US tight oil activity continues to recover in a global vacuum. Since the US rig count bottomed in May 2016, international onshore drilling is essentially flat and offshore activity is down 14%. How much longer will this be the case? We share some important charts and describe how the outlook has …
Read More »The Great Permian Migration Continues With SM Energy Deal
The shale industry kicked off the new year with a continuation of the great migration to the Permian Basin. This morning SM Energy announced the sale of its third party operated assets in the Eagle Ford, including its ownership interest in related midstream assets, for $800 million. In this update we …
Read More »Chevron’s 2017 Capex Budget Is Up 45% In The Permian, But Down Most Everywhere Else
Compared to PDC Energy’s budget release earlier this week, Chevron’s 2017 continuing budget cuts are a stark reminder of the divergence theme we first wrote about in early-November. That said, these budget cuts are impacting most every area except one, the Permian. We break down the majors budget for subscribers …
Read More »Ignore The Paper Tiger At The Vienna Circus. Focus On These Five Trends Instead
There’s an OPEC meeting this week, have you heard? In a Google News scan Monday morning, we counted more than 100 articles about OPEC published in the last 24 hours alone. Enough will be written this week about the pageantry in Vienna to fill a small library. Endless speculation leading up …
Read More »Permian Preview: 2017 Capex And Production
The biggest regional contributor to the US Shale Revolt will be the Permian Basin. The Permian is the only unconventional oil play where production has not fallen in the downturn. In fact, Permian production today is up 13% since that fateful OPEC meeting two years ago. Following it’s conventional production …
Read More »Alpine Lows: Controversy And Growth For Apache’s New Permian Leviathan
Shares of Apache sank 7% Thursday, closing at their lowest level since the Alpine High wet gas discovery was announced in early-September. The transformational Reeves County discovery has made Apache the darling of investors for the past several months. Here’s what’s new… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see …
Read More »Capex Trends For Majors vs. Independents To Diverge In 2017, Except In Shale
BP and Shell updated their spending outlooks Tuesday morning. The two Majors echoed recent reports from their peers by again lowering planned capex spending. As Independents selectively spend a little more in 4Q16 and prepare to reverse their budget cuts next year, the Majors continue to systematically lower their total spend. Optically, …
Read More »The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly For Latin America Deepwater
Latin American deepwater exploration and development is largely driven by the two large NOCs in the region. Here lately, these NOCs have been slamming the brakes, particularly in Brazil where Petrobras is trying to recover from scandal that rivals Enron. Both NOCs are pruning their rig portfolios, resulting in negative demand for Latin American floaters. …
Read More »Anadarko Makes An Offshore Acquisition… To Fund More Onshore Drilling?
Anadarko made a big splash on Monday afternoon, announcing the $2bn buyout of Freeport McMoRan’s deepwater GOM assets. It’s a big deal for the GOM and for Anadarko’s position in the GOM. But what we found most interesting about the announcement is how Anadarko spun the deal into an onshore growth narrative. …
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