Trial Balloon -- March 24, 2016

From Rigzone/Reuters:

Russian Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov said on Thursday that it was "technically possible" to reduce the country's oil output by 5 percent. 

That was the entirety of the story. 

10 million bbls x 5% = 500,000 bbls / day

If Saudi Arabia "meets" Russia's reduction, 5%, about the same amount, then we are talking 1 million bopd from these two countries.

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Hillary Concerned For Oreo Employees

Not So Concerned About Coal Miners, Oil Industry Workers

It will be interesting to see if Oreos come down in price.

Oreos used to be one of my favorite cookies. I was a regular buyer until some years ago when the price per package just became insane. I don't think I've eaten an Oreo in years, and I know I haven't bought a package of Oreos in the past ten years.

It will be interesting to see if the price of Oreos comes down, now that Nabisco is moving that operation to Mexico. USA Today is reporting:

Snack giant Nabisco on Wednesday began the process of laying off hundreds of workers at its Chicago factory as it expands operations in Mexico, despite facing criticism for the move from White House hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Nabisco is expected to cut 277 workers this week — the first wave in a total of 600 layoffs  — as the company that makes Oreos, Chips Ahoy and Nilla Wafers shifts work to a Mexico plant where it has invested $130 million in a new cookie and cracker production line.

In the big scheme of things, 600 employees is not particularly alarming -- certainly not compared to the number of coal workers put out of work by the Obama administration and the number of roughnecks not working due to the slump in the oil industry.

A lot more miners were affected than the 600 cookie employees. To top that off, Hillary plans to ban fracking and continue Obama's plan to shut down more coal companies.

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Bill, Hillary, And Chelsea All Turn On ObamaCare

I really don't care about this. The only reason I'm posting it is to continue the timeline on ObamaCare.

Bill started this with dissing the last eight years of Obama's presidency. Then Hillary said ObamaCare was a disaster, and now Chelsea weighs in: ObamaCare has created crushing costs.

The US Census Bureau Provides Update On US Census -- Texas And North Dakota Both Singled Out -- March 24, 2016

Wow, a blowout -- in the collegiate basketball tournament, the Oregon Ducks have extended their lead over Duke. With about four (4) minutes left to play in the game the Oregon Ducks are ahead 74 - 61. Moments earlier it was 74 - 58. Update: now with 42 seconds left, Oregon is ahead by eleven (11) points. Update: ten second left, up by 14 points. And that's the final, 82 - 68. Oregon will play Oklahoma on March 26, 2016.

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Census Bureau

The US Census Bureau released an update today.

Texas is the headline story.

• Four Texas metro areas together added more people last year than any state in the country except for Texas as a whole, according to new U.S. Census Bureau population estimates released today. The population in these four metro areas increased by more than 400,000 people from July 1, 2014, to July 1, 2015.
• The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro areas added about 159,000 and 145,000 residents, respectively — the largest gains of any metro areas in the nation. Two additional Texas metro areas adjacent to each other — Austin-Round Rock and San Antonio-New Braunfels — were each also among the 16 nationwide to gain 50,000 or more people over the period.

Micro Areas

• North Dakota contained the nation’s two fastest-growing micro areas between 2014 and 2015: Williston and Dickinson, whose populations rose by 9.9 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively.     
• Two micro areas, Bozeman, MT, and Williston, ND, each gained more than 3,000 people between 2014 and 2015, increasing by about 3,500, and around 3,200, respectively. 

From Bloomberg, Texas is still booming:

U.S. oil prices tumbled from more than $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014 to less than $50 a year later, but that didn't stop workers from flocking to Texas, the nation's biggest energy-producing state.

Eight of the top 20 counties that gained the most population last year were in Texas. Four Lone Star metros—Dallas, Houston (Harris County), San Antonio (Bexar County), and Austin (Travis County)—collectively added more than 412,000 people from July 2014 to July 2015.

If energy prices tanked, why did the population keep growing?

A diverse labor market, fueled in part by Texas's corporate-friendly tax structure, combined with relatively affordable housing and proximity to the Mexican border, has been drawing people to Texas for years.

Harris County, a global hub for the energy industry, has added more than 440,000 people since 2010 with annual increases averaging 2 percent over the past five years, according to historical data from the census. The Dallas-Ft. Worth area, with such large corporate employers as AT&T and American Airlines, has grown too, with Dallas County adding 186,000 people over the same period.

All those new workers searching for homes have made housing more expensive, with the state's median home price reaching $189,000 in January 2016, up 37 percent from five years earlier.

Despite that increase, the state's major housing markets look cheap compared with big cities on the coasts. In Harris County, it takes 22 percent of one's average wages to cover mortgage payments and other costs of a typical home. Compare that with Los Angeles County, where those costs amount to 67 percent of wages, or Brooklyn, where the figure is 120 percent.

Cheap housing and the absence of a state income tax make the state popular with workers, while low corporate taxes and a reputation as a pro-business regulatory environment have persuaded large employers to relocate.

In Dallas, an ongoing boom in office construction is being led by companies—JPMorgan Chase, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and Toyota Motor Co.—whose fortunes are more closely linked to the national economy than to the energy sector. Austin, meanwhile, is a popular location for such tech companies as Dell, IBM, and chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices.

Another Possible Example Of The Halo Effect -- March 24, 2016

This almost becomes a parlor game: find a well whose production has jumped month-over-month and look for a possible halo effect.

Disclaimer: in a long note like this there are likely to be factual and typographical errors. I may be seeing things that do not exist. Operators can "manage" monthly production of their wells and that creates challenges trying to sort some of this stuff out. Don't quote me on this. I'm only posting it to help me understand the Bakken. If this is important to you, go to the source.

Note the production of this well:

POOL	DATE	DAYS	BBLS OIL	RUNS	WATER	MCF PROD	MCF SOLD	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	8-2015	31	6556	6382	3334	13843	1	13842
BAKKEN	7-2015	28	6947	6807	3589	12333	83	12241
BAKKEN	6-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	4-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	11-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	10-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	9-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2014	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2014	23	437	480	2249	4126	4124	2
BAKKEN	4-2014	30	569	543	3199	4624	4547	77
BAKKEN	3-2014	31	1375	1263	3000	2209	1991	218
BAKKEN	2-2014	28	1252	1750	2674	2070	1085	985

That was well:

• 20272, 800, Hess, SC-Norman 154-98-3130H-1, Truax, t10/11; cum 197K 1/16; 

This is the screenshot of the location of the Hess Norman well (the index well). Note the well that was fracked that apparently had an effect on the Norman well, about 1,200 feet to the east:

It's sister well (#23128) was a Three Forks well fracked with 19 stages, 1.3 million lbs, had no effect on it when it was fracked 2/12. However, the well one section over had a huge affect it appears:

• #29860, 923, Hess, SC-Ellingsberg-LW-154-98-3230H-2, Truax, middle Bakken, 35 stages, 2.5 million lbs, fracked over a two-day period, 4/4-5/2015; t4/15; cum 98K 1/16;

One New Permit -- March 24, 2016

Two wells come off the confidential list Friday, but due to Good Friday they will not be posted until Monday:
31367, SI/NC, SM Energy Owl 1-28HS, Ambrose, no production data,
31511, SI/NC, CLR, Dolezal 5-5H, Chimney Butte, no production data,
Active rigs:

	3/24/2016	03/24/2015	03/24/2014	03/24/2013	03/24/2012
Active Rigs	32	100	197	187	206

One (1) new permit:

• Operator: Whiting
• Field: Sanish (Mountrail)
• Comments: first permit in quite a few days.

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The Apple Page

There are two story lines coming out of the Apple presentation this past Monday.

The first story is how incredibly good the iPhone SE is -- I saw some of those reviews earlier, but not all of them. Folks commenting at Macrumors are notoriously hard on Apple, but surprisingly, folks are making very, very good comments about the new smaller iPhone. Most interesting, folks are talking about the "price point" -- how incredibly great the price is. Over at Sprint:

Which brings us to the second story line from that presentation. One gets the feeling that Apple is out to a) crush the competition; and/or b) bring a lot more folks into the Apple arena by bringing prices down. The significant price drop in the Apple Watch was the first indication that Apple is pulling out all stops, and then with the pricing on the SE. 

With regard to the Apple Watch there's not a lot of difference between $349 and $299 for the customer, but it's a huge psychological (and marketing) price point when it goes from "almost $400 to under $300." Of course, for Apple, the margins for the Apple Watch must be coming way down with a cut like that. But they may be making it up with the bands.

Off The Net For Awhile

Garry Shandling -- dead? Age 66.

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Collateral Damage

When I got home, the April, 2016, issue of Texas Monthly was in our mailbox. The front cover:

 Guns: How They Shaped Our Culture And What They Mean To The Modern Texas.

A quick page-by-page turn of the entire issue revealed:

• a special advertising supplement for the state of New Mexico;
• a special advertising supplement for the lawyers in Texas; and, 
• almost everything else related to the top of gun (the cover story), except for a couple of pages devoted to recipes.

I don't particularly care for Texas Monthly. Like the Smithsonian it has way too many ads. Worse, the font is way too small. It's actually a difficult magazine to read; I find The New Yorker much more pleasant to read.

After a quick page-by-page survey of the articles on guns, it appears on balance, I prefer to live in a state where guns are part of the culture. It appears, based on the testimonials, and there were testimonials from both sides, the "good" outweighs the "bad" with regard to owning and carrying handguns.

I prefer that a would-be intruder does not know whether I have a gun or not. For the record, I do not. Yet.