Monday Morning Links -- Part II

Wells coming off the confidential list over the weekend and today have been reported. 

Monday morning links, Part I, will be posted later. It's a non-energy post, and generally I don't like non-energy or non-Bakken posts to start out the day. Good luck to all.

RBN Energy: PBF Energy -- It's Toledo, Ohio, refinery.

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Chevron enters shale hunt in South Africa. Very, very interesting. But the story seems bigger than reality. First, it's gonna be a long time before we see production; and, b) it's natural gas.

The fracking issue is divisive in South Africa, a country still wrestling with the economic and political legacy of apartheid.

Company's decision comes as temporary ban on exploration is lifted in a country estimated to hold large reserves.

There may be enough natural in South Africa to supply that country's need for 400 years. Right now, South Africa imports 60% of its energy needs.

South Africa was #76 of 191 countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol. The US has not signed; Canada has pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol.

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Suddenly there's a hole in the Apple bear thesis so big you can drive a truck (full of iPhone 5s) through it.

On Sunday night, announced that it sold two million iPhone 5s over launch weekend in China. Two reasons this is significant:

• One, it makes Apple bulls like Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, who projects that Apple will sell 4 to 5 million iPhones in China in the quarter, look smarter than the bears. 
• And two, combined with the news Friday that Walmart is selling the iPhone 5 in the U.S. for $70 off, it strongly suggests that Tim Cook has worked the kinks out of his supply chain and is managing to deliver a flood of iPhone 5s in a crucial quarter.

The crush of pessimistic Apple chatter has been so overwhelming recently that it's hard to remember what the conventional wisdom was three months ago, before Apple's perceived iPhone sales miss, underwhelming quarter, and so on. 

A refresher: Many thoughtful Apple watchers were saying that the holiday quarter was mostly about supply. If Apple could figure out how to deliver enough iPhones and iPads during the quarter, beautiful things could happen with Apple's numbers.

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