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i havent paid much attention to RIG for long time. I'm sure semi_inf knows much more than me. All I can say is that they have terrible luck and timing. Around 2010 i remember SLB execs talking up the importance of establishing their equipment on a new fleet of RIG vessels. Then the deepwater business didnt proceed to recover and prolonged oil price weakness has left companies like SLB mired in a position where they have no pricing power for >10 yrs. I suspect RIG's position is similar.
having "energy services" as part of the company name is also popular. Basic Energy, Select Energy Services, and C&J do a lot of business in Delaware. C&J was one of the 2 letter names i was having a brain freeze on.
Is your thinking that with lower quality logging service companies that more fishing necessary to retrieve tools?
I suspect that with majors stepping up presence that they’ll go with the larger service companies. SLB lowering already low presence will b the big loser and HAL the big winner in that case.
HAL and many small and mid-size service companies. Calfrac I’m sure of and I think Superior and Precision. Lots of 2 and 3 letter companies - most of which I never heard of prior to moving here.
in production side: XTO is obviously stepping up their presence
this was almost inevitable and I’m surprised it took this long (~4 years overdue)
and on a related note: SLB laid off >100 people in one of their Permian basin operations about 1 week ago. From what I’ve seen, SLB business in Permian has been almost nonexistent for past 2 years.
I think there’s a trend in the bourbon biz that’s somewhat similar to the shift of craft beer/microbrewing ~20 yrs ago. Distilling and aging is trickier than for beer but there r cooperative arrangements popping up between small distilleries and craft whisky makers. The distilleries make to order and the craft ‘chefs’ dont have to sweat the capital investment for x years before they get their product to market.
quite endearing. Not sure what your point is but if something need be bought at Home Depot, then the cost is higher - not necessarily because an item is priced higher in SE NM vs Cambridge, MA- but because the nearest Home Depot is a 1 hour trek through the desert on roads that are not the safest in the country. Time is money. Not much different in principle to higher cost of shipping oil in trucks and trains versus pipelines.
You obviously have never lived in a place whose economy is largely tied to oil production. The local Burger King etc have to pay starting wages of $14/hr because as one of my friends puts it: "anybody that can pee a clean stream" has a better paying job in the oil business. That should give you a new perspective on eating at fast food restaurants in such places. Every burger comes with a side of Hep C.
Any business in this area that doesnt adjust their prices for the higher stocking and operating costs goes out of business. A Carl's Junior did the 'me too' thing and opened a store here last August. It's gone now. "Me too" is a big operating principle in the oil biz. Doesnt make it smart.
that depends on how and what costs are being measured. Leasing costs are certainly not amongst the lowest in the US. In addition, I wasnt limiting my points to the US.
I live in the Delaware Basin. It's a s-hole. That in itself doesnt make it much different from many other oil producing regions. And like many other 'boom' areas, the costs for damn near anything and everything are inflated and usually poor to mediocre in quality. Doesnt matter if it's hardware, services, or housing for employees (which are Boston like without having a Whole Foods within 200 miles).
I keep reading about (and seeing) Permian operators drilling more wells and pumping more oil and not making profits so even if I accept your assertion that costs are amongst the lowest in the US, that still doesnt make the APC purchase wise.
seems like it just makes OXY more of a one trick pony in a place where lease and operation costs are high while oil prices arent exactly rocking. If diversification in investment is still considered wise and better deals can be had elsewhere, then i dont see why this is such a smart move for OXY. Of course, smart or optimal might not have much to do with the matter. It looks a bit desperate to me and i suspect that's where the proximity of OXY's and APC's holdings is important.
“The nutrition label says that one patty offers 30% of the RDA for iron, although it’s unclear what the source of the iron is”
Heme: they claim it provides the meat-like flavor and I’m sure it provides coloration
I’m not convinced that raising yeasts in fermenters in climatically controlled rooms has any environmental benefit and if nutrition is the concern, then I’m sure there r cheaper ways of accomplishing that
u r probably correct but seems kind of foolish to focus on where their oil is coming from versus how much money can be made from wherever they can obtain oil
? for all: why is HES not a better target?
Armand Hammer died
if the conclusion is parsed down to "reduction in CO2 emissions from highway traffic", then my answer is that i dont know. Overall, I doubt that EVs will reduce CO2 emissions over ICE vehicles. My doubt comes from the CO2 capture side. The advantage that EVs have with regard to CO2 emissions reduction comes from the centralization of electrical power generation. That centralization enables practical capture of CO2 if carbon-based fuels are used for generating the electrical power. I dont think wind and solar can entirely replace carbon-based fuels for electrical power generation unless nuclear gets a massive rejuvenation.
I think methane fueled ICE vehicles are likely to be worse than EVs when all things are considered. My brief experience NG vehicles is that they suck. The amount of money spent on repair bills alone makes any other kind of vehicle preferable and the fueling aspect is arguably worse than for EVs.
"CO2 emissions generated in mining the raw materials for the production of electric vehicle" is chasing the wrong rabbit. Mining of raw materials happens regardless of what material is used for producing and powering a vehicle. I suspect that the cost and energy differential between mining the iron, aluminum, etc that goes into manufacturing an ICE vehicle is similar to the mining and energy costs associated with producing an EV and its batteries over the life of the EV.
The important difference in energy costs is in the processing of the raw materials that go into making and transporting the fuels for ICE fuels versus manufacture of the batteries and charging of those batteries for an EV. The manufacturing of batteries is not nearly as tidy as the refining of oil - not to mention that a good chunk of the stuff in EV batteries comes from oil/NG. When a barrel of oil is refined to produce x gallons of gasoline there is energy stored in those gallons of gasoline that can be normalized against the energy spent to produce those gallons whereas when a battery pack for an EV is produced it is effectively devoid of any stored energy and it's not like there is zero CO2 generated in the manufacture of a battery. If you think comparing the gas tank to the battery is a more appropriate comparator, then the battery still loses.
It's probably fairer to compare the fuel and maintenance costs associated with EV over the lifespan of a battery versus the fuel and maintenance costs associated with an ICE vehicle over the same number of miles as for the EV battery. I suspect that the maintenance costs are where EVs have the biggest advantage over ICE vehicles. If CO2 reduction is truly a goal, then that is also an advantage but i don't believe that politicians and their constituencies are sincere on that front.
the phrase "methane from CO2-free energy sources" is more than a bit odd. The C in CH4 doesnt just magically transmute to an inert substance along with a release of usable energy.
As an aside: if you ever have a chance to see a solar panel manufacturing plant you might mistake it for a small oil refinery - except that it will probably have a large berm built around the entire facility rather than only around storage tanks (assuming there's an adjacent population). That's because some of the chemicals used in the manufacturing process are rather nasty and nobody wants another Bhopal. I suspect that manufacture of EV battery packs are similarly messy. This is the part that most lay people miss when discussing the 'cleanliness' of various fuel/power mediums.
“refused to sign off on the 17 dams and dikes because they adopted more conservative models for their analyses, not because the structures themselves had become more unstable”
Jeesh. Vale needs to send its people to a better school on writing reassuring messages.
The way I read that is: we had some folks rubber stamping safety certificates on unsafe dams but don’t mind that, we have some competent people evaluating our dams now. Same dam but now we know it’s a piece of crap.
WP story. World burnt more coal than ever in 2018
https://apple.news/A104EHxm4QVaWDIZ-xDPtHA
They’re not much different. Feed ‘em and they multiply
you obviously havent been to enough miserable places. flies, mosquitoes, spiders, and snakes seem to be everywhere 8^). since you listed rats, i think generic flies, snakes, and mosquitoes are fair game (as opposed to different species of each)
Pick a species: I’d bet the only times that there have been worldwide population reductions has been due to large regional natural disasters/geologic/climactic events or disease. As long as there is abundant food, creatures multiply.
Sure humidity is also a necessary component for mold but she has a home in Houston and one near Galveston. No problem in Houston. As i said before, sea spray has a lot of organic material in it.
I used to spend a lot of time at my grandparents on Siesta Key - Point of Rocks (well before the TV show). Constantly, replacing window frames etc. and religious car washing. That's why i tend to be skeptical of complicated, widespread infrastructure for power generation in or near salt water. Of course, deserts have their own problems.
re the glass panels: that is why i mentioned the film that forms from sea spray.That film is not strictly inorganic so can get molds growing in parts not exposed to sunlight.
stainless steel parts will probably fare ok but anything made from aluminum will corrode (i.e. frames). If rivets are not made from corrosion resistant materials, then they eventually loosen.
There tends to be a lot of environmental wear to objects located on beaches and windows, including frames, need to be constantly washed. Cars residing at beach front residences can have similar corrosion problems to those residing in Michigan with a few extras. A friend had her Mercedes convertible coupe parked in a garage at her beach house. She hadnt driven it for several weeks and when she went to take it for a drive discovered that the inside was completely molded.
Not really. Salt spray isn’t friendly to metals and I suspect that without continuous cleaning (water usage) the film on solar panels would severely diminish efficiency
The failed dam was at the mine site E-NE and downstream of Brumadinho proper
https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/BVHOM7BCLQI6TNNUDUMN7N5QQQ.jpg
the pond behind the failed dam is tiny relative to the lake just west of Brumadinho. Note that the dam failed at its bottom and there still appears to be water/mud in the pond
The 2nd nearby mine dam appears to b failing in the same way
There may be some conflating of events and names in that CNN story. I think the dam that failed was about 4 miles due west of Brumadinho and drains almost directly through Brumadinho whereas the Feijao mine is at least 10 miles E-NE. there may’ve also been a failure at the mine and the dam west of Brumadinho may’ve been constructed by Vale but it looks like the mine and dam r otherwise unrelated
aka conning the gullible and ignorant masses
semi_infinite and jbog are better resources for your questions. It’s definitely not a penny wise, pound foolish situation. The short story is that the reasons behind relationships between E&P companies and oilfield service companies is no different than any other business. The guys that make Oreo cookies don’t make the boxes or the machines to put the cookies in the box or the trucks to get them to market.
With respect to a production company obtaining a service from Superior versus SLB, the latter has a tendency to “gold plate” services and try to tie on additional services or jobs in order to support their higher overhead. Obviously, the producer doesn’t care so they’ll go with the lower cost provider unless SLB can demonstrate some over-riding advantage. In the past few years I think they’ve lost that ability- largely because I suspect resources such as the Permian basin don’t require highly specialized approaches and SLB has not supported lower cost services and tools to compete in such domains (I’ll defer to semi_inf on the 1st part. I know the 2nd part is true.).
With regard to pumping horsepower: in the 200x’s I frequently heard comments in SLB about how “any mom and pop company with a few million $ could operate a pumping fleet”. In places where power, transportation and water are readily available, offering an advantage over mom and pop is more difficult for higher overhead providers. Water is a problem in the Permian but that’s a business for yet a different set of service providers and I suspect the margins are very tight so producers are happy with the situation.
I frequently see HAL pumping trucks rumbling around the Delaware. I see smaller operator pumpers as well but they’re not as distinctive. I’ve never seen a SLB truck bigger than a pickup or personnel shuttle van. They have field stations in surrounding towns but I don’t know how they’re making money. Of the big field service providers, I think HAL is much more flexible and nimble vs SLB
and I suspect that the SLB research finding is biased in that SLB tends to be called in for desperate cases in the Permian.
I drove thru Big Springs TX to Hobbs NM couple days ago. Drilling and work over rig business is still booming but I’m amazed at how much of the work is being done by smaller service companies.
Industrial hemp has such a low THC content that someone smoking it to get high would die of lung disease 1st. Of course, some folks accurately recognize that many readers will selectively omit the word “industrial” in their little misinformation games.
couple months ago a 10 yr lease on a 2 sq mile section in Eddy County NM went for nearly $100M. I think folks r drilling and completing on the cheap but the wsj article is correct about other costs making breakeven higher than claimed
Sounds like Sandia National Lab now. Employees r graded by 9 “behaviors”. Incompetence isn’t 1 of the 9 so that is allowed.
a few weeks ago I drove by a new man camp that looked like auschwitz minus the barbed wire and guard towers. It looked like they were anticipating 1000s of tenants. Most of the man camps are 5th wheel parks but these were barack style. I was thinking that it was a sure sign of over confidence in oil prices. ~60% of the local population is now itinerant oilfield workers. Won’t bode well for local economies in Permian and Delaware
Doesn’t look like much of a drop but I have a hard time believing that Permian bottlenecks or lack of demand are reasons for poor frack sand company performance. It’s just a lousy business.
“Who benefits from this global demographic tailwind???”
Copper miners
Or is an expert but may not want to bother with a substantive, critical review.
It is nominally peer-reviewed but the peer-review system is quite broken - at least in the earth sciences. In the immediate case the economics may be bad for the purported application but the science might b fine. Conversely, until recently I worked with an individual who was a prolific publisher but his models are frequently unreproducible and statistical nonsense and his experiments contain things other than what he reported in his papers. However, all of his work purportedly made it thru an internal review process and then the journal peer-review. Some of that work may eventually be retracted as a consequence of my ‘suggestions’ that people might want to look at things more deeply but that doesn’t negate the fact that obvious flaws either escaped peer exposure prior to publication or the peer-reviewers intentionally ignored those flaws. The perspective of some scientists is that “some people need to have their incompetence exposed”. I don’t think that latter approach works well because many managers/Deans/granting agencies simply count publications.
Yet another stupid idea. Precipitating magnesium carbonate or hydroxycarbonate isn’t particularly difficult. The folks getting pumped r just making it more expensive by throwing polystyrene nucleation sites in - polystyrene being free of course (sarcasm). They also don’t state the source of their free Mg2+.
shelled water critters r good at performing the process for free. I don’t understand why anyone would get excited about humans spending money on replicating it for inefficiently
I see a lot of komatsu equipment locally although cat has more vendors. I have a narrow view but the only cat equipment I’ve seen in operation locally has been on government projects.
That has to b one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever seen
Your leading line exemplifies the mishmash of illogic and false and misleading statements in that article. Anybody that wastes enough time to make to the bottom of the article will note that the comment about “Most Toxic Food” pertains to of the 5 foods tested. Hardly grounds for extrapolating to all foods and there is no mention of what the comparators were.
Is the author advocating that we all become vegans? It’s hard to tell what food he considers safe.