Wednesday Morning Links, News, And Views

Active rigs: 187

RBN Energy: great update of the Bakken as it heads toward a million bbls a day --

The latest North Dakota crude production estimates for July 2013 show a year on year increase of 200 Mb/d to a new record of 874 Mb/d. If you add Montana and South Dakota production (80 Mb/d) the Williston Basin is getting close to 1 MMb/d. After going through a famine of pipeline capacity in 2012, producers turned to rail to get their barrels to market. By the end of 2013 there will be 1.5 MMb/d of rail and pipeline takeaway capacity - more than enough to handle expanding output. Today we review the latest Bakken numbers.

Two things

• in light of the stock market action yesterday regarding Bakken operators, this update is very, very timely
• be sure to read to the end of today's RBN Energy post

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Noble to split into two companies:

Noble Corporation announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a plan to separate a business comprised of many of its standard specification drilling units, resulting in the creation of two separate and highly focused offshore drilling companies.  The drilling units that would be owned and operated by the new company comprise most of the standard specification drilling units in the Noble fleet, including five drillships, three semisubmersibles, 34 jackups, two submersibles, and one FPSO.  The new company would also be responsible for the Hibernia platform operations. 

Wall Street Journal

I read the print edition earlier today; I did not find much to link. I'll run through the digital edition, just to double check. One thing I did note: listening to NPR news this morning, I was led to believe that President Obama made the decision to avoid a photo-op/hand shake with the new Iranian president. It turns out that he was itching for such a photo-op; it was the Iranian leader who left him standing. It was the WSJ that reported the back story. It is always interesting to see how different news outlets, in this case, NPR can spin these stories. It's possible the "truth" is somewhere between the NPR version and the WSJ version....

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Potentially, the big loser in ObamaCare could be .... Medicare. I have always maintained the following: 

Our point is that when Washington legislates on a grand scale, it sets in motion a game whose long-run outcome nobody can predict.  

There will be winners and losers. Investors, I believe, will be winners.

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New York Times

This headline says it all, about a president "in over his head." Five years into his presidency, in his second term, his foreign policy is still evolving. The headline: Obama's evolving doctrine. That seemed to be the theme throughout The WSJ: the president is still trying to figure out where he stands. 

 Los Angeles Times

This I cannot make up: Los Angeles approved a 39-story residential tower without a fault review. But an MTA study suggests the proposed tower site might lie over a strand of the active Santa Monica fault. LA approves a 39-story residential tower WITHOUT an earquake/fault line review. What am I missing. The state will study fracking ad nauseum before issuing a single permit, and here we have a skyscraper going up in LA without a fault review. Front page story. I can't make this stuff up.

The New York Times would never find time for this story on its front page, but the LA Times did: a consumer noted that "one Target store may have higher prices than another." I wonder if there was a Target story in that Nairobi mall where terrorists killed up to a hundred hostages. It sort of puts things into perspective. Anyway, to answer the consumer's concern: different stores in the chain have different fixed costs, such as the lease, taxes, staffing and security. This is common among most big retail chains.