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I have been a trader since 1980. I started trading options in late 1983. I lost every penny of a $1.6 million portfolio in the crash of October 1987. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I have a undergraduate degree in Finance. I have a Masters degree in Economics. I have completed about half the requirements of a PhD in Financial Economics. I don't advise pursuing a PhD unless you want to be a teacher. It will not make you a better investor/trader. I developed a trading strategy involving shorting calls against GUSH in 2015 that I managed for a trucking firm to alleviate the strains of high fuel prices. Early in 2019 the owner of the trucking company sold the company and devoted his time to managing just the strategy itself. He said that he expects to make more profit in 2020 from writing calls against GUSH and writing puts and calls against his WTI contracts than his 32-truck transportation company ever did...all from his home...in his pajamas.

Twenty-plus years ago I lived in England, had a Sri Lankan boyfriend, an Israeli best friend who shared a flat with a Palestinian guy, and a Persian housemate. This is still my idea of multiculturalism. Yet 20 years later what I read and see about Europe -- and Turkey but that's a different question altogether -- suggests the multicultural model governments have been shoving down people's throats has begun to backfire and it is backfiring spectacularly. Take the hidden camera film about the encapsulated Muslim neighbourhoods in Paris. This is no spin and no fake news. I have a friend who lives and Paris and she has vouched for the genuineness of these neighbourhoods. There are similar places in Germany, too, if we are to believe none other than Angela Merkel, who said in an interview such encapsulated areas have no place in the German society. Ironic, given she put a lot of effort into taking migration to ridiculous levels. Then there's Denmark, where I saw (hopefully because I only had three days) multiculturalism still working, probably because the country, as far as I remember, limited its intake of economic (sic) refugees. There I saw people of various colors all smiling and friendly, as befits one of the happiest nations in the world. And then I saw a boy that eyed me suspiciously for several minutes until I felt extremely uncomfortable (I went out to smoke and forgot the keys to the Airbnb, okay? Don't tell anyone). That one single boy is new to the country, I'm sure. I really hope he won't look at this very typical Middle Eastern way at people in five years. Because he will have assimilated. Assimilation is the only sensible way of actually accomplishing multiculturalism that doesn't give rise to racist extremists. I will here quote Mr. Schwarz, an expat in a country neighbouring his home one, who, after 20 years here says "We" when he talks about the locals and "they" when he talks about his countrymen and countrywomen. The only way to have a decent life in a foreign country even one that is culturally close to your home one, is to assimilate, learn the language and the culture, and make it your own. This emphatically does not suggest you need to give up your own culture or religion. What it does suggest is that if you want to live in a society you need to become a part of it, rather than an appendage that feeds from a society, operates in it, but remains a separate part of that society and, ultimately, does not contribute to the greater good. That's what encapsulation is all about and to me, it is the one single negative aspect of the recent migration waves that can bring the whole European Union down. How did we get here? We need to thank PC gone mad and congenital human stupidity. The more you force a group of people to accept something new and unfamiliar as normal and familiar without giving them enough time to process this thing, the more they will clench their teeth and refuse to eat it. The pendulum, as I like to say, always swings. The further it swings into one direction, the further it will then swing into the opposite one. it's just one of these laws that can't be violated. And personally, I believe Western Europe is being so stupid because they have no group memory of the Ottoman empire ruling over them. We do although we won't continue to have this memory for long as history is being rewritten. Literally.

It’s almost here – the darkness and the icy death grip of winter. Some may not feel the full sting of it, if you live in sunny and warm climates, while other brave souls embrace it. Having had fingers so numb I couldn’t unlock a door, I tend to be not as thrilled, but in truth it makes no sense to go through life hating one of the four seasons just because it can be unpleasant. Whether you like or loathe winter though, if your home must endure one you have to respect it. Winter can kill you. Very quickly. Perhaps you’ve had a bad experience in the dead of winter and know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, it is very sobering. Say your car breaks down or gets stuck some distance from other people. A simple event like this can be life-threatening, and at the very least, if not prepared for it, the situation will be extremely unpleasant. Those of us in urban environments, which is most of us nowadays, don’t really think about this much because either help or shelter is never far away. That is simply a given, and a dead car on a side street is generally no more than an annoyance even at -25 degrees. We can see this readily when people pop out of cars on any given winter day with clothes that would no keep them alive for ten minutes or in footwear that couldn’t traverse more than a sidewalk’s width of snow. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how relentlessly we take for granted our heat sources. We can most easily see that phenomenon by thinking of other dangerous situations that we never forget. Imagine having a close call in traffic; say some driver blows a red light at high speed, and the only thing between you and oblivion was the fact that you happened to catch a glimpse of the idiot out of the corner of your eye in time. You will remember that split-second until the day you die, and you’ll tell the story to others for that long too. Now imagine that some errant construction worker struck a natural gas pipeline that supplied any sort of decently sized city in the dead of winter. A single incident like that could catastrophically cut off the heat supply for tens of thousands of people, instantly. And as anyone who’s experienced -25 degree temperatures (or worse) knows, you would feel the absence of that heat in minutes, or even seconds. Now consider how fossil fuels, all fossil fuels, are vilified relentlessly. The natural gas baby gets thrown out with the same bathwater that includes coal. Does anyone think for a second about the safety or integrity or even the presence of those natural gas pipelines? On balance, is the average person more likely to be scornful of natural gas as a fossil fuel, or to be filled with gratitude at having one’s life prolonged in those long winter nights? This coming winter, whenever you step outside and feel that icy blast on your face, give a thought to what made possible the heat you just stepped out of, and how incredibly fragile its existence really is. A million bad things could happen to any one of those pipelines, and your life may well depend on those things not happening, just as surely as it would be saved by glimpsing a speeding car at the right instant. And consider carefully everything you hear about how deadly fossil fuels are. This article was originally posted at Public Energy Number One

Brexiters hit back at Tusk for commenting that they deserve a special place in Hell for Brexit happening without a deal. Welsh first minister says it would be a catastrophe for Wales if Brexit happens without a plan. Nearly 5 m British and EU people could be stuck in Limbo if Brexit happens without a deal, though Brexiters hit back saying it's an insult to 17.4 m who voted for Brexit and want apology from Tusk.

Crude oil also known as black gold is the commodity keep the country’s wheel moving. If a country is deprived of this natural resource it has to import it from outside world, which makes it everything expensive and heavy reliance on countries selling it. With each day world political scenario changing each day the prices keeps moving. In the world there are countries in the world always prefer to control their own resources and keep country economy under their control. They make every effort to keep the exploration goes on and production is kept in line with the consumption. Pakistan is one of the richest country in natural resources. It has estimated shale oil reserves of 9 billion barrels, however its current consumption is 440,000 barrels crude oil per year and refined approximately 600,000 barrels. Out of total 9 billion estimated reserves the proven reserves of 0.4 billion barrels or 400 million barrels. These proven reserves are consumption increase up to 800,000 barrels per month they will last for 500 years (5 centuries). The installed capacity of refineries stands at 409,000 barrels or 19 Million Tons Per Day (MTPA) against consumption of 24MTPA. Currently seven refineries are operating in Pakistan the highest capacity is of Byco 155,000 barrels per day or 7.0 MTPA. To meet the countries requirement Pakistan need 1 more refinery with 150,000 to 200,000 barrels production capacity in near future. This will save the foreign exchange reserves deficit which is always a problem for Pakistan Economy. The total account deficit for financial year July 2017 – June 2018 stood at $17.99 billion which is more than 5% of GDP and total oil imports of Pakistan was $12.93 billion almost 72% of total account deficit. The US sanctions on Iran will further grow dim the Pakistan current account deficit to avoid further smash up situation the government of Pakistan have to work on exploration of 400 million barrels proven reserves on war footing. The foreign companies will be interested in enhancing production and take up the new explorations as the oil prices using it as a carrot to foreign companies. The government is negotiation with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for setting up oil refinery in Gwadar. If the previous Pakistani governments have worked on this area and planned the Pakistan economy should not have been in mess what it is in today. This criminal negligence on governments part is unpardonable. These governments went on and choose the LNG import option again a burden avenue was opted. For the oil import bill the government kept on availing new loans. Now this is high time the new government should immediately come with concrete plan for bringing proven oil reserves and make it good for reducing oil import bill and excess production exporting taking advantage of steeping oil prices in global market.

I read an article today from The Independent reminiscent of many similarly themed articles. It was about solar panels. The personal use kind—the kind you install on your roof. It didn’t really tell me anything new. The gist of the article was that there was this new survey conducted. And in this survey, they asked British folk whether they wanted to install solar panels on their roofs. The survey had found that “the majority of” British people would like to install solar panels if “greater government assistance was available,” the article read. If you’re looking for the actual figures, that “majority” is 62 percent. And then 60 percent would like to install an energy storage device. Then 71 percent would like to join a community energy scheme—again, if there was government support. Too bad their government deep-sixed its green subsidies. On the surface, I guess you could interpret those figures like, “Holy cow! Most British people want to be greenies and install solar panels!” But let’s be real. What the study shows is that 60-some percent of people would do it if someone else paid for it. Lovely. But well, you know, that means 40-some percent of people are NOT interested in installing solar panels or energy storage devices—EVEN IF the someone else paid for it. Not exactly a stellar endorsement. So look. This green thing is peachy. I’m not against renewables. I’m not even apathetic about renewables. I’m just realistic—it doesn’t have to be all or nothing when it comes to fighting climate change or just going green. It's talked about in absolutes. Renewables being the death of coal and oil. Or renewables are dead in the water as Big Oil fights back. This black and white view of things is narrow-minded and impractical. If you think the world is excited to fight that climate change, you are going to be disappointed. Well, people are generally disappointing I guess, so no shocker there. There are probably many people who are interested in greenifying their lifestyle—but only if it costs them nothing, and only if they have to give up nothing. Unless maybe you’re a Hipster (which I suppose you wouldn’t call yourself that even if you were), then I suppose you feel good about your greenness. You probably recycle your rainwater in some barrel on your roof. You ride your bicycle to work. You don’t use plastic water bottles and you recycle almost everything, including your skinny jeans and your cans of Pabst or Schlitz. Woot woot. But your green contributions, as noble as they may be, are lost in the sea that is Asia, who is offsetting any dip in US emissions, and then some. There are some true believers, though, and I salute them. I used to do transcription work, and one of my transcripts was an interview with a woman who was all-in on this green lifestyle. She didn’t buy anything that was packaged. She went to the butcher and would take a reusable container to put meat in that she had purchased. They didn’t use plastic of any kind. They didn’t use soap (it’s packaged). She would bring buckets of water from the river to flush their toilet. Now that’s all-in. I respect that. She’s not driving her 4X4 to some hippie protest of an oil pipeline in ND, creating in their wake millions in cleanup costs. (photo courtesy BBC) She sacrificed something (a whole lotta something) instead of jumping up and down asking the rest of the world to do the sacrificing. She’s not flying her fossil-fuel-burning jet or yacht to chastise the world for our dirty global warming ways. Photo courtesy Eric Worrall, wattsupwiththat.com And she’s not immersed in the latest fossil fuel cause celebre, just because it is the cause celebre. Photo courtesy of Instagram Oh, there are many self-righteous individuals who are eager to bash fossil fuels while enjoying the fruit of the Big Oil tree. Cities suing Big Oil for their role in climate change, all the while consuming the very product they are so vehemently opposed to. She’s not loudly divesting from oil. Phooey, you sanctimonious grandstanders. I’m calling you out. If you want to give up your plastic straws and trade your truck for an EV, you do it. Without the fanfare, preferably. And if you’re not ready to give up fossil fuels, SILENCE PLEASE.

So here's where it started through OP and Douglas Buckland, we spoke for a great deal of time March 2019, the car was bought as is seen and was transported to Juniors shop as you can see its very old school and mainly a bike shop, in reality we were storing it there. Never would we have stopped the two wheeled marvels to go to four, but now, its on. The photos are to give you a general idea of what I and now Doug and Dan and my Mechanic are up against. I have also thrown in a photo of and HRD Vincent a 1950s Rapide going through mechanical until we would then take the bike up the posh shop for dismantling, paint, chrome and finishing for client (photos I will post later)

Pt.3 The Media - Information sources - Electric/Hydrogen/Natural Gas Vehicles/ Nuclear Energy "Oh dear". This blog is about how to engage positively and effectively with the Media (TV, Radio, Press, Social Media, Bloggers. Vloggers) - mainstream, regional, local, international - from my own "mainstream" experience: e.g. BBC World Service. The content I use will be controversial and often, given that this is a fossil fuels website, not pleasing to some. All the content is sourced and available in the mainstream Media. My consultancy work is giving Media advice to all industry sectors, face-to-face and via Skype - e.g. DHL. KIA Motors, Nord Stream, UK Independent Schools' Council. The different Media, like individuals, will often choose the sources of information that reflect their wishes, values and bias. Thus, understanding the (often political) agenda of different Media before you or your company engages with them is extremely important. Two key professional interests of mine are: 1. Investigating why the Fossil Fuel Industry has never fought back against claims such as: - it is destroying the planet and that CO2 emissions are a Climate problem - "Big Oil" is throwing money to Climate Sceptic individuals and organisations; which is demonstrably not so, but is the result of a clever and long-term campaign by Greenpeace who targetted Exxon some years ago to label it "Evil Empire". 2. The philosophy of science: especially Popper v Kuhn. Posts will not normally be this long, but here are a few bullet points with regard to the above title and in relation to various comments: Fossil fuels: - yes, pollution is a factor and is increasingly being limited - CO2, however, is not a pollutant and is vital for life on Earth. - produced and are still producing the high standard of living we expect and want - are not subsidised everywhere, and the use of them is usually very highly taxed to provide national governments with a massive source of income for public services - there are different grades of all these fuels; varying down to low-level pollutants - even coal can be non-polluting: e.g. Professor Rosemary Falcon heads the Sustainable Coal Research Group at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg (where Nelson Mandela studied law in the 1950's). LPG/LNG vehicles: I too drive an LPG vehicle and gas, having done so for years Renewables: - are all subsidised and paid for by taxpayers either in their domestic energy bills and in the government subsidies - often both - produce less energy than was used to manufacture, erect and dismantle them after their short life (20-30 yrs). These three processes create large amounts of industrial pollution. Global energy needs are expected to increase by 250% by 2050 as living standards rise. Estimates vary on global energy use and production - e.g. in 2017 renewables produced 8% of global energy according to BP. The most optimistic projections from the pro-renewables IEA estimate that by 2040 renewables will still represent only 30% of global energy production - and of that the biggest contributors will be Hydro-Electric Power and Waste, not the beloved wind and solar sources. Sources are contradictory and confusing because of inherent political (not scientific) agendas). On average it seems that global energy use has risen by 150% in the last 20 years, and as a percentage of energy production the world is even more reliant on fossil sources than before. Solar panelscannot be simply buried in landfill because they contain toxic chemicals such as lead, cadmium, antimony; the glass is usually not pure enough to recycle; plastics are an integral part of construction. The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment”because of "a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle. Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.” Sources: (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2104162/chinas-ageing-solar-panels-are-goingbe-big-environmental-problem) 40-year veteran of US solar industry (https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2018/04/its-time-to-plan-for-solar-panel-recycling-inthe-united-states/) (https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article176294243/Studie-Umweltrisiken-durch-Schadstoffe-in-Solarmodulen.html) Research scientists - German Stuttgart Institute for Photovoltaics. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in 2016 estimated there were about 250,000 metric tonnes of solar panel waste in the world at the end of that year. IRENA projected that this amount could reach 78 million metric tonnes by 2050. (http://www.irena.org/publications/2016/Jun/End-of-life-management-Solar-Photovoltaic-Panels) Wind power is even less efficient than solar for all the production reasons above and is more unpredictable as an energy source; kills flying creatures to such an extent that in some areas it has become the "apex predator" where it takes out birds of prey. Nuclear towers do not create such carnage because they do not move and are highly visible. Nuclear Energy is the cleanest, safest and most reliable energy source we have. When there are problems they can certainly be on a large scale (Three Mile island, Chernobyl, Fukushima) but result in very few deaths. If you consider CO2 to be a major problem, nuclear energy produces none at all. Ironically, this year (2018) the floating wind turbine erected as at Fukushima as a symbol of renewal is being dismantled because of its high maintenance costs. "The price tag to remove the ¥15.2 billion turbine, which has an output capacity of 7,000 kilowatts, is expected to be around 10 percent of the building cost. Studies on the two other turbines are due to conclude in fiscal 2018, but the study period is expected to be extended to seek any possibility of commercialization. ... Its utilization rate over the year through June 2018 was 3.7 percent, well below the 30 percent necessary for commercialization. The two other turbines, of different sizes, have utilization rates of 32.9 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively." Source: Japan Times Nuclear "waste" is in fact a resource and not to be feared! " ... fission waste does not migrate even where there is significant groundwater, and ... ancient waste had none of the multi-layer engineered safeguards that are now developed, nor the careful geological siting." " by far the biggest resource in radwaste is in the transuranics and unburnt uranium. This could be used to increase the energy available from nuclear fuel by several orders of magnitude using fast breeder reactors, but such use is no longer being pursued in many countries, including the UK ([which] used to be the world leader up until the early 1980s), as uranium is too cheap to make it economically attractive at present." Source: Rolls Royce expert and recipient of the Institute of Physics Nuclear Industry Group Lifetime Achievement Award And no, it can't be used to make a nuclear bomb; and there are much easier ways for terrorist groups to make the usual "dirty" bombs than trying to get hold of nuclear residue. It is calculated that there are about 120,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste in the world - i.e. not enough to fill a soccer stadium, since the start of the nuclear industry in the 1950's. Nuclear use is already part of our daily lives. We already use radio cobalt in irradiating food and medical supplies; strontium or plutonium for generators in space travel; americium in smoke detectors; tritium in emergency-exit signage; various radio isotopes are used to diagnose and treat diseases. Soon it is expected that we will be able to split further uranium isotopes and all uranium's heavy metal derivatives. Given that my first interest is helping you and your company to deal with the Media, mainstream and otherwise, it is important to judge your audience and then tailor your information to help them take it in. My presumption so far here in this blog is that readers are well-informed, wish to be given reasons to reflect, think and debate civilly on what are very important matters affecting how we live. I also presume such readers are thinkers rather than activists. Trigger warning: further topics will include references to and buzz words such as coal, climate change, CO2, sea levels, non-AGW, geological time scales, IPCC, Greenpeace, Big Oil and the like.

These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from all 14,162 horizontal wells in North Dakota that started production since 2005, through October. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Oil production in North Dakota climbed to 1,392 kbo/d in October, a month-on-month increase of more than 2%, and again a new record for the state. In the first 10 months this year 1,045 wells were brought online, which was more than in each of the two years before. The 2nd tab (“Well quality”), shows that recent wells are performing slightly better than those from 2017, which recovered on average 160 thousand barrels of oil in the first year on production. In the “Well status” tab you can find the status of all these wells. By selecting the status ‘First flow’, you’ll find that 112 wells started producing in October (vs. 153 in September). All leading operators have grown production in 2018 (“Top operators” tab). ConocoPhillips has almost taken over the 2nd spot from Whiting. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows how all these horizontal wells are heading towards their ultimate recovery, with wells grouped by the quarter in which production started. It reveals that the wells that started in Q3 2017, marked by the dark green curve at the top, have shown so far the best performance, although the wells from 2018 are closely tracking a similar path. The 2nd tab (‘Cumulative production ranking’), ranks all wells (from unconventional reservoirs) by cumulative production. The top 2 wells have produced each more than 1.6 million barrels of oil, and each of them still produces at a decent rate (>100 bo/d). Five more wells have also produced more than 1 million barrels of oil so far. The median well has produced a little below 200 thousand barrels of oil. The ‘Productivity over time’ dashboard shows clearly how well productivity (as measured by the cumulative oil or gas production in the first x months), has increased in the past few years. We have a similar dashboard in our online analytics service, which allows you to normalize production, and which also shows the trends in well design (lateral length & proppant loading). It offers the possibility to quickly compare the performance of operators over time, in relation with how each has changed its completion practices. We will have a new post on the Marcellus just after Christmas. In our chat on enelyst, tomorrow (Dec 18th) at 10:30 am EST, we will take a closer look at the Bakken. If you are not yet an ign up for free at: www.enelyst.com, using the code: “Shale18”.enelyst member, you can s For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: DMR of North Dakota. These presentations only show the production from horizontal wells; a small amount (about 30 kbo/d) is produced from conventional vertical wells. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2SRAuN9 Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from all 17,140 horizontal wells in the Permian (Texas & New Mexico) that started producing since 2008/2009, through July. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Output has continued to rise fast in the first half year, adding over 400 thousand barrels of oil per day from horizontal wells. The apparent drop in July is as usual due to incomplete data. As the graph above shows, more than 75% of oil production in July came from the ~5.7 thousand wells that started since the beginning of 2017. Natural gas production from these wells is also trending higher, and has now passed 8 Bcf/d. The “Cumulative production profiles” plot in the ‘Well quality’ tab reveals the steadily increasing well performance in the past couple of years. Since 2016 this performance has increased just slightly. The average well that started in 2016 recovered ~200 thousand barrels of oil in the first 2.5 years (30 months) on production. This area counts many operators; the top 3 operators, Pioneer Natural Resources, EOG & Concho Resources, produce together just 23% of total production. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the average production rate for these wells, plotted against their cumulative recovery. Wells are grouped by the quarter in which production started. Over the past 5 years, laterals have increased by almost 50%, while proppant loadings more than tripled. This has greatly affected well productivity, as you can see by the ever higher recovery trajectories. But based on preliminary data, it appears that the proppant per lateral foot ratio has slightly fallen in Q2 this year, as lateral lengths increased faster than proppant usage. You can analyze this in more detail in our ShaleProfile Analytics service. Recent wells are on average on track to recover just over 300 thousand barrels of oil, before their rate has dropped to 20 bo/d (which for most operators is probably still profitable). Early next week I will have a post on the Eagle Ford, followed by one on all 10 covered states in the US. Production data is subject to revisions. Note that a significant portion of production in the Permian comes from vertical wells and/or wells that started production before 2008, which are excluded from these presentations. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: Texas RRC. Oil production is estimated for individual wells, based on a number of sources, such as lease & pending production data, well completion & inactivity reports, regular well tests and oil proration data. OCD in New Mexico. Individual well production data is provided. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2Jtl5zq Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

Pakistan is one of the very few blessed countries in the world. We should take pride GOD has blessed with all fruits, vegetables, crops and minerals a country need to prosper at all cylinders. Pakistan has got all of them. But unfortunately Pakistan never prosper in last few decades as it should have been. We reeling with energy shortages which are badly impacting our manufacturing, exports etc putting extra ordinary pressure on Pakistan’s economy. Pakistan seeking money support its import of oil and gas just to keep our industrial wheel keep on moving. Can anyone guess a country with 9 billion barrels reserves of oil and 105 trillion cubic feet gas reserves facing this situation? Anyone can be dumb founded with this stats how can a country with such energy reserves is begging for support and not able to produce the goods at a lower cost to be one of the top competitive exporters in the world. Looking for outside world to buy energy sources to keep the country moving, why not invest in exploration? It is eminent that Pakistan has to decide on this and immediately start planning for these reserves to contribute to Pakistan energy crisis. If we compare the available reserves and how much work has been initiated on these reserves as per reserve maps. These two maps resources utilized and resources available clearly shows underutilized resources. The criminal ignorance has been shown by our past governments and it has brought the Pakistan’s at brink of bankruptcy. That has exposed Pakistan to external pressure, compromising position in matter of national security. This criminal ignorance is nothing less than serious treason. Where all the past governments when charged with corruption why not they should be brought into justice for high treason playing with the security of the country. The overall mineral reserves in Pakistan can be seen in the following map. The following table shows the various reserves status of minerals found in Pakistan: Estimated Reserves Production Salt 220 Million Tons 0.325 Million Tons/year Copper 5.9 Billion Tons Ore Gold & Copper 0.170 Million Tons/year Gold (5th largest in World) 0.300 Million Tons/year Iron Ore 500 Million Tons 0.193 Million Tons/year The Pakistan salt mines are second largest in the world but our exports are 20th in the world that really questions are policies and decision making. When we have 2nd largest reserves why we are not among the top 10 or top 5 salt exporters in the world. Those responsible for taking the right decisions to enhance exports have not taken the decisions in the right direction. We have a trade deficit for long time and its eating up our economic growth in so many ways. The government should take immediate action and make decision that can really boost the export of our salts to contribute more towards our exports. It will not take a rocket science to push exports as the quality of our salt is 99% pure. Now let’s discuss Copper and Gold ore we have 5.9 billion tons of reserves in Reko Diq, recently Pakistan government turned its attention toward this treasure. With the help of foreign collaboration progress has been initiated, however out of this huge reserve the true potential is not touched. Only 300,000 tons production achieved from this reserve. The total Gold reserve stands 41.5 million ounce from Reko Diq, the ore grading 0.41% Copper. Pakistan’s gold imports stood 500 kg in 2018 financial year. In 2012 Pakistan gold jewelry exports crossed $1 billion over the period declined to $12 million in 2017. Instead of moving up we have gone down massively further aggravating current account deficit. The restriction of 25 kg import quota has further implications giving rise to illegal imports of gold. TDAP reports the gold demand was $1.2 billion however the gold imports legally showed a figure of $24.43 million in 2016. The government need to review the policy that local demand of jewelry can only be met with recycled jewelry. Iron production ranks Pakistan 40th in world with 193,000 tons per annum against total reserves stands at more than 500 million tons. The imports of iron and steel stood at $3.5 billion in 2017. A country with huge iron reserves has to import of this volume is a shame for the country. The efforts should be made to increase production. The largest Steel Mill of the Country is making records of history. Nothing in this respect is on cards to this day. There seems no efforts, plans and policy on Chiniot iron reserves exploration work. The total production capacity of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) is 1.1 million tons monthly annual production capacity 13.2 million tons to achieve 80% capacity the PSM needs monthly 125,000 metric tons of iron ore and 1.5 million tons of iron ore annually which can be easily fed by local iron ore production resulting in foreign exchange savings. Pakistan is not investing enough time on these avenues no special teams are formed to work on these areas. A formal plan should be formulated and implementation phase should be prioritized. The government is maintaining that foreign investors are more than willing to invest in exploration process in Pakistan. The government should be alert while signing the contracts with the foreign companies for exploration make mandatory to feed the local manufacturer requirements then they will be allowed to export the raw materials. The value addition always bring back more rate of return on exports instead of exporting the raw materials.

Under certain conditions the economy becomes very wasteful, and this is a recipe for disaster. The public debt load is unsustainable under the current economic conditions. They are reasonable under real growth, but currently, the US is not under stable conditions. The largest Us global corps are falling deeply behind the rest of the world. Companies like Lockheed and Boeing are large employers in the arms trade. This is an extremely vulnerable industry. The oil and gas, coal and even natural gas, are going to produce unmanageable expenses related to pollution. The health care system has so much potential, but the system seems unsustainable. Pharmecuetical corporations are loosing, and obviously so! as potent pharms are unsustainable for the consumers. An economy needs strong social tenets. Capitalism is great, if those in charge are capable. Capabilities are dependent on teaching and learning. Although the US likes to admit they are leaders in science and tec, this is not entirely true. These are multinational companies, acquiring the brightest minds from around the world. Religion tends to relinquish personal power, and therefor diminishes our own personal capabilities. Charity culture pervades the united states, and as people feel sorry for them selves, they miss out on the great adventure of life. Unabated science is the best and most realistic avenue for growth. The united states is along ways away from this reality. near term, long term Short USD long gold

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data through June from all 16,770 horizontal wells in the Permian (Texas & New Mexico) that started producing since 2008/2009. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Even though data for the last few months is still somewhat incomplete, it is already clear that the Permian set another production record in June, producing well above 2.4 million bo/d from these horizontal wells. The ~2,000 wells that started so far this year already contributed more over 1 million bo/d in June, as reflected in the height of the dark blue area. The most prolific formations are the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring, together good for ~80% of total production (set ‘Show production by’ to ‘Formation’ to see this). Although output is still rising, with more than 10 wells starting to flow every day, well productivity is no longer increasing as it did between 2013 and 2016, as you’ll notice in the ‘Well quality’ tab. The 3 largest producers here, Pioneer Natural Resources, Concho Resources, and EOG, all increased production at a similar speed since early 2017 (see ‘Top operators’). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the average production rate for these wells, plotted against their cumulative recovery. Wells are grouped by the quarter in which production started. The thickness of these curves is an indication of how many wells are included. E.g., the thick curves since Q4 2017 reflect the more than 1,000 wells that started in each of the recent quarters. Although the number of new producers is high, also this plot shows that since Q2 2016 well performance hasn’t significantly changed anymore. In fact, if you normalize production by the lengths of these laterals (which is possible in our ShaleProfile Analytics service), you’ll find that productivity improvements have stagnated since then. Given that proppant loadings are also up (~16 million pounds per completion in Q1 2018, vs ~11 million pounds in Q2 2016), operators are getting less bang for their buck (or more accurately, less oil for their ‘bang’). This may explain why proppant loadings have on average not further increased since Q4 2017 in the Permian. Pioneer Natural Resources, which completed many wells since the end of last year with more than 20 million pounds of proppant, seems to also have scaled down its completions in recent months, based on preliminary data. Later this week I will have a post on the Eagle Ford, followed by one on all 10 covered states in the US early next week. Production data is subject to revisions. Note that a significant portion of production in the Permian comes from vertical wells and/or wells that started production before 2008, which are excluded from these presentations. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: Texas RRC. Oil production is estimated for individual wells, based on a number of sources, such as lease & pending production data, well completion & inactivity reports, regular well tests and oil proration data. OCD in New Mexico. Individual well production data is provided. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2zIbdyk Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data through July, from all 8,221 horizontal wells that started production in the Niobrara region (Colorado & Wyoming) since 2009/2010. Although we had a post on this region just 3 weeks ago, as we now have reliable data up through July, I wanted to share another update. A few percent of the wells were not yet reported in July, so there will be some upward revisions. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Total oil production from horizontal wells in these 2 states increased by about 50% since early 2017, to close to half a million barrels of oil per day. In July, the wells that started in this period (>= 2017) contributed around 75% to this production. Completion activity is still a bit behind the record levels seen at the end of 2014, with ~120 wells per month added (vs. ~160 in the 2nd half of 2014). In the “Well quality” tab we can see that the wells that started in 2017 clearly outperformed any earlier wells, on average. The ones that started in 2018 appear to be slightly behind in terms of initial performance. Anadarko, the leading operator here with close to 20% of total oil output, was above 100 thousand barrels of oil per day of gross production again in July, as the last tab shows. The average gas oil ratio for its wells in Weld County is rising rapidly (>40% in the past 3 years), and there are some signs that this is impacting long-term recovery potential. As shown also in my previous update on North Dakota, we recently added a new dashboard in our analytics tool (for which you can request a trial here), in which these trends can be analyzed in all detail. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: In this “Ultimate Recovery” graph, the average cumulative production of all these horizontal wells is plotted against the production rate. Wells are grouped by the quarter in which production started. Although average well productivity in general increased until early 2017, this plot shows that since then it appears to have fallen slightly. Recent wells may on average fall just short of recovering 140 thousand barrels of oil, before becoming stripper wells (< 15 bo/d). In the ‘Productivity ranking’ overview, operators are ranked according to the average cumulative oil production in the first 2 years. Of the large operators (>100 operated wells), EOG has the best performance with 125 thousand barrels for this metric. If you click on its result, you will see in the map below that most of its wells are located in Campbell County (WY). Next week we will have updates on both the Permian and the Eagle Ford. Production data is subject to revisions. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources: Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2QdcmDv Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data through March from all 15,294 horizontal wells in the Permian (Texas & New Mexico) that started producing since 2008/2009. Oil production in the Permian has kept its upward trajectory through the first quarter of this year. The percentage growth since mid last year was even larger in New Mexico (50%), than in Texas (toggle the basins in the ‘Basin’ selection to see this). Despite the increase in drilling & completion operations, well productivity has not deteriorated in recent quarters. The ‘Well quality’ tab shows the production profiles for all wells that started in a particular year, and here you can see that on average, recent wells are tracking the performance of wells that started in 2016. Those are on a path to recover ~200 thousand barrels of oil in their first 2.5 years (30 months) on production. In the bottom graph in the ‘Well status’ overview you can see the percentage of wells that are producing at a certain production level. In March, just over 400 wells were producing above 800 bo/d (a new record). The percentage of wells that are producing below 50 bo/d has remained steady at about 50% in the past couple of years. The 4 leading oil producers in this basin are producing at or near record output levels, as shown in the final tab (‘top operators’). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the average production rate for these wells, plotted against their cumulative recovery. Wells are grouped by the quarter in which production started. If you want to figure out which operator has the best average well results, the ‘Productivity ranking’ tab is a good place to start. Here you can see the ranking of all operators by the average cumulative production over the first 24 months. If you change this measurement period to 12 months, and select only the years 2016/17 using the ‘Year of first flow’ selection, you can see that of the large operators (>100 operated wells), EOG scores the best, with an average cumulative oil production of 207 thousand barrels in the first year for all its 147 wells that started producing in 2016 & 2017 (Jan-April only). Early next week I will have an update on the Eagle Ford, followed by a post on all covered states in the US. We will be present at the URTeC in Houston later this month, so if you would like to meet us, or learn more about our upcoming analytics services, I hope to see you there. Production data is subject to revisions. Note that a significant portion of production in the Permian comes from vertical wells and/or wells that started production before 2010, which are excluded from these presentations. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: Texas RRC. Oil production is estimated for individual wells, based on a number of sources, such as lease & pending production data, well completion & inactivity reports, regular well tests and oil proration data. OCD in New Mexico. Individual well production data is provided. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight https://shaleprofile.com/index.php/2018/07/04/permian-update-through-march-2018/ Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data through March from 20,615 horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford region (TRRC districts 1-4), that started producing since 2008. Growth is tepid in the Eagle Ford basin, and recent oil output remains well below the high set in March 2015, even after upcoming upward revisions. Although well productivity has also improved in this basin, as shown in the ‘Well quality’ tab, the effect has been more modest. After normalizing for the increase in lateral length, it almost disappears, despite that the amount of proppants used has doubled over the past 4 years. EOG is the largest oil producer in this area with ~ 250 thousand bo/d operated production capacity (see the ‘Top operators’ tab). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: In this “Ultimate Recovery” overview the relationship between production rates, and cumulative production is revealed. Wells are grouped by the quarter in which production started. For example, the thick blue curve, representing the 1,024 horizontal wells that started in Q3 2013 peaked on average at a rate of 361 bo/d, and are now just below 24 bo/d, after having recovered 133 thousand barrels of oil and 0.5 Bcf (you can click on this group in the color legend to highlight the related curve). In comparison, the 474 wells that started in Q4 2017 peaked at double the rate. But will they also double the ultimate oil & gas recovery? It’s too early to tell for sure, but noting that the decline behavior has been relatively predictable in the past, it appears they will fall short of that. Later this week I will have a post on all 10 covered US states, followed by an update on North Dakota. We will be present at the URTeC in Houston later this month, so if you would like to meet us, or learn more about our upcoming analytics services, I hope to see you there. You can follow me here on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShaleProfile Production data is subject to revisions, especially for the last few months. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources: Texas RRC. Production data is provided on lease level. Individual well production data is estimated from a range of data sources, including regular well tests, and pending data reports. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight https://shaleprofile.com/index.php/2018/07/09/eagle-ford-update-through-march-2018/ Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

The full article is here-> https://www.daily-times.com/story/money/industries/oil-gas/2018/12/18/delaware-basin-news-reveals-public-misunderstanding-oil-industry-economics/2282224002/ "This writer has warned that world oil demand is sluggish and imprecise with only references to legacy guesswork that the developing world plus China demand will support prices long term or forever. Yet, world oil consumption has increased only 5 percent in the last 10 years. OPEC, with Saudi Arabia as its leader, has expired as the world administrator of the price of crude oil. At its December meeting in Austria, Qatar quit after nearly 70 years and announced concentration in LNG production and world export as the existing market leader. OPEC emerged with a serious factional split between OPEC original and OPEC with Russia. There would have been no agreement without Russia and its old Russian Federation members as producers. Moscow is the new world oil price-setter indirectly while OPEC Original becomes a collaborator in cartel for now. Simply put, Saudi Arabia no longer is the “residual supplier” alone. The production roll-back of 1.2 barrels per day by both “OPEC” is not enough for “balance” supply and demand for world crude oil. It is being tested daily by commodity traders. In a briefing to New Mexico independent and small producers before the meeting in Austria, this writer warned that 1.7 million b/d was needed for balancing stabilization. Without that size of a production and export reduction, the average price of WTI oil in 2019 will average $50 per barrel. Nearing 12 million b/d and over the Permian producers voluntarily will be required by this price to revise capital spending and place production into DUC (non-completions) and storage. There is doubt that the export of tight or shale oil would continue if the Brent price falls lower and loses its premium over WTI. A net cutback of Permian between 500,000 to 750,00 b/d should be a non-OPEC response to an oil glut even more serious than 2014. Saudi Arabia is untouched as an American strategic ally in confronting Iran in the Middle East as a hegemonic threat."

The European Union’s drive to slash reliance on Russian natural gas is boosting the strategic importance of finds in Cyprus, the country’s energy minister said. View the full article

For a glimpse of how much longer this year’s energy crunch is going to last, look no further than the European natural gas market. View the full article

European natural gas prices fell on expectations that mild and windy weather will provide some relief to the region’s strained energy system. View the full article

RRC has managed to exceed the Texas Legislature’s goals for inspections despite the global pandemic that impacted the agency’s operations and its regulated community. View the full article

A $1 billion project to haul natural gas from Pennsylvania to New Jersey has become the latest casualty of opposition to pipelines across the U.S. View the full article

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that natural-gas pipeline projects with federal approval can seize state-owned land, boosting PennEast Pipeline Co.’s planned 116-mile line through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. View the full article

TODAY'S INVESTMENT GOAL: How to achieve high Internal Rates of Return, (IRR), with a properly structured transaction based on existing oil and gas production … without the market risk of most oil and gas investments. Can this be done? Requirements to achieve the strategy and returns for discussion: Buy production at a reasonable discount Evaluate the production as to the operator’s capability to deliver what is purchased Hedge the acquired oil/gas to eliminate market risk Requirement #1 Acquire production at a discount The niche is the small to medium sized producer that has found development capital difficult to raise due to banking reserve requirements after the oil/gas price crash of 2014-2018. Deal with producers that have existing PDP production that can be leveraged and provide the capital to improve it. The oil is ‘rented’ for a term under a delivery schedule obviating the risks of onerous working interest structures, joint venture follies, drilling and equipment issues and any assortment of the usual risks. The investor is not an oil company… Oil Company Benefits: Not an interest bearing loan, a footnote to the balance sheet Non-recourse Zero equity take-out, the company parts with none to the investor Requirement #2 Evaluate the operator’s capability to deliver The existing production is evaluated by a major engineering firm. They deliver a comprehensive report regarding the ability of the oil company to meet their delivery obligations for the length of the term. The amount of oil purchased varies based on the capital needs of the company. Oil/Gas is delivered on a stated monthly schedule, that matches the decline curve of the production. The investor becomes part of the division order to secure repatriation of the invested amount, satisfying the delivery contract. Requirement #3 Hedge the acquisition to avoid market risk The desire is to avoid all market risk… a put is purchased on every barrel of oil bought, matching exactly with the delivery schedule. What are the risks? 1. Market: Risk Factor – NONE Eliminated due to hedging 2. Counter party on the hedge: Risk Factor – MINIMAL Reduced by using top credit firms. 3. Delivery: Risk Factor – MINIMAL Reduced by quality engineering during due diligence. 4. Environmental and Title: Risk Factor – NONE One of the top oil and gas law practices in the country prepares the review of title and environmental risks. 5. Character: Risk Factor – MINIMAL Extensive background and credit record of the operator and producer is performed and evaluated. In Conclusion: Investor Benefits: The capability to have a high IRR, (much higher than most oil companies make historically). The investor has no downside market risk and can structure the transaction so they have upside profit potential. The investor has no operating expense, is not subject to being over-operated, has no equipment, will never get a cash call. The returns available via this structure are generous as to IRR’s, much higher than other investments with similar risk profiles.

These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from 138,315 horizontal wells in 13 US states, through July. Cumulative oil and gas production from these wells reached 15.4 billion bbl and 174 Tcf of natural gas. Ohio and West Virginia are excluded from most overviews, as they have not yet reported July production data. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboard Total production US tight oil production regained again some lost ground in July, increasing by about 0.4 million to 6.8 million bo/d (after upcoming revisions). Tight gas output also climbed, but with a relatively smaller amount (switch product to gas). It of course also fell less steep earlier this year. Supply Projection dashboard We expect to see another increase in August, but further gains are unlikely after that. Although the 242 rigs drilling horizontal wells as of last week (according to the Baker Hughes rig count) is 9% higher than a month ago, it is not yet sufficient to keep production from falling by itself: Tight oil outlook at current drilling activity and well/rig productivity The screenshot above was taken from our Supply Projection dashboard; assuming no further changes in rig count and productivity, we project that tight oil supply would fall to below 4 million bo/d by the end of the decade. In a scenario where the rig count would keep increasing by 5% each month until the end of next year (reaching 505) and stay there, the outlook would be rather different, but still not reaching the former peak: Scenario with 5% m-o-m increase in rig count until end of next year. This is of course simply a hypothetical case. In our ShaleProfile Analytics service (Ultimate), you can easily run your own scenarios and save them. Top operators The 15 largest operators are listed in the last overview (“Top operators”). Selecting an operator in the legend will highlight its production curve and well locations. There is a lot of consolidation happening in the industry and almost half of these companies are in M&A situations (Pioneer, Concho, Devon, ConocoPhillips, WPX, Chevron and Noble Energy). Who else will follow? Advanced Insights This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the relationship between production rates and cumulative production over time. The oil basins are preselected and the wells are grouped by the year in which production started. You will see more recent data (and some steep declines at the tails) if you group these wells by quarter of first production instead. Finally We have started to expand outside US Shale. Professional & Ultimate subscribers are now able to see offshore oil & gas production data in the US Gulf of Mexico and in Brazil. These two areas are good for almost 5 million barrels of oil per day. Other areas will be included in the coming weeks/months. In two weeks we will be back with a new post on North Dakota, which will release September production data in the coming days. Production data is subject to revisions. Sources For these presentations, we used data gathered from the sources listed below. FracFocus.org Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Similar to Texas, lease/unit production is allocated over wells in order to estimate their individual production histories. Montana Board of Oil and Gas New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission North Dakota Department of Natural Resources Ohio Department of Natural Resources Oklahoma Corporation Commission – Oil & Gas Division Oklahoma Tax Commission Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Texas Railroad Commission. Individual well production is estimated through the allocation of lease production data over the wells in a lease, and from pending lease production data. Utah Division of Oil, Gas, and Mining Automated Geographic Reference Center of Utah. West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection West Virginia Geological & Economic Survey Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight: https://bit.ly/34wTOIt Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile LinkedIn: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

My Topic on China https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wb2YoQGpSWTz32ljsiA_ey6FLVqc2Dpe7Fnpiqn9lBs/edit# Recent Stories https://www.theepochtimes.com/sen-ted-cruz-on-the-strategy-to-defeat-chinas-communist-party_3506709.html Sen. Ted Cruz on the Strategy to ‘Defeat’ China’s Communist Party BY JAN JEKIELEK September 19, 2020 Updated: September 21, 2020

This article contains still images from the interactive dashboards available in the original blog post. To follow the instructions in this article, please use the interactive dashboards. Furthermore, they allow you to uncover other insights as well. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboard These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from all 26,331 horizontal wells in the Permian (Texas & New Mexico) that started producing from 2008/2009 onward, through January. Total production January oil production came in at about 4 million bo/d (after upcoming revisions). I expect to see a small increase from the December level when all data is in. In the last few weeks we have again improved our handling of the data in Texas and it is now more up-to-date and complete. Already close to 90% of February production data in the state of Texas is available in our subscription services. Supply Projection dashboard Although the rig count has also dropped significantly in the Permian in recent weeks, the relative decline has been less than other basins. The following image, taken from our publicly available Supply projection dashboard, shows that the horizontal rig count is down to 274 as of last week. However, the bottom chart reveals that even this level of drilling activity would not make a serious dent in the long-term production capacity of the basin: Projected rig count and oil output in the Permian Basin – assuming no changes. This does assume that the rig count drops no further and that no production is shut-in temporarily due to the extraordinary low prices (as well as no changes in productivity). Although these assumptions are surely highly flawed, this overview does make clear that a further reduction in drilling is needed before the Permian would turn to an overall decline to help balance the markets. Today we will have a webinar on this dashboard, at 9 am (CT). Although the maximum number of registrants has already been reached (100), we will still try to increase this number. Therefore, don’t hesitate to sign up: Register for the Supply Projection webinar Well productivity In the “well quality tab” the production profiles for all the wells in the Permian are available. The bottom chart allows you to see that well productivity has increased each year in the last decade. However, after normalizing for lateral length (possible in our advanced analytics service), we find that recent results are slightly down since 2016. Advanced Insights The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview displays the average production rate for these wells, plotted against their cumulative recovery. Wells are grouped by the year in which production started. Finally As mentioned, tomorrow we will host a webinar on our Supply projection dashboard and how you can use it for your own projections. We will have a new post on the Eagle Ford on Tuesday. Production and completion data are subject to revisions. Note that a significant portion of production in the Permian comes from vertical wells and/or wells that started production before 2008, which are excluded from these presentations. Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight: https://bit.ly/2KulL8K Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile LinkedIn: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from all 24,208 horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford region, that have started producing from 2008 onward, through November 2019. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboard Oil production came in again at just over 1.3 million bo/d (after upcoming revisions), as it has since the start of 2019. Well results have not improved since 2017, as is clearly visible in the bottom chart of the “Well quality” tab. In the core of the oil window, in Karnes and DeWitt, well productivity has slightly declined (select these counties using the “County” filter). This is without taking into account the fact that laterals have gotten longer and proppant intensity has gone up. In the “Well status” tab the status of all these wells can be found. The bottom chart shows the % of wells by production rate. In November, about 60% of the wells in this basin produced below 25 bo/d. After removing the gas wells (a subscription only feature), this percentage drops to 55%. EOG’s production fell below the 250 thousand bo/d, a level it first reached 5 years earlier (“Top operators”). Its December production (available in our subscription services) increased again. Meanwhile, Chesapeake set a new production record in November. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview reveals the relationship between production rates and cumulative production. Wells are grouped and averaged by the year in which production started. In this screenshot, taken from ShaleProfile Analytics, you can see all the horizontal wells in Karnes and DeWitt County, colored by the Gas/Oil ratio in the most recent month. The charts on the right show the production rate and gas/oil ratio versus cumulative oil production, by vintage: Gas/oil ratios in Karnes and DeWitt. Hz wells since 2012 only. These charts reveal that the wells that came online in 2018 became gassier faster than the wells from the year before (bottom chart), while the decline rate has increased (top chart). Early next week, we will have a new post on all covered states in the US. Production and completion data is subject to revisions, especially for the last few months. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources: Texas RRC. Production data is provided on lease level. Individual well production data is estimated from a range of data sources, including regular well tests, and pending lease reports. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight: https://bit.ly/2T9n693 Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile LinkedIn: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

The oil price is not only relevant for insiders in the oil industry. It is important for the entire economy; politicians and central banks keep their eye on it. But how is the price of oil actually determined? Like every price, the price of oil is a result of the interplay between supply and demand. Plus, there is the economic environment which can lead to longer-term changes. An overview of the key factors: The supply There are different oil grades and countries where these are produced under different conditions. Twelve nations that produce oil around the world make up OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). OPEC covers about 40 percent of the global oil production. They influence the price development of crude oil when they restrict or increase the amount they produce. The rule is: When the supply decreases but the demand remains high, the supply becomes that much more valuable – and expensive. In the past five years the supply of oil has risen dramatically outside of OPEC countries – particularly in the US. In recent years the US has transformed from one of the biggest importers of energy to an important energy producer. The main reason is fracking. “Fracking is the technology that made shale oil production profitable in the USA,” says Johannes Benigni of the research and consulting center JBC Energy. New sources of oil were opened up, so the supply has grown. The production of natural gas and crude oil in the US have increased by 50 and 75 percent, respectively, since 2005, the consultant says. It is becoming more difficult to calculate the price since the supply is no longer coming exclusively from OPEC, now other countries also have a strong influence. However, the supply is also influenced by the conditions under which oil is produced. The price of producing one barrel can vary between a few USD per barrel and up to USD 80. Government guidelines like environmental regulations or difficult geographical circumstances increase the production costs. “Some of the most expensive barrels are those in difficult locations like the deep sea. Production in challenging geological formations also raises the price of the supply,” . “When the demand is small and the oil price is accordingly low, comparatively ‘expensive’ production doesn’t pay off anymore. This then reduces supply, which influences the price of oil,” explains Wolfgang Ernst. The demand “How much oil is needed depends on global economic development as well,” says the OMV expert. At the moment the market is primarily being driven by development in Asia. The demand in China and India, for instance, has increased sharply in the past two decades, because the economy is growing faster there than in Europe. A rise in population growth, for example, can also increase the demand for energy – and therefore oil – in the long term. But the oil price can fall in spite of a growing economy, because “the price is also determined on the demand side by other factors like taxation, weather, and environmental regulations,i. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts in the current World Energy Outlook that the energy demand in Europe will fall slightly. We will also see shifts resulting from a rising demand for renewable energy. The geopolitical factors Conflicts and political crises as well as disruptions in deliveries due to weather, such as environmental catastrophes, can have a negative effect on the oil supply. In the past, these often led to a higher oil price, because declines in production were anticipated. Today Libya, Syria, and Yemen have virtually dropped out as oil producing countries due to their political instability; the years of sanctions against Iran are still applied. However, shale oil production in the USA has increased sharply. “Otherwise the oil price could have been much higher between 2009 and 2014,” The financial market Oil is also traded on the financial market in much larger amounts than OPEC produces. Wolfgang Ernst: “Many companies in the energy industry protect themselves against price fluctuations with financial market activities.” Purely financial actors then bet on price changes and try to make a profit that way. Psychological factors and expectations play a role here. “In the short term, speculations on falling or rising prices may very well determine the price development. However, almost all studies show that there is no or only a temporary limited connection between speculation and absolute price levels,”

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from all 22,421 horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford region, that have started producing since 2008, through February 2019. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards February oil production came in at 1,22 million bo/d, the same rate of production as a year earlier. After revisions, it will be a little higher but still below the level at the end of last year. As is visible in the graph above, the contribution of wells that came online before 2018 was just about 50% in February. The ‘Well quality’ tab reveals that the performance of the 1,800+ horizontal wells that began production in the main formations (Eagle Ford & Austin Chalk) in 2018 was equal to those that started a year earlier (see bottom chart). You can also find that typically, after 6 years on production, wells have declined to a production rate of about 20 bo/d. There are of course major regional variances, which I will show later in this post. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview reveals the relationship between production rates and cumulative production. Wells are grouped by the year in which production started. In the 2nd tab, you will find a ranking of all counties in the Eagle Ford, based on total oil production from these horizontal wells through February. Karnes is #1, with over 700 million barrels of oil produced, since 2008. Now, let’s take a closer look at how well productivity has evolved in the top 4 counties shown in this list. The following screenshot comes from our advanced online analytics service: The map shows the location of all the horizontal oil wells in these 4 counties (click on the image for a high-resolution version). The top right graph shows the average well performance over time, as measured by the cumulative oil recovery in the first 12 months. DeWitt County is in the lead, with close to 190 thousand barrels of oil recovered in the first year on production, on average. However, total oil production in this county has dropped close to a multi-year low, as completion activity has dropped (not visible in this image). Only 152 wells came online in this county in 2018 (vs. 383 in 2014). In the middle of next week we will have a new post on all covered states in the US. We still offer free trials and demos in case you are curious to know what more you could learn from our analytics and data services: request a demo or trial. Production data is subject to revisions, especially for the last few months. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources: Texas RRC. Production data is provided on lease level. Individual well production data is estimated from a range of data sources, including regular well tests, and pending lease reports. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2WisrdR Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from all 14,469 horizontal wells in North Dakota that started production since 2005, through January. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboard January oil production in North Dakota was unchanged from the month before, at 1.4 million barrels of oil per day. In January, which is typically a slow month, just 85 wells started production. The growth in natural gas production has been steeper in the past few years. Compared with January 2015, natural gas production rose by 88%, versus 18% for oil. The reason for this is that almost all wells experience a rising gas oil ratio, and even stronger for newer wells. In the ‘Well quality’ tab, you’ll find the production profiles for all these wells. After several years of improving initial well productivity, the 2018 vintage eked out another small gain. All 5 leading operators in North Dakota started the year at a higher production level than a year earlier (“Top operators”). Continental Resources was the first operator in the history of the state to reach 200 thousand barrels of oil production capacity in January. It doubled its output in the past 2 years. From our analytics service (Professional), we can see how Continental Resources has changed its completion practices in the last couple of years: In this dashboard we can see that Continental Resources did not change the length of its laterals by much since 2013 (yellow curve), but it did almost quadruple the amount of proppant used, from 3 million pounds per completion in 2013, to 12 million pounds in 2017/2018 (shown by the pink curve). The impact that this had on the amount of oil recovered in the first 12 months is shown in the plots on the right side; the bottom plot shows the same information, but now normalized by lateral length (1,000 feet). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows how all these horizontal wells are heading towards their ultimate recovery, with wells grouped by the year in which production started. The almost 1,800 horizontal wells that started in 2012 have now recovered just above 200 thousand barrels, and are now producing at a rate of 40 bo/d, on average. The 971 wells that started 5 years later (2017) are, with an average recovery of 175 thousand barrels of oil after 14 months on production, not far behind, and they are still operating at a rate of 227 bo/d. Early next week we will have an update on gas production in Pennsylvania, which just released January production data as well (already available in our subscription services!). It just set another record at over 18 Bcf/d. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: DMR of North Dakota. These presentations only show the production from horizontal wells; a small amount (about 40 kbo/d) is produced from conventional vertical wells. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2ueHidA Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

These interactive presentations contain the latest oil & gas production data from all 19,047 horizontal wells in the Permian (Texas & New Mexico) that started producing since 2008/2009, through November. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboard November oil production came in above 3 million bo/d (after revisions), at a y-o-y growth rate of 1 million bo/d. More than 4,200 horizontal wells were completed in 2018 through November, double the number in the same period in 2016. Average well productivity has only increased slightly since 2016, after big gains in the years before, as the ‘Well quality’ tab shows. The 2 largest producers, Pioneer Natural Resources & Concho Resources, are now above 250 thousand bo/d of operated capacity (see “Top operators”). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the average production rate for these wells, plotted against their cumulative recovery. Wells are grouped by the year in which production started. If you extrapolate these curves, you’ll find that recent wells (2016/2017) are on a path to recover on average about 300 thousand barrels of oil, before their production rate has fallen to 40 bo/d. Associated gas production is high in the Permian, at well over 9 Bcf/d. If you switch ‘Product’ to gas, you can find the average gas production for the same wells. Newer wells are on average likely to recover 1.5 Bcf of natural gas or more. Today (Tuesday) at noon (EST) we will also present an update on the Permian and the Eagle Ford on enelyst, where we will share our insights in these basins based on the latest data. Last month many of you subscribed to our analytics service, which offers access to more dashboards, well data, and more recent production data. Thank you! The cheapest subscription version, Analyst, costs just $52/month per user, and you can try it for 1 month for only $19. With this, you will experience some of the analytical power of ShaleProfile Analytics. Later this week we will have a post on the Eagle Ford. Production data is subject to revisions. Note that a significant portion of production in the Permian comes from vertical wells and/or wells that started production before 2008, which are excluded from these presentations. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: Texas RRC. Oil production is estimated for individual wells, based on a number of sources, such as lease & pending production data, well completion & inactivity reports, regular well tests, and oil proration data. OCD in New Mexico. Individual well production data is provided. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2HgILaR Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

Beginning of the New Year 2019 saw the Chinese President Xi Jinping belligerence towards Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (RoC). President Xi Jinping proclaimed that Taiwan unification must be the ultimate goal of any discourse regarding its future and laid out unyielding position that use of force is not ruled out should Taipei asserts full independence. This is not the first time that China openly declared its intention on Taiwan. In December 1995, Chinese officials asked US Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Nye directly what would the US do if China attacked Taiwan. Nye’s response was: “We don’t know and you don’t know. It would depend upon circumstances.” Beijing considers Taiwan( Formosa) as a breakaway province. RoC is self-governed but it has never formally announced independence from Mainland. The Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen had made it clear that the island nation would never consider reunification with China under the terms offered by Beijing. United States lent its weight behind Taipei by sending guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell and the fleet replenishment oiler USNS Walter S.Diehl through Taiwan Strait. It has further heightened tensions between the US and China. Meanwhile, US Pacific Fleet spokesperson Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman told Cable News Network that it was a “routine Taiwan Strait Transit” under international law. On the other hand,Taiwan’s navy showcased its latest long-range surveillance drone as a push to counter China’s increasingly muscular rhetoric. Both these moves are symbolic in nature yet an attempt was made to convey to Beijing that Taiwan will not become Tibet of East Asia. Situated in the West Pacific between Japan and Phillippines, Taiwan is of strategic importance both for China and US. Taiwan (Formosa) lies at the edge of South China Sea shipping lanes. On the eve of Japan’s surrender in the World War-II, the State Department of US published a note on Taiwan which remarked: Strategic factors greatly influence the problem of Formosa. With the exception of Singapore no location in the Far East occupies such a controlling position. Regional powers like Japan in World War-II used Taiwan as a base both for defensive and offensive startegic purposes. It was a very important supply base for Japanese armies in South East Asia during their operations in Second World War. The US Navy commented in 1944 that: The island of Taiwan dominates the China coast and all coastwise shipping between Japan and South Eastern Asia. Its airfields and ports supported the movement of Japanese troops and supplies throughout the Southern theatres of action. For China, Taiwan is not just a matter of territorial sovereignty as it claims but is important from its security point of view. The control of Taiwan would help China’s operations in South China Sea. It can then more effectively assert and settle its territorial claims against Phillippines,Brunei,Vietnam etc. If Beijing succeeds in the unification of Taiwan then it will be able to use its deep water ports for its submarines to venture into Pacific Ocean. This will project China’s power in Pacific and will be a challenge to US naval assests. Beijing knows that if an external power occupies or make a base in Taiwan then it can cut-off China’s trade lines and a naval blockade could be a catastrophe for China’s rise as an economic and military power. When two elephants fight, it is the grass that is trampled. But some 23 million Taiwanese people do not want their fate to be that of grass. Taiwan’s loss of the China seat at the United Nations in 1971 was internationally the culmination of a slow erosion in support for the RoC. History reminds us of the destiny of Tibetans at a time when China was not so powerful economically and militarily. The question is can Taiwan defend itself against China if it really uses the force as claimed by Chinese President Xi Jinping? Today, the Chinese expansion of naval assets and capabilities in South China Sea will definitely alter the dynamics of war should it occur between People’s Republic of China and RoC. With UK trying to overcome Brexit imbroglio and France trying to put its own house in order, US may not get the full support of allies against China over Taiwan. Taiwan is not just a symbol of democracy at the gate of authoritarian Communist China which should be morally supported and militarily protected by Western world but its geographical location has made it a vital piece on global chess board of politics which is being played between US and China. The answer to the future of Taiwan lies in the womb of time but the clock is ticking for Taipei as China flexes its economic, diplomatic and military muscle.

Former Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping presented his “Cat Theory” to introduce a capitalist market economy for Mainland China. As per the theory “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white;as long as it catches mice,it’s a good cat.” The “Cat Theory” which he put forth was to convince policy makers for the radical shift in economic policies. “Cat Theory” is also relevant if one looks at the way China is pursuing its geo-political interests using its economic clout. There is one more distinct quality about the cat which makes it a stealth killer. When the cat advances towards its prey it hides its claws. Kenya is latest in a series of nations to feel the claws of Chinese debt. Latest report attributed to Auditor General suggests that strategic Mombasa Port could land up in the hands of Chinese Bank, EXIM Bank if Kenya fails to repay the loan amount. Though, the Audtior General Edward Ouko has issued a denial. But it does not mean that Mombasa port will not become Chinese one day as we have seen the example of how Sri Lanka handed over Hambantota port to China to pay off its debt. To sustain higher economic growth China needs unfettered access to raw materials for its factories and a market to export its finished goods. At a time when China is facing pressure from United States of America over trade,Africa offers tremendous opportunities for Chinese economy. Infrastructure investment in Africa reflects China’s decades-old strategy of using soft power. More recent investments in Kenya and Ethiopia represent an extension of the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). BRI is a trillion-dollar investment strategy which focusses on developing transportation sector and infrastructure, particularly in Eurasia region but also in East Africa. The amount of Chinese loans to Kenya has grown tenfold in the five years since China unveiled its Belt and Road Initiative. In May 2014, Kenya and China inked Sh 327 billion railway line agreement. According to the terms of the agreement,China had to finance 85 per cent of the total cost through Export and Import (EXIM) Bank while Kenya had to bear the remaining 15 per cent of the projects’ cost. The rail line pened in May-2017. China financed Nairobi-Mombasa Railway link is touted as the biggest infrastructure project in the history of independent Kenya and is a part of Kenya Railways Corporation’s new Standard gauge railway (SGR) line. The Mombasa-Nairobi rail connectivity will cut down travel time by half. It will benefit passengers and cargo transportation. The SGR project is expected to link Mombasa to Rwanda with a branch line to Juba in South Sudan in future. This Mombasa-Nairobi railway line will give China access to South Sudan in near future. The oil production of South Sudan is dominated by Chinese oil majors. China National Petroloeum Corporation (CNPC) pumps nearly all of South Sudan’s oil production. After cessation in 2011,both Sudan and South-Sudan are now mutually dependent on oil revenues for their economic survival. South Sudan is landlocked and has 75 percent of the oil reserves. The oil from the fields of South Sudan is transported through 1600 kms pipeline to reach export terminals in Port Sudan and then it reaches to refiners in China. On August 30th 2018 South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit paid a visit to China National Petroleum Corporation Headquarters and had talks with Wang Yilin about further deepening oil and gas cooperation. A memorandum was also signed after talks to boost existing production and consider acquisitions of new acreage. The high profile visit signifies the closeness of South Sudan and China. Mombasa-Nairobi link when it will be joined with Juba in South Sudan through branch line then it will open an alternate route for Chinese companies and South-Sudan for trade and export of Oil. Moreover, cost is critical in the production of goods and to remain competitive in the globalized economy. Fuel is one such factor that has cascading effect on the entire supply chain right from manufacturing to retail. In September, 2018 Sudan Ministry of Petroleum signed an agreement with three oil companies operating in Sudan and South Sudan to pay a transit fees of $14 per barrel. One of the companies that signed the agreement is China National Petroleum Corporation. In addition to it, if oil is shipped through Sudan, Chinese companies will also have to pay fees for marine terminal usage. Therefore, opening up of an alternate supply route using Mombasa port and railway link will give an edge to China. Therefore, Mombasa is a strategically important port for China as it will be a gateway to South Sudan.

The recent market volatility has left investors and capital seekers seeking he same consensus: where does it end and what's the upside? The age old question continues to perplex both parties. I'm taking the position from both sides.. first as a former exploration company President who had sought capital from the banks, from P/E firms, mezzanine debt and from the public markets and secondly as a capital provider. We currently manage substantial amounts of capital that are looking to deploy into the energy sector, so being on both sides in a past and current life, I speak from experience. Oil and gas companies that seek us out for capital come in a number of flavors and sizes. Typically, they are smaller entities, or juniors. This is our financing niche. Their needs are the usual: drill PUDs, re-work, acquire non-cores, get a leg up on OPEX and generally seek growth in fractious times. In nearly every case, the banks are exhausted as much as the juniors are. These companies are far too small for the P/E firms to get involved and the old 'Third for a quarter' deal won't cut it. What to do? As a capital provider, we seek to obviously entreat the best companies we can to provide this dearly needed money. Some have said that the smaller deals that come in to any facility seeking capital are the deals no one else will touch. We disagree. The old saying, "Oil and gas doesn't care who owns it,' serves a point. Economies of scale are persistent relative to size. Nearly all the companies we review are sitting on oil, and what better place to produce from than an existing field? Have the production and a good development plan? Are these good oil people with a solid history of exploration and exploitation? We take these into account, among other things as we review and allocate due diligence resources to determine if the underpinnings are there and there's sufficient existing PDPs to support the capital raise over a term. A word about the raise.. it's non-recourse, not a loan, off balance sheet, no equity take out and there's no back-in after payout. Oil companies seek a better, more efficient way to utilize and pay back capital and there is a better way than the old tried and perhaps not so true way... In these times, we feel a floor has been reached and tested market wise. Wise firms can access wise money now, versus looking for it when the recent 30% drop has been recovered and capital costs and service costs will likely erode portions of this gain. Companies can't afford to hand wring now... it's time to set up for the future and plan capex budgets now.

This interactive presentation contains the latest gas (and a little oil) production data, from all 8,567 horizontal wells in Pennsylvania that started producing since 2010, through October. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards New production records have been set in the 2nd half of every year since 2010, and 2018 was no different. Gas production in October from horizontal wells came in at 17.6 Bcf/d, about 20% higher than October 2017 (14.1 Bcf/d). The 687 wells that started production in the first 10 months of 2018 already contributed more than 1/3rd of total gas production in October (6 Bcf/d). Well productivity made a big gain in 2017 (see ‘Well quality’ tab), but it did not rise much further in 2018, based on preliminary data. Newer wells recover on average more than 4 Bcf in the first 2 years on production, compared with 3 Bcf from wells that started in 2016. All major operators increased production in 2018, except Chesapeake (‘Top operators’). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate Return” overview shows the relationship between gas production rates and cumulative gas production, averaged for all horizontal wells that came online in a certain year. The improved performance over the past years is clearly visible here. If you change the ‘Show wells by’ selection to ‘quarter’, you can see more recent and granular data. It will also reveal that newer wells peak at a level of over 12,000 Mcf/d, more than three times the rate of the wells that started in 2012. The 2nd tab (‘Cumulative production ranking’), ranks all counties in Pennsylvania by cumulative gas production. If you change the ranking to ‘Well’, you’ll see the cumulative production for each of those 8,500+ wells. The most productive one is above 20 Bcf. Later this week we will have a new post on the Permian. We wish you all a Happy New Year! Production data is subject to revisions. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2s048ED Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from 96,273 horizontal wells in 10 US states, through August. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Cumulative oil and gas production from these wells reached 9.5 Gbo and 104 Tcf. Ohio and West Virginia are deselected in most dashboards, as they have a greater reporting lag. Oil production from horizontal wells in these states grew by almost 2 million bo/d in the 2 years through August. This growth rate was similar as in the boom years of 2013-14. The Permian was responsible for most of this gain, which you’ll see if you show the production data by ‘Basin’ (using the ‘Show production by’ selection). Natural gas production has been setting new records as well during those 2 years and was above 47 Bcf/d in the basins we cover. The steady increases in well productivity are shown in the ‘Well status’ tab, where all the oily basins are preselected. The horizontal wells that started in 2018 are so far closely tracking the performance of the ones from 2017. In the final tab you will find the production histories and location of the largest shale operators. We’ve made a change in this dashboard; now the operators are ranked by their total production in the past 12 months (and not by their total historical production). This makes especially a big difference in the Permian, where several operators have recently increased production at a rapid rate. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the relationship between production rates and cumulative production over time. The oil basins are preselected, and wells are grouped by the quarter in which production started. Since about 2010 wells have been tracking ever larger ultimate recoveries. The ~1,300 horizontal wells that started in Q4 of 2016 appear so far among the best performers; they have recovered on average 160 thousand barrels of oil and are now at a production rate of ~110 bo/d (from a peak rate of 570 bo/d). These are of course averages, and there are major differences between basins, operators and formations. Major factors behind the changes in well performance are the increases in lateral lengths and the larger frac jobs. In our online analytics service, it is possible to normalize for these factors. Feel free to request a demo, in which we will discuss your interests, or 10-day trial. We sometimes get the question about what we do with wells when they stop producing. In these cases we keep adding 0 production records, to make sure that wells don’t suddenly drop out of the equations, which would lead to a survivorship bias. You can verify this, as the exact well count is shown in the tooltips that appear above the production profiles (this is also represented in the thickness of the curves). Tomorrow at 9:30am EST we will again host a show at enelyst, in which we’ll take a closer look at the Niobrara basin. Join us in the ShaleProfile channel. Early next week I will have a new post on North Dakota, which will release October production data by the end of this week. Production data is subject to revisions. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the sources listed below. FracFocus.org Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Similar as in Texas, lease/unit production is allocated over wells in order to estimate their individual production histories. Montana Board of Oil and Gas New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission North Dakota Department of Natural Resources Ohio Department of Natural Resources Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Texas Railroad Commission. Individual well production is estimated through the allocation of lease production data over the wells in a lease, and from pending lease production data. West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection West Virginia Geological & Economical Survey Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2EbfM6U Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

There has been lots of rift between the Saudis and Qatar, for quite some time. Saudi Arabia is accusing Qatar of financing terrorism. The Saudis are trying to give Qatar lots of problems, and Qatar fought back, by damaging OPEC and leaving. This will be the beginning of the unraveling of OPEC as I predict more nations to leave OPEC. This will also give OPEC less control of oil prices. Therefore any production cuts from OPEC in the future could soon become meaningless.

This interactive presentation contains the latest gas (and a little oil) production data, from all 8,512 horizontal wells in Pennsylvania that started producing since 2010, through September. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Gas production from horizontal wells came in higher again in September, at 17.4 Bcf/d. Output has grown by about 10% in the 4 preceding months, driven mostly by an increase in well completions; In both August and September, 107 wells started production, the highest since the end of 2014. This increase in completion activity didn’t have a negative effect so far on well productivity. In the ‘Well quality’ tab you’ll find the production profiles for all these wells, averaged by the year in which they started. Group the wells by the quarter in which they started (using the ‘Show wells by selection’), and you’ll see that the best initial performance came from the wells that started in Q3 this year, at over 13 MMcf/d. Of the 5 leading operators, Cabot stood out as it increased gas production by 18% in just 2 months (see the final tab). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate Return” overview shows the relationship between gas production rates, and cumulative gas production, averaged for all horizontal wells that started producing in a certain quarter. Well design has changed significantly over the years; in 2012 about 4 million pounds of proppant was used per completion, on average, while this has recently increased to over 18 million pounds. The plot clearly shows how this has had a positive impact on well productivity. Early next week I will have a new update on the Niobrara. If you missed our live chat last Tuesday with John Sodergreen and Het Shah, about the Permian Basin, you can still read back our discussion here in the enelyst ShaleProfile Briefings channel. Next week Tuesday, at 10:30 am (EST), we’ll take a closer look at gas production in Pennsylvania, and there is enough time to ask questions. If you are not an enelyst member yet, you can sign up for free at www.enelyst.com, using the code: “Shale18” Happy Thanksgiving! Production data is subject to revisions. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2DVzQLg Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

The Petronas Dividend of RM 30 Billion has been in the Malaysia news lately. Here's an excerpt from an article yesterday: Pakatan MP questions need to use Petronas reserves for special dividend A Pakatan Harapan MP today questioned the rationale in using 36% of national oil company Petroliam Nasional Bhd’s cash reserves for the special dividend of RM30 billion. Wong Chen (PH-Subang) pointed out that Petronas’ cash reserves, as of last year, stood at RM128 billion, and the profit after tax was RM46 billion. “This worries me because we know there is a huge possibility Malaysia will be stuck in the trade war between US and China. “If we use all the money now, the financial power of RM54 billion, we may run out of ‘financial bullets’ when the crisis really hits,” he said in the Dewan Rakyat when debating the Budget 2019. The RM30 billion special dividend is part of RM54 billion that Putrajaya is asking from Petronas next year. It will be utilised to fully settle the outstanding tax refunds estimated at RM37 billion — RM18 billion in income tax and RM19 billion in goods and services tax (GST). Wong stated that while he understood Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng’s anger and frustration in inheriting the financial woes of the previous administration, he was of the view that Parliament needs a guarantee that a special dividend of this nature cannot be repeated in next year’s budget. Yesterday, I had commented on LinkedIn a bit about this. Generally, my view is that if this is a one-off higher than normal dividend from Petronas, then it shouldn't be a problem. My concern is if this is an old crutch that is getting long in the tooth from decades-old age and too much reliance on Petronas to provide money. For some perspective, let me turn back the clock a couple years, when I interviewed Dr. Mahathir about Petronas in 2016. Here is an excerpt of my one-on-one interview: Interview with Former Petronas Advisor Dr. Mahathir Mohamad Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad was the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post for 22 years from 1981 to 2003, making him Malaysia's longest-serving Prime Minister. After stepping down as Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir took on the role of Petronas Advisor in 2003. On March 11 2016, the Malaysian government terminated the services of Dr. Mahathir, due to a political dispute between former Prime Minister Mahathir and the current Prime Minister Najib Razak. The Prime Minister's Office said in a brief statement that the Cabinet had discussed the actions of Dr. Mahathir, and decided that since he was "no longer supporting the current Government, he should no longer hold any position related to the Government." On 30th March 2016, Dr. Mahathir was kind enough to agree to an interview with Oilpro Moderator Tom Kirkman, to discuss Petronas. ... Question: In August 2015, the Petronas CEO told reporters that Petronas had RM 126 billion in cash reserves. And in January 2016, the Petronas CEO told reporters that Petronas had RM 88 billion in cash reserves. That's a RM 38 billion reduction in Petronas cash reserves in 5 months. What is your opinion on Petronas current cash reserves? Dr. Mahathir: Well, Petronas is regarded by the government as some kind of cash cow. When the government is short of money, or needs to have some investment, usually they pump it off on Petronas. And currently, the government is really short of money. They have mismanaged things, including borrowing huge sums of money. So they are in deficit. And what we do know is that they have been cutting back on budgets, by 20% last year, and again 20% this year. I am told that Petronas was told to make up for the loss of government revenue. And of course Petronas reply was that they need the money for their capex. They have to invest all the time. I think the rumors are they were told “Look, you are a government company. You are 100% owned by the government. Whatever you earn belongs to the government. You give the money to the government, then you can borrow. If you need money, you can borrow.” It would seem that the government finds difficulty borrowing. So, asking Petronas, which has more credit-worthiness, I think, is the way for them to borrow. Things have changed quite a bit since that interview in March 2016. Personally, I think Dr. Mahathir and Lim Guan Eng (the Finance Minister) and the new federal government are doing an overall great job in rescuing and repairing the country's financial mess, left behind by the previous administration. Notably, working to clean up the mess of 1MDB. And I understand a stop-gap measure of increasing the Petronas Dividend this year to help alleviate the budgetary shortfall as the federal government works to pay down earlier commitments and reduce debt. Again, cleaning up the financial nuclear fallout from 1MDB won't happen overnight. This time around, Petronas actually has sufficient cash reserves to pay a higher dividend. Compare that with the situation a couple years ago... here's another question and answer from my interview in 2016: Question: Petronas has recently stated that they may have to borrow money in order to pay their RM 16 billion dividend for 2016. Petronas originally wanted to pay only RM 9 billion in dividends for this year, but the government announced that Petronas was going to pay RM 16 billion in dividends for this year. About a month ago, Petronas announced that they will likely have to go in debt in order to pay the government dividend this year. Do you have an opinion about that? Dr. Mahathir: Well, I think the government, as I said just now, is short of money. Petronas will have problems paying them more than what Petronas can afford. But the government is in such a desperate state, that they don’t care what happens to Petronas. As I said just now, Petronas can borrow money more than the government can borrow. So Petronas will have to cough up the amount of money that the government directs it to pay to the government. Again, if this is a one-off higher than normal Dividend this year from Petronas, then it should be no problem. Next year, the dividend should be reduced, to allow Petronas to re-invest more in new Exploration & Production activities, both domestic and overseas. Just my opinion; as always, you are free to disagree. “I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.” – Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from 95,093 horizontal wells in 10 US states, through July. Cumulative oil and gas production from these wells reached 9.3 Gbo and 102.9 Tcf. Ohio and West Virginia are deselected in most dashboards, as they have a greater reporting lag. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Oil and gas production from horizontal wells kept setting new records through the first 7 months of this year. The 5,600 new producers contributed ~2.2 million bo/d and 10.4 Bcf/d in July, versus 4,600 new producers in the same period last year (which contributed 1.6 million bo/d and 9.1 Bcf/d in July last year). The steady increases in well productivity between 2012 and 2017 are clearly visible in the 2nd tab, ‘Well quality’, where the oily basins have been preselected. Almost 12 thousand wells were completed in these plays in 2014, more than in any other year, which is why this curve is drawn with the greatest thickness. The final tab shows the production and location of the wells operated by the largest operators, as measured by their cumulative production in the past decade. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the relationship between production rates and cumulative production over time. The oil basins are preselected, and wells are grouped by the year in which production started. You can see in the graph above that the 7,600 wells that started in 2017 recovered on average almost 100 thousand barrels of oil in the first 8 months on production, while declining from 600 bo/d to 274 bo/d. More recent and granular data can be seen by grouping the wells by the quarter or month in which production started. The 2nd tab, ‘Cumulative production ranking’, ranks all counties with horizontal production based on cumulative oil production. McKenzie and Mountrail counties, both in North Dakota, are in the lead, but Karnes (Eagle Ford) and Weld (Niobrara) are catching up on the number 2. Early next week I will have a new post on North Dakota, which will soon release September production data. In our ShaleProfile Analytics service we keep all data up-to-date on a daily basis, and for most states we already have August or even September production in. If you’re interested, you can request a demo or trial here. Production data is subject to revisions. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the sources listed below. FracFocus.org Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Similar as in Texas, lease/unit production is allocated over wells in order to estimate their individual production histories. Montana Board of Oil and Gas New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission North Dakota Department of Natural Resources Ohio Department of Natural Resources Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Texas Railroad Commission. Individual well production is estimated through the allocation of lease production data over the wells in a lease, and from pending lease production data. West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection West Virginia Geological & Economical Survey Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2DBiiE9 Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

Smaller producers who are finding it more difficult to secure bank credit, with many loans still under pressure, are seeking new ways to capture funding. As prices are making it a bit easier to add to the balance sheet, versus $26 per barrel in recent times, new avenues for capital have opened up. We see the increased ability of 'non-bank' capital sources to serve these operators that have a large need for capital. Reserve Based Lending, (RBLs), are certainly in transition and many smaller operators are simply too small to attract this capital. Mezzanine debt and some credit funds have typically been the next horizon for capital, but other alternative methods are needed to fulfill this capital need that make sense to these sized operators. Backstory: the Comptroller of the Currency's revised lending guidelines have become stricter and banks are being squeezed. More than $208 billion in upstream debt existed at the end of 2017, with nearly $75 billion not in compliance with the new banking strictures... So, what does this mean for the producer? As these mature, some may be renewed, many will not and where there's a gap and if companies can't renew their RBL, they'll need other methods to fund themselves. Solution for some, not for all: Volumetric Production Payments, (VPPs) on existing production. Not bank debt, non-recourse and there's no equity relinquished to the private equity bunch. We love to see PDP assets and can leverage them to grant the capital these firms need effectively and efficiently, usually within 30-45 days, versus the slog through banking procedures. It makes sense that as the traditional methods of funding are under pressure, that direct capital can be accessed through ways that make sense to the operator... he keeps the upside, typically at least 70% with facilities up to $20 million. Always open for discussion!

Produced Water Mobility Inhibition Polymer Flooding Jay C. Reynolds, Applied Mobility, LLC, Oil City, Louisiana Numerous reservoirs in the US are prone to early transition to high water production and produce at their economic limits in spite of often having 75-80% or more of their OOIP remaining in these developed and de-risked fields. It is the shallow reservoirs that were discovered first and mis-managed in the early days which are now in the hands of the Mom and Pops, who are notoriously late technology adopters. This is where the big stranded reserves are in the US. The best combination for this process is homogenous geology, relatively low gravity oil, close well spacing and a strong, active, bottom water drive. That combination makes for early water coning and high percentages of stranded reserves in an active bottom water drive reservoir. A oil cut (WOR) of 1,000/1 is typical for the Nacatoch B Sand in northwest Louisiana; a terrible Adverse Mobility Ratio. In the Nacatoch B, the oil wells are essentially water wells that make oil as a contaminant once the water cones in. About 10,000 of these wells were drilled, a significant number during three separate periods of intense promotion because these wells had good flush production and frequently paid out in a couple of months before the water came in. The reservoir is acting exactly as physics dictates. This oil is 19-21 gravity and it takes pumping the well down about 150’ to provide a sufficient pressure drop to mobilize oil to the well bore and that is impossible without changing the downhole physics at work. Nacatoch oil is about 250 centipoise viscosity while our water is 1 centipoise with permeability as as high as 3,000 millidarcies. As a consequence, pumping these wells down is impossible because the water channels will expand to accommodate any given pump capacity. These factors, and the large stranded reserves, led to the develop an inexpensive polymer treatment for water control and enhanced oil production for reservoirs with a low permeability contrast such as those of the Caddo Pine Island Field’s massive blanket sand, the Nacatoch B Reservoir. A dry polyacrylamide polymer of special design is mixed on the fly and injected into the water bearing portion of the sand with a Mobile Gel Unit. You could think of it as inflating a balloon underground and as long as you are injecting more than you are withdrawing the area affected will continue to expand. That makes this process site specific, you can keep the ‘polymer balloon’ and the oil on your leasehold instead of mobilizing the oil horizontally, potentially off of your leasehold as with a traditional displacement type polymer flood. The produced oil and polymerized water is separated in the usual way and the polymerized water, having value now, is recycled. Bottom line is turning your worst enemy, water, into your best friend. Think of this as a polymer flood that operates vertically instead of horizontally - that lets oil move in the direction nature wants it to go, vertically. Injection continues until the polymerized water surrounds nearby producing wells. That lets the operator pump those wells down because the wells no longer have access to low viscosity native water. This relieves enough hydrostatic pressure in the well bore to let the reservoir energy mobilize the more viscous oil to our well bores at higher rates. This technique lets an operator keep the oil on their lease while qualifying as Tertiary Enhanced Oil Recovery on a voluntary leasehold unitization basis in many states. Without mobility control the reservoir can only be shown about a 20 psi pressure drop no matter what capacity pump is run. A 20 psi pressure drop will move all of the water you can possibly pump through a high permeability sand but transports very little oil. With produced water mobility control the well can now be pumped down. Mixing polymer into the water dramatically improves the mobility ratio and lets us pump the well down to take advantage of the reservoir pressure. To accomplish polymer placement in the desired portion of the reservoir, we continuously hydrate, blend and inject polymer at our target viscosity. Viscosity is targeted such that the polymer blend preferentially flows into the water productive regions of the sand while not displacing the oil horizontally. This development began by asking, ‘What would the cut be if the water and oil were the same viscosity?” “Change the nature of water and the physics downhole changes and a new equilibrium state with respect to how oil and water move relative to one another is established. Darcie’s Law tells us that only three things determine the rate of fluid movement through our sand; pressure, viscosity and permeability. Which of those is easiest and cheapest to change on a large scale? The viscosity of water. Unlike many EOR methods that rely on changing the characteristics of the oil, where the benefit is lost when the oil is produced, the polymerized water is recycled and what used to be our waste product, water, becomes an asset. James Sutphen of SNF added, “This has been a very good collaboration thus far. Jay has come up with a game changer for a market that was not risk tolerant. He knew from his perspective as an oil producer the game had to be changed or else geology and depletion would put him out of business. There is a limit to how much fluid you can produce and separate and stay in operation.” Jay Reynolds (318) 208-1137, jaycreynolds@gmail.com

The Baker Hughes US oil rig count – a proxy for health and optimism in the overall upstream sector – has just reached a 31-month high to 1067 rigs, though nowhere near the all-time high of 1609 back in July 2014. This recent development is not surprising; crude prices have been trending upwards and reached a new 24-month peak last week as well. Looking at the breakout data, it is possible that some of the gains could be from re-started sites shut down in the wake of Hurricane Michael bypassing the Gulf Coast, but the main additions are still coming from onshore Texas. The home to the mammoth Permian and the Eagle Ford shale basins, the Permian alone has 490 active oil and gas rigs. While infrastructural bottlenecks – mainly restrained pipeline capacity – have caused drilling activities to slow down since June, there are still gains to be made. Meanwhile, the lower prices caused by shale liquids being trapped in the Permian has led drillers to look elsewhere, where prices are stronger and infrastructure less clogged up – including re-looking at the Bakken and promising areas like Austin Chalk and Niobrabra. Recent auctions have seen record-high prices for acreage in Louisiana and Alabama; even in the Permian, interest remains high, with a recent sale in the New Mexican side of the basin setting a new record of more than double the previous high. This could be key to navigating the coming global supply crunch, triggered by new American sanctions on Iran, and exacerbated by continuing problems in key OPEC producers such as Venezuela and Libya. Although Russia has raised its production and Saudi Arabia has pledged to fill the hole that Iranian crude will be leaving, the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi places the Kingdom in a position of belligerence with the rest of the world. So the US may find itself in a position to have to provide extra volumes on its own – which may be why active rigs have been increasing, and new areas being sought. There is a bit of a spanner in the works, though. The trade spat between the USA and China has led Chinese importers to slam the brakes on importing US crude, even though American crude is not yet on the list of products tariffed by China. LNG and even NGLs – propane and ethane imported to produce petrochemicals – have also seen significant slowdown. How high can the American rig count get? If prices continue to march up – and there are many that believe the US$100/b mark will be reached soon – then the number of oil rigs drilling in the US could rise past 1200 again. But to reach the dizzying heights above 1500, which was the average over most of 2014, is unlikely. Not because there are lesser volumes of liquid underground – although studies are now showing that the decline rate in mature shale fields is alarmingly high – but because of consolidation. From a collection of many, many small players in the early 2010s, the shale landscape now is consolidating into a collection of medium and large players, with behemoths like ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP also muscling in. A rising tide of crude prices is lifting American drilling activity, but the magnitude of gains in 2018 will be different – due to a combination of infrastructure bottlenecks, fragile geopolitics and sector structural changes. The main danger is short memories – the zeal of cashing in on high oil prices is what caused the 2015 crash and high corporate debt, and the enthusiasm brewing in American shale again could lead to history repeating itself. Baker Hughes US Active Rig Count: 21 October 2011 – 1079 oil rigs, 927 gas rigs 19 October 2012 – 1410 oil rigs, 435 gas rigs 18 October 2013 – 1361 oil rigs, 372 gas rigs 17 October 2014 – 1590 oil rigs, 328 gas rigs 23 October 2015 – 594 oil rigs, 193 gas rigs 21 October 2016 – 443 oil rigs, 108 gas rigs 20 October 2017 – 736 oil rigs, 177 gas rigs 19 October 2018 – 873 oil rigs, 194 gas rigs

These interactive presentations contains the latest oil & gas production data from all 13,899 horizontal wells in North Dakota that started production since 2005, through August. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards Oil production in North Dakota came in at 1,291 kbo/d in August, after a month-on-month rise of 1.7%, setting again a new record. As the graph shows, the 782 wells that started production in 2018 contributed already to more than 1/3rd of total production in August, producing more than the ~10k wells that started before 2015. After the high number of new producers in July (141 horizontal wells), 133 more came online in August. As this year around 100 wells were drilled so far each month, these recent completion numbers reduced the number of DUCs. The production profiles for all these wells can be seen in the “Well quality” tab. The 2018 wells are so far tracking closely the performance of the wells from the year before. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows how all these horizontal wells are heading towards their ultimate recovery, with wells grouped by the quarter in which production started. The 275 wells that started in Q3 2017 still show the best results so far (dark brown curve). They recovered on average 178 thousand barrels of oil in the first year of production. They appear to be on a path to recover about 1 more time that amount, before turning into stripper wells (<= 15 bo/d). In the 4th tab (“Productivity ranking”), all operators are ranked based on the average performance of their wells, as measured by the total oil recovered in the first 2 years. If you only select recent years, 2014-2016 (using the “first production year” selection), you’ll find that Enerplus comes out clearly on top. The 47 operated wells that started in this time frame recovered on average 289 thousand barrels of oil in the first 2 years. Next week I plan to have a new post on the Marcellus. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: DMR of North Dakota. These presentations only show the production from horizontal wells; a small amount (about 30 kbo/d) is produced from conventional vertical wells. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2CrnRnk Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from 93,991 horizontal wells in 10 US states, through June. Cumulative oil and gas production from these wells reached 9.1 Gbo and 101.4 Tcf. Visit ShaleProfile blog to explore the full interactive dashboards In just one and a half year, production from these wells grew by more than 1.5 million bo/d and 10 Bcf/d. Operators increased the pace of drilling and completion activity, and as the ‘Well quality’ tab shows, average well performance also slightly increased from 2016. Wells were completed with longer laterals on average, and proppant loadings increased even more. You can try out our ShaleProfile Analytics service for more details on these trends, e.g. on an operator/basin basis. The two largest shale oil operators, EOG and ConocoPhillips, set new records in June (‘Top operators’ tab). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the relationship between production rates and cumulative production over time. The oil basins are preselected, and wells are grouped by the quarter in which production started. You can see that wells have been tracking steadily higher recoveries over the past years. Since the end of 2016, the pace of improvements appears to have slowed down. Later this week I will have a new post on North Dakota, which just released production figures for August. Production data is subject to revisions. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the sources listed below. FracFocus.org Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Similar as in Texas, lease/unit production is allocated over wells in order to estimate their individual production histories. Montana Board of Oil and Gas New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission North Dakota Department of Natural Resources Ohio Department of Natural Resources Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Texas Railroad Commission. Individual well production is estimated through the allocation of lease production data over the wells in a lease, and from pending lease production data. West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection West Virginia Geological & Economical Survey Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2CJZ2DJ Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data through April, from 90,168 horizontal wells in 10 US states. Cumulative oil and gas production from these wells reached 8.7 Gbo and 96.7 Tcf. The number of well completions in the 2nd half of 2017 was about 60% higher than the average level in 2016, which explains most of the rise in output over the past year. Average initial well productivity in the oily basins did not change much over this period, as shown in the ‘Well quality’ tab. EOG, with an operated production capacity of almost half a million bo/d, is the largest shale oil producer in the US (see the ‘Top operators’ overview). The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows the relationship between cumulative production, and production rates, over time. Also here the oil basins are preselected, and wells are grouped by the year in which production started. By changing the ‘Show wells by’ selection to ‘Quarter of first flow’, you’ll see more recent and granular data. It also reveals that since Q4 2016, the average production profile hasn’t changed as much as before, as noted before. The 1,323 horizontal wells that started in Q4 2016 have recovered each on average just over 140 thousand barrels of oil through April, and declined to a production rate of 140 bo/d. Later this week I will have a new post on North Dakota, which just released June production. Production data is subject to revisions. For these presentations, I used data gathered from the sources listed below. FracFocus.org Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. Similar as in Texas, lease/unit production is allocated over wells in order to estimate their individual production histories. Montana Board of Oil and Gas New Mexico Oil Conservation Commission North Dakota Department of Natural Resources Ohio Department of Natural Resources Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Texas Railroad Commission. Individual well production is estimated through the allocation of lease production data over the wells in a lease, and from pending lease production data. West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection West Virginia Geological & Economical Survey Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight http://bit.ly/2ORa9Nn Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data through May from all 13,545 horizontal wells in North Dakota that started production since 2005. May oil production in North Dakota came in at 1,245 kbo/d, after a month-on-month increase of 1.6%. This pushed production higher than the previous all-time high in December 2014. Recent wells are closely tracking the performance of the wells that started in 2017 (see the bottom graph in the ‘Well quality’ tab), on average. In May 109 new wells started flowing, the highest since September 2015 (see the ‘first flow’ status in the ‘Well status’ overview). In the final tab (‘Top operators’) you’ll find that ConocoPhillips has grown production the most in the past 1.5 year (percentage wise), to almost 100 thousand barrels of oil per day, making it the 3rd largest producer in this state, behind Continental Resources and Whiting. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate recovery” overview shows how all these horizontal wells are heading towards their ultimate recovery, with wells grouped by the year in which production started. More wells started in 2017 than in 2016 (970 vs 724), and their initial performance was also substantially higher, as the plot above shows. They recovered on average almost 100 thousand barrels of oil in the first 6 months on production, a level that took almost 12 months for wells that started 2 years earlier. If you group the wells by the quarter in which they started (using the ‘Show wells by’ selection), you’ll see that the initial performance of the wells that started in the 3rd quarter last year was especially high, with close to 150 thousand barrels in the first 9 months. Although not so profitable, associated gas production rose even more, which becomes visible if you change the ‘Product’ selection to ‘Gas’. This is displayed in more depth in the 9th tab (‘Gas oil ratio’), where you can see in the bottom graph that this ratio has risen almost uninterruptedly in the past decade. As mentioned in my last posts, next week we will be present at the URTeC in Houston, so if you like to know more about our upcoming analytics services, I’ll be more than happy to show you our vision and give you a demo. We’ll start posting again in the week after. Production data is subject to revisions.For these presentations, I used data gathered from the following sources: DMR of North Dakota. These presentations only show the production from horizontal wells; a small amount (about 30 kbo/d) is produced from conventional vertical wells. FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight https://shaleprofile.com/index.php/2018/07/19/north-dakota-update-through-may-2018 Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

This interactive presentation contains the latest gas (and a little oil) production data through April, from all 8,137 horizontal wells in Pennsylvania that started producing since 2010. After the significant jump in output at the end of last year, gas production has remained fairly steady at a level around 16 Bcf/d, and just like in the past 3 years there was a small dip in May. Only 252 horizontal wells started production in Pennsylvania in the first 5 months of this year, which was the lowest number since 2010. The initial performance of these new wells is similar to the ones that started in 2017, which were the best to date (see the bottom graph in the ‘Well quality’ tab). Cabot has taken over the lead from Chesapeake as the largest gas operator in this area, as you’ll see in the ‘Top operators’ tab. The top 5 operators shown there operate more than half of total unconventional gas production in this state. The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below: This “Ultimate Return” overview shows the relationship between gas production rates, and cumulative gas production, averaged for all horizontal wells that started producing in a certain year. The ~600 wells that started in 2010 have now recovered on average 3.3 Bcf, and are now at a flow rate of 600 Mcf/d. By extrapolating the 2014 curve, you’ll see that these wells are likely to recover about double this number by the time they’ve declined to this flow rate. In the 6th tab (‘Productivity map’), you’ll find which areas in Pennsylvania are the most productive, as measured by the average cumulative gas production in the first 2 years. Last week we launched the ShaleProfile Analytics portal at the URTeC, in which the performance of more than 100 thousand horizontal wells in the US can be analyzed in even more detail than here on the blog. This portal also allows you to see the detailed location of all these wells, and analyze how changing lateral lengths and proppant loadings has affected well performance, among many other capabilities. We’ll have soon more information about this on our webpage. If you’re interested you can already find some brief information, and the possibility to request a trial license, in this link. Next week I plan to have new updates on the Permian and the Eagle Ford. Production data is subject to revisions. For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection FracFocus.org Visit our blog to read the full post and use the interactive dashboards to gain more insight https://shaleprofile.com/index.php/2018/08/02/marcellus-pa-update-through-may-2018/ Follow us on Social Media: Twitter: @ShaleProfile Linkedin: ShaleProfile Facebook: ShaleProfile

Capital for small independents has been an issue since the downturn and doesn't appear to be abating even with $65-70 oil. Banks have been less interested in providing much needed capital to these smaller entities. When the oil market crashed in 2014, there were 177 bankruptcies as a result. Why did they occur? Simple... the banks lent the oil companies money based on their reserves, valued at $80-100 per barrel. When the market crashed to $27 a barrel, the banks called the loans but the money was in the ground and everyone was upside down. Needless to say, it was a bad decision all around; relying on a fractious commodity price to service a hard asset with a terminable interest rate that needed to be paid back come hell or bankruptcy. The result is the small to medium operator has no source of capital. They're too small for the larger banks or private equity firms to be interested. Volumetric Production Payments, (VPPs), have been used prior to even the oil and gas industry drilling its first well... in the gold rush days to be exact. It provides financing by using existing production to forward finance re-works, re-completions, PUD drilling etc. The production is bought at a discount to the market and a strict delivery schedule is offered to the financial source and hedged. Typical terms are 3-4 years at the end of the term, the producer gets his total production back. Normal terms are for the producer to retain 40-70% of his existing production during the term. There are about 9,000 independent oil and gas producers in the U.S and employ an average of just 12 people...this is a market niche that desperately need to be served.