Category Archives: Energy

more on oil

August 4, 2015 By in emerging markets, Energy, Industry Analysis, shale oil Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

As I was thinking about this post, I knew that oil is a complicated subject and that there’s a risk of getting lost in the details.  So I decided to sketch out the structure of the post carefully on paper before I began to write.  Several pages of notes later, I abandoned the attempt, in favor of extreme simplicity (I hope).

oil

Like any other mineral commodity, oil is subject to boom and bust cycles.  We’re now in bust, meaning that supply is structurally higher than demand, exerting continuous downward pressure on prices.

As with any other commodity, prices will stay low until supply and demand come back into balance.  The slow way for this to happen is for demand, now at about 93 million barrels per day and growing at 1%+ per year, to expand.  The fast way is for prices to stay low enough, long enough for high-cost producers to go out of business.  As I see it, adjustment will primarily come the fast way.

Oil is peculiar, though, in two respects, both of which argue that prices will stay low for a considerable time:

–many major oil producing countries (e.g., the Middle East, Russia) have relatively simple economies that are radically dependent on exports of oil for government income.  Over the past year, OPEC oil output has actually risen by about 1.5 million barrels per day, despite the expanding glut.  This indicates that, unlike prior periods of oversupply, the group has no desire to try to moderate the downturn.

–the long-term geological damage to a big oilfield from turning the taps off and on can be great.  So producers are more hesitant than in other industries to do so.

the catalyst

Arguably, what has upset the pricing applecart is the unanticipated surge in oil production in the US, which was 5.6 million barrels per day this time in 2011 and is 9.5 million today.  Hydraulic fracturing is the reason for this.

where to from here?

US oil production is still averaging more than a million barrels per day higher than in 2014.  However, the steady month by month march upward of output figures may have been broken in May, when liftings were about 200,000 barrels a day less than in April.

My guess (and I’m doing little more than plucking numbers out of the air) is that at $50 a barrel or below, new fracking projects won’t get started. Under $40 a barrel, some wells may be shut in.  If a production falloff comes solely through the former mechanism, we’re probably a year away from a meaningful (translation:  more than a million barrels, but after that, who knows) decline in fracking output.

That would likely mean a higher oil price then than now, IF (…a big “if”) OPEC nations desperate for cash don’t up their production further.

what I’m doing

I have no desire to buy oil stocks today, because I think we’re not that far along in getting supply and demand back into balance.  In the early 1980s, for example, the entire process from top to bottom took about half a decade.  I’m also thinking that there might either be another sharp price decline, or simply a further sharp selloff in oil stocks before the current oversupply is over.  I’ve just started to think about what I might buy if either were to happen.  One thing is certain, though.  It won’t be the big oils, or tar sands, or LNG.

more than you ever wanted to know

When I started on Wall Street as an oil analyst, oil and natural gas sold for roughly the same price per unit of heating power.  Natural gas has been less than half the cost of oil on a heating equivalent basis for many years, however, because it isn’t in widespread use as a transportation fuel and because it takes a pipeline to deliver it to customers.  Natural gas is already being substituted for coal in power generation.  Will it ever have a dampening effect on the ability of the oil price to rise?

oil and gold: finding the commodity cycle bottom

July 30, 2015 By in Capital-intensive firms, contribution margin, Energy, Gold, Industry Analysis, Mining Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

I got my first couple of portfolio manager jobs in the 1980s because one of my industry specializations as  a securities analyst was natural resources.  Back then, there were an enormous number of mining analysts in an information industry based in London.  The large size and vitality of the analyst community were partly because there had been an enormous spike in the prices of gold and oil in the late 1970s-early 1980s. So investors were willing to pay handsomely for information and interpretation.  Also, the prevalent economic theory of the day, since proved to be woefully incorrect, held that a necessary condition for global economic growth was a continuously expanding supply of mineral resources.

When the Chinese economic expansion-driven commodities boom began a decade and a half later, I found that, unsurprisingly after 15 years of no one being interested, the entire stock market information infrastructure for metals had disappeared.  There were still the odd steel or oil analyst around eking out a living and staggering toward retirement, but little else, either in London or New York.

As far as I can see, from an information perspective the situation is at least as bad today.  In the perverse way that Wall Street works, however, that lack itself is the basis of the positive thesis for mining in general.

industry characteristics

Mineral extraction industries are very capital-intensive.  This means that projects typically require large amounts of up-front money. But they can often continue, once up and running, for long periods without new funds being put in.

Mining projects often have very long lives.

Very often, projects are also huge.  This is partly the nature of the beast, partly a function of the temperament of the people who run minerals companies.  This means that new supply is often added in gigantic chunks.  New supply almost invariably arrives in amounts way above the increase in demand and typically, therefore, marks the high water mark in terms of price.  Boom and bust, boom and bust–the rhythm of these markets.

finding the bottom

Falling prices indicates that there’s more supply than demand.  In theory, that situation can be reversed either by demand expanding or by supply contracting.  In practice, the first rarely happens.

What establishes the bottom for these markets, in my experience, is a price decline that’s deep enough to force high-cost capacity to close.  This does not mean the price at which companies stop earning a financial reporting profit.  That price is too high.  That’s because it includes as an expense a non-cash allowance for recovering the money spent to open the project.  A company can also be compelled to sell at unfavorable prices by creditors.

What actually matters is the point at which the out-of-pocket cash cost of getting output out of the ground is less than what it can be sold for.  That’s the point at which projects begin to shut themselves down.  They may not do so immediately.  They may continue to bleed in the hope of an imminent turnaround.

For gold, the relevant figure is around $850 an ounce, I think.  Oil is a bit more complicated, but the magic number is likely about $40 a barrel.

More tomorrow.

 

 

Tesla (TSLA) or Solar City (SCTY)–which to choose

May 6, 2015 By in Autos, battery power, Energy, family owned companies, Industry Analysis, securities markets, stock market, Technology Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

TSLA and SCTY are terrestrial companies run by Elon Musk.  TSLA makes electric-powered cars; SCTY generates electric power with solar cells.

what they have in common

Both are publicly traded.

Both are speculative stocks, in the sense that assessing their value involves projecting results far into the future.

Both are trying to transform staid industries that have been around for a long time.

Both are big users of capital.

Both face substantial regulatory barriers to their success.

–For TSLA, it’s the regulations in many states that prohibit a car manufacturer from selling its products direct to the consumer.  Instead, the carmaker has to use an independent dealer network.

–Because at present they generally have no ability to store power on-site, SCTY clients generally sell the power generated by their solar panels to the electric utilities and purchase power from the grid as they need it run their electrical devices.  Utilities would, naturally, like to buy at 2 and sell at 4.  Regulations, however, force them to trade both ways at the same price, but only so long as solar is a tiny percentage of their business.  In addition, electric utilities are the ones who inspect any local power storage batteries that a household/firm may install.  The utilities aren’t falling all over themselves rushing to do this.

I have small positions in both.

how they differ

Personally, I find SCTY the more conceptually interesting company.

On the other hand, I feel much more comfortable with TSLA.

Why?

It isn’t the industry or the capital structure.

It’s the gigantic battery factory that Musk is in the process of building.

Both TSLA and SCTY can be seen as different ways to create demand for highly sophisticated batteries.  Both are certainly radically dependent on having cutting-edge battery technology.  Arguably, batteries are the main source of value in the products of either firm.

But who owns the battery factory?  TSLA.  To me, this means that Elon Musk’s main economic interest likes in TSLA, not SCTY.  History says an investor wants to have his money in the same place as the entrepreneur he’s betting on.

 

thinking about the oil price

March 26, 2015 By in Energy, Industry Analysis, shale oil Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I’ve been reading lately that many US oil companies are continuing to drill for shale oil, despite the fall in the price of crude.  However, while they are finishing drilling holes in the ground, they’re not yet “completing” the wells.  That is, they’re not fracking the underground deposits by pumping in water/sand/chemicals to create a path for the hydrocarbons to get to the well.  Nor are they installing the equipment a working well requires.

There’s even a name for these already drilled but not completed wells–fracklog.

The decision not to complete is easy to understand.  There’s already too much oil sloshing around in the world.  Why spend money to add to the problem–maybe even pushing prices down enough to make your own efforts unprofitable.

Why continue to drill, though?

Lots of potential reasons.

A drilling rig may be under contract, so the oil explorer has to pay for it whether used or not.  Drilling a certain number of wells may be necessary to keep mineral rights to specific acreage.  In the case of companies with too much debt, the bankers may be calling the shots (although such wells will surely be completed as fast as possible).  Some exploration firms have also made it clear that they consider today’s oil price to be a purely temporary dip.  So they’re going to continue to drill no matter what.

What’s important for investors, though, is how the fracklog may affect any rebound in the oil price.

My picture is that oil is bouncing along at or near the bottom, waiting for high cost production to leave the market.  As/when that happens, and as world GDP growth gradually increases demand for petroleum, the oil price will begin to rise again.

I think the fracklog creates a ceiling above which oil will find it difficult to rise.  It implies that when these backlogged wells become profitable enough, a rush of new output will hit the market.  Maybe the appropriate price is $70 a barrel.  $60, anyone?  It’s almost certainly below $100.

If I’m correct, an eventual oil price rise will be unpleasant for consumers but not devastating.  Also, the buy/sell decision for any oil producer becomes much more a sharp pencil exercise than a thematic call on the possibility of boundless price increases for output.

 

 

off to a very slow start today…

March 25, 2015 By in Energy, Industry Analysis, shale oil Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

…so I’m not going to write very much.

During the first world oil shock (1971 – 74), the US was unique among developed countries in enacting a byzantine system of oil price and distribution controls aimed at preventing the ipact of higher prices from affecting the country (don’t ask for details).

One facet was to price oil from already producing wells substantially below world market level.  The idea, I guess, was to prevent owners of oil from enjoying a profit windfall from the upward spike in oil that was occurring at that time.  One unintended effect of the legislation was that the supply of such “old” oil began to shrink rather rapidly.

After controls were abolished during the Reagan administration, curious as always, I asked executives of a number of big oils whether the falloff in  “old” was due to lack of new investment or to a deliberate decision to shut the wells down to await for higher prices.  The answer was uniformly the latter.

I think something similar is beginning to happen in the US today–not the price controls, shutting wells in.

More tomorrow.