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Oil Stocks Set to Reap Huge Benefits from Undersupply Regime (PXD, CEI, MTDR, FANG, HP, HES, OIH, XOP)

With the beginning of a coordinated campaign of strategic petroleum reserve releases and the threat posed by the new Omicron variant of Covid-19, traders have piled into oil shorts on the expectation of a pick-up in supply and a hit to demand. However,…

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With the beginning of a coordinated campaign of strategic petroleum reserve releases and the threat posed by the new Omicron variant of Covid-19, traders have piled into oil shorts on the expectation of a pick-up in supply and a hit to demand.

However, the cyclical fundamental problem of a lack of incentive for new oil production has only worsened, leading top analysts in the oil space to only increase their price targets on concerns about a decline in structural supply as producers appear set to see less and less reason to invest in new production capacity.

It’s a virus alright – a virus of undersupply in the oil space. And it is set to intensify.  With that in mind, we take a look here at a few of the most interesting stories in the crude oil space.

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (NYSE:PXD) operates as an independent oil and gas exploration and production company. The firm engages in hydrocarbon exploration in the Cline Shale. 

It focuses in the operation of Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale, Rockies, and West Panhandle projects. 

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (NYSE:PXD) recently announced third quarter net income attributable to common stockholders of $1.0 billion, or $4.07 per diluted share. These results include the effects of noncash mark-to-market adjustments and certain other unusual items. Excluding these items, non-GAAP adjusted income for the third quarter was $1.1 billion, or $4.13 per diluted share. Cash flow from operating activities for the third quarter was $2.0 billion.

CEO Scott D. Sheffield stated, “Pioneer continues to execute at a high level, delivering another strong quarter and generating record quarterly free cash flow1 of $1.1 billion. Our peer-leading distribution framework will result in returning approximately 80% of third quarter free cash flow, or approximately $880 million, to shareholders through our base and variable dividend payments in the fourth quarter of 2021.

If you’re long this stock, then you’re liking how the stock has responded to the announcement. PXD shares have been moving higher over the past week overall, pushing about 4% to the upside on above average trading volume. 

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (NYSE:PXD) managed to rope in revenues totaling $5B in overall sales during the company’s most recently reported quarterly financial data — a figure that represents a rate of top line growth of 167.2%, as compared to year-ago data in comparable terms. In addition, the company is battling some balance sheet hurdles, with cash levels struggling to keep up with current liabilities ($775M against $4.5B, respectively).

Camber Energy Inc (NYSE American:CEI) has exposure to oil and gas assets through its majority-owned subsidiary, Viking Energy Group Inc (OTC US:VKIN), which has energy assets located in North America in Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

However, this one is also interesting for two additional reasons: First, it has become something of a meme stock, rising several hundred percent higher earlier this year on retail trader enthusiasm; and second, it has recently found material exposure as a cross-over play with real promise as a sustainable energy stock.

Camber Energy Inc. (NYSE American:CEI), to highlight this latter point, most recently announced that, on November 18, Viking entered into a Membership Interest Purchase Agreement to acquire a 100% interest in a group of companies that are in the process of engineering, developing, constructing and bringing into commercial operations a processing plant located in Reno, Nevada, which is designed to produce renewable diesel. 

According to the release, the estimated production capacity of the Plant once operational is 43,000,000 Gallons per year. The main part of the Plant is 95% complete and there is a pre-treatment unit under construction within the Plant that is 30% complete. Renewable diesel fuel, sometimes called green diesel, is a biofuel that is chemically the same as petroleum diesel fuel, and is produced through various thermochemical processes such as hydrotreating, gasification, and pyrolysis. Renewable diesel is made from renewable feedstocks instead of crude oil. 

This follows the company’s announcement this fall of the Exclusive Intellectual Property License Agreement with ESG Clean Energy regarding ESG’s patent rights and know-how related to stationary electric power generation, including methods to utilize heat and capture carbon dioxide.

Camber Energy Inc. (NYSE American:CEI) has been heavily shorted, with more than half of its recent trading sessions in VKIN dominated by more than 40% short transactions, according to OTCshortreport.com. Given the sharp rebound in oil prices over the past week – oil is up more than 10% in that time – those shorts could quickly find themselves on the run as the retail trader contingency crowds back in on the back of both core and alternative revenue stream potential.

Diamondback Energy Inc. (Nasdaq:FANG) is an independent oil and natural gas company, which engages in the acquisition, development, exploration and exploitation of unconventional, onshore oil and natural gas reserves. It operates through the Upstream and Midstream Services segments. 

The Upstream segment focuses on the Permian Basin operations in West Texas. The Midstream Services segment involves in the Midland and Delaware Basins.

Diamondback Energy Inc. (Nasdaq:FANG) recently announced a series of leadership changes. Russell Pantermuehl, currently Executive Vice President and Chief Engineer, will retire from his current role at the end of 2021 after having worked at Diamondback since August 2011, prior to the Company’s initial public offering. Russell and the Company have agreed that following his retirement he will serve as an advisor to Diamondback through December 31, 2022 in a limited role.

Al Barkmann, currently Vice President of Reservoir Engineering, has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Reservoir Engineering, and will assume many of Russell’s prior responsibilities, reporting to Danny Wesson, EVP of Operations. Also, Yong Cho, currently Vice President of Drilling, has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Drilling and will continue reporting to Danny. These changes are effective immediately.

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Russell for his significant contribution to Diamondback over the past decade. His legacy of technical excellence and character will leave a lasting impact on the Company. I have had the privilege of working with Russell for multiple decades and have witnessed firsthand his influence on the oil and gas industry over a 40-year career. He has had a significant positive effect on all those he has worked with and has been a mentor to countless individuals. I wish him all the best in his retirement and look forward to his continued contributions to Diamondback in his new role,” stated Travis Stice, Chief Executive Officer of Diamondback.

And the stock has been acting well over recent days, up something like 8% in that time. 

Diamondback Energy Inc. (Nasdaq:FANG) pulled in revenues totaling $1.9B – a figure that represents a rate of top line growth of 165%. In addition, the company is battling some balance sheet hurdles, with cash levels struggling to keep up with current liabilities ($475M against $2B, respectively).

Other key names in the Oil space include Matador Resources Co. (NYSE:MTDR), Helmerich & Payne Inc. (NYSE:HP), Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES), VanEck Oil Services ETF (NYSEArca:OIH), and SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF (NYSEArca:XOP).

Please make sure to read and completely understand our disclaimer at https://www.wallstreetpr.com/disclaimer. We may be compensated for posting this content on our website by EDM Media LLC. For questions, comments or suggestions please contact ir@edm.media.

The post Oil Stocks Set to Reap Huge Benefits from Undersupply Regime (PXD, CEI, MTDR, FANG, HP, HES, OIH, XOP) appeared first on Wall Street PR.

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International

The next pandemic? It’s already here for Earth’s wildlife

Bird flu is decimating species already threatened by climate change and habitat loss.

I am a conservation biologist who studies emerging infectious diseases. When people ask me what I think the next pandemic will be I often say that we are in the midst of one – it’s just afflicting a great many species more than ours.

I am referring to the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza H5N1 (HPAI H5N1), otherwise known as bird flu, which has killed millions of birds and unknown numbers of mammals, particularly during the past three years.

This is the strain that emerged in domestic geese in China in 1997 and quickly jumped to humans in south-east Asia with a mortality rate of around 40-50%. My research group encountered the virus when it killed a mammal, an endangered Owston’s palm civet, in a captive breeding programme in Cuc Phuong National Park Vietnam in 2005.

How these animals caught bird flu was never confirmed. Their diet is mainly earthworms, so they had not been infected by eating diseased poultry like many captive tigers in the region.

This discovery prompted us to collate all confirmed reports of fatal infection with bird flu to assess just how broad a threat to wildlife this virus might pose.

This is how a newly discovered virus in Chinese poultry came to threaten so much of the world’s biodiversity.

H5N1 originated on a Chinese poultry farm in 1997. ChameleonsEye/Shutterstock

The first signs

Until December 2005, most confirmed infections had been found in a few zoos and rescue centres in Thailand and Cambodia. Our analysis in 2006 showed that nearly half (48%) of all the different groups of birds (known to taxonomists as “orders”) contained a species in which a fatal infection of bird flu had been reported. These 13 orders comprised 84% of all bird species.

We reasoned 20 years ago that the strains of H5N1 circulating were probably highly pathogenic to all bird orders. We also showed that the list of confirmed infected species included those that were globally threatened and that important habitats, such as Vietnam’s Mekong delta, lay close to reported poultry outbreaks.

Mammals known to be susceptible to bird flu during the early 2000s included primates, rodents, pigs and rabbits. Large carnivores such as Bengal tigers and clouded leopards were reported to have been killed, as well as domestic cats.

Our 2006 paper showed the ease with which this virus crossed species barriers and suggested it might one day produce a pandemic-scale threat to global biodiversity.

Unfortunately, our warnings were correct.

A roving sickness

Two decades on, bird flu is killing species from the high Arctic to mainland Antarctica.

In the past couple of years, bird flu has spread rapidly across Europe and infiltrated North and South America, killing millions of poultry and a variety of bird and mammal species. A recent paper found that 26 countries have reported at least 48 mammal species that have died from the virus since 2020, when the latest increase in reported infections started.

Not even the ocean is safe. Since 2020, 13 species of aquatic mammal have succumbed, including American sea lions, porpoises and dolphins, often dying in their thousands in South America. A wide range of scavenging and predatory mammals that live on land are now also confirmed to be susceptible, including mountain lions, lynx, brown, black and polar bears.

The UK alone has lost over 75% of its great skuas and seen a 25% decline in northern gannets. Recent declines in sandwich terns (35%) and common terns (42%) were also largely driven by the virus.

Scientists haven’t managed to completely sequence the virus in all affected species. Research and continuous surveillance could tell us how adaptable it ultimately becomes, and whether it can jump to even more species. We know it can already infect humans – one or more genetic mutations may make it more infectious.

At the crossroads

Between January 1 2003 and December 21 2023, 882 cases of human infection with the H5N1 virus were reported from 23 countries, of which 461 (52%) were fatal.

Of these fatal cases, more than half were in Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Laos. Poultry-to-human infections were first recorded in Cambodia in December 2003. Intermittent cases were reported until 2014, followed by a gap until 2023, yielding 41 deaths from 64 cases. The subtype of H5N1 virus responsible has been detected in poultry in Cambodia since 2014. In the early 2000s, the H5N1 virus circulating had a high human mortality rate, so it is worrying that we are now starting to see people dying after contact with poultry again.

It’s not just H5 subtypes of bird flu that concern humans. The H10N1 virus was originally isolated from wild birds in South Korea, but has also been reported in samples from China and Mongolia.

Recent research found that these particular virus subtypes may be able to jump to humans after they were found to be pathogenic in laboratory mice and ferrets. The first person who was confirmed to be infected with H10N5 died in China on January 27 2024, but this patient was also suffering from seasonal flu (H3N2). They had been exposed to live poultry which also tested positive for H10N5.

Species already threatened with extinction are among those which have died due to bird flu in the past three years. The first deaths from the virus in mainland Antarctica have just been confirmed in skuas, highlighting a looming threat to penguin colonies whose eggs and chicks skuas prey on. Humboldt penguins have already been killed by the virus in Chile.

A colony of king penguins.
Remote penguin colonies are already threatened by climate change. AndreAnita/Shutterstock

How can we stem this tsunami of H5N1 and other avian influenzas? Completely overhaul poultry production on a global scale. Make farms self-sufficient in rearing eggs and chicks instead of exporting them internationally. The trend towards megafarms containing over a million birds must be stopped in its tracks.

To prevent the worst outcomes for this virus, we must revisit its primary source: the incubator of intensive poultry farms.

Diana Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism

NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism

One month after the inflation outlook tracked…

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NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism

One month after the inflation outlook tracked by the NY Fed Consumer Survey extended their late 2023 slide, with 3Y inflation expectations in January sliding to a record low 2.4% (from 2.6% in December), even as 1 and 5Y inflation forecasts remained flat, moments ago the NY Fed reported that in February there was a sharp rebound in longer-term inflation expectations, rising to 2.7% from 2.4% at the three-year ahead horizon, and jumping to 2.9% from 2.5% at the five-year ahead horizon, while the 1Y inflation outlook was flat for the 3rd month in a row, stuck at 3.0%. 

The increases in both the three-year ahead and five-year ahead measures were most pronounced for respondents with at most high school degrees (in other words, the "really smart folks" are expecting deflation soon). The survey’s measure of disagreement across respondents (the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile of inflation expectations) decreased at all horizons, while the median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—declined at the one- and three-year ahead horizons and remained unchanged at the five-year ahead horizon.

Going down the survey, we find that the median year-ahead expected price changes increased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.3% for gas; decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 6.8% for the cost of medical care (its lowest reading since September 2020); decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 5.8% for the cost of a college education; and surprisingly decreased by 0.3 percentage point for rent to 6.1% (its lowest reading since December 2020), and remained flat for food at 4.9%.

We find the rent expectations surprising because it is happening just asking rents are rising across the country.

At the same time as consumers erroneously saw sharply lower rents, median home price growth expectations remained unchanged for the fifth consecutive month at 3.0%.

Turning to the labor market, the survey found that the average perceived likelihood of voluntary and involuntary job separations increased, while the perceived likelihood of finding a job (in the event of a job loss) declined. "The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily in the next 12 months also increased, by 1.8 percentage points to 19.5%."

Mean unemployment expectations - or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now - decreased by 1.1 percentage points to 36.1%, the lowest reading since February 2022. Additionally, the median one-year-ahead expected earnings growth was unchanged at 2.8%, remaining slightly below its 12-month trailing average of 2.9%.

Turning to household finance, we find the following:

  • The median expected growth in household income remained unchanged at 3.1%. The series has been moving within a narrow range of 2.9% to 3.3% since January 2023, and remains above the February 2020 pre-pandemic level of 2.7%.
  • Median household spending growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 5.2%. The increase was driven by respondents with a high school degree or less.
  • Median year-ahead expected growth in government debt increased to 9.3% from 8.9%.
  • The mean perceived probability that the average interest rate on saving accounts will be higher in 12 months increased by 0.6 percentage point to 26.1%, remaining below its 12-month trailing average of 30%.
  • Perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated somewhat with fewer respondents reporting being better off than a year ago. Year-ahead expectations also deteriorated marginally with a smaller share of respondents expecting to be better off and a slightly larger share of respondents expecting to be worse off a year from now.
  • The mean perceived probability that U.S. stock prices will be higher 12 months from now increased by 1.4 percentage point to 38.9%.
  • At the same time, perceptions and expectations about credit access turned less optimistic: "Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago deteriorated with a larger share of respondents reporting tighter conditions and a smaller share reporting looser conditions compared to a year ago."

Also, a smaller percentage of consumers, 11.45% vs 12.14% in prior month, expect to not be able to make minimum debt payment over the next three months

Last, and perhaps most humorous, is the now traditional cognitive dissonance one observes with these polls, because at a time when long-term inflation expectations jumped, which clearly suggests that financial conditions will need to be tightened, the number of respondents expecting higher stock prices one year from today jumped to the highest since November 2021... which incidentally is just when the market topped out during the last cycle before suffering a painful bear market.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/11/2024 - 12:40

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Spread & Containment

A major cruise line is testing a monthly subscription service

The Cruise Scarlet Summer Season Pass was designed with remote workers in mind.

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While going on a cruise once meant disconnecting from the world when between ports because any WiFi available aboard was glitchy and expensive, advances in technology over the last decade have enabled millions to not only stay in touch with home but even work remotely.

With such remote workers and digital nomads in mind, Virgin Voyages has designed a monthly pass that gives those who want to work from the seas a WFH setup on its Scarlet Lady ship — while the latter acronym usually means "work from home," the cruise line is advertising as "work from the helm.”

Related: Royal Caribbean shares a warning with passengers

"Inspired by Richard Branson's belief and track record that brilliant work is best paired with a hearty dose of fun, we're welcoming Sailors on board Scarlet Lady for a full month to help them achieve that perfect work-life balance," Virgin Voyages said in announcing its new promotion. "Take a vacation away from your monotonous work-from-home set up (sorry, but…not sorry) and start taking calls from your private balcony overlooking the Mediterranean sea."

A man looks through his phone while sitting in a hot tub on a cruise ship.

Shutterstock

This is how much it'll cost you to work from a cruise ship for a month

While the single most important feature for successful work at sea — WiFi — is already available for free on Virgin cruises, the new Scarlet Summer Season Pass includes a faster connection, a $10 daily coffee credit, access to a private rooftop, and other member-only areas as well as wash and fold laundry service that Virgin advertises as a perk that will allow one to concentrate on work

More Travel:

The pass starts at $9,990 for a two-guest cabin and is available for four monthlong cruises departing in June, July, August, and September — each departs from ports such as Barcelona, Marseille, and Palma de Mallorca and spends four weeks touring around the Mediterranean.

Longer cruises are becoming more common, here's why

The new pass is essentially a version of an upgraded cruise package with additional perks but is specifically tailored to those who plan on working from the ship as an opportunity to market to them.

"Stay connected to your work with the fastest at-sea internet in the biz when you want and log-off to let the exquisite landscape of the Mediterranean inspire you when you need," reads the promotional material for the pass.

Amid the rise of remote work post-pandemic, cruise lines have been seeing growing interest in longer journeys in which many of the passengers not just vacation in the traditional sense but work from a mobile office.

In 2023, Turkish cruise line operator Miray even started selling cabins on a three-year tour around the world but the endeavor hit the rocks after one of the engineers declared the MV Gemini ship the company planned to use for the journey "unseaworthy" and the cruise ship line dealt with a PR scandal that ultimately sank the project before it could take off.

While three years at sea would have set a record as the longest cruise journey on the market, companies such as Royal Caribbean  (RCL) (both with its namesake brand and its Celebrity Cruises line) have been offering increasingly long cruises that serve as many people’s temporary homes and cross through multiple continents.

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