Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
1–10 of 85 posts
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#2How about a summary of the article? Or if you can’t do that, are you posting links to pay walls because are you trying to sell WSJ subscriptions? (Serious question)
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#3How about a summary of the article? Or if you can’t do that, are you posting links to pay walls because are you trying to sell WSJ subscriptions? (Serious question)
Click the "web" link above.
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#4I guess its not surprising the word "climate" doesn't show up in this text, but I still find it depressing.
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#5Wall Street financing is no longer necessary for the fracking boom, the majors have heavily consolidated the fracking industry over the last five or six years. That consolidation continues apace.
The largest land owners in the Permian are now: Occidental, Exxon and Chevron. Ten years ago it was a very diverse ownership group of independent operators and speculators. The majors will keep buying until there are few small players left. Exxon doesn't need to go begging to Wall Street to give it a few hundred million dollars to finance more frack wells.
For example, the richest oil wildcatter in the US might soon be this man:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-27/wildcatte...
Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon and Chevron would love to acquire his 329,000 acres in the Midland Basin in the Permian. Estimate on the price tag: ~$10-$15 billion.
In mid 2017, Exxon bought 250,000 acres in the Permian from the Bass family for $5.6b to $6.6b.
https://news.exxonmobil.com/press-release/exxonmobil-acquire...
Over the last four quarters, Exxon + Chevron have produced $40 billion in operating income. And that's with modest oil prices.
The fourth largest land owner in the Permian, is Apache, with 1.6 million acres (with ConocoPhillips in fifth). Apache's market cap is a mere $12b. It's obvious what's going to happen there. Exxon's market cap is $332b - they're just going to keep on acquiring the fracking industry (they used their well-valued shares - high for the energy industry - for the Bass deal). Companies the size of Exxon and Chevron can trivially afford to explore and prime wells in price downturns, then unleash them in upturns.
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#6I guess its not surprising the word "climate" doesn't show up in this text, but I still find it depressing.
Curious why you would find the mention of climate necessary in a piece about frac financing.
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#7I guess its not surprising the word "climate" doesn't show up in this text, but I still find it depressing.
Solar and wind aren't deployed rapidly across the world because of climate change; it's because they're stupid cheap compared to other generation technologies.
While I'd love for more people to embrace the urgency of climate change, using economic self-interest is just as good.
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#8I guess its not surprising the word "climate" doesn't show up in this text, but I still find it depressing.
Solar and wind aren't deployed rapidly across the world because of climate change; it's because they're stupid cheap compared to other generation technologies. While I'd love for more people to embrace the urgency of climate change, using economic self-interest is just as good.
Really? Please look up some references.
Eg. https://jancovici.com/en/
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar and wind aren't deployed rapidly across the world because of climate change; it's because they're stupid cheap compared to other generation technologies. While I'd love for more people to embrace the urgency of climate change, using economic self-interest is just as good.
Really? Please look up some references. Eg. https://jancovici.com/en/
Germany and other nations that poured subsidies into renewables early on (and are to be commended for their economic sacrifice for doing so) are outliers. The rest of the world caught up as soon as renewables were cheaper than fossil fuels. Capital markets don't have feelings.
Humanity lucked out that solar and wind costs were driven down as rapidly as they were through manufacturing scale. We'd be screwed otherwise ("ie business as usual carbon output estimates").
Somewhat related but unrelated: it's not bad if fracking goes south. It'll drive the price of natural gas up, which will make existing nuclear and existing/new renewables more cost competitive. It'll also drive adoption of energy storage faster. We want natural gas prices to rise, since we're not going to internalize the CO2 emission cost through regulation. This allows for market forces to kick in that are beneficial to climate change mitigation.
Disclaimer: I have brokered one tax equity partnership arrangement for a solar plant rated @ >1MW (Indianapolis suburbs), and have done my research.
Re: Frackers Face Harsh Reality as Wall Street Backs Away
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? Please look up some references. Eg. https://jancovici.com/en/
Germany and other nations that poured subsidies into renewables early on (and are to be commended for their economic sacrifice for doing so) are outliers. The rest of the world caught up as soon as renewables were cheaper than fossil fuels. Capital markets don't have feelings. Humanity lucked out that solar and wind costs were driven down as rapidly as they were through manufacturing scale. We'd be screwed otherwise…
> Humanity lucked out
Humanity didn't luck out. The Chinese communists invested heavily in solar while the US was wasting money on fracking.