The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Notes From All Over -- The Flathead Lake Edition -- October 19, 2021

Let's Go, Bakken -- October 19, 2021

Richest man in the world:

1999: Bill Gates, $90 billion
2007: Bill Gates, $56 billion
2017: Bill Gates, $86 billion
2021: Elon Musk, $230 billion

Coal: largest US coal miner sees 17% share price surge. Link to Julianne Geiger.

Begs: Resident Biden reportedly "begging" OPEC to increase production. Link to Charles Kennedy.

Eagle Ford: Clariant opens state-of-the-art Eagle Ford technology center. Link here.

Permian: production near pre-covid record numbers. Link to Rigzone.

Oil output in America’s most prolific shale patch is getting closer to levels seen before the pandemic-driven market crash, as crude prices surge.

While total production in the U.S. is still lagging, the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is increasing output to an average of 4.826 million barrels a day in October.

That’s close to a revised 4.913 million barrel-a-day record set in March 2020, just before the pandemic unleashed widespread demand destruction globally, triggering production shutdowns and bankruptcies across the country.

****************************
Let's Go, Bakken

Pipeline construction begins: North Bakken Expansion Project, northwestern ND -- see this note for full background --

construction begins
250 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Bakken formation
63 miles
$260 million
peak construction will require upwards of 450 people

Active rigs:

$82.96	10/19/2021	10/19/2020	10/19/2019	10/19/2018	10/19/2017
Active Rigs	29	15	61	71	56

Two new permits:

Operator: MRO
Field: Bailey (Dunn)
Comments:

MRO has permits for a Wilma well and a Greenshields well, both in SESE 9-146-93, one will be sited 404 FSL and 1166 FEL; the other, 404 FSL and 1126 FEL

Eight permits canceled:

Oasis (5): five Ramirez permits in McKenzie County
Bowline (Nine Point Energy): a Lee permit in McKenzie County
SHD: an Epsilon permit in McLean County, section 18-150-91
EOG: a Ross permit in Mountrail County, section 9-156-92

Notes From All Over, Let's Go, Brandon -- October 19, 2021

Netflix: apparently a great quarter; I came to the conversation on "Fast Money" late, but panelists are using some strong adjectives to describe NFLX

the quarter's subscriber growth of 4.4 million was a solid beat over the expected 3.84 million
beat on earnings
came in line with revenue
is trouncing competitors
Netflix is beating Disney when it comes to younger demographics and gaming
the meme is that Disney has the lock on this demographic and gaming; turns out to be not true
and Netflix is growing that advantage
this is so funny - it was a lark a decade ago (?) that my very first "the next big thing" was Netflix

Bitcoin: continues to surge.

first ETF approved by SEC today;
up another $2,765;
now trading over $64,000;

Covid-19:

pregnancy: folks may want to google news in past month; I'll get back to this later with links;

vaccine rollout: have the numbers peaked? preliminary data suggests Biden's mandate is crumbling;
Southwest airlines: blinks
US Supreme Court: trifecta; three out of three; won't stop mandate; first-time state mandate challenged; anti-vaxxers fail; but court has not made "final" call

Apple:

the reviews and stories are still coming in;
one word: revolution
will take awhile to get caught up

United Airlines

shares popping after hours
a loss for 3Q21 -- but less than expected
won't know when the company will turn a profit
loss, 3Q21: a loss of $1.02 vs a loss of 1.67 expected
revenue: $7.76 billion vs $7.64 billion expected
fuel cost up 63% since last year -- let's go Brandon

can't pass full cost of fuel to consumer any more?
perhaps some / most of the cost but not not all
looks like fuel surcharge coming

negative margins
up 2.2% in after hours trading
still with huge debt problem

Mexico:

to energy companies in "USA SW": adios, hasta luego
to energy companies in Texas: hola!
link to Platts; maybe more later

Cramer: opening monologue -- telling folks not to freak out with regard to inflation; he thinks there are four sectors that are inflation winners:

energy
financial
technology
drug companies

energy:

first four or five were his first four or five; "if there is a down day on the market and you don't buy three of these, you're an idiot (or something to that effect; I forget the exact word he used):

Devon
Pioneer
Cheniere
Tellurian
EPD -- Cramer says he absolutely "hated" pipeline companies and said he would never invest in them again; now, he says one can't ignore the pipelines, giving special mention to two
Williams
Coterra
Schlumberger: gold standard; after HAL's numbers today, expects good numbers from SLB later this week;
Chevron
Halliburton

financial (banks):

BofA
Morgan Stanley
Wells Fargo: a wild card; turnaround play

tech (he had two groups):

first group

Adobe
workday
salesforce
AWS
Microsoft

second group

Nvidia
AMD
Lam Research
Paloalto
Applied Materials
Snap,Inc
Facebook
Crowdstrike
Cloudflare
servicenow
Snowflake

drug companies (those with new products):

Lilly: new Alzheimer's drug
JNJ

others:

WMT
Proctor and Gamble: ability to raise prices

Apple's Chip Revolution; WTI Continues To Move Up -- October 19, 2021

This story is playing out. More later. Going on a bike ride.

Both XLNX and AMD fell in trading today. Perhaps profit-taking; perhaps not.

AAPL is moving up nicely.

Laptop market is decelerating but Apple is putting a lot of emphasis on the MacBook Pro.

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.

Wow, wow, wow: I just got back from my bike ride and I see both AMD and XLNX have gone green. Wow.

HAL: mixed. Matched forecasts with quarterly profit of 28 cents per share. Revenue fell short. Upbeat for the rest of the year and going into next year.

CNBC interview: I certainly hope we can find the interview with the CEO of Blackrock. Talk about bullish. Interview about 11:50 a.m. CT today. Rick Rieder, BlackRock CEO: incredibly bullish interview, yesterday over at CNBC; a must-hear interview for any investor.

Per reader's request: WTI is up. Trading at $83.68.

Venezuela On The Southern Border: Mexico Moves To Seize American Assets -- October 19, 2021

This is an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, from two days ago.

This will not end well.

Under cover of darkness, according to a person familiar with the matter, Mexican National Guard troops sealed the front gates of the Monterra Energy fuel terminal in Tuxpan, Veracruz, last month. The facility was closed by order of Mexico’s energy regulator.

Monterra Energy is owned by the American global investment firm KKR. Its Tuxpan terminal stores gasoline imported from refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The fuel is destined for service stations in Mexico, which are owned and operated by a variety of companies.

According to the Mexican newspaper Reforma, the Tuxpan terminal is part of roughly $500 million that companies have invested in gasoline and diesel storage facilities in Mexico. This includes terminals run by IEnova, a subsidiary of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, and Indiana-based Bulkmatic. Reforma reports that both companies have had storage terminals closed recently by Mexican authorities. Monterra told me it has complied with all regulations but that the energy regulator isn’t answering its calls and the terminal remains closed.

There’s trouble brewing between Mexico and the U.S., and I’m not talking about immigration. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s desire to put the state in full control of the energy industry, as it was in the 1970s, is running head-first into treaty obligations on trade and investment. The arbitrary closing of private gasoline-storage facilities is a fraction of the problem.

Much more at the link.