Canadian Heavy Oil Still At A $20 Discount To WTI; Minnesota Deep Freeze Worst In 20 Years -- Ah, Yes, Global Warming

Bakken crude unchanged following Casselton derailment -- Inforum. This was posted by Inforum back on December 31, 2013:

Bakken crude was unchanged in a quiet market on Tuesday, a day after a BNSF train carrying oil collided with another carrying grains in North Dakota, setting off a series of explosions and a fire.

Bakken oil for February delivery at Clearbrook, Minnesota was pegged flat at a $9.50 a barrel discount to the U.S. front-month futures contract, one trader said.

Wow, west Canadian (heavy) oil still has a $20-discount to WTI -- Bloomberg. This was posted by Bloomberg yesterday.

Canadian crudes jumped on the spot market on concern that frigid temperatures will affect northern production and transportation.

Temperatures in Fort McMurray, Alberta, where the bulk of Canadian oil-sands production is centered, dropped to minus 38 degrees Celsius (minus 36.4 Fahrenheit) late yesterday, according to The Weather Network.

“There is no doubt that the cold weather is impacting operations up there,” said Andy Lipow, president of Houston-based Lipow Oil Associates LLC. “The market may be sensing that there is going to be some reduction in supplies.”

Western Canadian Select heavy oil for February delivery reached the strongest level in five months, narrowing its discount to West Texas Intermediate oil by $3.90 a barrel to $19.85, according to Calgary oil broker Net Energy Inc. Contracts for March and second-quarter delivery also gained at least $2 a barrel.

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A Note to the Granddaughters

Minnesota governor closes schools: too cold. Minnesota's deep freeze the worst it has been in 20 years. Up to 30 inches of snow north of Boston. At USA Today:

The bitter cold that gripped the snow-covered northern tier from Cleveland to Boston on Friday shows no sign of easing, as another arctic blast roaring out of Canada threatens to drive weekend temperatures to all-time record lows.

The National Weather Service said "dangerously cold temperatures" will slam the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest through the weekend, driving wind chill temperatures in some areas to below -60 degrees F.

Remember: the northern hemisphere is subject to worse global warming than the southern hemisphere. So it's even colder in the southern hemisphere.

I honestly do not remember ever staying home from school while growing up in Williston, North Dakota, due to cold weather.

I went to kindergarten at First Lutheran Church. That was too far to walk and, as part of a car pool, I was driven to kindergarten with two or three other rug rats on a daily basis. One noon during the winter my dad was late picking us up and we started walking home. (Cue up videos of South Park.). We were probably about six blocks from the church when he found us. To walk those six blocks we would have had to cross Main Street and the busy, busy intersection where Happy Chappy's gas station was located -- across from Harmon Park.

I have only one memory of first grade. We attended the new Wilkinson Elementary School, beginning in second grade, but my first grade was in the west corner of the Williston High School. The high school was about a mile from where we lived; we took short cuts, so maybe it was 0.75 miles. All I remember: the walk was uphill in both directions with six-foot snow drifts. We walked to school but regardless how cold it was outside we were not allowed to go in until the bell rung.

I remember my first act of civil disobedience. It was probably February, 1958, and we were standing outside in the dark about 7:45 a.m., waiting for the bell to ring. It was probably a minus 9 degrees (let's pick a date, February 7, 1958). We were freezing. We began to chant: "Let us in. Let us in. Let us in."

Yelling and chanting kept our minds off how cold it was and probably warmed us up a bit. After a few minutes of chanting a school official opened the school door slightly and told us to come in. No. He/she told us to go home and come back later, closer to the time when the bell would be ringing. Can you believe that?

We weren't dumb enough to walk all the way home, so we walked across the school lot, past the football field, and to an open lot on the corner of 14th Street and 6th Avenue and there we waited. In sub-freezing weather -- sub-zero weather, we waited, waited for the school bell to ring. And then when the bell rang, we ran as fast our little feet in heavy winter boots would go. We didn't want to be late, and counted tardy.

The rest of my elementary school years were spent at Wilkinson Elementary School which was about the same distance from home but in a different direction. I never remember school being canceled because the weather was too cold. I remember skating on ice skates on the asphalt residential roads one day following a freak weather event when snow melted and then froze overnight. But it was never too cold to go to school.

In response I received this from a reader (this was too good not to post and so much better written than what I wrote. I believe it maintains anonymity):

I graduated in 1974,  and from the time I started Kindergarten at First Lutheran, through elementary at Rickard, and on through WHS,  I never remember having a snow day either. 

One thing I do remember is the old dress code (that didn't change until I started high school) that required girls to wear dresses or skirts every day, regardless of the cold, frigid weather outside.  We at least were able to wear pants under our dresses, but had to remove them as soon as we entered the classroom. 

I also remember how we would walk home for lunch every day at Rickard. Being we only lived a block away, it was no problem for us.  But there was one particularly nasty day when my mom trudged up to Rickard school wearing her storm coat to give us 2 dimes so we could eat lunch at school that day.  She didn't want us walking home in the blizzard.  It scared me that the weather would be that bad. 

But most days, we would play outside in the snow before school, at morning recess, after eating lunch before the bell rang, afternoon recess, and then as soon as we got home from school, we would gather up our skates and head back to the skating rink that was on the corner of the school.  We would skate until supper, then head back out after eating again!  Of course considerable time was spent in the heated warming house next to the rink!!  But then that was in the days when kids were allowed to be kids as we weren't overburdened with homework.  We just read books for the fun of it as TV was just one channel basically (NBC, KUMV-TV, channel 8).

Freshman year at WHS brought 2 new things:  new dress code where girls could finally wear pants (nice pants, no jeans of course!) and a new requirement that all freshmen had to take swimming.  My swimming class was right before lunch.  There wasn't enough time to dry your hair enough with the wall-mounted hair dryers as we were in a hurry to head home for lunch. We walked home regardless of the snow or temperature, or wet heads!! 

One more thought: that indoor swimming pool (that had an underground tunnel connecting it to WHS). That was where my parents would later go to swim every day after retirement.  Dr. Hagen was their family doctor.  My how I wish my parents, and especially Dr. Hagen!!, would have been alive to see his granddaughter set world records in swimming in the Olympics!!!

Ah, yes, channel 8, the only channel we got for many, many years in Williston.