Wednesday, April 7, 2021

News And Comment -- North Dakota Living On The Edge -- Could End State-Directed Mask Mandates -- Early Wednesday Evening -- April 7, 2021

Fear the Biden: the more generous the EV subsidies in the US infrastructure bill, the quicker the demise of Tesla's insane stock price. Link here.

Love the Biden: one word -- asphalt. Link here

China: started more coal plants than the entire world retired in 2020. Link here. Greta Thunberg was overheard to say, according to a rumor, not fact-checked: "As long as their CO2 stays inside China, the rest of the world will do just fine."

Road to Canada: Canadian pipeline companies see natural gas opportunities in shift to green energy. Link here at Reuters

Canada’s largest pipeline companies TC Energy and Enbridge Inc see opportunities in their extensive natural gas businesses as a transition to cleaner energy evolves, their chief executives said on Wednesday.

The two Calgary-based companies are among North America’s largest energy infrastructure firms, and the majority of their business is focused on storing and transporting fossil fuels.

TC Energy has the biggest natural gas pipeline system in North America, and CEO François Poirier said the company sees plenty of opportunities to allocate capital to that business in the form of organic bolt-on projects.

Storage and transportation assets will be key as the energy transition moves forward and new technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen are developed, Poirier said at the online Scotiabank CAPP Energy Symposium.

 Enbridge: sticks to North American oil, gas, renewables strategy. Link here to S&P Global Platts.

While the North American midstream operator is betting on fossil fuels, including crude, being an integral part of the global fuel mix for decades to come, it is mindful of the challenge in building new cross-border oil pipelines due to regulatory hurdles and fierce opposition from environmental groups. It also believes it can leverage growth from certain existing infrastructure with a less intensive amount of new spending.

During a discussion at the webcast Scotiabank CAPP Energy Symposium, Monaco said Enbridge wants to maintain its current approach and address the energy transition at the same time. Enbridge is holding to a fourth-quarter in-service target for its project to replace Line 3 -- a 1,097-mile crude oil pipeline extending from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin, Monaco said.

"The liquid systems are going to be generating cash for a long time from here," Monaco said. "Maybe, we are not going to convince every investor of that, but that's how we see it."

US gasoline: inventories rise 4 million bbls as imports jump -- EIA. Link her to S&P Global Platts. Most of it headed to the US Atlantic Coast (USAC).

The European lockdowns have helped support gasoline arbitrage economics to the USAC.

The arbitrage opened wide in February after several Texas refineries were brought down by unusually frigid temperatures. The USAC depends on gasoline from the US Gulf Coast, via the Colonial Pipeline, and from waterborne imports, primarily from Europe.

USGC refiners were operating at 83.1% of capacity the week ended April 2, according to the EIA. That was unchanged on the week, but up from just 40.9% at the height of the Texas outages the week ended Feb. 26.

Increased refinery runs helped boost USGC gasoline stocks last week by 838,000 barrels to 80.44 million barrels, putting stocks roughly on par with the five-year average, the EIA data showed.

But the largest inventory build was seen in the USAC, where stocks jumped 2.6 million barrels to 63.99 million barrels, also putting inventories are par with the five-year average.

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Apple, Inc

Edinburgh, Scotland: all school pupils between the ages of 10 and 18 are set to receive an iPad as part of the capital's "Edinburgh Learns for Life" program. Link here.

iPhones: Apple forecasted (sic) to sell record-breaking 240+ million iPhones in 2021. Link here.
the trajectory predicts 240+ million iPhones in fiscal year 2021;
would top a previous record of 231 million iPhones sole in fiscal year 2015;

Jon Stewart: to air on Apple TV+ this fall. Link here. I was curious where he would end up.

T-Mobile: launches unlimited 5G home internet for $60 month. Huge story, especially for the rural underserved. Link here.

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FWIW
 

Living dangerously: North Dakota legislature set to approve a ban on state-issues mask mandates. Link here. Neanderthals.

Bailout: North Dakota legislature set to fund a rail spur to help a troubled shipping center in Minot. Link here.

2 comments:

  1. At ace.mu.nu today someone posted a graph overlaying Covid cases in ND versus SD over time. SD, without a mask mandate was lower than ND with the mandate. SD also hosted Sturgis - a so called "super spreader" event during the time shown. A valid comparison - same population/demographics/climate, etc.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you. Quite interesting to say the least. I had forgotten about Sturgis. Whether the masks work or not, and to what extent, my hunch is the masks had little to do with anything except to keep folks at home, yada, yada, yada.

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