Active Rigs At Post-Boom Low; Monday Links, News, And Views -- The New "Meth" -- More Physicians Are Just Saying "No"

Even Howard Dean --- remember him -- Presidential candidate, physician, screamer -- comments on the impending train wreck. It appears the politicians are jumping ship, and the pundits are getting their headlines in now so they can say "I told you so."

One major problem is the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body. By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them.

Death by a thousand cuts. But other than that, it's a great plan. Say what?

General (now, President) Sisi. New Egyptian leader? The new King Tut?

Mayor Coleman Young's legacy: The AP is reporting:

Detroit's historic bankruptcy filing is a major setback for public employee unions that have spent years trying to ward off cuts to the pensions of millions of government workers around the country.

If the city's gambit succeeds, it could jeopardize an important bargaining tool for unions, which often have deferred higher wages in favor of more generous pensions and health benefits.

It also could embolden other financially troubled cities dealing with pension shortfalls to consider bankruptcy, or at least take a harder line with their unions in negotiating cuts.
"This is essentially the union's worst nightmare, said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "It means that the most sacred of sacred things they've negotiated for, the pensions of their retired members, are going to be severely cut."

Amazon is blowing away brick and mortar: Reuters is reporting:

Amazon.com Inc unveiled a new hiring spree on Monday ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama to one of the Internet retailer's giant distribution warehouses this week.

Amazon said it is looking to fill more than 5,000 new full-time jobs at 17 of its fulfillment centers across the United States. That's roughly a 25 percent increase in full-time fulfillment center staff, which currently number more than 20,000 in the country.

Barnes & Noble needs to re-invent itself. And fast.

Pending home sales down. Reuters is reporting:

Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes fell in June, retreating from a more than six-year high touched the prior month, suggesting rising mortgage rates were starting to dampen home sales.

That was a short-lived home-building recovery. Yes, I know this is not new home-building but it's all part of the same pie.

Active rigs: 179 -- ties post-boom low

Wells coming off confidential list have been posted; scroll down.

RBN Energy: the Eaglebine -- a must read. 

One of today’s hottest boutique oil shale plays in Texas is located northeast of the Eagle Ford shale and south of the Woodbine Sand basin. This play has been dubbed the “Eaglebine” by one of its principal acreage holders – ZaZa Energy Corporation. Another part of the play – operated by Halcón Resources - is known as “El Halcón” (the Hawk). Both companies are confident that positive early drilling results will translate into high rates of return. Today we examine the Eaglebine play.

The Eaglebine and Halcón “Hawk” plays have been developed by small independent oil companies and are now attracting significant interest from larger players. The Eaglebine’s big brother - the Eagle Ford - came from nowhere 4 years ago to surpass production in the North Dakota Bakken. That dramatic increase in production was encouraged by high producer rates of return, the proximity to Gulf Coast refineries and easy build out of takeaway capacity leveraging existing infrastructure. Producers are hoping for a similar success story to play out in the Eaglebine.

The Prince says Saudi's production capacity is waning.

Reuters is reporting that the price of Russian crude oil is surging:

Domestic crude oil prices in Russia, the world's top producer, surged by over 14 percent to an all-time high last week due to cuts in volumes usually supplied to the spot market by TNK-BP, acquired by Rosneft, and higher international oil prices, traders said.

The spot market, with capacity of around 3.5 million tonnes (25.7 million barrels) of crude per month - almost a fifth of all oil consumed in Russia - first felt the shock of the $55 billion TNK-BP buyout in June, when prices surged almost 25 percent.

Crude in the domestic spot market is bought mostly by refineries which do not have any, or enough, production of their own. Traders said the quotes for spot delivery in August on the Russian market reached an all-time high after some previous non-binding supply agreements with TNK-BP were scrapped and Rosneft's offers, which traditionally make up a third of the total volume on the market, dried up.

WSJ Links

Investors applaud as Big Oil gets smaller.

Happy anniversary, Big Oil.

The world's energy supermajors wouldn't mind seeing crude hit $147 a barrel, as it did exactly five years ago, but their shareholders aren't exactly pining for the days of yore. That is despite the fact that the companies earn a lot less profit and even pump fewer hydrocarbons today.

With BP PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell  PLC announcing quarterly results this week, it is clear that size and even growth are overrated.

Those four companies made a combined $28 billion in profit during the previous quarter. Although oil prices today aren't far off their level during the spring of 2008, those earnings are $10 billion less than what the companies made five years ago.
Part of the reason is that they haven't invested as aggressively and, in the case of BP following its legal woes related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, have even sold assets.

For investors:

Though net income is lower, share buybacks and dividend increases have enriched shareholders. An investor owning one share or depositary receipt of each company could expect to reap $10.44 in dividends over the next 12 months, compared with the $8.88 paid five years ago.
More impressive still is that, even compared with the time of the peak oil price five years ago, the companies are worth more. A portfolio containing a share of each is now 11% more valuable.

 Remember: this is not an investment site; do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or anything you think you might have read here.

This should be fun: fracking in/under the Arctic floor to target methane hydrate. My hunch is that 23 activist environmentalists just experienced apoplexy. They will probably be able to stop the US from tapping this new energy source, but the Japanese and Russians will move ... "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead":

Scientists in Japan and the U.S. say they are moving closer to tapping a new source of energy: methane hydrate, a crystalline form of natural gas found in Arctic permafrost and at the bottom of oceans.

At room temperature the crystal gives off intense heat, earning it the nickname of "fire in ice," and making the estimated 700,000 trillion cubic feet of the substance scattered around the world a potentially major fuel source, containing more energy than all previously discovered oil and gas combined, according to researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey.

Commercial production of methane hydrate is expected to take at least a decade—if it comes at all. Different technologies to harvest the gas are being tested, but so far no single approach has been perfected, and it remains prohibitively expensive. But booming energy demand in Asia, which is spurring gigantic projects to liquefy natural gas in Australia, Canada and Africa, is also giving momentum to efforts to mine the frozen clumps of methane hydrate mixed deep in seafloor sediment.

And here it is: activist environmentalists worried "crystal meth" could be hazardous to Mother Earth:

Tapping methane hydrate for natural gas might have a positive impact on global energy production, but critics say the potential fuel source could have a negative impact on global warming.

The trillions of cubic feet of methane hydrates contained in the ocean's floor are in geologically unstable areas. The fear: One wrong move and an undersea landslide in the muddy sediment containing the methane hydrates could send massive amounts of a particularly potent greenhouse gas to the ocean's surface and into the atmosphere.

"Adding more methane to the atmosphere is a really bad idea," said Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace, which is known for its use of direct action as well as lobbying and research to sway public opinion on issues including global warming and commercial whaling.

What a  great way to start a new week. Here we go again. Be sure to read the comments at the linked article. My favorite and most pithy:

Funny, I don't seem to recall the pictures of those Greenpeace boats using sails or oars.

Predictable, but NOT good news: more physicians are just saying NO -- no to new Medicare patients:

Fewer American doctors are treating patients enrolled in the Medicare health program for seniors, reflecting frustration with its payment rates and pushback against mounting rules, according to health experts.

The number of doctors who opted out of Medicare last year, while a small proportion of the nation's health professionals, nearly tripled from three years earlier, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government agency that administers the program. Other doctors are limiting the number of Medicare patients they treat even if they don't formally opt out of the system.

Even fewer doctors say they will accept new Medicaid patients, and the number who don't participate in private insurance contracts, while smaller, is growing—just as millions of Americans are poised to gain access to such coverage under the new health law next year. All told, health experts say the number of doctors going "off-grid" isn't enough to undermine the Affordable Care Act, but they say some Americans may have difficulty finding doctors who will take their new benefits or face long waits for appointments with those who do.

Cue up Connie Francis. Medicare used to be the "bread and butter" for family practice physicians and internists, but these physicians are now doing financially well enough to say sayonara, adios, so long, to seniors. ObamaCare will give them top cover in their communities so they (the physicians) won't be seen as "the bad guys." By the way, the photo at the link is of a clinic in Marble Falls, TX -- I just drove through Marble Falls earlier this summer; a beautiful, beautiful city.

Front section story on voting on Mali, but not one story on Syria. Whatever happened to Syria, the civil war that was supposed to take down western civilization as we know it?

Strippers. Favorite place to work right now: Williston, North Dakota.