David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Energy

    Saudi Arabia $2 Trillion Aramco Vision Runs Into Market Reality

    This article by Javier Blas and Wael Mahdi for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Even within the Saudi government, doubts are emerging. A person familiar with the flotation, who asked not to be named, said last week Aramco in its current form would probably be worth about $500 billion because a lot of its cash goes toward taxes and future investors won’t have a say on investments in non-core areas. Another person familiar with IPO talks put the figure at a little less than $1 trillion if investors base the valuation on Aramco’s ability to generate cash.

    Selling a 5 percent stake would therefore raise at least $25 billion, still enough to match Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s unparalleled 2014 offering and dole out millions of dollars of fees to the advisers hired to manage the sale, namely JPMorgan Chase & Co., Moelis & Co. and independent consultant Michael Klein.

    The $2 trillion estimate was initially put forward by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last March. There are two key issues, according to interviews with a dozen industry analysts, investors and executives, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

    The first is that it’s premised on a simple calculation: Take the 261 billion barrels of reserves Saudi Arabia says lie under oil fields like the onshore Ghawar and offshore Safaniya, and multiply by $8 (a benchmark used to value reserves). An independent auditor is assessing Saudi reserves, the second- biggest worldwide, before the IPO.

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    Musing from the Oil Patch February 21st 2017

    Thanks to a subscriber for this edition of Allen Brooks’ ever interesting report for PPHB. Here is a section:

    All of the forecasts for domestic oil production appear feasible. The U.S. is home to some of the best oil and gas geology in the world with the largest number of independent explorers testing new theories about where to find and how to produce more hydrocarbons cheaper. These hundreds of independent operators are supported by the largest, most technically sophisticated oilfield service industry. Combine these elements with the deep capital markets existing in the United States that ensures that the petroleum industry has access to adequate capital for creating value for investors, and you have the makings of a vibrant and healthy industry. Depending on events around the world, the risk for the domestic oil industry is that its success could undercut the global oil industry’s recovery and knock down the prospect for a slow steady rise in oil prices and future domestic oil output. We don’t know what the odds of that happening are, but it is a scenario that everyone should keep in the back of their minds as they cheer on the nascent oil industry and oil production recoveries. However, too much U.S. oil success could actually be a bad thing for the industry, but probably a good thing for consumers.

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    Bottom is in for Uranium; Gold & Silver Off to the Races in 2017

    Thanks to a subscriber for this report from Cantor Fitzgerald which may be of interest. Here is a section on uranium

    Kazatomprom that it plans to cut its annual uranium production by 10%, or by 5.2M lbs U3O8. This amount translates into roughly 3% of 2015 global production and marks an inflection point in the space. Since at least 2001, Kazatomprom has relentlessly increased production into an oversupplied market and is arguably the single biggest cause for the weakness in the commodity aside from the Fukushima disaster. In fact, we had long since given up on expecting Kazatomprom to exercise production restraint as its mines were the lowest cost operators in the world and constant production increases appeared to be a cultural focus in Kazakhstan.

    While some skepticism exists on whether Kazatomprom will actually follow through with this cut (as opposed to OPEC style “cuts”), we suspect that at least some of the production reduction will occur among joint venture operations managed by western producers such as Cameco. Moreover, we believe the impact will be more than the announced cut amount because the market was likely factoring in a typical Kazatomprom increase as opposed to a cut. So instead of a 3-5% increase we are expecting a reduction of 10%, or a 13-15 percentage point swing.

    Cameco’s announcement of Tokyo Electric Power Holdings’ (“TEPCO”) termination of its supply contract has cast some concern over what will happen with the U3O8 pounds that were earmarked for the Japanese utility. In total, the contract was for 9.3M lbs U3O8 to be delivered from 2017-2028, this works out to 775,000 lbs annually. TEPCO was selling some if not all of the material it was contractually obligated to purchase already. As such, we believe the worst case scenario arising from the cancellation is that Cameco does the exact same thing and sells the material into the spot market. However, we think there is room for potential positivity from this announcement, as Cameco could instead elect to not produce the pounds at all (and further cut costs by doing so) or it could elect to store them in inventory to await higher prices. Either of those two actions would effectively be removing some of the excess supply in the market. 

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    Silicon will blow lithium batteries out of water, says Adelaide firm

    Thanks for a subscriber for this article by Benn Potter for the Australian Financial Review. Here is a section:

    Chairman Kevin Moriarty says 1414 Degrees' process can store 500 kilowatt hours of energy in a 70-centimetre cube of molten silicon – about 36 times as much energy as Tesla's 14KWh Powerwall 2 lithium ion home storage battery in about the same space.

    Put another way, he says the company can build a 10MWh storage device for about $700,000. The 714 Tesla Powerwall 2s that would be needed to store the same amount of energy would cost $7 million before volume discounts.

     

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    Musings from the Oil Patch February 7th 2017

    Thanks to a subscriber for this edition of Allen Brooks’ ever interesting report for PPHB which may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Prior to OPEC’s Vienna Agreement last November, putting oil in storage because of its higher future value was a strong motivation for growing storage volumes. Now the curve is much flatter, and for oil priced three years in the future, that price is lower than the current one, providing a strong disincentive for putting oil in storage. Backwardation plays a significant role in oil producers’ decisions to hedge their production since they risk the potential of the price moving higher if the more traditional contango environment returns. As Rob Thummel, a managing director and portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC put it, "What happens to the curve does depend on how the OPEC cuts will be carried out. The oil futures curve is indicating that the current OPEC cuts are here to stay for a while." U.S. oil producers will be very happy if that proves to be the case. While history would suggest otherwise, the pending (early 2018) initial public offering for Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, Saudi Aramco, an important component of its domestic economic restructuring effort, might force the country to hold its output down much longer than it has indicated. The reality may be that hundreds of small U.S. oil producers may screw up Saudi Arabia’s grand plan while hurting speculating oil traders with their record bullish oil price bet. A lower future oil price after a record bullish oil futures bet would be consistent with our recent history.

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    Email of the day on uranium charts

    There seems to be an error with the chart of uranium which you referenced last month, would it be possible to please update it (see the enclosed chart)?

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    Canada Faces Era of Pipeline Abundance After Keystone Move

    This article by Robert Tuttle for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    More pipelines from Canada would also “generate greater competition for crudes of comparable quality such as those imported from Mexico or Venezuela,” Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity-markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London, said in an instant message.

    The administration moved to expedite approval and construction of the Keystone XL pipeline as well as the Dakota Access line through North Dakota. Trump said he wanted to renegotiate terms to get a better deal for the U.S., including more U.S.-made materials in the lines.

    The 830,000-barrel-a-day Keystone XL has been blocked since it was first proposed in 2008. TransCanada said in a statement it will reapply for the project.

     

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    Donald Trump's Presidency: A Look at His Proposed Policy Shifts

    This compendium from the Wall Street Journal of some of the primary issues facing the incoming US administration may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section on energy:

    At the top of Mr. Trump’s energy and environmental agenda will be unraveling Obama administration policies that touch on everything from carbon emissions to water.

    Much of the action out of the gate will focus on rolling back regulations. Mr. Trump has said he would withdraw Mr. Obama’s signature policy to address climate change, a rule that cuts power-plant carbon emissions. The rule already has faced legal challenges and has been temporarily blocked by the Supreme Court.

    The Trump administration, with the help of the Republican-controlled Congress, also will work toward repealing an Environmental Protection Agency rule bringing more bodies of water under federal jurisdiction. Also targeted for repeal: Interior Department rules that require tougher standards for coal mining near streams and that set new standards for emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and natural-gas wells on federal lands.

    While the Trump administration can’t unilaterally repeal most rules right away, it has several options. The EPA and other agencies can immediately start the process to withdraw regulations, and they can relax compliance requirements over time. Meanwhile, Congress can pass measures nullifying rules that have been completed most recently.

    Immediately confronting Mr. Trump is a decision regarding the Dakota Access oil pipeline, which extends from North Dakota to Illinois and is nearly built except for a crossing of a Missouri River reservoir.

    Mr. Trump may also have a decision to make on the Keystone XL oil pipeline if its developer, TransCanada Corp., reapplies for a State Department cross-border permit the Obama Administration denied in 2015.

    On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump said he would withdraw the U.S. from the global climate agreement signed in Paris in late 2015. He couldn’t immediately pull out of the agreement, but he could begin the process of withdrawing.

     

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    Musings from the Oil Patch January 10th 2016

    Thanks to a subscriber for this edition of Allen Brooks’ ever interesting report for PPHB. Here is a section global cooling:

    As for a new Ice Age, the Russian Academy of Science’s Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg, considered one of the world’s most prestigious scientific institutions, recently issued a new study titled, “The New Little Ice Age Has Started.” According to the study, the average temperature around the globe will fall by about 1.5o C (2.7o F) when the planet enters the deep cooling phase of this new Little Ice Age, expected in the year 2060. The study goes on to predict that after 2060 the Earth will experience four-to-six 11-year solar cycles of cool temperatures before beginning the next quasi-bicentennial warming cycle around the turn of the 22nd century.

    Habibullo Abdussamatov is the head of space research at Pulkovo and the author of the study. He has been predicting the arrival of another ice age since 2003, based on his study of the behavior of the sun’s different cycles and the solar activity that then results. His model is based on data from the Earth’s 18 earlier little ice ages over the past 7,500 years, six of them experienced during the last thousand years. Based on his model, he began predicting over a decade ago that the next little ice age would start between 2012 and 2015. Abdussamatov’s models have been affirmed by actual data, including the rise of the oceans and the measurable irradiance sent earthward by the sun. Given the accuracy of his predictions, which have been demonstrated in numerous studies since 2003, he now predicts that we entered the 19th Little Ice Age in 2014-2015. This forecast would appear to fly in the face of climate change scientists pointing to 2015 and 2016 as being the warmest years on record – and forecasts that we will experience more record warmth in coming years.

    Mr. Abdussamatov’s views stand in opposition to the conclusions of climate models, as he has tied his forecast of a prolonged cooling spell to solar, not man-made, factors. The recent disappearance of sunspots from the face of the sun, which also occurred during the Little Ice Age in the late 1600s, has made Mr. Abdussamatov’s contention no longer an isolated view. In fact, organizations such as the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation have reached similar conclusions. The battle over whether man-made or natural forces are the primary driving force behind global warming and climate change will likely become more contentious in the next few years. The key point is that the world’s population is at greater risk of serious harm from colder temperatures rather than warm temperatures, which seems to be ignored by government officials and the media. We guess, cold and ice doesn’t lend themselves to as spectacular disaster scenes as heat-related weather events.

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