One Well Coming Off The Confidential List Today; Hess Reports Another One For The Record Books -- January 22, 2021

First things first: I first noticed "TTF" just a few days ago. I would have never caught it had I not blogged. This is really, really cool. Today, RBN Energy has a blog devoted to TTF. See below. 

Also: see this post from last night.

Ominous: that's the only word that describes what I see looking through the morning headlines. In less than twenty-four hours, a trifecta that should scare the heck out of any investor:

• UAL's conference call, 4Q20 earnings report;
• Dr Fauci's press conference shortly thereafter; and,
• the beginning of the end of the shale revolution in the US.

 

Chinese flu watch: for those who caught it, the Fauci press conference was sobering. He was very, very optimistic saying that things would look better by the autumn of 2021. That's eight months from now. Hollywood is not so optimistic. The David Craig / James Bond movie, already delayed twice, will now be delayed again. The opening has now been moved from July (?) to October 8, 2021. 

Reality sucks: how long will it take to immunize all American adults over the age of 16?  At the current rate, not until the summer of 2022. That's eighteen months -- a year and a half -- from now. If the pace picks up as promised by the new CEO/CIC, the date could be bumped up to the spring of 2022. Until then, masking for everyone, double masking for some. I think United Airlines can see the writing on the wall. Ominous.

Futures: the Dow is down only 250 points in pre-market trading; the tea leaves suggest it could be much worse than that by the end of the day. Very ominous.

Auto manufacturers: the tea leaves suggest this sector will hit a brick wall this year or next. Reason: shortage of computer chips. Who wudda thought? 

IBM? Maybe more like I-Be-Was. The company reported its fourth consecutive quarterly decline in revenue under its new CEO, and that followed twenty consecutive quarterly declines under its former CEO. Link here. As I said at the top, this all looks very, very ominous.

Intel? In the same boat as IBM. Things look very, very ominous for this company. Link here. If this was ever a time for China to make a move on Taiwan, this would be it. 

Apple? Are we starting to see a trend here? Motley Fool says AAPL is overdue for a 30% haircut. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

Loony tunes: Google-linked balloon project to provide cell service to remote areas will be shut down. 

Uber? It's all over for Uber. Organized labor won. Elections have consequences.

Rear view mirror: and we won't see a repeat of this in a long, long time. Yesterday, data on housing starts and building permits showed the pace of construction of new, single-family homes was the best since since February, 2006. That's fifteen years ago. Pace of housing construction the best in 15 years and the American electorate thought we needed a change so that we could "Bring Back Better."

Lock downs: UK, EU, Asia will all institute new measures to try to control the virus. Good luck. 

Re-locations: Samsung considers building a $10 billion semiconductor plant in Texas.

Scammed: I need someone to explain how this could happen. Link: https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/georgia-teenager-accused-of-scamming-980g-from-grocery-store. Brand new on the job, working as a minimum wage clerk, this individual, in less than two weeks, scammed one million dollars from the grocery story where he worked by faking "returns" at the checkout line. Apparently he just picked up items in the store, took them to checkout, said he wanted to return the items and wanted a refund to be credited to his credit card account. One million dollars in returns in less than two weeks. That's a lot of Mac and Cheese and Ramen Soup that he was returning. Later: a very simple answer how he did it.

Ten-year Treasury: 1.09%. Down one basis point. 

Petroleum report, weekly EIA report. Link here. 

Presidential watch: in video gone viral, very clear that the new CEO/CIC did not know he was the CIC. I'm not even sure he knows he's the new CEO.

***************************************
Back to the Bakken

By the way, when it comes to oil, who "owns" the reservation? EOG, Whiting, and WPX.

Active rigs:

$51.72	1/22/2021	01/22/2020	01/22/2019	01/22/2018	01/22/2017
Active Rigs	12	54	65	58	38

One well coming off confidential list today -- Friday, January 22, 2021: 32 for the month, 32 for the quarter, 32 for the year.

• 37064, drl/A, Hess, EN-Labar-154-94-1003H-7, 33-061-04616, Alkali Creek, first production, 7/20; t--; cum 116K 11/20; already off line again after less then three months of production; huge; the Hess En-Labar wells are tracked here;
  

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	11-2020	2	599	677	278	950	917	33
BAKKEN	10-2020	22	16944	17093	8311	26761	26403	358
BAKKEN	9-2020	30	33169	33144	15373	52378	49728	2650
BAKKEN	8-2020	31	42944	42737	25632	78204	49309	28895
BAKKEN	7-2020	3	22398	22398	3434	37056	15256	21800

RBN Energy: how TFF became a premier natural gas trading hub and global benchmark.

In the past few years, the Netherland’s Title Transfer Facility (TTF) overtook the UK’s National Balancing Point (NBP) to become the premier gas trading hub in Europe. 

TTF has gained favor over NBP largely due to its location closer to more markets, supply pipelines, plentiful storage, and also the Netherlands’ Gate LNG import terminal, which has become paramount given Europe’s growing need for imported gas. 

As imports have grown, so has TTF in terms of its volume and its liquidity — a trend that is expected to continue as the European gas market evolves. TTF now shares the stage with Henry Hub and the Japan Korea Marker (JKM) as one of the key global benchmarks for LNG and natural gas. 

Though traders use TTF as a price index for LNG, much like its cross-Atlantic peer, Henry Hub, TTF is also heavily influenced by regional pipeline gas and storage levels. Today, we’ll look at the history of Europe’s premier natural gas index and the fundamentals affecting it.