Houston Chronicle Covers

Houston Chronicle: How a sleepy Texas trust turned into Permian oil proxy war

The trust also hired a public relations firm and proxy contest lawyers, paid for advertisements in support of Cook, and launched a website, TrustTPL.com, to state the case for keeping the trust intact.

Kai Liekefett, Texas Pacific Land Trust’s attorney, blamed the proxy fight on the rise of investor activists — the hedge funds and other large investors who take large stakes in companies and pressure management to take steps to boost share prices. The hedge funds, he said, are interested in selling the water business or even the entire trust to reap a short-term financial windfall.

“It makes perfect sense for them. It may not make sense for the other 75 percent of shareholders who enjoy the out-performance and ongoing appreciation,” said Liekefett, who recently represented financially struggling Luby’s in the Houston restaurant operator’s fight against a hedge fund. “This is not mere luck. This is the result of very seasoned and strategic leadership.”

 

 

Permian Conditions

Bloomberg: Shale Suffers Growing Pains That Could Slow U.S. Oil Production

Appears as if some of the first movers overplayed their hand a bit.

“Is there a parent-child relationship? Absolutely. Has it been there since time immemorial? Absolutely,” Diamondback Energy Inc. CEO Travis Stice said at the conference. “It’s our responsibility to account for the economics of the degradation between a parent and child well, and it’s our responsibility to dial that into our forecast.”

Stice said Diamondback hasn’t had to cut back its activity in response to those issues, like some of its peers who have had to widen spacing after production failed to live up to expectations.

“I think what you’re seeing is reserve reports coming out at the end of last year with a lot of negative performance revisions in there,” he said. “That’s really the first tell as an industry that you’ve overcapitalized your assets.”

RNB Energy: Negative Permian Gas Prices, But Is The Worse Yet To Come?

Bottlenecks persist.

Well, more than one maintenance event appears to have coincided with the cratering prices, so we’ll start with those. On March 18, the same day that negative prices emerged yet again, Kinder Morgan’s El Paso Natural Gas (EPNG) pipeline announced a force majeure that reduced capacity by about 200 MMcf/d on its Line 2000, which flows west out of the Permian. While this event was widely cited as a culprit, our analysis of flow data indicates that the gas previously flowing on Line 2000 has been largely re-routed to EPNG’s other two legs that flow west: Line 1600 and Line 1100. Re-routing gas sometimes requires producers to acquire additional transportation capacity to move their gas, which can mean that supply prices have to be bid lower to cover the additional cost of transport.

Chron: Pipeline additions boost Permian Basin prices

Two side to every story.

An extension to the Sunrise Pipeline added an estimated 120,000 barrels per of takeaway capacity from the Permian region earlier this year, boosting pipeline capacity to Cushing, the EIA said. Another pipeline delivering natural gas liquids from the Permian to the Gulf Coast, the Seminole-Red pipeline, was repurposed to deliver crude oil. Seminole-Red is expected to be fully operational by April, adding an estimated 200,000 barrels a day of takeaway capacity.

Although Permian production is expected to grow, the additional pipelines will prevent Permian prices from falling to the same steep discounts that occurred in second and third quarters of 2018, the EIA said.

 

Chron: Refining, Pipelines, and Solaris

Chron: California company seeks to build $1 billion refinery in Permian Basin

Kermit is directly east of $TPL’s surface land in Loving, Reeves, and Culberson counties. The quote below speaks to the sheer amount of physical activity in the Permian right now.

With the increase of 18-wheelers and other vehicles on the roads of the Permian Basin, Prentice said the refinery will take advantage of locally produced crude oil and sell the gasoline and diesel locally.

“If the refinery were in operation right now, every single barrel would be sold within 100 miles,” Prentice said. “There’s been such an increase in demand.”

Chron: Two pipelines hold joint open season to move crude oil from Permian Basin to Houston Ship Channel

This is some of the end-of-2019 capacity we’ve been hearing about.

As construction for the 850-mile Gray Oak Pipeline draws to a finish, a joint venture led by Phillips 66 Partners has teamed up with Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan to move crude oil to more destinations.

Designed to move 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day by the end of the year, one of the end points of the Permian Basin to Gulf Coast pipeline is the Phillips 66 Sweeny Refinery in Brazoria County.

Chron: Solaris Water Midstream begins water recycling operations in the Permian Basin

I may have saved the best information for last here.  Important to know that Solaris started its build out in 2015/2016.  Two year head start relative to $TPL.

Launched in November 2015 and financially backed by the private equity firm Trilantic Capital Partners North America, Solaris Water Midstream sources and delivers freshwater to drilling operations and moves and recycles oilfield wastewater.

The company reports having 16 current customers already either connected or in the process of connecting to its Pecos Star System.

A subsidiary of Marathon Oil Company signed a long-term contract for water services in a 369,000-acre area of Lea County, New Mexico that will allow for a 125-mile expansion of the Pecos Star pipeline network.

Once the construction for the expansion is complete, the Pecos Star System will include more than 300 miles of large diameter permanent pipelines and more than 200 miles of temporary pipelines.