Another Off-Shore Wind Project Scrapped; For Investors Only: Hess Sees Lower 4Q13 Earnings; North Dakota Makes Motley Fools' List Of Five States That Are "Obamacare's Biggest Roadblocks Thus Far" -- They Have Got To Be Kidding

British off-shore wind project scrapped; Inner Hebrides, Scotland

Another off-shore wind project for Great Britain scrapped.
This is the second huge British off-shore wind farm to be scrapped. I just reported on another off-short project planned off the west coast of England that was scrapped a few weeks ago. It's hard to keep them all straight.

1) The London Array, off the east coast, (London) Thames is still on-going.
2) The one I talked about earlier was off the west coast of England (Wales).

http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2013/11/uk-throws-in-towel-on-wind-farm-due-to.html

3) Now, the one you sent me would have been on the west coast off Scotland, Inner Hebrides.

Dropping like flies. The London Array will be completed, I assume but will be a financial drag for quite some time, I bet.

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I just can't get too excited about this:

Hess Corp said fourth quarter profit will be lower on a sequential basis due to a drop in oil prices and output will be lower than it had previously forecast. Hess said the average price it received for its crude oil fell to $98.65 per barrel in the first two months of the fourth quarter, down from $104.95 in the third quarter.

I would think hedges, contracts, collars, expense management, etc, would be more important than price in crude dropping from $105 to $99. If earnings miss expectations, and Hess blames it on price of crude, I would be disappointed in Hess. Let's see how Hess does, relative to others. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or anything you think you may have read here.

Yesterday:

Halcon Resources prices $400 mln add-on offering of senior notes (HK) 3.75 +0.04 : Co announced that it has priced an additional $400 million in aggregate principal amount of its 9.75% senior unsecured notes due 2020 in a private offering at an issue price of 102.750% of par and a yield to worst of 8.999%. The additional senior notes are being offered as additional notes to the $750 million aggregate principal amount of 9.75% senior notes due 2020 that the Company sold in a private placement that settled on July 16, 2012. 

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When you read the story at the link:

• when I see someone say wind is "more competitive with power from fossil fuels," I say "show me the data" -- because it's only competitive when one factors in the tax breaks
• Warren Buffett playing this for the tax breaks; taking advantage of a beleaguered industry
• wind power is cheapest source of energy in Iowa (I believe the only other source of energy in Iowa is ethanol, other than hot air emanating from politicians)

Warren Buffett orders $1 billion of wind turbines for Iowa projects. The following sounds like a press release, which I'm sure it is:

The decision by Warren Buffett’s utility company to order about $1 billion of wind turbines for projects in Iowa shows how a drop in equipment costs is making renewable energy more competitive with power from fossil fuels.

Turbine prices have fallen 26 percent worldwide since the first half of 2009, bringing wind power within 5.5 percent of the cost of electricity from coal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., yesterday announced an order for 1,050 megawatts of Siemens AG wind turbines in the industry’s largest order to date for land-based gear.

Wind is the cheapest source of power in Iowa, and the deal indicates that turbines are becoming profitable without subsidies, according to Tom Kiernan, chief executive officer of the American Wind Energy Association trade group. That’s a boost for suppliers including Siemens, General Electric Co. and Vestas Wind Systems A/S, and a threat to coal miners such as Peabody Energy Corp.

By the way, my comments about Warren Buffett buying "wind" for the tax breaks was written before reading the article. In fact, except for the blurb I posted above, I did not read any more of the article. Don sent me the "rest of the story":

Wind farms provide “a hedge for our customers going forward in an era of reduced coal generation,” he said at the event. The projects will qualify for the federal production tax credit for wind power, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

I really get a kick out of this: Investors (Wall Street investors) are doing very, very well. MDU, for example, could probably qualify for up to $10 million in tax credits. And MDU's pay higher rates for more expensive electricity.  Consumers are getting screwed. And they still like Obama. Well, at least 37%, according to the polls. This is my favorite quote from the polls: "I still support President Obama. Everything he has done has screwed up my life, made it worse, but I still support Obama." Talk about cognitive dissonance. Obama puts the "dissonance" in "cognitivity." And then goes golfing. Or takes selfies.

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The market is up in early trading. Now that the movers and shakers have locked in their profits for 2013 and cleaned up their portfolios, investors can get back to business. It's hard to ignore all that good economic activity. 

The market is up in early trading even though most expect tapering will start to flow. I suggested that the market priced that into equities some time ago. Did you all see how good XOM did yesterday? PSX continues to do well. SRE continues to trade near it's all time-high.

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ObamaCare

The headline: These 5 States Are Obamacare's Biggest Roadblocks Thus Far -- The Motley Fool. The five states: North and South Dakota (that would be two states), Oregon, Alaska, and Delaware (isn't the vice-president from Delaware?).

Cumulatively, these five states managed to enroll just 1,510 people through two months. That is pretty miserable considering that Vermont's state-run health exchange has been practically nonfunctional -- and the state has the second-lowest percentage of uninsured residents in the country, behind only Massachusetts -- yet it's still been able to enroll nearly 5,000 previously uninsured people.

There are certainly a few similarities worth noting here.

First, lower-populated states would be logical choices to bring in a smaller number of enrollments. This is why figures from Alaska and North Dakota are understandable, but states like Oregon deserve a wag of my finger! But more so than just total enrollment, all five states are significantly below the national average of signing up 20% of total applicants. With the exception of Oregon, which is trolling along at an abysmal 0.2% enrollment-to-full applicant rate, the remaining four states above are only enrolling between 10% and 15% of people who have completed the application process.