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While the U.S. Shale Energy Industry continues to borrow money to produce uneconomical oil and gas, there is another important phenomenon that is not understood by the analyst community. The critical factor overlooked by the media is the fact that the U.S. shale industry is swindling and stealing energy from other areas to stay alive. Let me explain.

First, let’s take a look at some interesting graphs done by the Bloomberg Gadfly. The first chart below shows how the U.S. shale industry continues to burn through investor cash regardless of $100 or $50 oil prices:

The chart above shows the negative free cash flow for 33 shale-weighted E&P companies. Even at $100 oil prices in 2012 and 2013, these companies spent more money producing shale energy in the top four U.S. shale fields than they made from operations. While costs to produce shale oil and gas came down in 2015 and 2016 (due to lower energy input prices), these companies still spent more money than they made. As we can see, the Permian basin (in black) gets the first place award for losing the most money in the group.

Now, burning through investor money to produce low-quality, subpar oil is only part of the story. The shale energy companies utilized another tactic to bring in additional funds from the POOR SLOBS in the retail investment community… it’s called equity issuance. This next chart reveals the annual equity issuance by the U.S. E&P companies:

According to the information in the chart, the U.S. E&P companies will have raised over $100 billion between 2012 and 2017 by issuing new stock to investors. If we add up the funds borrowed by the U.S. E&P companies (negative free cash flow), plus the stock issuance, we have the following chart:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Latest Red Flag For U.S. Shale

August 22, 2017

The Latest Red Flag For U.S. Shale

The U.S. shale industry has had a rough few weeks, with a growing number of reports suggesting that the industry is facing much more financial trouble than many analysts had expected. Now, a new report adds further evidence to the notion that shale is losing its luster in a $50 per barrel market, with producers forgoing shale in favor of older wells.

U.S. shale was thought to be the most competitive source of oil out there, and indeed the industry appears to be ramping up production at today’s prices. Shale had adapted to a $50 per barrel market, producers had streamlined operations to make them almost resemble an assembly line, and in a volatile and unpredictable market, the short-cycle nature of shale drilling made it one of the least risky options for drillers.

But in just a few weeks’ time, investors are starting to ask major questions about the viability of shale drilling at such a large scale.

A couple of notable things have occurred in the past month or so. Pioneer Natural Resources, a top Permian producer, raised concerns when it told investors that its Permian shale wells were coming up with a higher natural gas-to-oil ratio than expected, a potentially worrying sign. The company also reported that it had trouble with some of its wells, forcing it to delay some completions.

Separately, Goldman Sachs reported that top investors are souring on U.S. shale E&Ps, with poor performances leading investors to search for ways to “reallocate capital” elsewhere in the energy space. That is big red flag for the shale industry, which is still struggling to consistently post profits despite the highly-touted cost reductions over the past few years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Decline In U.S. Oil Production Accelerates

September 11, 2015

Decline In U.S. Oil Production Accelerates

New EIA data once again points to a deeper contraction than previously expected.

The revelation was initially revealed in late August, when the EIA reported that the United States produced much less oil than expected in the first half of 2015. On the whole, the country produced 40,000 to 100,000 fewer barrels than previously reported between January and May. The August report also showed that U.S. oil production peaked in April at 9.6 million barrels per day (mb/d), before falling to just 9.3 mb/d in June.

The declines suggested that the contraction in the U.S. shale industry was deeper than the world had initially thought. And one can only assume that the decline either kept up at a similar rate, or even accelerated in the intervening months since June.

The latest data from EIA confirms this trend. In its Short-Term Energy Outlookreleased on September 9, the EIA estimates that the U.S. oil industry lost another 140,000 barrels per day between July and August. That is a faster rate than the 100,000 barrels lost in June. Moreover, the agency predicts that output will continue to decline for another year until August 2016, before picking up again.

The U.S. is expected to produce 9.2 mb/d on average in 2015, which will drop to just 8.8 mb/c in 2016. Both of those figures are 0.1 mb/d lower than last month’s projection.

(Click to enlarge)

This contraction is one of the biggest determining factors to oil prices finding their footing. At its expected low point one year from now in August 2016, U.S. oil production will bottom out around 8.6 mb/d, about 1 mb/d below the peakreached this past April. That could go a long way to cutting into excess global oil supplies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Cash-Strapped Saudi Arabia Hopes To Continue War Against Shale With Fed’s Blessing

August 5, 2015

Cash-Strapped Saudi Arabia Hopes To Continue War Against Shale With Fed’s Blessing

Two weeks ago, Morgan Stanley made a decisively bearish call on oil, noting that if the forward curve was any indication, the recovery in prices will be “far worse than 1986” meaning “there would be little in analysable history that could be a guide to [the] cycle.”

As we said at the time, “those who contend that the downturn simply cannot last much longer are perhaps ignoring the underlying narrative that helps to explain why the situation looks like it does.”

“At heart,” we continued, “this is a struggle between the Fed’s ZIRP and the Saudis, who appear set to outlast the easy money that’s kept US producers alive.” This is an allusion to the fact that the weakest players in the US shale industry – which the Saudis figure they can effectively wipe out – have been able to hold on thus far thanks largely to accommodative capital markets.

But persistently low crude prices – which, if you believe Morgan Stanley, are at this point driven pretty much entirely by OPEC supply – are taking their toll on producers the world over. That is, the damage isn’t confined to US producers.

In fact, the protracted downturn in prices is slowly killing the petrodollar and exporters sucked liquidity from global markets for the first time in 18 years in 2014. To let Goldman tell it, a “new (lower) oil price equilibrium will reduce the supply of petrodollars by up to US$24 bn per month in the coming years, corresponding to around US$860 bn” by 2018.

As Bloomberg noted a few months back, the turmoil in commodities has produced a “concomitant drop in FX reserves … in nations from oil producer Oman to copper-rich Chile and cotton-growing Burkina Faso.”

And don’t forget Saudi Arabia which, as you can see from the chart below, isn’t immune to the ill-effects of its own policies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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