Friday -- Part II -- Huge Natural Gas Story Reported By RNB Energy

Disclaimer: 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.

A reader, in response to my note about Ghiradelli double chocolate brownies, suggested using two eggs instead of one. I always thought about adding a second egg but I did not know if one "was allowed" to do that, deviate from a proprietary recipe.

When I was stationed in eastern Turkey, I smuggled medications sewn in my parka, into Kurdistan. But deviating from a proprietary recipe seemed to be beyond the pale, as they say. Now that a reader says it's okay, I may try that next time.

Active rigs:

	1/17/2014	01/17/2013	01/17/2012	01/17/2011	01/17/2010
Active Rigs	187	185	201	163	80

RBN Energy: Miami, 2017 -- Marcellus gas heading to Florida.

Spectra Energy and NextEra Energy’s planned Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline from near Transco Station 85 in southwestern Alabama to near Orlando in central Florida will do more than provide additional gas-delivery capacity to Florida and the welcomed redundancy of a third pipeline to the Sunshine State. The big news is that Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise project by July 2017 will enable large volumes of Marcellus-sourced gas to be shipped south (backwards!) along the Transco pipeline all the way to Station 85. That (and Sabal Trail) will give Marcellus producers something unthinkable until now: access to major gas users as far south as Miami. Today we lay out the basics of what is being planned.

I see I've won another million dollars from some Nigerian lottery, and I can get The New Yorks Times for $2 for some unspecified period of time.

General Electric reports EPS in-line, revs in-line; 2014 framework remains unchanged: Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.53 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.53; revenues rose 3.1% year/year to $40.38 bln vs the $40.21 bln consensus. 

By the way, an objective review of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway returns have not been as good as generally believed, over the last 10 years. Google it if interested.

Here's the Reuters story on GE: 

General Electric Co (GE) posted a rise in quarterly net profit on Friday, helped by strength in its businesses selling oil pumps and jet engines.

The U.S. conglomerate said net earnings rose to $4.2 billion, or 41 cents per share, from $4.01 billion, or 38 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, earnings of 53 cents per share were in line with the average expectation of analysts, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

One word: lackluster. Okay three words: lackluster. Oil pumps. Without the latter, it would have been a bad quarter.

Wow, did you see this? Nintendo will slash Wii sales estimates for the year from 9 million to less than 3 million. That's the headline. Won't read the story. But that's the headline.

Thirty-one minutes of Arvo Part:

Te Deum, Arvo Part When I first heard this years ago, I was blown away when the voices came in at 4:54.    Then, again, when the strings come in at 12:30.    I heard Arvo Part's Te Deum live in Ripon Cathedral, Yorkshire, England. 
I most enjoyed listening to this at midnight in a small church near the River Nidd in Pateley Bridge.
SLB is up about a percent in pre-market trading.

By the way, there's a reason for inserting those YouTube videos. It has to do with the old versions of the iPad in which multi-tasking is impossible.

Ya gotta love this: Apache says cold weather in Texas and Oklahoma hurt production. I can't make this stuff up. Cold weather in Texas and Oklahoma. Yeah, life is tough all over. I assume -50 degrees in North Dakota and wind gusts up to 60 mph hurt production in North Dakota earlier this month, but for December, North Dakota posted another all-time record in crude oil production.

I just read the Apache story: that was for the fourth quarter. Hmmm. As I said, life is tough all over.

What's RSB doing? It's down almost 2% in pre-market trading. Shell posted a huge profit warning. It pays almost 5%. Wow, look at the chart. Looks like an old fashioned wood saw.

I'll "do" The Wall Street Journal in Part III.

I just talked to the woman working behind the Starbucks counter about "cold weather in Texas." She says Texans are ''....." when it comes to cold. [I don't know how to spell the word she used to describe Texans when it comes to cold.] She says she spent ten years in Minneapolis before coming to Texas, and has lived in Boise, Idaho, and some other place, I think she said New Mexico, or maybe it was just Mexico, and she said Texans are "......" when it comes to cold. If Apache says production was hurt in  the fourth quarter in Oklahoma and Texas due to cold weather -- these reports of global warming are seriously exaggerated.

Wow, this stuff never quits. Now Norway says huge costs to drill in the Arctic will hurt production. Yeah, life is tough all over. Every Norwegian is a millionaire.

Okay, on to Part III.