Energy Industry Looks To The Future At 2019 San Juan Basin Energy Conference A recent influx of dynamic, new oil and gas operators are bringing innovative applications of modern technology to restore the San Juan Basin to its place as a leading basin in the United States

 

---

LOGOS RESOURCES LLC

Mar 15, 2019, 09:52 ET

• FARMINGTON, N.M., March 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — The San Juan Basin Energy Conference will be held Thursday, April 25^th and Friday, April 26^th at the Henderson Fine Arts Center at San Juan College in Farmington, NM. This two-day event will bring together the San Juan Basin’s top companies and industry experts to share views on the oil and gas industry and discuss plans for the future within the San Juan Basin. The conference will be kicked off on Wednesday, April 24^thwith a dinner at the Courtyard by Marriott.

The San Juan Basin Energy Conference was founded to provide a forum for exchange of ideas regarding the development of the abundant energy resources found in the region. The theme of this year’s conference is “Looking to the Future”. A recent influx of dynamic oil and gas operators, bringing innovative applications of modern technology to the Gallup sandstone and the Mancos shale formations, promises to restore the San Juan Basin to its place as one of leading basins in the United States.

Regional producers continue to leverage their experiences to apply industry-best practices in efficient implementation of the recently-surging development. The San Juan Basin Energy Conference 2019, sponsored in part by Hilcorp, Whiptail Midstream, and LOGOS Resources II, LLC brings together the basin’s top companies and industry experts to share views on the industry and discuss plans for the future within the San Juan Basin.

Tickets and sponsorship information are available at sanjuanbasin2019.com. Ticket prices are $250/person and sponsorship prices range from $1,000–$10,000. Net proceeds will go to San Juan College’s research park, Four Corners Innovations, Inc.

FOUR CORNERS INNOVATIONS, INC.
DOLORES SILSETH
(505) 566-3402
SILSETHD@4CII.ORG

SOURCE LOGOS RESOURCES LLC

Related Links

http://www.logosresourcesllc.com

Reactions to Delaware Basin news shows misunderstanding of petroleum economics by Dr. Daniel Fine

The 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/

News of the size of oil reserves in the Delaware Basin (New Mexico’s share of the Permian) while OPEC was deciding how many barrels it will cut from the world market to lift prices caused epic confusion – and revelations of how little “authorities” and the media understand petroleum economics.

The New Mexico media, which relies mainly on interviews with petroleum industry spokespersons, got it wrong.

Government numbers came out as 46 billion barrels (Permian total) with 26 in New Mexico. This means nothing but oil in good rock along with technical recovery as an estimate. Some excited “authorities,” who should know better, exclaimed that there was more.

However, the estimate is based on the application of technical means to recover the oil. The reserves of real oil depend on ultimate economic recovery. This means technical based on geology, plus economics. A high price will recover the billions of barrels while a low price will not.

In short, the numbers reflect the rocks without economics.

The Delaware reserves plus the Texas Permian are now there to expand supply over 12 million b/d in the United States.

https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-31/html/container.html

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.

Despite some Republicans and the Democratic Party in Congress, violation of human rights over the death of a Saudi journalist and critic of the Crown Prince will not override U.S. national interests in the Middle East.

President Trump has not deviated from post—World War Two foreign and defense policy.

Trump wants low oil prices for American consumers and forced OPEC this summer to pump more to offset export sanctions on Iran.

Still, with OPEC under a deep division which no President could achieve since 1973, Trump as a geopolitical manager of world oil has removed about 500,000 b/d between January and December of 2018. America, via Trump and without a formal cartel alignment, determines much of the price of world oil.

The United States and its Southwest tight and shale oil has changed from dependence on world oil to domination. Never again can OPEC engage the U.S. in a price and market share war as it did in 2014-2016 through supply acceleration in an oversupplied world market.

WTI emerges as the new world price. It is American barrels that set the price and OPEC is a price-taker. Since there are nearly 50 billion barrels in reserve in New Mexico, how will the Permian producers set a return on investment in a free market for petroleum?

Dr. Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico Tech’s Center for Energy Policy and the State of New Mexico Natural Gas Export Coordinator. The opinions expressed are his own.

Dr. Daniel Fine: Trump’s approach to oil and gas: a new course in the San Juan Basin

 

The full article is here-> http://www.daily-times.com/story/money/industries/oil-gas/2017/10/30/fine-trump-new-approach-oil-and-gas-in-san-juan-basin/777153001/

It has been 70 years since a President of the United States has considered domestic oil and gas as a “power” in world affairs. With Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke charting a new course, the Trump Administration is considering a transfer of Federal Land management with natural resources to the Western States.
Coupled with Zinke’s proclamation of American energy world domination, a revolution on how to think about oil and gas in the San Juan Basin is taking place.
The Four Corners BLM management could move across Farmington to the New Mexico state office.  The Bureau of Land Management’s Washington control might move to Denver.
It is more than speeding up Applications for Petroleum Drilling (APD): it is who decides and implements Trump-Zinke. How is San Juan natural gas to advance American oil and gas first in a redesign of domestic resources on a world stage?
Farmington and Carlsbad would control, as New Mexico State offices of oil and gas, new rules with national and global meaning. The San Juan Basin future would have natural gas reserves managed for strategic and economic purposes in the Baltic and Black Seas.  Management would be drawn from New Mexico.
What is the cost for this historic transfer of power from Washington or a non-oil and gas Potomac?
The State of New Mexico must legislate expansion budgets to overcome the limitations of Santa Fe staff in numbers and expertise. Under State Oil and Gas Law, inspectors are needed to inspect wells (62,000).
Inspection of Federal oil and gas wells (transfer from Washington BLM) requires a budgetary alignment with the strategy and vision of Secretary Zinke.
There is a return to the economic development history of America. San Juan Basin natural gas does not depend on localized manufacturing alternatives into natural gas in the Four Corners.  Pipelines take care of markets.  The expansion to ultimate economic recovery is in the new policy of this Administration.
I was the lunch keynote speaker at the Jicarilla Apache Energy Conference in Dulce.  Indian nation natural gas must not be outside American oil and gas first. Investment and production is now a different opportunity. Deals with conventional oil and gas companies were part of the excitement.
Readers of this column in the Energy Magazine have followed a forecast made 11 months ago, in which I have seen warning signs of oversupply of world oil in 2019.
The Initial Public Offering (IPO) shares in Saudi Aramco is doubtful.  China or BP could buy non-controlling blocks of shares as an alternative. If this IPO fails, Saudi Aramco will have little reason to throttle OPEC production downward.
This would open the way for a trend-line similar to 2014. Saudi Arabia is in the first phase of instability.  What happens to Mohammed bin Salmon, the Crown Prince, lies in Qatar, and with the Kurds.
It is important to recognize that the IPO process called for the right of women to obtain driving permits. Underwriters were on notice that such discrimination would distract buyers of Saudi Aramco shares.
Hilcorp’s female staff at Dulce added that they (women in Saudi Arabia) must be 30 years of age and will not be able to drive at night.

Join now for as low as

$9.99 / YR.

Subscribe Now

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has issued an order designed to speed up the BLM’s process for handling drilling applications on federal lands. (Photo: Daily Times file photo)

Daniel Fine is the associate director of New Mexico

Hedging threat and Venezuela Oil By Dr. Daniel Fine

The full article is here-> http://www.daily-times.com/story/money/industries/oil-gas/2017/08/27/hedging-threat-and-venezuela-oil/580510001/

“How can Saudi Arabia and OPEC behind them strike a second blow against shale oil producers in the Southwest? The first was the 2014-2017 price and market share war in which they raised production to put the higher cost Americans out of business.
This was partially abandoned at Algiers in a reversal to opt for a higher price for crude oil from $26 to the high $40 range. The marketing tool is lowering their production by 1,800,000 barrels per day.

The second blow is process.

The Saudi Arabian Oil Ministry and its state company, Saudi Aramco, negotiated in London with Glencore (world’s largest trading combined with mining), banks and hedge funds to see if they could reduce the liquidity necessary for American oil and gas shale producers to hedge forward to obtain a higher price.

Without access at only financial transactions costs to the “strip” or the forward price of oil at at least 10 percent higher than current prices “spot,” WPX and all the Permian-Delaware significant producers would not have survived the recent downturn in their current form.

If there is no difference between the price oil today and September 2018,  which is called the “contango,” this would be a problem of liquidity – no entity taking the other side against the oil and gas producer on a contract.  No cash would be bet against the oil and gas producer who sells forward one year. One side, for example, sells 70 percent of 2018 oil production at June 2018 prices in the present while the other side buys or covers, as the counterpart, the contract.

Saudi Arabia correctly followed data which demonstrated that despite the decline in the price of oil from $100 in 2014 to a low of $26 per barrel, oil producers hedged against the fall and largely survived.  Without hedging the producers would have negative cash flows and serious problems of debt to keep going.”

How OPEC tried, but failed, to kill the Bakken By Patrick C. Miller | July 18, 2017

The full article is here-> http://www.northamericanshalemagazine.com/articles/2019/how-opec-tried-but-failed-to-kill-the-bakken

”

When OPEC ramped up its production in 2014 to drive down world oil prices, it was engaged in a strategy to put North Dakota’s Bakken shale play out of business, according to Daniel Fine, Ph.D., associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy.

“The downturn was a flush of flat-out production, and the target was the Bakken,” he said. “The Saudis understand the Bakken. They read everything. The most important consultants to OPEC are based in Houston—they’re Americans.”

Fine, a former MIT professor who’s also the energy policy project leader for the New Mexico State Department of Energy Minerals and Natural Resources, spoke during the opening day of the Bakken Conference & Expo July 17-19 in Bismarck, North Dakota.

He was jointed on the panel by John Yates, president and founder of Abo Empire, to discuss New Mexico’s San Juan and Delaware basins. While Yates covered the economic impact of the basins on New Mexico, Fine explained why their futures are headed in opposite directions, as well as OPEC’s impact on world oil prices.

Fine noted that at one time, the San Juan Basin was No. 2 in U.S. gas production. In recent days, low gas prices have resulted in Conoco, Chevron and WPX announcing plans to sell their interests in the basin. This year, for the first time, the Delaware Basin in southern New Mexico will eclipse the San Juan Basin in gas production.

“What is the future of the San Juan Basin? The future is that in the last 60 to 70 years, only about half of the gas has been recovered, leaving 32 trillion cubic feet of gas,” Fine said.

Turning to the subject of world oil prices, Fine discussed his experience of studying OPEC since the 1970s and what he’s learned from it. For example, in 2014 when OPEC increased its production specifically to target the Bakken and other U.S. shale plays, Fine forecast that prices would fall to $28 to $23 a barrel while others expected them to rebound to $100 a barrel.

“The Saudi mind is not the Bakken,” he said. “The operators here go for very short-term results. Their balance sheet is quarter-to-quarter. Saudi Aramco and the OPEC producers are taught to think in five-year ranges. So I picked the five-year range in 2000 to 2003 and said this might be it. It was $23 to $28.”

Dr. Daniel Fine: OPEC oil and ours, who wins? Daily Times 10/29/16

The full article is here->  http://www.daily-times.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/10/29/fine-opec-oil-and-ours-who-wins/92440428/

This is an excerpt of the article ”

Has the oil price and market share war ended with a Saudi Arabian win?  Or, as some fund managers and speculators argue, has Midland won? We are now in a trading range high of $50 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate.

Looking back two years, Wall Street, the oil and gas industry and its trade associations got it all wrong. I was a minority of one in New Mexico with my OPEC analysis of a low of $23 to $28 per barrel which was realized earlier this year.  Once again there is triumphalism and  hubris about winning the war against OPEC.

What is it all about?  If OPEC agrees to freeze production at August output that would put OPEC between 32.5 and 33 million barrels per day. In 2013,  OPEC was below 30 million.   If they “freeze” it will be at 2.5 million more than early 2014 while our production had dropped almost 1.5 million.

In other words,  OPEC oil expanded its market share and more significantly has displaced our oil here at home in the American market by nearly one million barrels per barrel.  This is a double win for OPEC and Saudi Arabia:  more of their oil imported into our market and fewer barrels of our oil produced, which is the loss of rigs and jobs and a painful downturn.

The Permian Basin and its Delaware Basin extension into New Mexico has become the new North Slope  Alaska of the 1970s.  It is there that drilling rigs and well completions will be re-activated next year.  The “breakeven” price is lower because of  geology and cost-cutting service contracts.   The downturn contracts, however, will expire and non-Haliburton contractors will ask for more.   Margins will tighten as costs increase.   But North Dakota has leveled off and Eagle Ford is not the Permian.”

Oil leaders: OPEC threatening U.S. economy and New Mexico’s lifeblood; Nation has lost 400,000 oil and gas jobs in past two years

The full article is here-> http://rdrnews.com/wordpress/blog/2016/10/08/oil-leaders-opec-threatening-u-s-economy-and-new-mexicos-lifeblood-nation-has-lost-400000-oil-and-gas-jobs-in-past-two-years/

Dan Fine, an oil economist with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, speaks at a conference in Carlsbad recently about how foreign oil imports are hurting the American oil industry. Fine said OPEC has flooded the U.S. market with foreign oil since 2014 in an intentional effort to put U.S. producers out of business, while Saudi Arabian-backed companies are trying to buy American companies in an effort to control the flow of oil within U.S. borders. (Hobbs News-Sun Photo)

CARLSBAD — Oil experts say America is under attack by Saudi Arabia and OPEC, but instead of bombs, the OPEC oil cartel is dropping millions of barrels of oil on the U.S. economy in a clear effort to undermine the nation’s oil producers and kill any chance of American energy independence.
The first to feel the flood of foreign oil into the U.S. are the independent oil producers, whose stripper wells in Texas alone account for 20 percent of the nation’s oil and gas production, said Judy Stark, executive vice president of the The Panhandle Producers & Royalty Owners Association.
Stark was one of the half dozen speakers at an event of 25 people Sept. 27 in Carlsbad where the Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative, a group of independents seeking import quotas on foreign oil, met to announce their “white paper” that will be presented to the next president.
“We know OPEC has toyed with our market for many years but what I see coming now is a threat, without a doubt, to our national security,” Stark said. “The Middle East wants control of the U.S. market. When they came out and decided to flood the market with oil and drive U.S. producers out of business, their whole point was to take back their lost market share — our production. They are telling us is they are not going to let us produce our own natural resources. Guess what? They have done a pretty good job.”
The Sept. 27 Carlsbad meeting was a first battle cry that Dan Fine, a co-founder of the initiative and oil economist with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, said won’t be taken up by the nation for two years — when the rest of the country wakes up and finds it is too late to stop OPEC from controlling America’s energy industry.
“We are pioneers,” Fine said. “My point is, we are sitting here today 18 months to two years ahead of everyone. Sometime in early 2018, the country will discover what we are having a discussion about here today.”

What’s at stake?

What’s at stake is some 276 billion barrels of oil reserves now estimated to exist in the United States.
According to Fine, that number surpasses what Saudi Arabia has and they are terrified. Fine quoted Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources, concerning the shale oil discoveries made in the United States.
“The United States has increased oil production by an enormous 65 percent over the past five years,” Fine said, quoting Hamm’s statement. “We can and should use our nearly unlimited oil and gas supplies to drive a stake through the heart of OPEC forever.”

Energy group hopes to reduce foreign oil imports

by James Fenton

The full article is at–> http://www.daily-times.com/story/money/industries/oil-gas/2016/06/14/energy-group-hopes-reduce-foreign-oil-imports/85855044/

“FARMINGTON – A group of oil and gas executives and energy policy experts from the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico’s piece of the Permian Basin are pushing a plan to restrict seafaring imports of foreign oil from coming into the U.S. in order to stabilize the oil and gas industry and bring back lost oilfield jobs.

The group’s plan, which would exempt crude oil imported from Mexico and Canada, is an effort to push back against the price wars the group said are being waged by OPEC, or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia.

Members met at the School of Energy at San Juan College Tuesday to promote  the “Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative,” which they say could be implemented in multiple phases within 90 days of the next administration, with the ultimate goal of reducing heavy crude oil imports to about 10 percent of demand.

Launched in November, the initiative aims to cut foreign oil imports enough to activate more domestic drilling rigs and boost domestic production to meet current demand levels within four years.

Former state legislator and Four Corners Economic Development Chief Operating Officer Tom Taylor said the drop in natural gas prices eight years ago and the fall of crude oil in 2014, has delivered prolonged pain to the regional economy.

Buy PhotoFour Corners Economic Development interim Chief Operating Officer Tom Taylor speaks on Tuesday at San Juan College School of Energy in Farmington. Taylor and others are promoting quotas on oil imports as a way to stabilize the domestic oil and gas industry. (Photo: Jon Austria/The Daily Times)

“We find ourselves … in a situation now where we’re down about 6,000 jobs, most of those in the oil and gas industry,” Taylor said of the San Juan Basin. “We have about 11,000 people who have left (San Juan County) … So while we’re down 6,000 jobs and down 11,000 people, we’ve built seven fast-food restaurants, three more under construction, and two big box stores. It’s a different world out there.

“But the fact of the matter is that the economic base of the community is in trouble. And not only is the community in trouble, but the state of New Mexico is in trouble, and not only is New Mexico in trouble but our nation and its security. It’s all tied together. It’s a very difficult situation we find ourselves in when we have one country that can control oil prices. It goes beyond free trade. It’s a problem we need a solution to. We are at the dependence of foreign oil.”

Taylor said about a third of New Mexico’s general fund comes from the oil and gas industry in the form of taxes and fees.”

World Oil and Gas expert Dr. Daniel Fine: Oil at halftime, 2016

The full story is here-> http://www.daily-times.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/05/28/fine-oil-halftime-2016/84610710/

“The question of the oil-price reality pervaded the talks and private conversations at the Four Corners Oil and Gas Conference earlier this month. From the lowest price per barrel in nearly eight years to a recovery halfway to $100 in less than three months!  Is the “bust” in the San Juan Basin dissolving as others before?

Yet, Ken McQueen, retiring vice president of WPX in the San Juan Basin, and the most effective in technical innovation in the basin, said: “price is not everything.”

This is the view of surviving management. It is not shared by financial institutional  players and speculators.

Before Thanksgiving 2014, I presented a forecast for the oil price in a new “crash” range of $23 to $28. This was based on analytical experience and petroleum economic history. The trade associations were then spinning that it was an opportunity and would turn around in weeks.

They had no understanding of Saudi Arabia and OPEC as the price-setter. The price of oil collapsed three months ago to $26.70.

There was an abortive effort by OPEC and Russia at Doha, Qatar, to freeze production at Jan. 1 levels to “re-balance” world demand and supply. It failed because OPEC was no longer outside the Middle East political and religious war — Shia-Iran, with oil export sanctions recently lifted, did not show up.

But a one-day oil field workers stay-at-home in Kuwait took one million barrels of oil off the over-supplied world market within 24 hours and the financial market players covered their short or future sale positions.

The bet was now that every “outage” or supply disruption in the world would “re-balance” demand and supply and move West Texas Intermediate prices higher.

Saudi Arabia alone is replacing all the “outage” oil while the San Juan Basin and Southwest producers have record lay-offs, bankruptcies, community economic dislocations, and cuts in production: a million barrels less per day by Christmas is anticipated.

Without the freeze of OPEC production, $50 a barrel prices are here nevertheless. Does the rig count recover — only 15 working in New Mexico from over 100 just 18 months ago?

Yes and no. Companies should start stimulating (fracking) the heavy inventories of uncompleted wells. A boom again? Hardly. With more drilling of uncompleted wells at $50, American Southwest unconventional production rises. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nation producers would see once more the threat to market share which started the bust in the first place.

Higher oil prices equate to more production and energy-related banks and funds might find new borrowers. Is this the constraint of lower and longer oil prices? It doesn’t matter what supply forecasts come from traders’ prattle on cable TV. The final half of 2016 will be negative on price and oil demand. The price war with Saudi Arabia/OPEC continues.

There are three counter-strategies to Saudi Arabia and OPEC from American shale oil producers and communities:”

Our View: Limiting oil imports would help to protect American producers

By A-J Editorial Board

The full article is here-> http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2016-04-28/our-view-limiting-oil-imports-would-help-protect-american-producers#.Vyf6UPkrLIU

“When the price of oil drops, so does the cost of gasoline. But while people are enjoying paying lower prices at gasoline pumps, plunges in oil prices can cause economic damage in Texas.

And it can put American oil producers out of business when the price of foreign oil imports gets cheaper than the costs of extracting oil from the ground in the U.S.

Oil producers in the Panhandle recently announced the Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative. Their hope is to limit the amount of oil that can be imported from other countries.

We wish them success in getting sympathetic ears to hear their initiative and gathering like-minded people to help further it.

They are right that a limitation should be set on the amount of oil imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Representatives of OPEC’s 18 nations recently met in Doha, Qatar. Among their topics of discussion was whether to freeze oil production levels.

The nations didn’t reach an agreement on the subject.

“OPEC and Russia and various countries met and decided they weren’t going to freeze oil and, in fact, OPEC said they will increase production again. This will drive the price down to $26 (a barrel) again,” said oil producer Tom Cambridge.”