Amber Renee Back On-Line; Seeking Alpha Look At The Mississippi Lime

Back on line:

• 18408, 1,945,  Amber Renee 25-36H, Sanish; one mile to the west of the Chandler James; t2/10; F; 821K 12/13 -- 661K in first two years; no pump; still 9K/month 1/13; IA 1/14; now back on line apparently (shown as "A" but still no new production except a bit of natural gas sold in 4/14);

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A Look At The Mississippi Lime Over At Seeking Alpha

Puts the Bakken into perspective:

Here is a list that I've cobbled together of companies that have decided to exit the Miss Lime:

Royal Dutch Shell - In September of 2013 Shell announced that it was selling off its huge 600,000 acre Miss Lime position which was located in Kansas. Included in what was sold were 45 producing wells that Shell had drilled. In July of 2013 Shell completed a strategic review and concluded that the Miss Lime did not meet the company's internal profitability targets.

Encana - Under a new CEO (Doug Suttles) Encana has wisely decided to narrow its focus considerably. Instead of trying to spread capital across 20 different plays, Encana has decided to concentrate on its five best liquids rich assets. One of the plays that Encana has decided to exit is its position in the Miss Lime located in Oklahoma.

Sandridge Energy - Sandridge hasn't exited the Miss Lime, but it has greatly narrowed its focus. A great portion of Sandridge's massive acreage position that was originally thought to be high quality, actually isn't. Out of the nearly 1.85 million acres that Sandridge has in the Miss Lime, the company has narrowed its focus to six "focus areas". Those areas include the counties of Comanche, Barber, Harper, Woods, Alfalfa and Grant.

Update On Refinery Construction In The Bakken; Iraq's Maliki Thrown Under The Bus -- It's June 19, 2014

Vanity Fair is reporting that Dubai is now the world's busiest airport, surpassing Heathrow. I think the US would have the biggest airport if it only had one major airport for the entire country, too. The big question is what percentage of travelers going to Dubai actually stay in Dubai. Memo to self: insert the "LOL" emoticon here.

Capturing that Benghazi yahoo the other day can't help but remind folks of the greatest movie ever, Casablanca. "Holder, round up the usual suspects. And by the way, good work on the Lois Lerner tapes." LOL.

TPLM is up over a percent in pre-market trading this morning. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

The first story I saw this morning was the $56/bbl story and the implications for Mr Maliki. Then the WSJ reports that the Obama administration has thrown Mr Maliki under the bus. Geo-political events are moving very, very quickly. The widening of the Brent-WTI spread is the data point to watch in the near term.

Crude oil futures: I see the Yahoo!Finance number is incorrect (again). Bloomberg continues to be the better source for this data. The Brent-WTI crude oil spread is widening a bit; now about $6.50 instead of trending to $5 or lower as it was before the Iraqi insurgency.

Active rigs:

	6/19/2014	06/19/2013	06/19/2012	06/19/2011	06/19/2010
Active Rigs	189	186	213	173	129

RBN Energy: an update on the new refinery construction in the Bakken. New construction probably not gonna happen in my investing lifetime.

The Wall Street Journal

President Obama throws Iraq's Maliki under the bus. I assume the administration would prefer someone like Abu Bakr "See You In New York" al-Baghdadi, if for no other reason, he has the better surname. I can't make this stuff up.

Insurance premiums rise at big insurers; fall at small rivals under ObamaCare. It doesn't take an actuarial expert to predict how this will play out.

Fed keeps rates low (market surges); sees "eventual rise" in 2015, 2016. It's very possible I won't see meaningful / significant rate increases in my investing lifetime. I only saw the "2015" yesterday but now with "2016" on the table, that really changes things.

Yes, I see the Senate action the Keystone, but I'm not going to post anything more on it today.

They're still around, apparently. US authorities detain 89-y/o who may have been a Nazi death camp guard.

The battle for that Baghdad refinery apparently continues.

GM ignored early warming on stalling. My advice: erase the hard drives. Lois will tell you how it's done.

Also, customers are reporting more problems with new cars than usual; mostly tied with new technology like phone pairing and voice recognition. "Slow down, brake." "Did you say, "Snowden Lake?"

S & P sets another record.

IRS eases rules on accidental "tax cheats." Mostly affects Bakken millionaires who inadvertently  forgot to tell the IRS they banked a lot of royalty money overseas.

The Los Angeles Times

Nothing of interest.

Jobless Claims Go Down -- Numbers Signal Sustained Progress In The Labor Market

Boiler plate:

US jobless claims decreased this past week holding down this year’s average and signaling sustained progress in the labor market.

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, declined to 311,750 from 315,500 the week before.

The Labor Department revised the prior week’s reading to 318,000 from an initially reported 317,000. 

Bloomberg is reporting:

Jobless claims fell 6,000 to 312,000 in the week ended June 14, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast of 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 313,000. The total number of people collecting benefits decreased to the lowest level in almost seven years. 

... that's because Congress has not extended benefits for the long-term unemployed.

So, the overall number is still above 300,000 but Bloomberg notes that the total number collecting benefits is at its lowest level in "almost" seven years, but doesn't explain why. Okay.

The market "likes" that number: futures are up. The Fed, I assume, had access to this data yesterday, and thus knew they weren't going to raise rates until 2015 or now, maybe not even until 2016.

Update On Refinery Construction In The Bakken

Yesterday (or the day before, I forget) there was an announcement by Quantum Energy that the company had plans to build five new refineries in the Bakken. I opined that I doubted I would see any of them in my investing lifetime. RBN Energy appears to agree. For an update on these refineries and the others under construction in the Bakken, go to this link.

Crude Oil: $56/Bbl -- Israel Got A Pretty Good Deal; A Growing Kurdistan-Turkish-Israeli Economic Alliance

Updates

June 22, 2014: an older story that suggest I was not far off the mark -- the growing relationship between Turkey and Israel (and, of course, now I think one can add Kurdistan to the mix). Bloomberg is reporting:

Turkey and Israel may soon renew diplomatic ties, suspended after Israeli commandos killed nine Turks in a raid on a Gaza Strip-bound flotilla, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

Turkey’s willingness to renew ties with Israel is being fueled by the domestic troubles of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the prospect of a pipeline shipping Israeli offshore gas to Turkey, analysts say.

Also, see a short blurb at this post.

June 20, 2014: it looks like that $56 oil found a home -- Israel.  BusinessInsider is reporting:

The first tanker to carry Kurdish pipeline oil is still homeless after loading in May. After a false start sailing to the United States, the United Leadership tanker turned back towards Morocco, where it is anchored after local authorities refused to let it discharge for the Mohammedia refinery.

The SCF Altai did not arrive directly from Ceyhan.

The United Emblem was the second tanker to load crude at Ceyhan from the KRG pipeline at the start of last week. It then made a ship-to-ship transfer near Malta to the SCF Altai during June 14-16, local shipping and market sources said and ship tracking showed.

Israeli refineries have taken Kurdish crude oil before but in small volumes, which were shipped to Turkish ports by truck. Some oil has also been stored there.

The KRG began exporting a small volume of its Taq Taq crude grade by truck to Turkey in early 2013 and then added another grade Shaikan at the start of this year.

Original Post

 This is a very interesting geo-political story. How it plays out will depend on:

• how much influence the US has any more among the players (very little)
• how the players see the Iraqi insurgency playing out

This is the story:

• Kurdistan ships oil through a pipeline on an irregular basis to a Turkish port
• the Kurdish oil is loaded onto a tanker and sold to the highest bidder
• by "agreement," Baghdad and Kurdistan share the profit (I believe the Kurds get about 17%)
• there is currently a tanker on the Mediterranean Sea filled with Kurdish oil
• Kurdish will claim 100% percent of the profit of that oil IF sold
• if the oil is sold and the Kurds take the 100% profit, Kurdistan independence is hastened
• Baghdad and the US have strongly warned buyers NOT to support the Kurds in this "unilateral theft" of Iraqi oil 

Bloomberg is reporting.