Notes From All Over -- September 10, 2020

Oh-oh: three cities in Texas in huge financial difficulty if their universities don't open soon. And very soon.  One link here.

College football: rumors that the Big 10 might be re-thinking that decision for no football this year.

Hurricane Laura: landfall, August 26, 2020

• September 1, 2020: refineries still getting back on their feet; but no major stories coming out of the region;
• last week, Sunday, August 30, 2020 - Saturday, September 5, 2020

Keep those dates in mind when looking at the following:

One can argue that this was because of Hurricane Laura, but Laura had minimal impact on the oil sector compared to many, many other hurricanes since 2010 when data was first available. So, blame it on "lo-impact Laura" but that is hardly the answer ... and even if that's the answer, that's still not much revenue for Saudi Arabia. 

LNG: Cheniere's Sabine Pass LNG resumes normal ops (September 9, 2020) but Sempra's Cameron still shut. 

East Africa supply hub? Trafigura will invest in Berbera Oil Terminal in Somalilandto to position the complex as a regional supply hub. Yemen and Somali are models of success -- President Barack Obama. That link is broken, but you can read the story here. Berbera: Gulf of Aden; just south of the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb (Djibouti), connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Portland, OR: the mayor bans police use of tear gas. That tells me things aren't all that bad in downtown Portland. I assume the next step is to simply remove the police from downtown.

Seattle, WA: Amazon to hire 33,000 new corporate jobs; average compensation said to be $150K. That's "average," which means the compensation for some will be greater than $150K. None of those new hires will be found on Long Island, NY.

NYC: I haven't watched CNBC since Tuesday, September 8, 2020, and I have no plans to watch CNBC until September 15, 2020. I was watching CNBC quite "religiously" until Tuesday. What I found most interesting: CNBC "never" covered / seldom mentioned the debacle in their own backyard. I don't think folks realize how bad it is. Now we see know. From ZeroHedge:

A stunning new report shows that more than 300 storefronts are now vacant along Broadway. It marks a 78% increase from three years ago. More than 33% of those vacancies were located between 14th and 59th streets, in the heart of Manhattan. 

The tally was calculated by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and her staff in late August while visiting 13 miles and 244 blocks. Her staff was able to count 39 empty storefronts between 96th and 125th street, 66 empty spots between 59th and 96th street and 43 vacancies below 14th street.

NY: will probably increase taxes on the "wealthy." 

MIA: I haven't seen an article by Nick Cunningham over at Oilprice since late August. He normally had an article every other day, sometimes two consecutive days.