Copper: link here.
SCCO: clears benchmark, IBD, March 4, 2022.
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Holy mackerel: here we go -- Whiting and Oasis close to merger. Link here. Being reported as an exclusive, The Wall Street Journal, at a paywall, I have subscription, if you want any information from the site.
I would find it absolutely amazing if Biden would actually go to Saudi Arabia -- it's a lose-lose for him.
If he gets rebuffed by Saudi Arabia, a huge loss. A loss of epic proportions. Of course, he will only go if the agreement is made beforehand.
If Saudis agree to help him out, they really can't add much.
Saudi Arabia has almost become a marginal player in all of this.
The real players:
- Canada (had we had the Keystone XL)
- Venezuela (which looks like sanctions will be lifted).
Everyone else remains marginal:
- even Iran, even if all sanctions lifted; they are more natural gas than oil;
- Libya; more marginal than ever;
- Mexico: hardly even marginal; slowly becoming a failed nation;
Russia: definitely marginal
The real question is whether Britain will re-think its position. France won't even though it has shale oil. This, too, will pass. That's the French motto.
Tonight's edition of "Focus on Fracking" should be quite interesting.
Updates
Later, 6:13 p.m. CT: I posted this at 1:42 p.m. CT earlier today -- now we know --
At 6:00 p.m. E.T. tonight, when the oil trading markets open, we will get an idea of how scary the US State Department message is.
Later, 5:27 p.m. CT: a reader just sent me an e-mail; fact-checked the original post. Provided another source. Says this is correct.
I won't watch CNBC in the a.m. but clearly Joe Kernen will win any debate he might have with Andrew Ross Sorkin over energy tomorrow morning. And, just last week Jim Cramer said "oil is a perma-bear." That doesn't make sense, of course, but the "sentiment" is obvious. What a doofus.
Of course, the big story last week was the huge position Warren Buffett had taken in OXY, following his other big build in CVX.
Time to see if PXD CEO is correct when he said even $200-oil would not encourage US shale to drill.
Original Post
Sunday markets have just opened.
Can someone fact-check this? Can this possibly be true?
The trading price, $122, doesn't seem to match the percent change, dollar change (5.7%; $6.58).
From Robert Rapier over at SeekingAlpha:
A grim reminder:
The U.S. imports more than half a million barrels per day of oil from Russia. They are our 3rd largest supplier.
The on-again, off-again Keystone XL pipeline — ultimately canceled by the Biden Administration — would have had a capacity of up to 830,000 BPD. It would have transported oil from Canada and from the Bakken Formation in the U.S. It would have moved more oil than we get from either Russia or Saudi Arabia — and nearly as much oil as we get from OPEC.
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Not Saying
I wasn't going to post this story but the STEO data is nice to have. Although Irina Slav says private firms are opening the tap even if publicly-traded companies are not, she did not name any private firms. If she did, I missed them. I have trouble believing any of this. If it's true, I have trouble believing it will make much difference.
Irina says:
Rystad Energy this week forecast that the latest price surge could see an additional 300,000 bpd boost to already rising U.S. shale production, Reuters reported.
This, the Norwegian energy consultancy said, could bring the total production increase in the U.S. shale patch to 1.2 and 1.3 million bpd.
To compare, the EIA had forecast a production increase this year of less than 1 million bpd, and IHS Markit's Daniel Yergin had predicted U.S. oil production growth at some 900,000 bpd. But all that was before the Ukraine war.
Adding an "additional 300,000 bopd" almost sounds like efficiency gains by the publicly-traded companies. To suggest the 300,000 bopd is coming from privately-traded companies, "show me the money."