The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Thursday, October 1, 2020

WTI Trending Toward $39; No Wells Coming Off Confidential List; Time For Tea -- October 1, 2020

OPEC basket, link here: huge drop; OSP drops to $40.65. Saudi Arabia can't make it on $40-oil.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$39.06	10/1/2020	10/01/2019	10/01/2018	10/01/2017	10/01/2016
Active Rigs	11	60	63	58	33

No wells coming off confidential list today.

RBN Energy: an update on Alberta's two PDH-PP plants and their appetite for propane.

In the past three years, two major commitments were made to construct propane dehydrogenation and polypropylene plants in Alberta to take advantage of the rising bounty and generally low cost of propane supplies in Western Canada. Two Calgary-based midstream companies, Inter Pipeline Ltd. and Pembina Pipeline, each started developing PDH-PP plants in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland area northeast of Edmonton. But then came COVID-19, which set back the timeline for one of the projects and put the other on ice. All this comes as Western Canada’s propane market is in greater flux than usual, and facing a tightening supply/demand balance as exports to Asia ramp up. Today, we provide a status check on the development of these two plants, and what the increase in demand might portend for propane balances in the next few years.
The increased role of unconventional oil and gas plays in Western Canada in the past decade has resulted in substantial growth of NGL supplies, including propane — too much propane, it often seemed. To make fuller use of burgeoning propane supply, Alberta’s provincial government in December 2016 initiated a royalty incentive program to promote investment in projects that would upgrade propane into value-added products. Taking advantage of abundant low-cost propane supplies and the government’s royalty incentives, two projects eventually came forward: one by Inter Pipeline Ltd.’s (IPL) Heartland Petrochemical Complex (HPC) and the other by a joint venture of Pembina Pipeline and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC). Both plants rely on the process of propane de-hydrogenation (PDH) to create polypropylene (PP), a primary chemical building block for everyday products such as automotive parts, plastic containers, and reusable shopping bags.

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Time For A Tea Party

Fast And Furious -- Fifteen Minutes -- October 1, 2020

GM:

I was wrong. GM may be looking to take a bigger stake in Nikola. GM must have liked the video.
why Nikola stock surges yesterday; The Motley Fool;
GM-Nikola deal didn't close yesterday: GM might demand a bigger stake; link to Barron's; behind a firewall yesterday; not today; maybe because I'm using a different IP address?

Investing:

stocks finish second straight quarter of big gains; link to The WSJ;

OPEC:

in turmoil: getting worse as oil outlook worsens; link to Irina Slave;
Saudi Arabia hit hard; link to Tsvetana Paraskova;
Venezuela: see oil revenue drop 99%; link to Michael Kern;
from $60 billion in 2013 to $0.5 billion in 2020

Job cuts:

Disneyland went first; now the airlines: AA, UAL to cut 32,000 jobs; DC slow to provide relief;

Books:

The Jefferson Bible review. I bought a copy of The Jefferson Bible years ago; not impressed. Don't know if I still have it or not; I've given most of my library away

Twin #2; grandson #2

Music:

the making of Queen's "We Will Rock You"; link to The WSJ;

Lithium:

one will start seeing a lot of stories on lithium; shortages, high prices, etc. But one thing remains: at the end of the day there will be a surplus of lithium. It may be expensive until supply and demand even out, but there won't be any shortage.
major supply shortage; link to Tsvetana Paraskova;
lithium recovery from oil and gas produced after (including the Bakken); link here to ACS Energy Letters;
shale boom could fuel batteries; link to Earth: The Science Behind the Headlines;
lithium: world class deposit, link to investingnews;
see graphic below

Covid-19: best source for data, down to the county level.

Covid-19:

insurers reducing coverage for telemedicine visits; link to The WSJ;
why hospitals can't handle Covid surges; link to The WSJ;
DOJ opens ventilator antitrust probe focused on Medtronic; link to The WSJ;

Divergent views:

COP: oil demand will return and grow; link to Julianne Geiger;
biofuels disappoint: link to story on Bayer at The WSJ;

Global economy / US dollar:

a record level of global currency reserves -- $12.031 trillion; link to alKhaleej Today;

Later: how 'bout that lithium?

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Clearing Out The In-Box -- For The Archives -- September 30, 2020

Migration: pending home sales hit all-time high. I love it when unmarried millennial journalists, who have no children, own no car, and have never been west of the Hudson River, come up with these explanations: "August pending home sales soar to a record high, fueled by rock-bottom mortgage rates."

Link here.

Hellloooooo ... mortgage rates have been at rock-bottom rates for two (?) years. What fueled home sales in August -- mortgage rates were helpful but why now? Why not a year ago? Why not six months ago? Why not six months from now?

Moms.

Moms are moving their families out of places like NYC to where it's save from BLM, defunded police departments, Covid-19 craziness, school teachers on strike, and the list goes on and on and on.

Remember: Americans, back in March, were under the impression the Covid thing would end before Memorial Day. Now they realize, Dr Faust was talking about Memorial Day, 2022.

Moms.

Sometime after Memorial Day, Moms realized Covid was not going to go away any time soon, certainly not before the beginning of this next school year.

Moms are moving their families out of places like NYC into the suburbs, across the river, upstate, out of state, anywhere -- just to flee BLM, Antifa, Covid-19.

Families were moving in August to get settled in their new school districts. This is not rocket science.

Another link here: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/09/30/flight-from-the-cities-pending-home-sales-hit-all-time-high/.

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The Vaccine War

Speaking of "the" vaccine, this book has just been published, The Doctor Who Fooled The World. The modern anti-vaccination movement persists even though the research that started it has been completely debunked. Line to The WSJ.

Elon Musk: says he won't get the "Covid-19 vaccine" when/if it becomes available. Calls high school graduate Bill Gates a "knucklehead." Link here.

Kash 'n Karry: another guy who doesn't get it. Says a vaccine is needed to get to "normal economy." He would do well to read the history of the Spanish flu. Lots of books in the local library on Spanish flu. Link here. Remember, this is the guy that wanted to shut down the economy for another six months or whatever it was.

The rally is coming. Link here.

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Miscellaneous

Never mind. Nikola postpones "Nikola World" event as original GM partnership deadline passes by. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. It will be interesting to see if GM signs on as partner. Link here.

Commie: it is beyond dispute that James Comey is the most dishonest and corrupt FBI director in US history. Which is really saying something given J. Edgar Hoover's history. Link here.

Peak oil? What peak oil? Equinor announces a new oil and gas discovery -- in the Swisher prospect offshore Norway; 13 - 38 million boe. I thought Equinor was giving up on oil and turning to wind and solar. LOL.

COP: will restart buybacks.

US crude oil supply: in days -- back to 37 days. Link here. This is really an interesting exercise, calculating days of supply. In a normal year, one could probably just look at history but now, with Covid-19, it's much, much more difficult. If Joe Biden shuts down the country again like Kash 'n Karry would advise, that would change everything.