All Three Major Indices Close At New All-Time Record Highs; Notes From All Over; No New Permits; Seven Permits Renewed; WTI Flirting With $60 -- February 12, 2021

With all the kneeling, what am I missing here? Yes, white privilege. Link here. Jags' Meyer defends hiring ex-Iowa coach accused of racism. Meyer says he knew the guy for 20 years and had no problem hiring a guy with this history -- a guy paid $1 million to leave his old job. 

Houston Texans: one step closer to trading their star quarterback who wants out.

Road to Biden-ville:

• the buzz on CNBC -- crude oil prices should keep rising as demand increases, US supply drops due to policies of new administration. Whoo-hoo!
• short term: OKE pays 8.45% in a rising market; what's not to like;
  

Road to New England:

• ISO NE: burning oil (5%) and coal (5%) -- not trivial. Renewables? Only 6%.  
• ISO NY: at the far right of the scale; AOC's constituents playing $120/MWh; rest of NY paying less than $40/MWh;
  

Holy mackerel: near the close, UNP jumped almost $6/share, up almost 3%. Did UNP gain almost $10/share over two days? I don't know. I didn't see any "headline" news to explain; lots of option activity, but this from yesterday:

Among the biggest risers on the S&P 500 on Thursday February 11 was Union Pacific Corporation, popping some 1.83% to a price of $207.23 a share with some 2.65 million shares trading hands.

Starting the day trading at $205.11, Union Pacific Corporation reached an intraday high of $207.87 and hit intraday lows of $204.35. Shares gained $3.73 apiece by day’s end. Over the last 90 days, the stock’s average daily volume has been n/a of its 669.83 million share total float. Today’s action puts the stock’s 50-day SMA at $n/a and 200-day SMA at $n/a with a 52-week range of $105.09 to $221.28.

Any others of note?

• AAPL: actually turned green just before the close;
• XLNX: up 1%
• SRE: apparently news from yesterday did not make a difference today; down 1%
• news yesterday: California regulators okay utilities to purchase more power over the next three months;
• ENB: down 1.5%; pays 7.4%
• EPD: up 1.6%; pays 8.4%
• OKE: up almost 2% today; pays 8.45%
• BRK: up over 1% today; up almost $3/share
• DFS: up 1% today; up almost a buck;
• QCOM: up 1.7%; up $2.42/share; trading at $148;
  

***************************************
Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$59.63	2/12/2021	02/12/2020	02/12/2019	02/12/2018	02/12/2017
Active Rigs	15	56	63	58	36

No new oil and gas permits:

• 38152, a SWD well in Leaf Mountain
  

Seven permits renewed:

• EOG (4): three Hawkeye permits in McKenzie County; and one Clearwater permit in Mountrail County;
• Whiting (3): one Ark permit in Williams County; one Roggenbuck permit and one Roggenbuck Federal permit, both in Mountrail County;

Director's Cut -- Data For December, 2020

Director's Cut: posted, link here.

The usual disclaimer applies: in a long note like this, done quickly, there will be content and typographical errors. If this is important to you, go to the source.  

December, 2020, data. This is all preliminary data for December, 2020. When the final number is tallied (next month), it will reveal a slight increase in production month-over-month):

Crude price (ND light sweet):

• today: $48.25
• January, 2021: $41.77
• December, 2020: $37.70
• November, 2020: 33.22

Crude oil production:

• December: 1,192,145 (preliminary)
  
• November: 1,224,540 (preliminary); 1,227,138 bopd (final)
  
• October: 1,222,871 bopd (preliminary); 1,231,048 bopd (final)
  
• delta:  -34,993 bopd (inconsequential in big scheme of things)
  
• delta:  -2.9%
  

Natural gas production:

• December: 2,892,908 (preliminary)
  
• November: 2,887,402 (preliminary); 2,890,376 MCF/day (final)
  
• October: 2,873,654 MCF/day (preliminary); 2,881,717 (final)
• delta: 2,532 boepd
• delta: 0.00%
  

Natural gas capture:

• December, 94%
• November, 93%
• October, 93%

Rig count:

• today: 15 (no SWD or CS rigs)
• January: 12 (but may include CS and SWD)
• December: 14 (but may include CS and SWD)
• October: 14 (ditto)

Wells

• January:
• permitted: 49
• completed: 59
  
• December:
• permitted: 66
• completed: 44
• inactivity: 2,687
• DUCs: 668
  
• total off line for operational reasons: 3,355
  
• producing: 15,798 (preliminary)
• November: 
• permitted: 52
• completed: 44 (preliminary
• inactive: 2,870
• DUCs: 710
• total off line for operational reasons: 3,580 
• producing: 15,601 (preliminary)
  
• October:
• permitted: 74
• completed: 59 (preliminary); 74 (revised)
  
• inactive: 2,934
• DUCs: 724
• total off line for operational reasons: 3,658
• producing: 15,512 (preliminary); 15,524 (final)

**********************************
Wells

Wells, permitted:

• January, 2021: 49
• December: 66
• November: 52
• October: 74
• September: 51

Wells, completed:

• December: 44 (revised)
  
• November: 44 (preliminary); 74 (final)
  
• October: 59 (preliminary); 74 (revised)
  
• September: 76 (revised); 54 (final)
  
• August: 66 (final)

Wells, inactive:

• December: 2,687
• November: 2,870
• October: 2,934
• September: 3,749

Wells, waiting on completion (DUCs):

• December: 668
• November: 710
• October: 724
• September: 793

Wells, producing

• December: 15,798 (preliminary)
  
• November: 15,601 (preliminary); 15,620 (revised)
  
• October: 15,512 (preliminary); 15,524 (revised)
  
• September: 15,389

Fracking: the number of well completions has been very volatile since March (2020) as the number of active completion crews decreased from 25 to 1; then 7 with the CARES incentive (last month) and now 6 with most recent report.

DUCs and wells off-line for operational reasons are tracked here.

Photo Gallery! From Vern Whitten -- A Quiz -- February 12, 2021

Vern Whitten says it is too cold to go outside today so he sent us a quiz. See how many lakes you can identify. 

Link here.

Mr Whitten would love to hear from you.

Vern Whitten Photography
www.vernwhittenphotography.com
(701) 261-7658

Notes From All Over -- February 12, 2012

WTI: flirting with $60. Think about that for a moment. 

NASCAR: big Daytona weekend, starting tonight. 

PGA: absolutely not interested, but might watch a bit if things get boring.

NFL: "face of the Texans" -- asked for release from Houston Texans; Texans agree. Just the beginning?

Director's Cut is scheduled to be released later today. If there's a delay for any reason we won't see it until Tuesday, next week, at the earlier. Keep your fingers crossed. 

Apple Watch: 100 million people globally now wear an Apple Watch. 

Ouch: let's see -- 2021 - 300 = 1721. That was before the American Revolution. King George III was the King of Great Britain and Ireland. They say the UK economy suffers biggest slump in 300 years amid Covid-19 lockdowns. The WSJ. But let's not forget Brexit.

Bulls: the stage is set for a bull market in oil. ZeroHedge. 

Panic: across the plains states as natural gas prices explode to $80. ZeroHedge. 

Gasoline prices: highest in 12 months. More on the way. Whoo-hoo!

For investors today:

• 10-Year Treasury: link here. 
• DXY: link here.
  
• Silver: link  here. 
• CBOE volatility index: link here. 

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. 

Saudi Arabia In Deep Doo-Doo -- But With New US Administration's Goal To Significantly Raise WTI And Shift "Control" Back To OPEC, Things Should Improve This Year -- February 12, 2012

Link here

Foreign Exchange Reserves in Saudi Arabia decreased to 1701209 SAR Million in December from 1713605 SAR Million in November of 2020.

Link here, February 5, 2021:

Official figures and data have shown that Saudi Arabia’s debt [is now] 21 times larger in just six years, as the kingdom has lost more than half a trillion dollars since King Salman came to power at the beginning of 2015. 

Over the past six years, Riyadh has borrowed over $238.2 billion from foreign sources and withdrawn $278.3 billion from the general reserve assets, according to figures based on Saudi government and Saudi Central Bank data.

The latest SAMA report showed that the kingdom's foreign exchange reserve assets decreased to 1.701trillion Saudi riyals ($453.66 billion) by the end of December 2020.

The report indicated that the kingdom's foreign exchange reserve assets had decreased by just over nine percent by the end of 2020 over the course of a year, a drop of 172.2 billion Saudi riyals ($45.92 billion) compared to 2019.

Saudi Arabia lost $50 billion of its foreign exchange reserves in March and April, of which $40 billion were transferred to the Public Investment Fund (the state's sovereign wealth fund) due to the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Reports published by SAMA indicate that total reserve assets amounted to $732 billion at the end of 2014, implying that the Saudi reserves have decreased by more than 38 percent between January 2015, when King Salman took power, and December 2020.

It is noteworthy that the net value of foreign assets of the Saudi Central Bank decreased by about $27 billion last March compared to the previous month. 

This represents the fastest decline recorded in at least 20 years, indicating that the kingdom urgently needs to exploit its reserves to offset the economic damage resulting from the drop in oil prices and the severe slowdown in all non-oil economic sectors due to the pandemic.