Monday, May 19, 2014

Statoil Shuts Down Platform Off-Shore: Unstable Soil Shift, Then Leak

Rigzone is reporting:
Norwegian energy firm Statoil shut oil production at its Snorre B platform in the North Sea and evacuated a quarter of the personnel there after detecting a soil shift under a drilling template and then oil leak, the company said on Monday.
The Snorre field in the northern part of the North Sea is Norway's fourth-biggest oil producer with output averaging 88,000 barrels of oil per day in 2013, data from Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) showed.
Statoil has two platform in this field: Snorre A and Snorre B. Snorre A is operating normally. Statoil did not break down how much of the 88K bopd comes from "A" and how much comes from "B."

**********************************
Maps of the Day

Carpe Diem has some interesting "maps of the day." At the link, note the 3rd map, the map of migration patterns. There is but a handful of states in which there is a net movement in: eight to be exact. North Carolina fascinates me. North Carolina continues to attract new folks; I'm not sure exactly why. The other state that caught my eye was New Hampshire. Having spent much of the last four years in Boston, off and on, taking care of our granddaughters, the reason is obvious. From Boston it is a very, very short drive to New Hampshire, and it's a beautiful state. In addition, New Hampshire has no income tax and no statewide sales tax.  

If you haven't visited Carpe Diem recently, simply start at the top of today's Carpe Diem post, and scroll down quickly. I think you will find it very, very interesting, perhaps one of the best blogs on the net.

Enable In The Bakken -- The Bakken Simply Does Not Quit

A huge thanks to Steve for sending me this link. I never would have seen it, and I almost missed the key part of the story which comes about midway through the article. Investors.com is reporting:
Looking to take advantage of this windfall is Enable Midstream Partners (ENBL), a limited partnership that owns pipelines and processing and storage assets used to deliver and store crude oil and natural gas for clients.
Enable, which had its initial public offering last month, provides gathering and processing services primarily in the Anadarko, Arkoma and Ark-La-Tex basins in the U.S. West and South.
The company has around 11,000 miles of gathering lines, 12 processing plants, 7,900 miles of interstate pipelines and 2,300 miles of intrastate pipelines. Its eight storage sites can house about 86.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
Enable was created via a joint venture formed by CenterPoint Energy and OGE Energy, which hold 58.3% and 28.5% limited partner interest, respectively. ArcLight Capital Partners has 13.2%. I vaguely recall that I owned CNP years ago; I can't recall if I still hold any CNP. Seriously. I don't own any Enable. Yet.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or what you think you may have read here.

But this is the good part:
Bakken has already paid off for Enable. The firm has signed two long-term agreements with XTO Energy, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, to gather XTO's crude-oil production in the Bakken.
The second of those deals, announced in March, calls for Enable to provide services to XTO through a new crude-oil gathering system to be constructed in Williams and Mountrail counties of North Dakota. The system will have a capacity of up to 30,000 barrels per day of crude-oil gathering and include 85 miles of crude gathering lines.
The agreement also includes the construction of a water gathering and transport system for produced water. The water system will include 75 miles of gathering lines.
"These new contracts allow us to expand our asset infrastructure and to increase our crude-oil and water service offerings in the Williston Basin," Enable CEO Lynn Bourdon said in a statement. "Having a successful customer like XTO sign up as an anchor tenant on a second gathering system in this region demonstrates their confidence in our abilities as a service provider."
**************************************
Democratic Congressman: Ignore Laws When It Comes To Illegal Immigrants

Breitbart is reporting: Representative Luis Gutierrez (who, I believe, swore to uphold and defend the US constitution, but I could be wrong; and he could have had his fingers crossed), advocates that all government agencies ignore laws that adversely affect DREAMers.

We might as well start with letting folks get on commercial aircraft without a TSA screening. 
 
**************************************
A Note for the Granddaughters

I'm in a great mood. Almost euphoric. Okay, euphoric. I was probably moving into a manic phase anyway, but all the energy news this past week, I suppose, has pushed me over the top. It was quite a week. I think the fact that Baker Hughes actually increased its dividend for the first time since 2008 was the tipping point.

It was a busy weekend: soccer and swimming. The younger granddaughter posed with her soccer team's trophy and the older granddaughter improved on her personal best times in the breast stroke and the back stroke.

Then today, they came home from school with medals for reading a gazillion pages this past year. On a weekly basis, they kept track of how many pages of "outside" reading they did; it was all computed; and, with over 3,500 pages each, they each got a medal.



For Investors Only -- Halcon

I may be jumping the gun because it could always be a typographical error, but right now NDIC is reporting an IP of almost 4,000 bopd for a producing Halcon well that was completed in the Bakken and announced today. The sundry form is not yet available at the file.

For an XOM or a COP, this well would hardly be noteworthy; but for a small company like Halcon, coming on the heels of a great earnings report, and their play in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, this could be a big deal. If the overall market tomorrow is NOT a factor, it will be interesting to see what HK does tomorrow.

Two things happened last month: a) GDP reported a huge well in Tuscaloosa Marine Shale where Halcon has a big position; and, b) Halcon tested this well on April 12, 2014. Although still not officially released by that time it was off the confidential list and it would have been hard to keep a Halcon well of that magnitude a secret, especially with all the activity going on out there. Take your pick: it was something that caused HK to surge more than 11% on May 8, about the time all this was happening.

Regular readers note that I've been posting a few notes about Halcon lately.

In passing, I noted the significantly better EURs Halcon is reporting. Halcon seemed to suggest it was having to revise (upward) EURs every time they mapped out a new well once they had the first four months of production.

Last week I posted a screen shot of something I seldom do (this might have been the first time); a screen shot of an individual stock, Halcon when it surged more than 11%.

WKRB13 is reporting:
Research analysts at KLR Group boosted their target price on shares of Halcon Resources Corp from $0.25 to $3.50 in a report released on Tuesday, AnalystRatingsNetwork reports. KLR Group’s price target indicates a potential downside of 39.13% from the stock’s previous close.
Several other analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Analysts at RBC Capital raised their price target on shares of Halcon Resources Corp from $3.50 to $4.50 in a research note on Friday. Separately, analysts at Canaccord Genuity raised their price target on shares of Halcon Resources Corp from $4.75 to $5.50 in a research note on Friday.
Finally, analysts at BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of Halcon Resources Corp from $6.00 to $7.00 in a research note on Friday. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $5.56.
Halcon Resources Corp traded up 4.17% on Tuesday, hitting $5.99. 10,317,939 shares of the company’s stock traded hands. Halcon Resources Corp has a 1-year low of $3.16 and a 1-year high of $6.75. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $4.90 and its 200-day moving average is $4.19. The company’s market cap is $2.519 billion.
For those interested, Zeits had a column on Halcon's 1Q14 earnings. The transcript is here.

Motley Fool had a short puff piece suggesting Tuscaloosa Marine Shale might be the "best of the lot," where Halcon has a lot of acreage, and GDP just reported a fantastic well. Another article on Halcon and TMS here.

Coincidentally, this SeekingAlpha article discussed Halcon today, comparing Halcon wells with those of EOG and CLR.

Saving the best for last? I generally don't care for Motley Fool all that much but periodically they do have a "free" column that is very, very good. Today was one of those days, and coincidentally it was a great article on Halcon. The article is full of great data points, but for investors, this may be the most important:
Halcon is growing production at an impressive clip, but can the company manage? The company's debt, which is 4.4 times EBITDA, is all in the form of senior notes or bonds. All rates are fixed, so interest rate fluctuations will not effect them.
Furthermore, few bond obligations are due until 2020 and 2021. This means that Halcon has about six years to turn itself significantly cash-positive and either pay off that debt or roll the debt over in a refinance according to whatever rates may be in 2020.
While predicting conditions six years from now is difficult, Halcon is successfully developing its Eagle Ford and Bakken acreage and is positioning itself so that this debt will not be a problem down the line. One other thing worth noting is that Halcon does have a revolving credit facility of $800 million, and it is entirely untapped.
Financial data, selected:
  • Halcon: market cap, $2.46 billion; debt, $3.53 billion; cash on hand, $370 million; operating cash flow, $600 million; shares outstanding, 420 million (half owned by insiders)
  • KOG: market cap, $3.3 billion; debt, $2.25 billion; cash on hand, $16 million; operating cash flow, $600 million; shares outstanding, 266 million (2% held by insiders)
  • OAS: market cap, $4.82 billion; debt, $2.6 billion; cash on hand, $56 million; operating cash flow, $735 million; shares outstanding, 101 million (5% held by insiders)
I cannot stress enough: 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. My intentions when I started the blog was not to incorporate the stock market, but it soon became obvious, that to follow the Bakken, one had to follow the money. Unlike politics, where talk is cheap, when investors, operators, and venture capitalists plunk down $10 million for a well, someone is putting money where there mouth is. Following the money helps me understand the Bakken.

Halcon Has Huge Gusher In The Bakken; Shivers Up My Spine; Four Of Eight Wells to DRL Status

Wells coming off the confidential list Tuesday:
  • 25239, 307, Oasis, Metz 6094 13-1H, Viking, t11/13; cum 21K 3/14;
  • 25597, drl, HRC, Fort Berthold 147-94-2B-11-4H, McGregory Buttes, no production data,
  • 25670, drl, Statoil, Larsen 3-10 3TFH, Williston, no production data,
  • 25903, 587, EOG, Fertile 54-20H, Parshall, one section, t12/13; cum 40K 3/14;
  • 25929, 1,252, Petro-Hunt, Dolezal 145-97-17A-20-4H, Little Knife, t3/14; cum --
  • 26098, drl, Petro-Hunt, Syverson 156-99-30B-31-4H, East Fork, no production data,
  • 26147, 1,681, WPX, Alfred Old Dog 19-18HC, Reunion Bay, t4/14; cum --
  • 26402, drl, CLR, Raleigh 3-20H, Dollar Joe, no production data,
Active rigs:


5/19/201405/19/201305/19/201205/19/201105/19/2010
Active Rigs191189209176111


Nine (9) new permits --
  • Operators: KOG (4), Hess (3), BR (2)
  • Fields: Truax (Williams), Keene (McKenzie)
  • Comments: all four of KOG's new permits and all three of Hess' new permits are for wells in the Truax field
Wells coming off the confidential list were posted earlier; see sidebar at the right.

****************************************

One (1) producing well completed:
  • 25209, 3,719, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-27B-34-5H, Middle Bakken, 1240-acre-spacing, Eagle Nest, 22-148-95; t4/12; I am assuming this is not a typo at NDIC; I don't see the sundry form in the file report
Other wells in that area:

A six-well pad:
  • 26322, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-27B-34-8H, Eagle Nest,
  • 26323, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-27B-34-8H, Eagle Nest,
  • 25207, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-22C-15-9H, Eagle Nest,
  • 25208, drl, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-22C-15-4H, Eagle Nest,
  • 25209, 3,719, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-27B-34-5H, Eagle Nest, t4/14; cum --
  • 25210, drl, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-22C-15-5H, Eagle Nest,
A six-well pad:
  • 18969, 802, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-27A-34-1H, Eagle Nest, t9/12; cum 125K 3/14;
  • 18968, 875, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-22D-15-1H, Eagle Nest, t9/12; cum 137K 3/14;
  • 22298, 1,095, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-27A-34-2H, Eagle Nest, t10/12; cum 98K 3/14;
  • 22300, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-22D-15-2H, Eagle Nest,
  • 22301, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-22D-15-3H, Eagle Nest,
  • 22299, l,615, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-27A-34-3H, Eagle Nest, t10/12; cum 98K 3/14;
Two five-well pads stretching into a long 10-well pad:
  • 27431, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23C-14-3H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27432, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23C-14-8TFH, Eagle Nest,
  • 27433, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23C-14-4H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27434, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23C-14-9TFH, Eagle Nest,
  • 27435, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23C-14-5H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27456, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26B-35-3H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27458, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26B-35-4H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27460, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26B-35-5H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27459, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26B-35-8TFH, Eagle Nest,
  • 27457, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26B-35-9TFH, Eagle Nest,
A 2-well pad just north of a 6-well pad:
  • 20173, 836, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26A-35-1H, Eagle Nest, t6/12; cum 117K 3/14;
  • 20172, 1,260, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23D-14-1H, Eagle Nest, t6/12; cum 125K 3/14;
  • 27646, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26A-35-14H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27125, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23D-14-6H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27126, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26A-35-10TFH, Eagle Nest,
  • 27127, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23D-14-7TFH, Eagle Nest,
  • 21963, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-26A-35-2H, Eagle Nest,
  • 20866, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-23D-14-2H, Eagle Nest,
A single-well pad, a 2-well pad, and a 6-well pad running NW to SE:
  • 22504, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-24C-13-2H, Eagle Nest,
  • 20918, 607, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-24C-13-1H, Eagle Nest, t10/13; cum 92K 3/14;
  • 20919, 1,547, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25B-36-1H, Eagle Nest, t10/12; cum 155K 3/14;
  • 22503, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25B-36-2H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27417, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25B-36-3H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27416, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25B-36-4H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27415, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25B-36-5H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27414, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25B-36-6H, Eagle Nest,
  • 27412, loc, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25B-36-7H, Eagle Nest,
A 3-well pad:
  • 25504, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25A-36-5H, Eagle Nest,
  • 25505, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25A-36-4H, Eagle Nest,
  • 25506, conf, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-25A-36-3H, Eagle Nest,
A 3-well pad:
  • 24298, 1,615, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-13A-24-4H, Eagle Nest, t9/13; cum 46K 3/14;
  • 24297, 1,967, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-13A-24-5H, Eagle Nest, t9/13; cum 85K 3/14;
  • 24299, 1,687, HRC, Fort Berthold 148-95-13A-24-3H, Eagle Nest, t9/13; cum 46K 3/14;
The screenshot this date, May 19, 2014, looks like this:


Zooming in:


And this is the 6-well pad on which the newest well is located (May 19, 2014): 

Thank Goodness The Decision Was Not Left Up To POTUS

The president would still be pondering a decision a year from now.

But the New York Racing Commission will let California Chrome race with nasal strips.

If NASCAR were involved, they would let California Chrome run with racing stripes, also.