NDIC Hearing Dockets For August, 2020, Have Been Posted

The NDIC hearing dockets are tracked here.
Link here.

The usual disclaimer applies. As usual this is done very quickly and using shorthand for my benefit. There will be factual and typographical errors on this page. Do not quote me on any of this. It's for my personal use to help me better understand the Bakken. Do not read it. If you do happen to read it, do not make any investment, financial, job, relationship, or travel plans based on anything you read here or think you may have read here. If this stuff is important to you, and I doubt that it is, but if it is, go to the source.

Highlights in bold.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Four Pages

The cases (these are not permits):

• 28532, Hess, AN-Lone Tree well; confirm spacing; discuss the matter of drilling reduced-length laterals in a fashion that wells drilled on an east/west orientation do not penetrate the E/2 W/2 E/2 of section 7, section 7-152-94; McKenzie County
• 28533, BR, Dimmick Lake-Bakken; State Dodge 1B MBH, #36313; bottom hole / 500 feet from western boundary; McKenzie County
• 28534, NDIC, confiscation order; #19783, Schlak 2 wells, Norma Field, Renville County;
• 28535, NDIC, confiscation order, #21729, Laura Funke, Renville County;
• 28536, NDIC, confiscation, #25472, Schlak 3 well, Norma Field, Renville County
• 28537, NDIC, confiscation, #10439, Lassey 1 well; Glasss-Bluff-Madison unit, McKenzie County;
• 28538, NDIC, confiscation, Lassey-Erickson A 1, #11144, Glass Bluff-Madison, McKenzie;
• 28539, NDIC, confiscaton, Lindsley-Dobias State 1 well, #11157, Glass Bluff-Madison, McKenzie;
• 28540, NDIC, confiscation, Lassey-Myers A 1, #11177, Glass Bluff-Madison Unit, McKenzie
• 28541, NDIC, confiscation, Dobias State A 1 well, #11340, Glass Bluff-Madison Unit, McKenzie;
• 28542, NDIC, confiscation, Dobias Monson Well 1 well, #11355, Glass Bluff-Madison Unit, McKenzie;
• 28543, NDIC, confiscation, A. M. Lassey A 1 well; #11499, Glass Bluff-Madison Unit, McKensive;
• 28544, BR, Union Center-Bakken, fifteen wells, on a 1280-acre unit; sections 2/11-152-96; McKenzie County; see this note;
• 28545, BR, Blue Buttes-Bakken, fifteen wells, on a 1120-acre unit; sections 2 and N/2 and N/2 S/2 of section 11-151-95; McKenzie County; see this note;
• 28546, Hess, commingling; Tioga oil field;
• 28547, SWD, EN-Debing 55-93 SWD 1; Robinson Lake Field, Mountrail County

 Thursday, August 27, 2020

Five Pages 

The cases:

• 28548, XTO, Heart Butte-Bakken; establish an overlapping 1600-acre unit; one well; establish two overlapping 1600-acre units; seven wells on each 1600-acre unit; establish an overlapping 3200-acre units; one well; Dunn County;
• 28549, SWD, CLR, Kelly Draw SWD; Cedar Coulee Field, Dunn County;
• all the rest were continued cases

#DividendsMatter -- July 31, 2020

Why some of the CNBC crowd looked so dour yesterday, market cap:

• AAPL: $1.775 trillion;
• AMZN: $1.584 trillion; trading up 4.1% today; up $125 dollars with "all" analysts guiding much higher; some guiding $4,000
• MSFT: $1.525 trillion; and trading down 1.22% today;
• GE: $53.488 billion; down 2.3% today; down 15 cents trading at $6.11

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.

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#DividendsMatter

Before we get started: the big question no one is asking: when will AAPL increase its dividend? Answer: not before May, 2021.

Now, back to rambling.

After yesterday's explosive surge in Big Tech (AAPL, FB, AMZN, GOOG) and the run-up that TSLA has had this year, and the remarkable jump (and crash) of KODK in the last 48 hours or so, tells me one thing: not only does no one know what's going on in this market (even more than usual), but there is actually little connection between "valuation" and share prices. Apparently even Nokia is making a comeback.

It's hard to buy into the "efficient market hypothesis":

The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information.

I see two things glaringly wrong in that hypothesis.

One: all available information. 

All available information for whom? Insiders? CNBC analysts? And what is "information"? Doesn't "information" require some amount of analysis. And we could go on and on.

Second: market prices should react only to new information. What is the definition of "new"? And how fast does "new" information become "old"?

So, what other strategies are there? With commission-free trades and the ability to buy shares by the fraction and the requirement that brokers keep track of gains and losses for the IRS and most importantly, because of sites like nasdaq.com one can make trades based on dividend "information."

This information has always been available, but wow, what a pain to find it, in the past. Not any more.

Remember how some folks "ladder" their CDs? One can do something similar with blue chip stocks that pay dividends. But one can do it much more frequently than one can do it with laddering CDs.

On a weekly basis, one can buy a chunk of publicly traded shares that pay a high dividend, buying the shares in time for the "record date" and then selling those share some time later to buy the next publicly traded company that pays a nice dividend. Yes, I know all the caveats -- all things being equal, the share price will drop by the same amount as the dividend on the ex-div date, but it certainly seems to me that within a day or two, the share price (up or down) will not reflect the ex-div price. Things are simply moving too quickly in the market these days.

If I'm doing it, I can only imagine a lot of folks who now work at home are also doing it. In the pre-Covid days folks could not "trade" at work for the most part. But now, with so many folks working at home -- like everyone in New York City, my hunch is a lot of folks are dabbling in the market on a daily basis much more than they used to.

Just rambling.

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OKE

I got to thinking about dividends the other day when a reader mentioned that OKE is unlikely to be able to keep paying its dividend currently at $3.74 with an APR of almost 13%. I agree completely. The payout ratio is almost 250%.

This is where OKE stands:

• today OKE is down almost 3%; like much of the rest of the market, down today
• OKE has consistently raised its dividend for a number of years
• OKE goes ex-div today which accounts for some of the drop in price today, all things being equal;
• "record date" is August 3, 2020, so one can still buy it today but you have to be fast (by the end of the day, assuming that your broker gets the trade made and the shares show up in your account Monday)
• payment date is August 14, 2020
• the only question is if/when OKE will announce a cut in its dividend -- OXY slashed their dividend; everyone could see it was going to happen, and it did, no surprise

I had planned to buy OKE but the timing did not work out for me personally; had the record day (August 1) not fallen on a Monday I would have done it (yes, I'm sure that makes no sense, but it does to me).

What I think is most interesting: common sense suggests OKE has got to cut their dividend but their history of dividend increases certainly suggests they are studying this long and hard.

Anyway, idle rambling.

Oh, I forgot. Simply Wall St talked OKE yesterday. Interestingly enough, not one word about dividends.

No New Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- July 31, 2020

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. 

Just before the market opens:

• DOW: up 70 points
• NASDAQ: up 113 points
• S&P 500: up 10 points

Headlines:

• stock futures rise after Big Tech's blowout quarterly results
• consumer spending rises for second straight month
• gold is going higher; sliver prices are soaring; why the metal is still undervalued; 
• gold sets fresh record heading for best month in eight years
• Amazon's stock gets 27 price target increases from analysts, with six targets of least $4,000
• in the news: Kodak, Nokia, Abbvie
• Kodak short sellers are getting obliterated; by the way, was KODK a classic short squeeze; it's down 25% today; 
• Pinterest stock surgest 25% after upbeat forecast, huge beat on user growth;
• XOM: for the wrong reasons 
• Fisker SUV, link here;

At the open:

• AAPL: up 5.73%; up $22.48; trading at $407.
• TSLA: up 1.1%; up $16; trading at $1,504;
• AMZN: up 5.7%; $174; trading at $3,226;
• IMUX: down 0.17%; down 3 cents; trading at $17.45;
• QCOM: up 0.3%; up 33 cents; trading at $107.53; 
• XLNX: down 4.1%; down $4.59; trading at $107.44
• PFE: down 0.11%; down 4 cents; trading at $38.70; I believe today is "day of record" for dividend; went ex-div yesterday; full history here; next distribution September 1, 2020; APR: about 4%;

OPEC basket, link here: flat at $43.30.  Neither Saudi nor Russia can make it on $40-oil but one has to remember that "this $43.40" is nowhere close to the average so far this year.

ICYMI: Trump allows existing Keystone oil pipeline to boost capacity.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$40.45	7/31/2020	07/31/2019	07/31/2018	07/31/2017	07/31/2016
Active Rigs	12	58	63	61	35

No wells coming off the confidential list today.

RBN Energy: Gulf Coast crude export terminals have capacity to spare.

The COVID-19 pandemic has undone a number of long-standing energy-market expectations. Just a few months ago, U.S. crude oil production was hitting new heights, export volumes were rising fast, and producers, shippers, and others were worried whether there would be sufficient marine-terminal capacity in place. Now, crude production is down sharply, and while crude exports have held up during this year’s market turmoil, the old belief that exports would keep rising through the early 2020s is out the window. Where does that change in expectations leave all those crude export terminals along the Gulf Coast, many of which were recently built or expanded to help handle the flood of crude that was supposed to be heading their way? Today, we discuss highlights from RBN’s new Drill Down Report on crude-handling marine facilities along the Texas and Louisiana coast.

Since the ban on most exports of U.S. crude oil was lifted in late 2015, the volumes of mostly light, sweet crude being exported from Gulf Coast terminals has taken off: from about 600 Mb/d in 2016 to 1.1 MMb/d in 2017, 2 MMb/d in 2018 and nearly 3 MMb/d in 2019. Anticipating that exports would as much as double by mid-decade, a number of midstream companies implemented expansions at existing terminals, built entirely new terminals, and/or explored the possibility of developing offshore export terminals in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico where they could fully load Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs).

Ramblings Regarding APPL And Apple, Inc, After Quarterly Earnings Reported -- July 31, 2020

Disclaimer: There is no publicly traded company in the world that I like more than Apple, Inc. I probably like Harold Hamm's Continental Resources and Slawson just as much. I am not talking about any of these from an investing point of view. I am talking about them from a non-investing point of view. I also find Tesla fascinating, and it may move into the same tier as the other three just mentioned at some point. Oh, and there's Amazon, too. Okay, so I might have a list of ten publicly traded companies that fascinate me more than all the rest.

Disclaimer: I am inappropriately exuberant about Apple, Inc.

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.

I happened to catch the CNBC "Fast Money" segment yesterday afternoon while the Apple earnings conference call was underway. I purposely watched less than three minutes of the program. Wow, talk about some negative commentary. LOL. I couldn't believe it. But then one needs to remember, these are MSNBC -- as in Microsoft-- LOL. And one talking had admitted he sold his AAPL position not too long ago. And they all admitted that they expected "Big Tech" to take a big hit in the Covid Quarter of 2020. Talk about having egg on one's face.

Over at CNN Futures there is a list of companies "moving" pre-market. I've never understood this list. It did not seem to correlate with the actual market when it opened. I see now that none of the FANG stocks are even listed on the list of movers, and yet, based on everything reported in the last twelve hours, we should see significant movement in Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet (Google) later this morning when the market opens.

AAPL could open 6% higher; it might add $25 / share to share price. It might open above $400. Or perhaps everyone will taken their profits and AAPL will drop below $100. Oh, that's right. Tim Cook says he will split AAPL 4 - 1, and that will effectively push AAPL to $100/share, all things being equal, and nothing changes.

By the way, there's another Debbie Downer article out there regarding Apple's phenomenal earnings conference call. Now they're worried that the AAPL split will "undermine" / hurt /affect the "Dow." LOL. So that's what business writers are worried about. Talk about shallow.

Early in the Covid Quarter I mentioned that our older granddaughter bought a brand-new desktop Apple computer to meet her telemedicine needs as a psychiatric health care provider. My hunch is that a lot of Americans now working from home had an excuse to buy a new, top-of-the-line Apple computer.

By the way, just a reminder: home offices and the IRS. My hunch: the IRS won't be questioning (m)any taxpayers who claim a home office for this year.

While putting together this post, lo and behold, this article over at Market Street: "Whoops! Top economist admits misfire in tech stocks -- but he's still not convinced the price is right." We'll come back to this later. Have to move on.

Another top investor who appears to have missed this opportunity: Warren Buffett. If it were not for AAPL, Berkshire Hathaway would look even worse. And we'll also come back to this one later.

But, wow, overall, I was surprised at the dour look on the faces of those four traders over at Fast Money, Thursday afternoon. I saw Gene Munster was also weighing in but I turned off the television before he started talking.

Huge Obama-Backed "Green" Project Goes Bust -- Add One More To The List -- July 31, 2020

Two of the best posts ever regarding the reality of "green" / renewable energy in the US were:

• January 12, 2017; which linked the original post;
• the original post of August 26, 2015

The posts contained the very long list of failed "green" / renewable energy projects which were backed by the Obama administration and paid for with our tax dollars. It was a huge waste of money in the minds of many, but I'm still convinced that was one of the best money-laundering schemes ever devised to move money from taxpayers to the president's political campaign. #BlackLiveMatter has taken a page from that playbook. But I digress.

At the two links above, one can see the list of failed "green" projects.

Add one of the largest to the list: Tonopah Solar Energy LLC. From Reuters:

The owner of a big Nevada solar-thermal power plant that received $737 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, according to a court filing, potentially leaving U.S. taxpayers with a whopping bill.

The project’s failure is a blow to the DOE renewable energy loan program, which had already been criticized by Republicans as a waste of money after it backed failed solar panel maker Solyndra during the Obama administration.

Tonopah Solar Energy LLC still owes $425 million on its DOE loan, but reached a settlement under which the department will recover at least $200 million, it said in court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

The deal is subject to court approval.

In a statement, DOE spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said the settlement decision “was made after years of exhausting options within our authority to get the project back on track.”

A senior Trump administration official said the settlement “secures taxpayer money that was squandered by the previous administrations’ failed energy pet projects.” 

I don't recall ever seeing a Reuters article describing an Obama failed project resulting in a whopping bill for US taxpayers.

That alone tells me how big a deal this was.

Tonopah is owned by SolarReserve, the startup that developed the plant, Cobra Energy Investments LLC, a division of Spanish infrastructure company ACS, and Banco Santander SA, according to court papers.

Tonopah’s 110-megawatt plant in the Nevada desert was billed as the first to be able to store solar energy. But its technology, which uses more than 10,000 mirrors to focus the sun’s heat on a tower to create steam, was both unreliable and expensive.

Soon after it began operating in 2015, the facility suffered a string of leaks in its hot salt tank, a key component of its energy storage system. It has not operated since April of 2019. 

I recall posting many links to many articles about this failed project. 

I had forgotten the Spanish connection.

One wonders if the land will be reclaimed and returned to its natural state, or if the bankruptcy deal will allow the owner to try to get the project back on track.

I've updated the previous posts to include Tonopah / SolarReserve.

Just think, if the country is crazy enough to put the Obama administration back in power this November, 2020, we can re-live these debacles all over again.

This is the new list (I assume there are further updates or companies I missed):

• Tonopah Solar Energy LLC / Solar Reserve ($737 million) -- added July 30, 2020; 
• Evergreen Solar ( Lost $25 million)
• SpectraWatt ( Lost $500,000)
• Solyndra ( Lost $535 million)
• Beacon Power ( Lost $43 million)
• Nevada Geothermal ( Lost $98.5 million)
• SunPower ( Lost $1.2 billion)
• First Solar ( Lost $1.46 billion)
• Babcock and Brown ( Lost $178 million)
• EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ( Lost $118.5 million)
• Amonix ( Lost $5.9 million)
• Fisker Automotive ( Lost $529 million)
• Abound Solar ( Lost $400 million)
• A123 Systems ( Lost $279 million)
• Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ( Lost $700,981)
• Johnson Controls ( Lost $299 million)
• Brightsource ( Lost $1.6 billion)
• ECOtality ( Lost $126.2 million)
• Raser Technologies ( Lost $33 million)
• Energy Conversion Devices ( Lost $13.3 million)
• Mountain Plaza, Inc. ( Lost $2 million)
• Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ( Lost $10 million)
• Range Fuels ( Lost $80 million)
• Thompson River Power ( Lost $6.5 million)
• Stirling Energy Systems ( Lost $7 million)
• Azure Dynamics ( Lost $5.4 million)
• GreenVolts ( Lost $500,000)
• Vestas ( Lost $50 million)
• LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ( Lost $151 million)
• Nordic Windpower ( Lost $16 million)
• Navistar ( Lost $39 million)
• Satcon ( Lost $3 million)
• Konarka Technologies Inc. ( Lost $20 million)
• Mascoma Corp. ( Lost $100 million)

One wonders if we should add the Brown Bullet Train to the list? In terms of dollars lost, I think the BBT would be head and shoulders above the rest.

For other posts on this solar energy project, click on "Solyndra" or use the search engine to search for "Tonopah."