the world is

U.S. oil and gas producers are among companies hit hardest by new restrictions on tax relief for interest payments, an analysis of the impact of the reforms has shown… […] (more…)

World Oil: In Permian basin, jitters mount that a bust is near

Steve Pruett has seen more than his share of booms in three decades in the oil business. None, though, as strange as the one gripping the Permian basin right now…. “Oil men are innately optimistic,” he said, “and sometimes our optimism is our own worst enemy.”…By this point, “we’ve given up all of our profit margin,” he said, referring to the industry. “We’re over-capitalized, we’re…

WA Post: Washington Post

Since 2010, the United States has been in an oil-and-gas boom. In 2015, domestic production was at near-record levels, and we now produce more petroleum products than any other country in the world. President Trump said he plans to double down on the oil and gas industry, lifting regulations and drilling on federal land. Here is the state of the petroleum extraction industry that the new…

Blog Post: Product Development Payoff Asymmetry

“[Certainty can] seem like a good idea, but actually lead us into trouble… The story here revolved primarily around the stochastic nature of product development… Succeeding in product development requires the discovery and exploitation of options where there is an asymmetry to the payoff function.” […]

(more…)

Reuters: Canada expects crude-by-rail boom as pipeline project collapses

TransCanada Corp’s decision this week to scrap its $12 billion Energy East pipeline and delays to other export pipeline projects look set to increase producers’ reliance on costly crude-by-rail to bring barrels to market. […]

(more…)

Financial Post: ‘A tragedy for Canada’: Petronas cancels $36B LNG project as B.C. jacks up demands

With energy prices collapsing and industry struggling to stay viable, Pacific NorthWest LNG needed less, not more government costs and regulations […]

(more…)

Black Swan Farming: Product Development Payoff Asymmetry

“[Certainty can] seem like a good idea, but actually lead us into trouble… The story here revolved primarily around the stochastic nature of product development… Succeeding in product development requires the discovery and exploitation of options where there is an asymmetry to the payoff function.” […]

(more…)

There are dozens of different mathematical constructions that yield bell-shaped curves. The “Hubbert” or “Peak Oil” curve is actually a special case of a class of s-shaped functions called sigmoids. While most sigmoid functions begin and end at different values, Hubbert’s curve is constrained to begin and end at zero by the formula and boundary conditions imposed that represent a perfect…

Article (Alberta Oil Magazine): The Best Little Oil Companies in Canada

Date of Source: 21 Oct 2016

Summary: Fifteen years ago it was common knowledge that oil and gas production in North America was in terminal decline. After decades of exploration, all of the profitable onshore oil and gas in Canada and the U.S. had already been discovered… While the attention of the majors was elsewhere, close to home something happened. Small companies run by entrepreneurial…

Seeking Alpha: Imperial Oil — Levered Exposure To Oil Prices At A Fair Price

Image source: Imperial Oil Corp. Corporate Overview – Winter-Spring 2017. pg. 5

Imperial Oil Corp is a rationally integrated enterprise — assessing any given business segment in isolation ignores synergies which are especially important during the lower half of the commodities cycle.

The upstream business segment, by far the largest in terms of capital investment, is heavily exposed to Canadian…

[tabby title=”Most Recent By Site”] [expand title=”Alpha Architect Blog”][feedzy-rss feeds=”http://blog.alphaarchitect.com/feed/” max=”3″ feed_title=”yes” meta=”yes” summary=”yes” summarylength=”140″ thumb=”no” ][/expand]

[expand title=”Cliff’s Perspective (AQR Capital Management’s Blog)”][feedzy-rss feeds=”https://www.aqr.com/cliffs-perspective/rss-feeds/commentary-rss-feed” max=”3″…

DeSmog Blog’s Mission Statement Quashes Rational Skepticism

One can (correctly) argue that the foundations of the scientific method are built on the foundations of rational skepticism. Contrary to some beliefs, science cannot “prove” anything. Rather, it is premised on the “refutation” of untruth. By eliminating all other possible explanations, the field of science thereby accepts a theory as “truth”. All fields of inquiry which purport themselves to be…

Report: Commodities Demystified – A Guide to Trading and the Global Supply Chain

Date of Source: 08 Jul 1905

Summary: Commodities trading – supply of the basic staples that are converted into the food we eat, the industrial goods we use, and the energy that fuels our transport and heats and lights our lives – is one of the oldest forms of economic activity, yet it is also one of the most widely misunderstood. At no time has this been truer than in the last 20 years, with the…

Axioms of Asset Valuation

Postulate (1): The market price is usually the right price.

More verbosely stated, the right price for an asset can be any ranges of prices which do not result in arbitrage (i.e., a free lunch). The no-arbitrage principle is the pillar of the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) and the fundamental theorem of asset pricing(FTAP). Complete markets are required for strong forms of no-arbitrage to be…

AQR – Cliff’s Perspective: Fama on Momentum

Date of Source: 05 Feb 2016

Summary: The long-term success of the momentum factor seems to be a challenge to many observers. People say things like “momentum only works among small stocks” or “momentum only works for going short, not long.” These comments, which appear to be aimed at casting doubt on the implementability of momentum, seem to be spoken about more than written. There’s a reason for…

Reblog: Grossly Distorted Prosperity — Surplus Energy Economics

Date of Source: 30 Oct 2016

Summary: ECONOMIC DECELERATION – AND HOW TO MEASURE IT One of the quirks of economics is that, within GDP (gross domestic product), all output is included, irrespective of what it really adds to prosperity. GDP, like Oscar Wilde’s cynic, knows “the price of everything, but the value of nothing”. If government paid 100,000 people to dig […]

(more…)