Notes From All Over, The Early, Early Morning Edition -- April 7, 2020

Wow, this got to be a long note. If nothing else, be sure to watch the Biden koan. This page is now, finally, complete.

Note: in a long note like this, there will be content and typographical errors. If this is important to you, go to the source.

Another Biden koan: I think I could listen to Joe Biden all day long. Another of his koans. My favorite reply to that tweet:

Personally, I'm excited for the fact-checkers. It's a pretty bold claim to say that our democracy never saked second fiddle. During the window between the Civil War and and pandemic of 17 or 16? Maybe, but never? I'm no historian, but I'm pretty sure that's Mostly True at best. 

LOL.

Most interesting overnight data point: Italy's retail sales.

I believe Italy has the second biggest economy in the EU (after Germany) and Wuhan flu took its greatest toll on its most important industrial region, but yet retail sales, month-over-month (February-over-March) beat expectations by a huge margin. In fact, looking at the graph, one would have never guessed there was a huge Wuhan flu outbreak in the country. This simply blows me away, link over at TradingEconomics. Of all things, Italy is doing so much better than Saudi Arabia, see below, although that is really, really comparing olives to camels, as they say:

Cash reserves, fascinating. Every data point I find suggests the House of Saud is in deep doo-doo:

What I love best about this: I don't think Trump really cares much about oil in the big scheme of things. He's concerned about American workers and keeping gasoline prices low, but I don't think he has a huge ideological bent regarding oil like Valerie Jarrett did. He's willing to let it play out.

Saudi Arabia's oil production:

• Saudi has said it plans to increase production to 12.3 million bopd. It should also be noted that the country:
• has not yet completely fixed that terminal that was hit back in September, 2016 (based on latest report last month);
• has a huge cash flow problem;
• is affected by Wuhan flu (April 7, 2020: KSA imposes 24-hour curfew)

• It's not worth the time to screenshot the graphics, but the data at the links is/are very interesting. Note: two different sources for same data, same time period. Maybe more on this later. In all cases, note the false precision:

• Saudi Arabia crude oil production, TradingEconomics, through February, 2020; 
• an increase, month-over-month
• February, 2020: 9.784 million bopd
• January, 2020: 9.748 million bopd
• recent high, October, 2019: 10.303 million bopd
• outlier, September, 2019: 9.129 million bopd
• average appears to be about 9.7 million bopd
• Saudi Arabia crude oil production, CEIC, through February, 2020:
• a decrease, month-over-month
• February, 2020: 9.683 million bopd
• January, 2020: 9.739 million bopd
• based on 218 observations
• all-time high, November, 2018: 11.021 million bopd
• record low, February, 2002: 7.121 million bopd

Previously posted: I find it amazing that the "oil analysts" over at twitter haven't been able to see what is actually going on with regard to the Saudi surge.

Saudi Arabia GDP, and we haven't even gotten to 2020 data yet. Look at this. Most recent data is through the end of 2020 before the price war even began and before Wuhan flu took its toll. A huge source of Saudi income is "tourism" -- the pilgrimages -- which has now come to a screeching halt. So before all that even began -- link here. All I can say is that if Saudi's GDP improves in January - February - March (2020), someone's cooking the books, as they say.

OPEC production, March, 2020: we'll see if these numbers hold up when TradingEconomics and CEIC report their data a month from now. But month-over-month (March-over-February, 2020), there was absolutely no significant change in production, except perhaps for Saudi Arabia and UAE. Over at twitter:

• OPEC, total, 28.97 million bopd in March vs 27.99 million bopd in Febuary
• Saudi Arabia: 10.15 million bopd (March) vs 9.69 million bopd (February)
• UAE: 3.45 million bopd (March ) vs 3.01 million bopd (February)
• Kuwait: 2.90 million bopd (March) vs 2.67 million bopd (February)
• the other ten members, inconsequential
• Venezuela: 0.65 million bopd (March) vs 0.82 million bopd (February) -- ouch

Clickbait: over at Rigzone, this headline -- "Apache makes significant oil find." Link here. Apache looking for any good news to post. As for me, this article told me absolutely nothing. After Alpine High, I take a lot of these forward-looking prognostications with a grain of salt. Show me the money, or in this case, show me the oil. A second thought on Alpine High: it wasn't bad enough that Apache took a $3 billion hit on Alpine High, but that was their Lower 48 future. Pffft.

Similarly, more clickbait: over at Rigzone, again, this headline -- "New discovery made in GOM." Link here regarding Equinor and its Monument exploration well into the Paleogene sandstone. It told me absolutely nothing. Show me the money, or in this case, show me the oil. Paleogene? That could be anywhere from the Silurian to the Devonian to the Mississippian/Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) to the Permian. Stratigraphic map here.