Taxable Sales, 1Q19 -- North Dakota

Link her to story.

Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger announced ]that North Dakota’s taxable sales and purchases for the first quarter of 2019 are up nearly 10%. Taxable sales and purchases for January, February and March of 2019 were $4.453 billion, a 9.67% increase over those months in 2018.

“We are pleased to report good year-over-year increases for the past eight quarters, five of which have seen nearly 10% growth or more.” Rauschenberger said. “It was no surprise to see a significant increase in this report with oil production hitting an all-time record of 1.4 million barrels per day in January.”

Thirteen of the 15 major sectors reported taxable sales and purchases gains when compared to the first quarter a year ago. Most notably, the mining and oil extraction sector increased by $123.8 million (a 21.65% increase), the wholesale trade sector increased by $115.1 million (a 12.19% increase), and the retail trade sector increased by $68.4 million (a 5.39% increase).

“The retail trade sector showed an increase of 5.39% when compared to last year,” Rauschenberger stated. “This continues a recent trend of growth in this important sector. This is great news after several years of declines in this vital component of the state’s economy.”

Rauschenberger added that prior to the three most recent quarters, the state experienced at least ten quarters of declines in the retail trade sector.

Three of the state’s top six largest cities saw an increase in taxable sales and purchases for the first quarter, all of which are on the west side of the state. The state’s largest two cities saw no growth.

Percent changes for the first quarter of 2019 (compared to the first quarter of 2018) for the top six largest cities in North Dakota were as follows:

• Williston – increase of 14.79%
• Dickinson – increase of 11.69%
• Minot – increase of 6.10%
• Bismarck – decrease of 0.48%
• Fargo – decrease of 0.61%
• Grand Forks – decrease of 1.86%

Of the 50 largest cities in North Dakota, the highest percent increases for the first quarter of 2019 (compared to the first quarter of 2018) were as follows:

• Garrison – increase of 39.96%
• Stanley – increase of 35.24%
• Wishek – increase of 32.55%
• Watford City – increase of 24.91%
• Grafton – increase of 21.40%

Counties with the highest percent increases for the first quarter of 2019 (compared to the first quarter of 2018) were as follows:

• Logan County – increase of 96.48%
• Burke County – increase of 70.90%
• Mountrail County – increase of 41.02%
• Slope County – increase of 29.41%
• McIntosh County – increase of 25.58%

.Complete state data at this site, a pdf will download.

Bummer -- Gasoline Demand -- July 19, 2019

Link here.

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Natural Gas Fill Rate

Slight change in slope. Air conditioning?

Link here.

CLR Now Has Eleven Permits For Its LCU Jessie Pad In Long Creek -- July 19, 2019

Active rigs:

$56.01	7/19/2019	07/19/2018	07/19/2017	07/19/2016	07/19/2015
Active Rigs	55	68	59	30	73

Eight new permits, #36760 - 36767, inclusive:

• Operator:  CLR
• Fields: Long Creek (Williams);
• Comments:
• CLR has permits for another 8 wells on the  LCU Jessie pad in section 24-153-99, Long Creek oil field; see yesterday's daily activity report (three LCU Jessie permits); brings total to 11 permits for this pad;

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The CLR LCU Jessie Pad In Long Creek

Twelve wells, six will be middle Bakken wells; six will be first bench, Three Forks.

LCU: "Long Creek Unit"?

The parent well:

• 19978, 1,001, CLR, Jessie 1-24H, Long Creek, t12/12; cum 276K 5/19;

The graphic:

Notes From All Over -- Part 3, July 19, 2019

Iran: seizes a British-flagged, Swedish-owned tanker. Said to be in retaliation for Brits seizing one of Iran's tankers. It's beyond me why any western-flagged tanker is going through the strait without overwhelming naval military protection. It's even more beyond me what Iran's long-term game plan is. Iran is irritating everyone -- not just the Brits or the US -- in the area -- including the other OPEC members in the Mideast.

WTI: flat.

Notes From All Over -- Part 2, July 19, 2019; KSU Beats

See this exuberant note on UNP from yesterday. The point of the post was that all that hand-wringing over the Chinese trade war may not be all that necessary. Earlier, pundits said that the trade war was the reason CSX reported poor earnings for 2Q19. But then UNP reported stellar earnings.

Now, the same for Kansas City Southern, beating estimates for 2Q19.

KSU: up 3.45% today.

From Benzinga:

• earnings:
• forecast: $1.61
• actual: $1.64
• beat by almost 2%; not headline worthy, but nice, just the same
• revenue:
• forecast: $706.23 million
• actual: $714 million
• beat by about 1%; again, no headline worthy, but better than the alternative (a decline, or even worse, a loss)

From the CEO, doing more with less (which seems to be a common theme this year):

The company is handling the same volume as last year with fewer assets, fewer crewstarts and considerably less network congestion, driving an improvement in customer service, operating metrics and cost profile,"

Keeping America great.

Heat wave, northeast US. A reader suggested I follow ISO New England and ISO New York. At 11:00 a.m. CT, July 19, 2019, a Friday morning:

• New England: doing really, really well, under $20 (about $19.50 overall)
• New York:
• New York, Long Island: $50
• New York, overall average: $36
• New York, West-A: $71 (wow): I assume "West-A"is that part of ISONY west of / outside of NYC metropolitan area; this area, I believe, is highly dependent on natural gas, based on earlier reports, especially during the winter

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Iran

One comment: I honestly don't know what Iran is up to -- it seems "they" are doing everything they can to incite a military response from the US.  I understand that. I don't know what they hope to gain. Right now, it appears they are irritating their neighbors more than they are irritating Trump.             

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Now, For Something A Little Different

Tukka Laga Tukka Laga, Jagga Jasoos

Dueling videos. I mentioned that I enjoyed Gareth Gates' Spirit in the Sky. She came back with Tukka Laga Tukka Laga.

China To Add Even More Coal-Generated Electricity -- Country Appears Unable To Keep Up With Demand -- July 19, 2019

What is the fastest way to meet new electricity demand? China knows.

• nuclear energy? Ha! In the west, it would take 20 - 30 years to bring a greenfield nuclear reactor on line
• renewable energy? Ha! Can come online quickly if projects are unfettered, if transmission lines are in place, but can't come close to meeting demand; and in some places in the world (like Japan) will never see a renewable energy sector
• fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, coal): and of the three, for China, the fastest and only way to meet demand -- coal

From a post on July 14, 2019:

This is pretty cool. For the past couple of days I've been doing a short series on coal (see this link).  Today I noted that oilprice posted a story yesterday (July 13, 2019) on the very same subject with the very same them.

All of a sudden, it seems, there has a been a flurry of articles from multiple sources on the increasing energy demand by China and India and how fossil fuel (crude oil and coal) will be meeting that need.

My interest was piqued when it was reported a few days ago that Germany was ready to shut down its last coal plants. See this link.

At this website, these data points:

• since 2000, the world has doubled its coal-fired power capacity to around 2,000 gigawatts (GW) after explosive growth in China and India. 
• a further 236GW is being built and 336GW is planned. 

And now today, this story from Reuters:

• China Energy Group, the country’s biggest power generator, will add more than 6 gigawatts (GW) of new ultra-low emission coal-fired capacity this year as it bids to meet growing electricity demand
• The company also expected to build another 5 GW of low-emission capacity next year, (2020) Xiao Jianying, the head of the state-run firm’s coal-fired power department

I have no idea whether this 11 GW of expansion by one Chinese company is part of the "336 GW that was already being planned."

Again, this tells me:

• 21st century: America's century
• 22nd century: China's century
• The baton -- from America to China: will be passed 2051. To be more specific, Tuesday, June 6, 2051

It appears that Germany has 50 GW of coal-generated electricity and has announced it will phase out all coal-generated electricity by 2038. Whoo-hoo. 50 GW over 20 years = 2.5 GW / year.

One company in China will add 6 GW this year, and another 5 GW next year (2020) on top of an already ambitious coal-plant building program.

Germany, by eliminating 50 GW of coal-geneated electricity over the next 20 years will have no effect on global CO2 emissions, FWIW.

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The Golf Page

As I posted yesterday, Tiger Woods would miss the cut at The Open. He did.

• inconsistent, cards a 70, second round, +6 for the two days
• I just want to go home
• is this his last year on the PGA tour?
• at +8, Phil Mickelson missed the cut also
• as predicted, the cut line, +2
• David Duval, +27, as of the 13th hole, round 2; my hunch: he, too, will miss the cut  

Television revenue? With only American on the leaderboard (top seven spots) and the loss of Woods / Mickelson, this does bode well for American viewership (and throw in the six-to-nine hour time difference).

Right now the only exciting thing about the tournament is to see who else will miss the cut.  McIlroy on the cusp, at +3 on the fourteenth, has just made another blunder, but he will save par on the 14th.

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The Book Page

The two books for this next week:

• The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, James Shapiro, c. 2015
• The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's 'Ulysses', Kevin Birmingham, c. 2014
• It's possible I have read portions of the second book, I cannot remember, and may have even posted notes on one my blogs regarding same.

Coming in the mail today from Amazon:

• The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown, Karen Olsson, c. 2019; released July 16, 2019

Notes From All Over -- Part 1, July 19, 2019

Updates

Later, 12:32 p.m. CT: something doesn't make sense to me. Two screenshots of the NASDAQ this morning. In the original link, before the opening, the NASDAQ (futures) up 20 points and said to be 7,954:



Now, later today, the NASDAQ is up a meager 7 points and said to be trading at 8,214 points, well above the earlier number, 7,954.

There is nothing new here, but I just noted this today when I was trying to figure out if the NASDAQ has ever gone above 8,000 (see original note below).

 Original Note

Great, great mood today. Lots of things going on.

Disclaimer: do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisiosn based on what you read here or what you think you might have read here.

Disclaimer: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken.

Several big stories. These are at oilprice.com; will come back to them later.

• Mexico goes forward with $8 billion oil refinery against advice
• tensions mount in the Mideast; oil dropped to $55 yesterday; recovered this morning to $56
• China added more coal power in 2019 and 2020 to meet energy demand
• Trump administration announces huge Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale
• China's oil consumption rises almost 6% in 1H19 -- previously reported/posted
• Ohio delivers "death blow" to renewables

Politics: Bernie's staffers said to be frustrated with low pay. Tell me it isn't true. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

The US equity markets: I assume this is why I"m in a great mood. All three major indices trading at near record highs, and after a couple of days "in the red," are now "very green" before market open.Earnings for 2Q19 reported so far are not nearly as bad as pundits/companies warned. The banks in general, first to report, did very well, it appears. I am most interested in how natural gas gathering and processing companies do going forward.

IBM: reported a good 2Q19, apparently; saw the headline, nothing else

West Texas Light: just a reminder that it's a new benchmark; not easy to find; 

Data points:

• Dow futures: up almost 100 points
• S&P futures: up over 7 points
• NASDAQ: still flirting with 8,000. This site shows that the NASDAQ closed at 8,207.24 yesterday, July 18, 2019; but NASDAQ futures show it closed at 7,954 yesterday and is trading up 20.50 points in pre-market trading. I'm obviously missing something.

• NOG: down to $1.58
• JAG: down to $7.51
• SRE: great day yesterday, up $1.22 yesterday; closed at $141.17; near all-time high
• OKE: down a bit yesterday
• BA: pre-market, surging; up 2%; up almost $8/share; all I've seen is that Boeing announced what the MAX 737 write-off would be; must be a lot less than what analysts/investors expected
• BAC: up 1% yesterday 
• XLNX: had a nice day yesterday
• TSLA: back to $255 where it was in April, 2019; was as low as $178 at the end fo May, 2019

Impact Of Losing Line 5 -- RBN Energy -- July 19, 2019

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Friday, July 19, 2019: 32 for the month; 32 for the quarter;

• 35108, 1,824, CLR, Carson Peak 6-35H1, Oakdale, t5/19; cum 69K over 50 days; 
• 34353, 2,913, CLR, Morris 4-23HSL, Oakdale, t3/19; cum 56K, about 27 days;
• 33475, drl, EOG, Liberty LR 47-1416H, Parshall, no production data,
• 33474, drl, EOG, Liberty LR 110-1416H, Parshall, no production data,

Active rigs:

$56.12	7/19/2019	07/19/2018	07/19/2017	07/19/2016	07/19/2015
Active Rigs	55	68	59	30	73

RBN Energy: refinery impacts if Enbridge's Michigan crude oil pipeline is shut down -- Line 5.

The battle over the future of Enbridge’s Line 5 light crude oil pipeline through Michigan is heating up. In recent weeks, Michigan’s new attorney general filed suit to throw out the 1953 easement the state granted to allow the pipeline to be laid under the Straits of Mackinac — the narrow waterway between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas — and to block implementation of an agreement Enbridge and the state’s then-governor reached last fall to replace the section of Line 5 under the straits by the mid-2020s. Enbridge is pressing ahead, maintaining that the existing pipeline is safe and the 2018 agreement is legal and fully enforceable. All that raises two questions: just how important is Line 5 to the Michigan and Eastern Canadian refineries, and what would those refineries do if the pipeline were to cease operations? Today, we discuss recent developments and examine the issues at hand.

Enbridge’s Line 5, part of the Canadian midstream company’s much larger Mainline/Lakehead crude oil pipeline system, has been an important conduit for moving Western Canadian and Bakken crude oil and NGLs across Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas — and into Ontario — for more than 65 years. Line 5 (purple line in Figure 1) is one of multiple Enbridge pipelines out of the company’s terminal in Superior, WI. The 540-Mb/d pipeline transports “batches” of either light crude, light synthetic crude or mixed NGLs 645 miles east/southeast through Michigan to Sarnia, ON. The crude oils and NGLs are sourced primarily in Western Canada (but also in the Bakken) and are bound for Michigan, Ontario and Quebec. At the Straits of Mackinac (dashed red oval) — the four-mile-wide water passage between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas (and Lake Michigan and Lake Huron) — the 30-inch-diameter, single-pipe Line 5 splits into two 20-inch-diameter, parallel pipes that are anchored along the straits’ lakebed.

Saudi Arabia Crude Oil Storage -- July 18, 2019

From twitter, source not linked:

In very round numbers:

• US storage: 500 million bbls
• Saudi storage: 250 million bbls
• global demand: 100 million bbls/day
• daily production:
• US: 12 million bopd
• Russia: 11 million bopd
• Saudi Arabia: 10 million bopd

Notes From All Over -- Part 1, July 18, 2019

Buzz. Lots of twitter talk (tweets) today about collapsing oil prices. To many, does not make sense.

Buzz. There was a note over at twitter today, "the US dollar is tanking." If the US dollar is tanking, all things being equal, the price of oil should increase.

From tradingeconomics: