Friday, October 13, 2017

Tesla Fires Hundreds Of Workers; Additional Blogging Delayed Until Saturday -- October 13, 2017

I just got back to Portland, OR, after driving from Kalispell, MT, today. I will post the daily activity report and the top stories of the week tomorrow (Saturday, October 14, 2017).

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Tesla Fires "Hundreds Of Workers"

From San Jose Mercury News:
Tesla fired hundreds of workers this week, including engineers, managers and factory workers, even as the company struggles to expand its manufacturing and product line.
The dismissals come at a crucial point for the company, which is pushing to increase vehicle production five-fold and reach a broader market with its new Model 3 sedan. The electric vehicle maker missed targets for producing the lower-cost sedan, manufacturing only 260 last quarter despite a wait list of more than 450,000 customers.
The company said this week’s dismissals were the result of a company-wide annual review, and insisted they were not layoffs. Some workers received promotions and bonuses, and the company expects to hire for the “vast majority” of new vacancies.
“As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures,” a spokesman said. “Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world.”
In multiple interviews, former and current employees told this news organization little or no warning preceded the dismissals. The workers interviewed include trained engineers working on vehicle design and production, a supervisor and factory employees.
Workers estimated between 400 and 700 employees have been fired. Tesla refused to say how many employees were let go, although the company expects employee turnover to be similar to last year’s attrition.-
The spokesman said most of the dismissals were administrative and sales positions, and outside of manufacturing. Tesla employs about 10,000 workers at its Fremont factory.

Why I Love To Blog -- Reason #14 -- October 13, 2017

From the beginning, I said I had doubts we would ever see the Saudi Aramco IPO. Now, this CNBC story:
  • Saudi Aramco denies that it is shelving the idea of an IPO after the Financial Times reported it has been in talks about private placements
  • the company has been quick to deny problems with the IPO, but industry sources say private placement may be a quick way to raise capital compared to an IPO
  • one source close to the IPO told CNBC that one thing under review is whether to list on the Saudi market first and then list on an international exchange at a later date
  • a source said Aramco has been in ongoing talks with Asian sovereign wealth funds
It was also a headline story over at The WSJ

Judge Allows DAPL To Continue To Flow -- October 13, 2017

Updates

Later, 2:34 p.m. local time, whatever that might be, traveling: markets: late day trading, NYSE new highs, 259.
  • new, 29
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Original Post

Markets: rising for the fourth consecutive day, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq all hit new records.  In early morning trading, 145 new highs, including Boeing, CAT, CVX, Dollar General, GM, Royal Dutch A,
  • new lows: 9
GM to idle factory: to close for 6 weeks starting in mid-November. Chevrolet Volt, Cadillac CT6, Buick LaCrosse. Dealers are sitting on a roughly 10-month supply of the Buick LaCrosse, another car built at the plant. A two-month supply is considered healthy. 

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Judge allows DAPL to continue to flow. PennEnergy story here.


Active rigs:

$51.5610/13/201710/13/201610/13/201510/13/201410/13/2013
Active Rigs593367191184

RBN Energy: impact of new supplies on infrastructure prices.
The U.S. natural gas market tightened considerably in 2016, with a pull-back in production volumes leaving total gas supply, including imports, within a hair’s breadth of total demand (including exports) on an annual average basis. In 2017, however, gas production has climbed again.
And it’s not just from the Marcellus/Utica, which grew through even the downturn over the past few years, but also from other basins, particularly ones focused on crude oil. Current production economics and drilling activity suggest continued growth over at least the next five years. Could it be too much? Will demand expand fast enough and will all the growing supply regions be able to access that demand? Or, are producers headed for another contraction before they’re barely out of the last one? In today’s blog, we begin a series unpacking RBN’s five-year natural gas supply-demand outlook.
Red Queen is still upright. I still get a kick out of this. Despite all the headwinds, North Dakota is still producing more than one million bbls oil per day.  And that's with 2,400 wells either shut-in or drilled but not completed. Unfettered, the Bakken could easily produce 2 million bopd.