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Hey Oil Barons.......


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3 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Landmen, fill me in. At my last job, drilling two years in the Eagle Ford, landmen were very, very touchy and angry. I know y’all have to interface with landowners and promises from the E&P get broken often, but is that the usual mood? Just pissed off at everything?

The older guys all hate their f***ing lives. I don’t get it, but they’ve seen some shit. I haven’t met one that isn’t cynical. The business has changed a great deal. It’s much more administrative now. F*** ton of meetings they don’t want to be in.
 

The old guys tell funny war stories, but the underlying rage is there. 
 

Eagle Ford leases back in 2012-2018 were very complex with pretty tough continuous development clauses. And the documents were written by regarded South Texas personal injury attorneys. Random paragraphs that shouldn’t be in an O&G lease. References to irrelevant Texas Supreme Court cases.

I’m pretty fortunate in that I deal with state and federal agencies, and other O&G companies 95% of the time. Everybody is a professional. There are some Biden Administration shenanigans, but that they’re manageable and can be planned around. 

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10 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

The older guys all hate their f***ing lives. I don’t get it, but they’ve seen some shit. I haven’t met one that isn’t cynical. The business has changed a great deal. It’s much more administrative now. F*** ton of meetings they don’t want to be in.
 

The old guys tell funny war stories, but the underlying rage is there. 
 

Eagle Ford leases back in 2012-2018 were very complex with pretty tough continuous development clauses. And the documents were written by regarded South Texas personal injury attorneys. Random paragraphs that shouldn’t be in an O&G lease. References to irrelevant Texas Supreme Court cases.

I’m pretty fortunate in that I deal with state and federal agencies, and other O&G companies 95% of the time. Everybody is a professional. There are some Biden Administration shenanigans, but that they’re manageable and can be planned around. 

Those leases still exist, by the way. They never left. 

I’ve never seen a grouchy Landman while in-house (I’m in the new school batch, I guess), but I have seen, and have had to do it myself personally, situations where we have to tell the rest of the company no on something because of land and legal. I know you guys want to go out there and break open some prime rock that has everyone in the building with a STEM degree creaming their pants, but we have to check the legal boxes first to make sure we have the right to do it. So, I am effectively being the Bad News Bear all the time. And don’t even get me started on the Production Accounting side. 
 

But I realize that I am raining on the parade and try not to be an asshole about it. We’re all just doing our jobs and when we’re all in sync, we make the company a lot of money. 

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Former field landmen are especially grouchy. Every single one of them has a story. Ruined vehicles, credit card debt, paycheck/reimbursement issues, roach motels, having their tires slashed in Ohio because of Texas plates, and the always classic “I had a shotgun pulled on me” lessor house calls. 

This work will burn you out, but my current company of 5+ years is much better than my last stop. No mandatory travel and they’ll hire as many contractors as I request. I like the grind. Keeps me sharp. Alcohol and 9/80s help. 

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Former field landmen are especially grouchy. Every single one of them has a story. Ruined vehicles, credit card debt, paycheck/reimbursement issues, roach motels, having their tires slashed in Ohio because of Texas plates, and the always classic “I had a shotgun pulled on me” lessor house calls. 

This work will burn you out, but my current company of 5+ years is much better than my last stop. No mandatory travel and they’ll hire as many contractors as I request. I like the grind. Keeps me sharp. Alcohol and 9/80s help. 

I can’t go back to 5 days a week every week. Currently 4-10s but 9-80, especially if hybrid, is a great schedule.
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13 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

Most old landmen are also unrepentant alcoholics, in my experience. 

When I first got out of law school and went and ran title for a year, used to get a kick at the old veteran coots that "worked" maybe 20 hours/week, billing $400/day or more and complaining about politics.

I loved having those guys on the crew. It was job security when it came time to cut the fat. Will they keep the old curmudgeon who was over paid and barely worked or the scrappy young guy constantly turning in work product, cost less, and had the attitude of “learning every day”? 

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19 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Landmen, fill me in. At my last job, drilling two years in the Eagle Ford, landmen were very, very touchy and angry. I know y’all have to interface with landowners and promises from the E&P get broken often, but is that the usual mood? Just pissed off at everything?


angry old White men, but they love those big checks 

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9 hours ago, Storm the Field said:

Interesting, as there's not much overlap between the two's operations. More of a pure portfolio expansion than a consolidation play. CVX is getting Hess's position as one of the primary Bakken operators and their 30% stake in XOM's huge project off the coast of Guyana.

I believe the Guyana stuff drove the bus. 
 

What does Hess’ GOM assets look like? 

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I believe the Guyana stuff drove the bus. 
 
What does Hess’ GOM assets look like? 
It's pretty minimal. They make like 30k net bbls/day from GOM and operate 3, maybe 4, fields. They have a pretty minimal exploration leasehold, too. Guyana sucked all the capital away, understandably. Most of the private players have a more valuable GOM portfolio.
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On 11/4/2023 at 2:01 PM, tx 3 putt said:

Exxon just announced its highest profits in their 152-year history, raking in $19,660,000,000.

Exxon and Chevron's combined profits in the last quarter were the equivalent of $14 million per hour.
 

#pricegouging 

Now do Apple and Google, and compare returns on capital employed.  Short cut, the latter are much bigger and enjoy double the ROCE.  The oil cos spend twice as much capital to make the equivalent tech co dollar 

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Motiva is selling terminals to Global Partners LP. I have a good friend who supports these assets and he's not too happy about it. Anyone know much about GP?
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231108711745/en/Global-Partners-LP-to-Acquire-25-Liquid-Energy-Terminals-from-Motiva-Enterprises-LLC

I worked for Motiva for about 15 months. Holy shit, what a disfunctional group. But this was several years ago. They cleaned house and I survived as a contractor. Some funny stories from that time. Like the team building in New Orleans and one of the managers, probably 65 years old and married, decided to stash his condoms in the projector bag. Like 10 condoms.
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Kinder Morgan made an acquisition of some pipeline I just saw today for you Houston folks. Lots of consolidation in the mid-stream it seems, after OneOK also bought Magellan. 

It was the STX assets of NextEra Energy. Used to work for them before I jumped ship a few yrs ago when they sold their system in Houston. Figured that 1.5bcf/d line to Mexico is what they were licking their chops on.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Record U.S. oil production is pushing prices down. I was out in the Permian last month. Booming. New construction everywhere, especially hotels and motels in places like Monahans, Pecos etc...

"U.S. oil production has touched new record highs in recent weeks.

Why it matters: American production is part of the reason that recent efforts by OPEC — and its strategic ally, Russia — haven't been able to end the slide in global oil prices.

  • Economic weakness in China — the world's largest oil importer — is dampening demand and also playing a role in the price drop."


https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/us-oil-production-record

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On 12/7/2023 at 9:14 AM, 52-80 said:

they filling up the SPR at these prices yet?

DOE has begun purchasing barrels for the SPR, but claims they can only physically take delivery of 3M barrels/month.

Several smart econ guys I follow on Twitter have proposed DOE should set up a system for ongoing long-term purchase contracts and worry about taking physical delivery later. 

 

Edited by Storm the Field
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KSA will flood the market like they did in ‘14-15, drive down prices just long enough for most of us to get laid off while a bunch of DUCs are on standby and the remaining skeleton land crews furiously try to extend leases, and then everything will go back to normal in less than a year. 

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KSA will flood the market like they did in ‘14-15, drive down prices just long enough for most of us to get laid off while a bunch of DUCs are on standby and the remaining skeleton land crews furiously try to extend leases, and then everything will go back to normal in less than a year. 

Hmmm, now that’s an idea. Maybe the company I was at will do just that. Then when shit kicks back in and they ramp up, it’s my chance to go back. Haha.
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On 12/12/2023 at 11:01 AM, Frank Drebin said:

Oxy buying CrownRock for $12 billion.  

On 12/12/2023 at 7:33 PM, billfromlaketravis said:

Please. Stop. Spending. Money. 

Uncle Warren seems to disagree with you  - Berkshire increased their stake in Oxy to just over 26%, buying about $600 million this week 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
17 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Callon still exists. You could have fooled me. 

I know several land guys at Callon. Not a big company, but one of the more active operators in the Delaware the last few years. They merged with Cimarex maybe 5 years ago and made some other small acquisitions the last few years. Recently bought out the latest iteration of Percussion.

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