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Meeting has been planned between SA Ambassador and influential congress members soon….
The hypocrisy of ‘free market’ ‘capitalist’ ‘anti-socialist’ US business and politicians is quite outstanding. Not long ago they wanted to outlaw the OPEC+ cartel’s activities. Now they need to protect the shale industry that pumps a valuable global and US resource at a virtual loss whilst damaging the environment. So they need OPEC+ to do their dirty work. They accuse OPEC of dumping oil to destroy US Shale yet how can you accuse a producer with operating costs of less than $10 a barrel (KSA) of dumping oil when the market price is three times that?
These thoughts are drawn from the Chris Tomlinson article I posted earlier plus ‘Fracking needs shakeout, not bailout’ by Liam Denning:
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Fracking-Needs-a-Shakeout-Not-a-Bailout-15126199.php?cmpid=ffcp

Don't be miserable bunks.
You are right - a break might be a very good idea .
ATB mate.

Cheers Hasiba.

CWR look a good prospect at the right time - but I agree with you and Tartine (if I've interpreted you both correctly over recent days) that it would be premature to throw 'new cash' into the market yet!
I think it's ultimately going to be hard work trading when the market starts to recover - not that it's been that easy for the last week or two.

I often comment on the fallacy of watching G's sp too closely and drawing swift conclusions when it moves either ahead or delayed in comparison to others, however G's sp (and GKP's) behaviour today has been particularly bad even in current circumstances.
G's sp went a bit off the rails compared to the majors on the 8th (marked), but this divergence accelerated sharply yesterday (marked) and has got worse today: 15 min chart from 18th Feb: https://invst.ly/q5byz
This could be interpreted as: G getting caned excessively and therefore will recover quicker from the bottom OR : G is at greater risk and may well suffer further excessive falls. This week's statement is the BoD chance to present a resilient survival strategy or chuck investors to the wolves. My interpretation - because I have a 'thing' about it - is that G may not get paid for some considerable time and that the balance sheet may well look very sick before OP recovers.

KRG payments and associated uncertainties are the only significant worry I have with G. They may ultimately kill my interest in G.

Hasiba: are you still in CWR (Ceres) ? I'm starting to track that more seriously as a future energy stock when the bottom of this current collapse is reached and I finally decide to commit some cash. Also as a possible alternative to G.
https://invst.ly/q5bj6

bunks, hydrogen: I think 54.50 was the lowest, as marked here:
https://invst.ly/q5a-6
Hence my lowest support line at $55. In theory, $55 should mark the bottom of this misery/mystery trip! It would typically support an OP as low as $22. But G's loss today has pushed it down off the scale: even in gloomy circumstances, G (p) should be 2.5x ($) 30, ie 75p so this is a good 16% down on where it should be. RDSb, for example, has edged up today whilst this has seen a significant drop. I'm uneasy about it although I agree that G should bounce back up. My issue will be the speed of that relative to other recoveries and whether G is the best vehicle to be riding. Is the market just driving G to the absolute bottom as quickly as possible now? Last five days here:
https://invst.ly/q5b79

A seriously disproportionate drop for G and GKP today:
https://invst.ly/q56-h

The thing that will slow it most is effective control of direct or indirect person to person contact. The virus apparently exists in and can be onward transmitted by a healthy person for about a fortnight. If its path to a new host isn't achieved within that period then the virus within that person is effectively extinguished. So drastically reducing the number of contacts - and hard surfaces touched by many people are obviously a significant element - will reduce the spread quickly. My tip - clean your supermarket trolley handle with a wipe before you push it round the store.

An opinion piece on US Shale production
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Texas-oil-loses-when-OPEC-doesn-t-manipulate-15121361.php
The truth is that Texas shale drillers can’t compete on an even playing field with Saudi or Russia, where production costs are half of those in the Permian Basin. They do not have to drill horizontally. They don’t have to hydraulically fracture the well. Their oil always will be cheaper.
The only reason why OPEC+ cut production was to raise profits. But shale drillers cut into those profits by stealing market share. The only logical reaction was for Saudi and Russia to let the price drop and take back market share.
Over the next decade, demand for oil is going to slow as consumers adopt alternatives, and the oversupply will persist. U.S. shale companies only can survive if OPEC+ manipulates the market.

An excellent and useful post - thanks.

Is that what happened to Chevron? I thought it was some end of market technical glitch! Thanks for explaining guys.
Here's the usual bunch since Friday's LSE close: https://invst.ly/q4yk0 with Chevy taking a trip to the Levee... like us tomorrow presumably.

When I mentioned potential support at $67 last week I did think it would require OP to drop to the low $20s to get that low. So today’s visit seems a bit premature to me. I’ll take the fact that G bounced back up to nearly 72 from the day’s low as a good sign::
https://invst.ly/q4vmg

Dare we suppose that the market has priced in Saudi over-production?
I’m not so sure myself.

The key thing regarding G - and any other investments - right now, is resilience and spotting those with the best prospects of rapid recovery. Here are the usual suspects on an hourly Brent based chart since Jan1:
https://invst.ly/q4vv5

G only lost out to RDS just over a week ago - on the 8th. Other than that it led the field for most of the time.

Brent heading south again, it seems. Jan 2016 established the most recent bottom for Brent at $27. Below that is literally uncharted territory as far as the last fifteen years is concerned. Before that, OP was generally below $30 and so offers little help in today’s context. Here’s long term Brent:
https://invst.ly/q4m-u

Even at an OP of $27, G should be at 80p. However, during the last three trading days, G weakened against OP from 3x down to a recent-times worst of 2.5x. This would potentially place G at 67p if OP did fall to $27. Here’s G v 3xBrent: https://invst.ly/q4n3l

I wouldn't count on that bunks. = reply to your earlier post at 21.26

Looking at ICE tonight for the current front month (May), I wouldn't count on that bunks.
But this is a long game.
I don't expect payments news to be especially good - reassuring words but not much in the way of hard cash.
The company will, in any case, need to retain cash to ride out the covid-19 storm, so the divi looks doubtful. The company will needs to secure yet another over-ride deal from the KRG to compensate for the apparent accumulation of fresh debt being chalked up.

All in my opinion, of course:

Concerning OP and the threat of increased OPEC+ supply: it’s worth remembering that whilst KSA can flood the market with stored product - and may do in the short term - it cannot produce oil at such levels for a sustained period. In any case, increased supply from the KSA and/or Russia at sub $40 prices would not especially benefit them. Ultimately, sub $40 oil is not sustainable. G's sp at $40 oil would average 120p, about 50% up on Friday's low.

Whilst selling oil at low prices might allow the Saudis to remind Russia that they have swing control, it would primarily be intended to knock back US and other high cost production sufficiently to allow higher prices to be achieved. Oil majors would probably not be unhappy about this endeavour but hard pressed US Shale independents will pump, even at a loss, to stave off their creditors until they are forced into liquidation - at which point the majors will pounce upon any significant resources going cheap and begin to control them.

So the KSA might temporarily flood the market with stored oil as a strategic move:
1)It will quickly generate cash to invest in an under-priced market.
2) It will remind Russia who actually controls OP.
3)It will vacate storage space for when it throttles back supply and pushes the price back up.
This could be summarised as:
Generate cash; Invest the cash ; Revive the market; Increase OP; take the profits.

"U.S. production is likely less well hedged than the market realizes"
extract:
Many shale producers used a more complex strategy, known as three-way collars. Producers still buy the put options as insurance, but they also sell other put options, often with a lower price point - to lower or eliminate the cost of their insurance.
Effectively, this is a calculated bet that oil will fall to a certain level and no further. But that was not what happened.
"Using many of these structures, producers are price-protected unless prices fall below a certain threshold, and $45 a barrel was a popular strike level, at which point producers become fully exposed,"
https://uk.investing.com/news/commodities-news/us-shale-companies-hedges-were-inadequate-for-oil-price-crash-2072488.

As I understand it, even if a lab prototype were to be produced quickly, a safe vaccine for Covid 19 cannot be mass produced within weeks or even months due to the practicalities of testing and production. So it is much more likely that the disease will have run its course by the time one is available for widespread use.

Once a sufficient percentage of us (the ‘herd’ ) have been infected and gained immunity by milder strains and of the disease then its spread should naturally and rapidly decline as fewer viable hosts will be available to it. If, for example, everyone was infected today then the disease would be gone in about two weeks - the apparent cycle time from infection through to recovery.

This seems to be the UK approach - effectively trying to manage the spread of milder forms - ‘natural vaccination’ of many - whilst isolating the vulnerable and those who may be infected with more deadly variants.

Bunks was perfectly correct about GKP on Friday morning but the afternoon saw GKP knocked back again. The last five days do show the KRI co's not doing as well as the majors https://invst.ly/q47ri
although, tbf, they are doing way better than PMO over the same period (added here: https://invst.ly/q47t0 ) Maybe I'm being too gloomy over the payments issue but I do feel that it's a drag on the KRI co's.
Interesting to see Chevron rising sharply towards the end of the US market - that bump up might put G back at 98p, which would replicate their relationship as it was on Wedneday.

If it wasn't for the payments issue I wouldn't see any problem getting to 105-110, frankly.