Some folks may recall the internet went down for a short period of time early last week.
Amazon was the first to have gone down; others noted Fidelity quickly followed. Then pretty much "everything" in bits and pieces, but it recovered quickly.
Someone mentioned that "70% of the internet is controlled by Amazon." I don't know. Curious. Time to google.
This is an incredibly interesting observation with which I agree and noted some years ago. I assume one doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to have noted this.
Although national elections are close, red vs blue, and although it seems things are "closer" in Washington, again red vs blue, in the big scheme of things, where it counts when it comes to the economy and to investing it seems this is absolutely accurate: the wealthy, the elite, the media, Big Tech, the automobile industry, Big Pharma, the bankers, universities, even the military to great extent, am I missing anyone? -- I guess everyone but the oil companies -- have co-opted the Democrat Party.
Good, bad, or indifferent, nothing has changed. Money is the lubricant of political parties. But wow, all that lubricant seems to be flowing to one party. For investors, perhaps that's not so bad. Whether it is or not, at some time it seems the adage "you can't fight the Fed" is quickly becoming the "you can't fight the Fed nor the Dems."
The EV story is perhaps the most clear-cut. EVs make no sense -- no matter how measured -- and EVs cannot make it without a lot of help from the federal government: financial and policy. But it's clear EVs will replace ICEs within the lifetimes of our grandchildren if not within the lifetimes of our daughters.
It takes a lot of "inefficiency" out of investing when one knows which way the wind is blowing.
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NFL
I haven't been following the NFL very closely this except for a few teams.
It looks like it's going to become a very, very exciting season. With Tom Brady moving from New England, and Dak Prescott back on the field and the Chiefs re-gaining their footing, we're going to have some exciting playoff matches.
Instead of one dominant team this year, we're going to have several -- maybe five -- dominant teams.
My hunch: the NFL is going to set some all-time rating records.
With regard to Bakken 4.5, pad drilling, a reader writes:
A few years back, some industry executive was explaining some of the economics behind not only 4 to 6 wells per pad simultaneously being drilled/completed, but also the then-emerging trend of simultaneously developing 3 to 4 pads in close proximity.Interesting perspective.
Taking those six Bruin wells that you have noted for example, at $6 million per well, Bruin would have 'pre-paid' $36 million before any revenue came back.
With a cumulative production just over half a million barrels (~511,000) and $50/bbl pricing, Bruin would have already grossed about $25 million in oil revenue and $2 million from the gas ... roughly.
It may take till the end of a year, but Bruin may be 'in the money' after 12 month's time.For operators doing this on, say, four pads simultaneously, the capital outlay could approach $150 million prior to any revenue coming in.
Definitely a game for the Big Boys.
(That executive also stressed that the logistics could be daunting trying to develop 16/20 wells simultaneously, but the 'discount/efficiencies' could be well worth it when giving a LOT of business to the chosen oil field service contractors).
By the way, there's another way for smaller companies like Bruin to pay for the fracking. [The drilling costs are almost inconsequential compared to everything else, especially fracking.] Some operators will share in the production with the servicing / fracking companies to pay off the costs of the work. I've seen that talked about elsewhere -- overseas? I don't know if it's being done in the Bakken?
Regardless, once the cash flow starts, it becomes easier to tackle the next big project.
The other day, I think it was Friday I was simply updating some wells that were drilled a year or so ago; I forget the specifics. Not cherry-picking wells that I was going through; I was simply going down the list of wells drilled last year or whenever it was when I stumbled across an incredible Slawson well, and then another, and then another. [Until that moment, I had forgotten all about the Submariner wells; it's been a long time since I've seen Slawson active in the Bakken.]
The wells in question:
I'm bringing this up again because it seems there is "something going on in the Bakken" that is new -- either new technology or new strategies for completions or a combination of both. I've not seen anyone else writing about this in the mainstream media. My hunch is if that's accurate -- something new occurring -- it will eventually be discussed in quarterly conference calls or at some oil conference.
A reader writes:
When we finally 'learn' just what the heck Slawson is doing with those Submariner wells, we will know how this formation pressure situation is being implemented.
The virtual lack of decline coupled with the presence of - literally - hundreds of thousands of barrels of produced water is as clear a 'smoking gun' evidence that injected water is being used to drive the hydrocarbons to the well bore.
Eventual public revealing of these techniques will absolutely rock the energy world.
[It seems there are very few if any] who are both monitoring and posting this absolutely tectonic evolution in unconventional production.
I probably should have done this quite some time ago: create this tag -- spare capacity.
Spare capacity? Link here. The myth of spare capacity.
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Updates
Russia: December, 2021, over November, 2021, no increase, despite growing demand, and high prices. Suggests Russia may not have the spare capacity some suggest. And, here.