Ah, Canadian thanksgiving, turkey, mashed potatoes etc.

 
Falling leaves and sunny afternoons watching football…

A wonderful time of year and a great opportunity to take stock and give thanks for all the things that matter in the year that is past and the year that is to come.

So, in no particular order, here are some of the things that I am thankful for.

Not being in Calgary today. Seriously, a short vacation to the sun. And what happens? It freaking snows in Calgary! Turn on those furnaces everyone!

Green shoots in the energy industry including:

• Oil temporarily above $50. It’s nice to see a rally sustain itself for more than a week. It would appear that we perhaps some measure of stability has returned, at least for the next few months.

• Capex announcements that surprise to the upside. Thank you Encana and others for spending money on something aside from dividends, even if it’s not in Canada, we liek the direction

• The coming bull market for natural gas. There. I called it. Production is dropping, demand is surging, supply/storage is way behind where it was expected to be, the weather outside is forecast to be frightful. Yes, boring old gas. Buy it.

• Postive news on the infrastructure front including Pacfic Northwest LNG

• Pushback against the enviro nut crowd. Can it possibly be that the elite funded enviro protest crowd has over played its hand? I’m starting to get that feeling as the pushback gets stronger and more focused.Could the 15 minutes of fame be up allowing the grownups to take over?

Stable government. Look, I’m not saying the federal liberals are all that and a bag of chips, they surely aren’t, but at least they are trying to reclaim the centre and do all things for all people or some things for some people or a lot for themselves. They aren’t ideologically opposed to business and industry or human rights and progessivism. At least compared to the gong show the world is showing us.

Family and friends – what, you thought I was going to skip that?

The return of NFL Football. Have I failed to mention that? Go Cards! Sign Tony Romo please as a backup to Drew Stanton.

Clowns. Yes, clowins. Rock on you scary weird people choosing to wander the world dressed as clowns.

Which of course leads to the last thing I am thankful for, someone who may be the biggest clown of all: Donald Drumpf. Let’s face it, love him or hate him, as Jon Stewart said, he is the gift that keeps giving. If nothing else, the rise of Drumpf should result in a massive refocusing of educational systems on the importance of civics, history and basic economics. After all, if you aren’t taught what human rights are, how your system of government works and how the basic global economy is one inter-dependent being, how are you supposed to know that you’re vote is about to blow it all up? It’s not all about STEM and “getting rich”. If you are going to be a citizen of the world, at the very least you should try to understand it.

So, Happy Turkey Day to all my Canadian readers and Happy Columbus Day to my American readers (is this still a thing?). Enjoy your holiday eating.

Next week I will do a review of my predictions that I made at the beginning of the year. I’m almost giddy with anticipation. Are you?

Prices as at October 7, 2016 (September 30, 2016)

• The price of oil ended the week up mostly on OPEC action.
  • Storage posted a surprise decrease
  • Production was down marginally
  • The rig count was up
• Natural gas was pretty flat during the week, but gained ground at the end of the week

• WTI Crude: $49.81 ($48.24)
• Nymex Gas: $3.193 ($2.906)
• US/Canadian Dollar: $0.7536 ($ 0.7629)

Highlights

• As at September 30, 2016, US crude oil supplies were at 499.7 million barrels, a decrease of 3.0 million barrels from the previous week and 38.7 million barrels ahead of last year.
  • The number of days oil supply in storage was 30.4, ahead of last year’s 28.7.
  • Production was down for the week at 8.467 million barrels per day. Production last year at the same time was 9.172 million barrels per day. The change in production this week came from a decrease in Alaska deliveries and lower 48 production.
  • Imports fell to 7.710 million barrels a day, compared to 7.068 million barrels per day last year.
  • Refinery inputs remain high but were off during the week at 16.032 million barrels a day
• As at September 16, 2016, US natural gas in storage was 3,680 billion cubic feet (Bcf), which is 6% above the 5-year average and about 2% higher than last year’s level, following an implied net injection of 80 Bcf during the report week.
  • Overall U.S. natural gas consumption was down 4% during the week on decreased power consumption
  • Production for the week was down 2% and imports from Canada rose by 2%
  • The gas story in the United States is increasingly bullish as additions to storage have significantly slowed relative to prior years as the heating season approaches
• As of October 3, the Canadian rig count was at 149 (22% utilization), 101 Alberta (22%), 13 BC (17%), 32 Saskatchewan (28%), 2 Manitoba (13%)). Utilization for the same period last year was about 25%.
• Oil rig count at September 30 was at 428, up 3 from the week prior.
  • Rig count at January 1, 2015 was 1,482
• Natural gas rigs drilling in the United States was down 2 at 94.
  • Rig count at January 1, 2015 was 328
• US split of Oil vs Gas rigs is 82%/18%, in Canada the split is 52%/48%
• Offshore rig count was up 1 at 23
  • Offshore rig count at January 1, 2015 was 55

Drillbits

• Encana announced it is increasing its capital spending by 64% this year, unfortunately much of that spend is targetting its US shale assets
• Devon Energy Corp. (NYSE: DVN) announced that it has completed the sale of its 50 percent ownership interest in Access Pipeline to Wolf Midstream Inc., a portfolio company of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, for CAD $1.4 billion
• The Federal Liberals announced that they would impose a federally mandated price on carbon, starting at $10 in 2018 and rising to $50 by 2022. This move was well received by, well, Quebec and Ontario. The rest of the country was less than amused and Brad Wall pretty much lost it…
• Drumpf Watch – So there was a “debate” this week, and it was won by Mike Pence, the Drumpf VP candidate. Upset at being upstaged, Drumpf called him and said “You’re fired”! OK, pop quiz, how in the world do we get that Drumpf is “brilliant” in his use of the tax code by creating a $1 billion loss and using it to shelter income for 20 odd years? First, the loophole is right there on the tax return, so any shmo with business losses can use it. I think we need to tone it down and realize that he over-levered his casino and airline ventures, stupidly personally guaranteed the loans because he was too chepa to use his own equity and sewered the whole enterprise and a crappy tax code let him off the hook, which wouldn’t have even mattered so much if we hadn’t bought hook line and sinker into his celebrity shtick. Brilliant? No. Lucky? Not really/. Slimey? Most defintiely.