For Investors Only: CVX Goes Ex-Dividend Tomorrow; Shares Up Nicely Today, Hitting New All-Time High

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you read here. I track these companies to help me understand the Bakken and track trends. I invest in some of the companies followed but not all.

There are quite a few companies hitting 52-week highs today, and many of the 52-week highs are also all-time highs.  The month of May is not yet over, but so far, selling in May and going away ...

Union Pacific Railroad and Berkshire are also hitting 52-week highs. EOG is up another $3.00. This follows an $11 pop last week. EOG is sitting nice in the Eagle Ford AND the Bakken. KOG is up a tad, but Oasis is doing really nicely.

A snapshot in time. Won't mean a thing a week from now, but a nice feel-good moment.

Huge Headline Story In Today's WSJ: Continental Resources

Continental strikes side deal with founder Harold Hamm. (As usual, I round some numbers in all my posts.)

The Double H pipeline.  CLR committing $100 million. The pipeline cost: $300 million.
The pipeline deal comes as some investors have become increasingly wary of close ties between energy companies and their executives. Earlier this year, Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s co-founder and chief executive, Aubrey McClendon, left the company after disclosures that he had borrowed $1.4 billion from a private-equity firm while selling corporate assets to the same firm. An internal probe of these financial dealings cleared Mr. McClendon of any "intentional misconduct." 

And further down:

Continental wants to have many different ways—including railroads as well as pipelines—to ship the crude it produces in North Dakota to refineries across North America, he said. Committing to the Hiland Partners pipeline, known as the Double H, will help ensure the company can move oil south to the Houston region's enormous concentration of refineries, Mr. Hume said.

The $300 million pipeline, which Hiland says will be operational by August 2014, will take crude from the booming North Dakota oil fields about 450 miles to Guernsey, Wyo. There it will connect with the planned Pony Express Pipeline to carry crude 690 miles to Cushing, Okla., a major market hub with connections to Gulf Coast refineries.

Continental has reserved space on the Double H to ship 10,000 barrels of crude a day for five years, about one-fifth of the northern leg of the pipeline's total capacity. Continental's commitment helped Hiland amass enough agreements from oil producers to move ahead with the project, even as competing pipelines were abandoned.

The MDW tracks pipelines of interest here. 

Tuesday Morning Links: NGLS In The Northeast To Surge

Wells coming off the confidential list have been posted; scroll down a few posts.

Active rigs: up to 188 189. 190. I posted 188 one minute ago, and thought I better check again, and there it is, up another rig. Steady, but trending up. Just before closing out this post, I checked again: rigs up to 190.

The Fairfield SunTimes is reporting on new technology to remove sulfur from natural gas. The process started with figuring out a way to remove CO2 without using water. The article notes that the researchers found the "sweet spot" (pun intended) when the water-free solvent was even more effective at capturing hydrogen sulfide.

RBN Energy: big surge comes to Whoville -- northeast NGLs to increase six-fold.

A few months back we introduced Whoville, the emerging NGL hub in a small corner of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  Now that hub is coming on like gangbusters.  Between now and 2015 nearly 4.7 Bcf/d of additional cryogenic natural gas processing capacity is due to come online along with 500 Mb/d of fractionation capacity and 500 Mb/d of NGL pipeline takeaway capacity to support growing Utica and wet Marcellus production.  As a result, NGL production from the Northeast is due to exceed 400 Mb/d by 2015, a six fold surge from EIA’s 63 Mb/d February production number.  In today’s blog, we examine growing Northeast NGLs production.

WSJ Links

Section D (Personal Journal):

• How libraries are adapting to a "new world"

Section C (Money & Investing):

Section B (Marketplace):

• Continental Resources/Hiland Double HH pipeline project: $300 million. 

Section A:

• Marines protect endangered tortoises.

Mr. Henen, who has a doctorate in biology, is part of a little-known army of biologists and other scientists who manage the Mojave desert tortoise and about 420 other threatened and endangered species on about 28 million acres of federally managed military land.

"There's a lot of people who don't recognize the amount of conservation the Marine Corps does," said Martin Husung, a natural-resource specialist on the base. "A lot of people think we're just running over things."

Instead, Mr. Henen often hustles out to remote parts of the Mojave Desert to make sure the threatened desert tortoise, which can weigh 10 pounds and live to be more than 50 years old, isn't frightened by charging troops.

"When they get scared, they pee themselves," Mr. Henen said, referring to the tortoises. Since tortoises can go two years between drinks of water, an unplanned micturition can cause dehydration and even death. So Mr. Henen sometimes demonstrates to troops how he soaks the reptiles in a pool until they drink enough water to plod on with their lives.

• Add China to the list of countries rushing to the Arctic for its oil. We talked about this earlier: how the US is ceding control of the Arctic to the Russians, Canadians, Danes, Brits, the Chinese, and, before it's over, the Maldives, I suppose. The US has no policy on the Arctic. President Obama is still studying the issue; the last policy expired just as he was taking office. It's been five years. My hunch is this will be unfinished business on January 20, 2017.
• Op-Ed: Kissinger asks if the US needs a foreign policy? Obama does not feel a foreign policy is necessary. When one is in campaign mode 24/7, there's not much time to govern.

• Angola looks to China as sales of oil to US fall. 

From twitter:

• FBI can read e-mails older than six months without a warrant. Cue up Connie Francis.

Emails are not private. A message may have one sender and one recipient but it can, with little effort, be read by a third party. In fact, despite the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unlawful searches, federal agencies do not necessarily need a warrant to read emails older than six months.

Concerns over such government snooping were raised by the American Civil Liberties Union, which last week noted a “troubling picture” of email surveillance practices by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice. The agencies may be taking advantage of a component of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires warrants only for emails that have been stored on a third-party server for less than 180 days.

Benghazi: "A Side Show"

The President says the discussion of Benghazi -- where four Americans were killed, including the first US ambassador in 35 years -- is a side show. Earlier it was "just noise." I don't know what has more impact: a "side show" or "just noise."

Investment Trends In The Bakken, 2013, Part III -- Filloon

Part I and Part II were linked here.

This is Part III.

The first quarter has turned out to be much better than expected in the Bakken. Most operators spent time drilling from pads, which was a good thing as the winter lasted longer with more snow than originally expected. Pad drilling requires that all the wells be drilled before completion work begins. Batch drilling saves time and money.

Zipper fracs allow multiple wells to be fracced at the same time, which also lowers costs. The larger percentage of drilling vs. completion work means less production began in the first quarter. This did lower revenues, but more importantly, is the beginning of a new dynamic in the Bakken and at other basins in the United States.

Completing multiple wells with in a short time frame means production will be very high at those times. This means some quarters will have high revenues and EPS while others could be very low. This lumpy production will provide buying opportunities in the first and second quarters of the year. In parts one and two of this series, I discussed how the Bakken operators continue to benefit. Part 3 also touches on these points, but more importantly, starts with Oasis, which blew the doors off estimates.

Cost of wells is well below $10 million. 

Huge amount of information regarding Oasis.

With regard to COP:

Now the Eagle Ford, Permian, and Bakken have higher margins than the average of all of Conoco's production combined. This shows the economics of shale liquids are very good. Conoco's WTI/Bakken differentials are minus $5, and the Eagle Ford is plus $5. Even with well cost improvements in the Bakken, the Eagle Ford continues to be a better overall play.

Costs for OXY USA wells has come down significantly:

Occidental is realizing improved well costs throughout all of its U.S. acreage. From 2012 to 2013, the Williston Basin has seen a 32% decrease. This was the best percentage of all U.S. plays for Occidental. Its drilling program is now planned months in advance. This not only decreases costs associated with downtime, but it has been able to decrease the number of hours needed to complete the wells. It has decreased the number of strings of casing. It has switched its cemented liners for slotted liners. Occidental is optimizing water usage, by using flow back-end or produced water on completions. Stimulation contracted costs are also headed lower. Four months ago, Occidental Bakken well costs averaged $10 million. Today the average is $8.2 million with a goal of $7.5 million. In 2013, it will run 6 to 7 rigs.