holds.

Of note:

  • while RIVN. is actually up, TSLA is down another $5; down another 3.6%; speaks volumes about Tesla;
  • XOM and CVX both up despite WTI trending toward $82
  • NVDA, AMD up huge; INTC flat; SNOW up better than INTC; TSM up 2%;
  • SRE moving a bit; ENB, EPD up a big
  • SCCO: down 1% but it's had a great run; profit taking
  • AAPL: so far down, nowhere to go but up; up slightly;
  • DE up slightly; CAT up almost 2%
  • UNP up over 1%
  • F: soaring today; GM doing well;

Solar: for those Republicans that were upset that Biden is/was spending money on Ukraine and Israel for self defense but nothing on America, fear not. On Earth Day, Biden will announce $7 billion for rooftop solar. Link here. Lots of money to go around in an election year. This will help lock in California. As if there was any worry.

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source.

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market, I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple

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Andrea Mitchell

I don't want network news and I don't watch network news shows -- one exception because my wife has the television on during my cocktail hour -- ABC Nightly News --- so I had no idea Andrea Mitchell is still on the air, over at NBC, but apparently a lot of folks knew that. Just not me.

Speaking of my cocktail hour and the nightly news -- I may have to move to the Bat Cave during cocktail hour. LOL.

Link here.

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Reply To Comment

For some reason, my reply won't post. I'll try later.

So that the reply is not lost, here is the reply I was trying to post to the comment:

Thank you. I've never been there. Looks very, very interesting, but the clientele would definitely be above my pay grade. Worse, I would be overwhelmed by the whiskey / whisky selection. Seriously.

But no, I would never let someone else pay for my drinks -- even on a bet. There have been exceptions but I've always felt funny about that for some reason.

On a very different note, but in a similar vein, I was going to give a TSA employee this morning a $20 Starbucks gift card, but she said it was illegal to "gift" a TSA employee.

Tectonic Shift -- Closing A Loop -- Covid -- April 22, 2024

Locator: 47057COVID.

Yesterday, I asked rhetorically, whatever happened to all those Covid variants. LOL. 

Well, I checked.

The question almost sounds "sarcastic"? What variant are we on now? LOL. Now? As if there will be a variant du jour for the rest of our lives. Big Pharma certainly hopes so.

So, anyway, JN.1, from the CDC:

As of April 17, 2024, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant JN.1 has very high prevalence in the United States, with CDC Nowcast projections estimating JN.1 to account for more than 95% of all COVID-19 illnesses in the US

The proportion of illnesses caused by JN.1 subvariant JN.1.13 is increasing and is projected to account for nearly 10% of new COVID-19 illnesses.

A very high proportion (>95%) of individuals currently have identifiable antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, either from infection or immunization or a combination of both.

The JN.1 variant is a subvariant of Omicron variant BA.2.86, and contains several mutations that are associated with escape from vaccine-mediated immune protection

Recent research shows that JN.1 is very efficient at immune evasion (even more so than other Omicron variants), resulting in an increased reproductive number. 

Evidence from a small serological study has suggested that serological protection against SARS-CoV-2 is reduced against JN.1 variants compared to other BA.2.86 viruses, among young adults who had received at least a complete primary series of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Additionally, a recent serological survey of 1,472 community-dwelling individuals found that although a majority of previously-infected individuals had antibodies with neutralizing activity against JN.1, the neutralizing capacity was relatively low compared to neutralizing capacity against other SARS-CoV-2 strains.

Although JN.1 does appear to be more transmissible, it does not appear to cause more severe disease than other SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Commentary On The SPR -- April 22, 2024

Locator: 47056SPR.

I can't recall if I've ever posted my thoughts on the SPR. I've thought about it often since around 2018 or thereabouts. Before Covid. 

I've long questioned the need for an SPR. One of my pet peeves: the memes about depleting the SPR. There's a reason CBNC seldom even mentions the SPR except as a political / headline interest when the president makes an announcement.

So, with that, a deep dive, but only two links. That's all I have time for and about as interested as I am in this subject. The first link, from 2009, is a very, very old document and may not have much relevance today but it does provide a nice historical perspective.

This paragraph was particularly noteworthy, and the reason I posted this link.

The meaning of a “severe energy supply interruption” has been controversial. EPCA intended use of the SPR only to ameliorate discernible physical shortages of crude oil.
However, the American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 (S. 1462), reported in the Senate, would require that the SPR include 30 million barrels of refined product; would transfer authority for a drawdown from the President to the Secretary of Energy; and would amend the drawdown authority to permit drawdown and sale in the event of a “severe energy market supply interruption” that has caused, or is expected to cause, “a severe increase” in prices.
This language is a significant departure from existing authorities which predicate drawdown disruptions in supply, and discourages use of the SPR to address high prices, per se.

However, the was never even voted upon in the US Senate. From wiki:

The second link is from earlier this year.

Whether or not language regarding the SPR and managing the price of gasoline has ever been codified (I don't know), the current president if very clear about this.

The largest series of oil releases from the SPR, by far, has been in response to the oil price hikes in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022 (Neely, 2022). On March 1, 2022, the International Energy Agency coordinated an international release that included 30 million barrels from the U.S. SPR. In the following 8 months, President Biden ordered the release of an additional 340 million barrels of oil. The 370 million barrels in these invasion-of-Ukraine SPR releases was 64 percent of the SPR stock on February 25, 2024, and greater than the combined total of all other releases since 1985.

The Biden administration argued that the releases substantially lowered gasoline prices, and it is very likely that any supply increase lowers prices to some extent. To put the drawdowns in context, however, the U.S. Energy Information Agency reports worldwide production and consumption of about 97.3 million barrels of oil per day, of which the U.S. consumed about 20.3 million barrels. Therefore, the 370 million barrels released over 8 months amounted to about 1.6% of world oil production during that time.

The president is certainly acting in line with the DOE's articulation of the purpose of the SPR.

This raises the issue of the best purpose for a strategic reserve of any sort. On the one hand, the government could act as a private long-term speculator, keeping a strategic reserve that can be drawn upon when prices are high and refilled when prices are low. Such a strategy would tend to make money and stabilize market prices. In fact, Milton Friedman argued that profitability was a good measure of whether a trading strategy stabilized or destabilized asset prices. The Department of Energy describes the purpose of the SPR in this way, saying that it is "used to alleviate the market impacts of both domestic and international disruptions" (Department of Energy, 2024).

Be that as it may, a few things:

  • the SPR, as originally intended, no longer matters;
  • the SPR provides a great political asset for any president;
  • the SPR has "no" effect -- other than possibly a short-term psychological effect -- in affecting the price of gasoline.

The price of gasoline is:

  • to some extent local; there is no "real" national price;
  • a political talking point;
  • determined by so many other factors, that for all intents and purposes, the SPR is irrelevant

Fact:

  • the price of gasoline is affected much more by government policies and regulations than the status of the SPR (exhibit A: California)
    • release the entirety of the SPR and the price of gasoline is unlikely to change significantly in California
    • California would not have the refineries to manage all that oil and the state doesn't have the resources to absorb the refined product even if refiners outside California could provide it

The US is approaching 5 million bopd in crude oil exports. It would be interesting to know what would be required to push US exports to 5 million bopd on an on-going basis.

Arithmetic: 5 x 30 = 150 million bbls / month.

Here is the history of the SPR drawdowns since 2015. Compare each draw with 150 million bbls / month that is currently being exported and then consider that if pushed to shove, the US could easily add another three million bopd production more than it currently produces (90 million bbls / month).

Stop exports today and in less than a week the amount not exported would surpass every SPR withdrawal since 2015 except one. This needs to be fact-checked. I must be missing something.

If my arithmetic is wrong, this is from the link above regarding Biden's announced releases in the past eight months: the 370 million barrels released over 8 months amounted to about 1.6% of world oil production during that time.

The world would not miss that US oil: the Mideast could easily replace it. 

Anyway, gotta stop here. In a long note like this there will be content and typographical errors. If this matters to you, go to the linked sources.

Is there enough pipeline capacity and shipping capacity to handle that much more crude oil for export? One may want to check the most recent Bloomberg report regarding EPD's new deepwater export terminal. I think the story came out yesterday. I'm not going to post it or link it for now. 

Bottom line: the SPR is nothing more than a political "asset" for the president. It's not going to go anywhere any time soon. But, as originally intended, the SPR no longer matters.

This matters not at all, but for the record: which presidents filled and depleted (used loosely) the SPR?

Saudi Arabia Foreign Exchange Reserves Data Finally Posted -- April 22, 2024

Locator: 47055SAUDI.

Link here.

Finally, we get the February, 2024, data. Seems late. 

There's a reason the prince killed Neom. No typo.

Original plan: 105 miles.

Can't even fund the new plan -- 1.5 miles -- with its own cash. Looking for cash donations from China, others.

Saudi says the 1.5-mile-project will cost half-a-trillion dollars. Sounds fishy to me. 

Just The Bakken For Now -- More To Come -- April 22, 2024

Locator: 47054B.

WTI: $83.03.

Tuesday, April 23, 2024: 51 for the month; 51 for the quarter, 250 for the year
39581, conf, Hess, CA-Anderson Smith-155-96-2635H-9,
38562, conf, Hess, GO-HAUG-156-98-1918H-6,
38561, conf, Hess, GO-HAUG-156-98-3031H-6,

Monday, April 22, 2024: 48 for the month; 48 for the quarter, 247 for the year
39467, conf, Hess, EN-Erickson-LE-157-93-1003H-1,
37518, conf, BR, Mazama 2A UTFH,

Sunday, April 21, 2024: 46 for the month; 46 for the quarter, 245 for the year
39883, conf, Whiting, Van Buren Federal 5103 42-36 4B,
39580, conf, Hess, CA-Anderson Smith-155-96-2635H-9,

Saturday, April 20, 2024: 44 for the month; 44 for the quarter, 243 for the year
40142, conf, CLR, Veigel 9-9H1,
39882, conf, Whiting, Van Buren Federal 5103 42-36 3B, 

RBN Energy: investors rewarded with strong returns despite dip in E&P cash flows

As we’ve frequently chronicled, 2022 was a golden year for U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies and their investors, as soaring commodity prices triggered record cash generation to fund the highest levels of shareholder returns of any American industry. But Camelot didn’t last forever, and the twin impacts of lower hydrocarbon prices and rising inflation inevitably eroded cash flows in 2023. The good news is that these fiscally disciplined producers still recorded the second-best results of the last decade to fund historically strong shareholder returns. In today’s RBN blog, we detail the 2023 cash allocation of the 41 major U.S. E&Ps that we cover.

Dividend Watch — SRE — Recent Increase — April 22, 2024

Locator: 47053DIV.

I can’t recall if this was previously posted.

Link here