First US LNG Tanker Arrives In China Via Panama Canal -- Cool, Cool Story -- August 25, 2016

From The WSJ: new locks in recently expanded canal ease access to Asian market for US exporters.

Cool, cool story.

Sort of offsets The Los Angeles Times headline: Governor Brown gets even with oil companies. LOL. I read the article and did not see how Governor Brown "got back" at the oil companies. The oil companies will do just fine. Whatever. I digress.

Back to the WSJ story:

The first shipment of liquefied natural gas from the lower 48 U.S. states to China arrived this week, thanks to the recently expanded Panama Canal’s easing access to the robust Asian market for U.S. gas exporters.

The shipment was chartered by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company. The cargo, from the Sabine Pass export facility in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, was delivered to the Yantian Port on Monday in southern China and was purchased by China National Offshore Oil Corp. as part of a long-term contract.

U.S. LNG, which is usually transported on large ships that can’t fit in the older Panama Canal locks, hasn’t been able to compete in Asia. The new locks, which opened in June and can accommodate larger ships, mark a significant moment for U.S. exporters.

The new locks can reduce the travel time from the U.S. to North Asia for ships that couldn’t fit in the old locks by about one third—to 20 days—and cut transportation costs by about 30 cents to $1 per million British thermal units.

I don't expect to see this story in The New York Times. It doesn't fit their world view.

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Non-Energy News

ATT gets okay to provide wireless in Cuba. This is a big story, but a small headline.

U.S. telecom behemoth AT&T Inc. recently entered into an agreement with Cuba’s state-run telecommunications company Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba to offer direct roaming mobile interconnection services between the two countries. With this agreement, AT&T customers will soon be able to connect through talk, text and data while in Cuba. The date of commencement and pricing of these services will be declared later on. 

President Barack Obama’s decision to normalize U.S. diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba, which have been considerably tensed since 1961, is starting to show results. Under his administration, new Cuban policy regulations, which have been approved by the Treasury and Commerce departments, aided the U.S. telecommunications industry to gain initial exemptions from the existing embargo to invest in Cuba.

Drones in North Dakota. Link here for Hermes 450:

Elbit Systems of America, along with its local partners, hosted an Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) field day today, August 22, 2016, at the Hillsboro Regional Airport to highlight its recent Hermes 450 flights over North Dakota. The event welcomed Lt. Governor Drew Wrigley, who served as Master of Ceremonies. Also attending were U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-ND. and U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-ND.

"North Dakota has been called the 'Silicon Valley of Drones' and it is our honor to bring the Hermes 450 to Traill County," said Elbit Systems of America President and Chief Executive Officer Raanan Horowitz. "Leveraging the experience of our parent company with the commercial insights of our partners, we bring advanced technology to the farmland, demonstrating effective approaches for data collection."

Equipped with advanced sensors and high resolution cameras, such as the Vision Map A3 Edge and the Elbit Systems Compass EO/IR real time sensor, the Hermes 450 is capable of covering 40,000 acres in one hour and can remain in flight for 17 hours.
Elbit Systems of America, a US company headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, has been operating from the Hillsboro Regional Airport for the last four months where it has flown multiple precision agriculture flights. In collaboration with

North Dakota State University and the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, Elbit Systems of America has worked with select local farmers to gather and analyze data for crop management improvement, increasing efficiency, and greater yield.

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Ledecky Smokes Competitors

Runs Away With 800-Meter Freestyle

Wins By 12 Seconds For Gold

2016 Rio Olympics

Link here. NBC won't allow embedding. 

Katie Ledecky's view is about the same in the 400-meter freestyle.