Notes From All Over --- The Morning Edition -- August 6, 2020

Big story of the month:DAPL --

• court ruling buys time for DAPL -- Bloomberg;
  
• US Court of Appeals vacates order to shut down DAPL -- KXNET;

The market.

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.

Hopin' and dreamin', GE, link here.

• some years ago, hedge fund investor makes huge bet on GE
• buys in at $25/share
• this week, sells half its holdings for $6/share

Companies:

• WMB: breaks out after strong earnings.
• BP oil business to shrink dramatically; renewables to increase; 
• Shell shrinks Appalachi portfolio;Keystone XL: Biden facing union pressure; this is not rocket science;
• SRE earning:
• transcript, SeekingAlpha;
  
• slide deck, SeekingAlpha;
• seeking permit, see below;
  

SRE:

• Sempra Energy says it is still working with the Mexican government to obtain a 20-year export permit for the first phase of its proposed Energía Costa Azul liquefied natural gas export project in Mexico's Baja California.
• the company, which made the statement in its Q2 earnings report, has said it plans to make a final investment decision before the end of 2020 to build the plant.
• Sempra also says it expects full commercial operations at phase 1 of its Cameron LNG export facility in Louisiana to start in the coming days, after Train 3 reached "substantial completion" at the end of July.
• lso, the company's board approves a $2B stock repurchase plan.
• Sempra reported better than forecast Q2 earnings and a 13.5% Y/Y increase in revenues to $2.53B.

MDU, earnings, SeekingAlpha:

• MDU Resources (NYSE:MDU) reported Q2 revenue increase of 4.6% Y/Y to $1.36B, and earnings of $99.7M, an increase of 61% Y/Y.
• construction materials business revenues were $621.1M (+4.2% Y/Y) and backlog of work at June 30 was $875M; Construction services business revenue was $497.2M (+6.9% Y/Y) and backlog of work at June 30 was $1.31B.
• the electric and natural gas utility earned $11.2M vs. $1.2M in 2Q19, benefiting from lower operating costs, higher investment returns and the absence of a write-down on a non-utility investment recorded, and pipeline business earned $9M (+26.7% Y/Y).
• Q2 Operating margin expanded by 268 bps to 10.2%.
• Q2 EBITDA from continuing operations was $219.8M (+35.8% Y/Y), and margin improved by 370 bps to 16.1%.
• net cash provided by operating activities YTD was $261.4M, compared to cash used $22.9M a year ago.
• FY20 Guidance, raised: EPS of $1.65 to $1.85 (prior $1.50 to $1.70) vs. $1.60 consensus. Construction services revenues in the range of $1.9B to $2.1B (prior $1.85B to $2.05B) with margins comparable to 2019 and construction materials revenues in the range of $2.2B to $2.4B (prior $2.1B to $2.3B) with margins slightly higher than 2019.

Flattening The Curve -- Gasoline Demand -- V-Shaped Recovery Ends -- August 6, 2020

Link here.

• four-week average flattens
• but, worse, week-over-week, significant decrease

Three Wells Coming Off The Confidential List; RBN Energy On CO2-EOR -- August 6, 2020

Jobless claims, link here:

• forecast: 1.442 million
• actual: 1.186 million

MDU, link here:

• requests rate increase; average increase $3.35/month per household;
  
• also reaches agreement with PSC to retire two coal-fired power plants and build a new natural gas unit at Heskett Station north of Mandan
• earnings transcript, Seeking Alpha;
  

OPEC basket, link here: $45.34 (nice spike).

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$42.35	8/6/2020	08/06/2019	08/06/2018	08/06/2017	08/06/2016
Active Rigs	12	60	64	58	34

Wells coming off the confidential list -- Thursday, August 6, 2020: 14 for the month; 85 for the quarter, 531 for the year:

• 36984, drl/RTAI, CLR, LCU Truman Federal 4-23H, Long Creek,
• 36419, SI/A, Zavanna, Panther 16-21 4H, Stony Creek, t--; cum 108K 4 months; a 42K month; 
• 36160, conf, Hess, GO-Hauge-156-97-2116H-4, cum 80k;  a 28K month;

RBN Energy: the challenges facing COs-based enhanced oil recovery. Archived.

The collapse in crude oil prices this year hit U.S. producers hard, and forced them to make big cuts in their capital budgets and drilling plans. But it also helped to prove their resilience. Throughout the Shale Era, and especially since the 2014-15 oil price crash, producers have been increasing their productivity and slashing their production costs, enabling most of them to survive even when prices slipped below $30 and $20/bbl for a while. Not all producers are alike, however — neither is all production. Even with oil prices rebounding to about $40/bbl in recent weeks, production based on enhanced oil recovery (EOR) through carbon-dioxide (CO2) “flooding” has become economically challenged, at least for some producers. Can EOR, with its high production costs, survive in a low-price environment? Today, we take a fresh look at EOR in an era of $40/bbl crude.

Our younger readers may not remember, but not long ago U.S. crude oil production was on the decline — a number of conventional oil plays in the U.S. were viewed as being pretty much tapped out, and the U.S. was becoming increasingly dependent on imported crude. What grabbed all the headlines, of course, was the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which in the past decade have freed amazing volumes of mostly light and super-light crude from shale and tight-oil plays like the Bakken, the Denver-Julesburg Basin, and — most important — the Permian. But even before the Shale Era started in earnest, there was a lot of hope that enhanced oil recovery would breathe new life into conventional production areas whose output had dwindled to a trickle.

Zavanna With One New Permit; Four Permits Renewed; Three DUCs Reported As Completed -- August 5, 2020

Active rigs:

$42.36	8/5/2020	08/05/2019	08/05/2018	08/05/2017	08/05/2016
Active Rigs	11	59	64	58	34

One new permit:

• Operator: Zavanna
• Field: Stockyard Creek (Williams)
• Comments:
• Zavanna has a permit for a new Galloway well in lot 1, section 18-154-99, Williams County; 742' FSL and 1090' FEL

Four permits renewed:

• Whiting (2): two S-Bar wells in Mountrail County
• Enerplus (2): a Tempo permit and a Cadence permit, both in Dunn County

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 36397, Rimrock Oil & Gas,
• 35938, XT,
• 36035, Rimrock Oil & Gas,

DAPL -- August 5, 2020

Link here.