-Bloomberg Businessweek says refiners “rule the Shale Age,” enjoying strong margins while crude producers suffer in the wake of the oil price collapse. The top four performers in the S&P 500 Index since 2011 are all refiners: Tesoro, Valero, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66. Bloomberg says it isn’t all about cheap feedstock from U.S. shale plays — refiners have also minimized volatility by building out and expanding their pipeline and logistics businesses.
-Meanwhile, last Monday’s 7.7% drop in oil prices was a historical rarity, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration. Since January 2006, only 15 trading days had a larger percentage drop in oil prices. It was quite a jolt for a crude market that had experienced roughly two months of stability following a precipitous decline that began in June 2014. Economic turmoil in Greece and China and uncertainty over a nuclear deal with Iran were key factors.
-Vancouver-based Teck Resources will delay by five years its Frontier oil sands project in Alberta, Reuters reports. The company told regulators it expects first oil from the project in 2026 instead of the previously planned timeframe of 2021. Teck expects to produce 3 billion barrels of bitumen over a life span of 41 years. The delay is a sign of the times — some analysts believe the era of oil sands megaprojects is on the wane due to low oil prices, high costs and looming corporate tax increases in Alberta. Companies have delayed or cancelled some $200 billion in big projects in recent months.
-Halliburton and Baker Hughes have extended the deadline for federal authorities to review their proposed merger to Nov. 25. Via Benzinga, analysts still expect the $35 billion deal to be complete by Dec. 31. The two firms must also obtain approval from other international regulators, but those entities are expected to follow suit if the U.S. Department of Justice clears the deal. The merger would create an onshore services juggernaut.
-The Wall Street Journal says Marathon Petroleum took the “gold medal” in the merger announced today between MPLX and MarkWest Energy Partners. As the parent company of master limited partnership MPLX, Marathon will get a “disproportionate share” of cash distributions from the combined company. MPLX agreed to buy MarkWest for about $15.8 billion excluding debt.
