Locator: 49134B.
Most exciting sector for a day or two? Banks? Could BRK finally show some life?
Nasville: perhaps the most interesting city right now. Lyft stock soars 20% on Waymo Nashville robotaxi deal.
This represents the first major autonomous ride-hailing fleet: Lyft and Waymo join forces -- that's a. headline but Uber also partners with several autonomous driving fleets, including Waymo, Cruise, Baidu, Lucid and Nuro.
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Back to the Bakken
Chord: perhaps the most exciting operator in the Bakken right now. Just announced that it will acquire XOM/XTO's assets in the Bakken. Chord was an Oasis - Whiting that acquired Enerplus. Now, the XOM assets. Ticker: up $4.00 yesterday. Bakken deals tracked at the sidebar at the right. Chord-XTO deal tracked here.
WTI: $64.41.
New wells:
- Thursday, September 18, 2025: 26 for the month, 119 for the quarter, 559 for the year,
- 40974, conf, Hess, HA-Grimestad-152-95-3031H-12,
- 40797, conf, Slawson, Daredevil Federal 2-2-14H,
- Wednesday, September 17, 2025: 24 for the month, 117 for the quarter, 557 for the year,
RBN Energy: E&Ps worried about oil prices keep spending in check as acquisitions boost output. Archived: incredibly good summary.
Although Labor Day has passed, most of the country is still enjoying
balmy and relatively tranquil weather as we approach the onset of fall.
However, a decline in crude oil prices since a mid-June peak has induced
a profound chill in the boardrooms of oil and gas producers. Investors
are becoming increasingly nervous as the crude spot price approaches
$60/bbl, a widely accepted inflection point that, if breached, could
threaten the post-pandemic financial stability the industry has enjoyed.
In today’s RBN blog, we review the midyear adjustments to 2025 capital
budgets and explore investment trends that could impact future
production and results.
From
a dollar standpoint, the updated 2025 capital spending updates
announced with first-half results were remarkably similar to the initial
investment budgets released by oil and gas producers with their 2024
year-end results. As we outlined in our original look at this year’s
capex, Slow Dancing,
worries about lower oil prices and the potential impact of tariffs
resulted in the 38 companies we follow trimming their expected 2025
capital spending to $60.1 billion, 4% lower than the $62.1 billion
invested in 2024, as 22 producers guided to lower activity. Total
estimated capex (far-right blue bar and left axis in Figure 1 below) in
Q2 2025 fell by about $100 million, or 0.3%, from the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, oil and gas production continues to grow, primarily due to
acquisition activity. Oil and gas production is now expected to be 5.74
billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe; right end of orange line and
right axis), up about 90 MMboe from our initial 2025 estimate and 6%
more than 2024 results.
Figure 1. E&P Capital Spending and Production, 2014-Q2 2025E.
Source: Oil & Gas Financial Analytics, LLC
However, other metrics besides the total capital budget provide
valuable insights into the investment strategies of oil and gas
companies. One is the reinvestment rate, the percentage of cash flow
apportioned to capital spending. As we noted in our recent blog on Q2
2025 cash allocation, Zero Sum Game,
lower margins from tumbling crude prices resulted in the reinvestment
rate rising to 70%, a five-year high. This suggests that future erosion
in crude prices could force producers to either cut investment or
increase debt to sustain the level of shareholder returns that have
restored investor support.
