Friday And The World Series Is Tied 1-1; ObamaCare Could Unravel In 36 States (Of Course, ObamaCare Was Never Raveled In The First Place)

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Updates

December 11, 2013: update on the Buckeye acquisition --

Buckeye Partners announces acquisition of 20 liquid petroleum products terminals with total storage capacity of approximately 39 million barrels for $850 million from Hess: Co announced that it has completed its purchase of 20 liquid petroleum products terminals with total storage capacity of approximately 39 million barrels for $850 million from Hess Corporation. The 19 domestic terminals are located primarily in major metropolitan locations along the U.S. East Coast and have approximately 29 million barrels of refined petroleum products storage capacity, including approximately 15 million barrels of capacity strategically located in New York Harbor. The terminal on St. Lucia in the Caribbean has approximately 10 million barrels of crude oil and refined petroleum products storage capacity and has deep-water access. This acquisition increases Buckeye's total liquid petroleum storage capacity by approximately 53 percent to over 110 million barrels. Hess' Retail Marketing Business will be a key customer at these facilities under a multi-year storage and throughput commitment.

December 3, 2013:  Motley Fool mentions Buckeye as a company most to benefit from the Panama Canal expansion. Buckeye is mentioned in the original post below. From the linked Motley Fool article:

Not content to move energy across the U.S., Buckeye Partners expanded its operations to serve the Latin American market. With the Panama Canal expansion, the Asian markets now present a viable opportunity as well. Two recent acquisitions made all this possible. First, the 2011 purchase of terminals in the Bahamas. Second, the soon to be closed acquisition of terminals from Hess. These Hess terminals give Buckeye an expanded presence in New York Harbor, Puerto Rico, and the southern U.S. seaboard.

Why did Buckeye buy the Bahama and Puerto Rican terminals? I suspect two reasons. First, the terminals are strategically located for transport of crude oil and various refined products between the U.S. Gulf Coast, the U.S. East Coast, Europe, and Latin America.

Again, the enlarged Panama Canal opens the door to Asia and the U.S. West Coast.
Second, the U.S. government makes it expensive to ship oil or other products directly between U.S. destinations. Specifically, to ship oil directly between U.S. ports, you must use U.S. registered ships, comply with U.S. regulations and use only U.S. crew members. By shipping oil to the Bahamas or other foreign destination first, a shipper doesn't have to comply with all those government demands and related expenses.

Buckeye boasts a track record of growing earnings and distributions. The distribution coverage ratio remains above 1.0, a healthy sign. Its debt has declined over the past year. The Panama Canal expansion offers a market for both Buckeye's oil and natural gas businesses. Low natural gas prices have weighed on past earnings. With easier access to Asian markets, higher natural gas volumes may turn this segment around.

Original Post 

Active rigs: 181 (steady)

RBN Energy: the Caribbean fuel terminals. Bakken millionaires might consider a winter vacation to the Gulf to take a look at these terminals.

Several large deep-water terminals located strategically on Caribbean islands play an important role in the international fuel oil trade. These terminals can berth larger vessels than most Gulf Coast ports – making them ideal staging points for transshipment of ocean bound cargoes coming and going from Europe, Asia or Latin America. With its recent acquisition of the Hess East Coast terminal assets, Buckeye looks set to become a dominant player in the Caribbean terminal and storage market. Today we conclude a two-part survey of Caribbean fuel terminals.

The Los Angeles Times

I normally post The WSJ stories first, but this is quite a story: critics of Obama's healthcare plan are suing over a part of the law that offers tax credits through state exchanges. If they win, the program falls apart in 36 states.

If computer glitches are not enough of a problem, President Obama's healthcare law also has a legal glitch that critics say could cause it to unravel in more than half the nation.
The Affordable Care Act proposes to make health insurance affordable to millions of low-income Americans by offering them tax credits to help cover the cost. To receive the credit, the law twice says they must buy insurance "through an exchange established by the state."

But 36 states have decided against opening exchanges for now. Although the law permits the federal government to open exchanges instead, it does not say tax credits may be given to those who buy insurance through a federally run exchange.

Apparently no one noticed this when the long and complicated bill worked its way through the House and Senate. Last year, however, the Internal Revenue Service tried to remedy it by putting out a regulation that redefined "exchange" to include a "federally facilitated exchange." This is "consistent with the language, purpose and structure … of the act as a whole," the Treasury Department said.

But critics of the law have seized on the glitch. They have filed four lawsuits that urge judges to rule the Obama administration must abide by the strict wording of the law, even if doing so dismantles it in nearly two-thirds of the states. And the Obama administration has no hope of repairing the glitch by legislation as long as the Republicans control the House.

The law is the law. It will be interesting to see how Chief Justice Roberts interprets the law. Seems pretty straight-forward.

FreedomOutpost, August 24, 2013, provides a great discussion of this issue. 

The Wall Street Journal

I arrived in the Bakken last Sunday, and I have not read The Wall Street Journal until today. And I don't know how much I will actually read. I will probably skim through it.  

Top story, front page: violence reverses gains in Iraq. Elsewhere it was reported that Iraq is back up to exporting around 2 million bbls of crude oil each day, +/- 500,000 bbls. 

Second story: botched roll-out of ObamaCare.

HIV reminds me of the "cockroach" stories; you can't get rid of them. Do folks recall all the stories of how "we've" finally found the drug that will beat HIV? Well, again, not so fast: fight against HIV hits another roadblock. New research has dealt a setback to scientists' quest for a cure for HIV, finding that the virus might be harder to eliminate from the human body than previously thought.

Saudi women plan to defy driving ban.

This is interesting: BP -- that would be the oil company -- in a "makeover" -- is ramping up drilling. Three years after BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster and billions in asset sales and legal costs, the oil giant has started to ramp up drilling.

North Sea oil fields are on the brink of a comeback.