Tuesday; Number Of Active Rigs In North Dakota Remains High; Fracking Continues Through Cold Weather; Gen & Wyo Rail Doubles Year-Over-Year

Wells coming off the confidential list have been posted. 

Fracking resumes/continues. Samson Oil & Gas provides update of its North Stockyard project in the North Dakota Bakken:

Coopers 2-15-14HBK and Tooheys 4-15-14HBK: Fracture stimulation operations on the Coopers and Tooheys wells have been completed, and both of these wells are currently shut-in. The wells are located on the Tofte 2 pad and flow-back operations on these wells will commence around January 20th in conjunction with the Little Creature well flow back.

Genesee & Wyoming traffic in Dec 2013 was 155,769 carloads, up 109.0% y/y, and up 11.0% y/y pro forma for the RA acquisition.

Coal & coke traffic increased 5,776 carloads primarily due to increased shipments in G&W's Midwest, Central, Mountain West and Ohio Valley regions. Agricultural products traffic increased 3,758 carloads primarily due to increased shipments in G&W's Australia, Pacific and Ohio Valley regions. Metallic ores traffic increased 1,890 carloads primarily due to increased iron ore shipments in G&W's Australia Region. G&W's Other commodity group traffic increased 1,800 carloads primarily due to overhead Class 1 shipments. All remaining traffic increased by a net 2,227 carloads. 

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

JPMorgan Chase beats GAAP by $0.06, beats adjusted by $0.06.

Wow, look at Delphi: Delphi Automotive approves an increase in the annual dividend rate paid on its ordinary shares to $1 per ordinary share from $0.68; announces new $1 billion share repurchUase program.

Active rigs:

	1/14/2014	01/14/2013	01/14/2012	01/14/2011	01/14/2010
Active Rigs	193	184	200	163	79

RBN Energy: Continuation of the series on crude oil storage and takeaway in western Canada.

Spectra Energy purchased the 280 Mb/d Express pipeline from Kinder Morgan in December 2012. The Express originates in Hardisty and ships crude to Caspar WY where it connects with the Platte pipeline into the Midwest. The Express is small compared to the huge 2.5 MMb/d Enbridge mainline and the planned 1.1 MMb/d TransCanada Energy East pipelines but it is not the smallest export pipe from Hardisty. That honor belongs to the Inter Pipeline Bow River that ships less than 100 Mb/d of crude across the border into Montana. Today we continue our Canadian crude storage series describing Edmonton and Hardisty crude oil infrastructure.

Also note: in this blog we announce that everyone attending our School of Energy - Session A in March will be joining us for the Brad Paisley concert at the Houston Rodeo!

The Wall Street Journal

Health sign-ups skew older, raising fears over costs.  I have no idea why this is a concern. The insurers will be bailed out by the government. The insurers will simply become "pass-through" entities operating the national health care system for the federal government. But from the linked article:

One-third of health plan enrollees in new insurance marketplaces are 55 or older, the Obama administration said Monday, a figure that insurers said makes the pool older than they would need to sustain their coverage at current premiums.

Administration officials said they are pushing to enroll more young people before a March 31 deadline for most people to get coverage for this year, and some cushions built into the law mean it won't necessarily face trouble right away even if the 2014 pool of enrollees skews older.

Still, the release of the data, showing for the first time the age breakdown of people who had signed up for coverage through December, highlighted the challenge in persuading younger people who may not have a pressing need for health coverage to sign up for policies that can cost about $200 a month before subsidies. 

Of course it won't doom ObamaCare. As noted above, the insurers have a bailout clause.  Also, I'm not sure why one-third of enrollees are 55 years old or over comes as a surprise. Isn't that just about the "size" of the US population over 55? Of those over 26 years old (remember, those under the age of 26 can remain on their parents' insurance: one-third. From 26 to 55: one-third; over 55, one-third. Seems about right.

********************************

I would never have guessed: another booming American business -- Kentucky bourbon.

The world is developing a fresh taste for Kentucky bourbon.

In a $13.6 billion all-cash deal, Osaka, Japan-based beer and soft-drinks maker Suntory Holdings Ltd. agreed Monday to buy Beam Inc., BEAM the owner of Jim Beam, Maker's Mark and Knob Creek bourbons and the second-largest maker of American whiskey behind Brown-Forman Corp.

The acquisition would catapult family-owned Suntory from No. 15 in global liquor dollar sales to No. 3, behind only U.K.-based Diageo  PLC and France's Pernod Ricard SA, according to alcohol industry tracker IWSR.

Beam, based in Deerfield, Ill., currently is No. 4 globally. Beam is positioned squarely in a part of the liquor business experiencing a powerful global upswing: bourbon whiskey.

The traditional American spirit is made mostly from corn, aged in charred oak barrels and typically hails from Kentucky. Its popularity is building as some consumers grow tired of vodka, the top-selling U.S. spirit, and gravitate toward distillers of brown spirits with more than centurylong domestic roots. Long in the doldrums, U.S. bourbon has made a comeback in the past decade and production in 2012 rose above one million barrels for the first time since 1973. Distillers have invested roughly $300 million to boost capacity since 2011.

North American whiskey—including bourbon, Tennessee and Canadian whiskeys—accounted for more than half of the total growth in the $21 billion U.S. spirits market in the 52 weeks ended Oct. 12, 2013, according to store tracker Nielsen.

"Heard on the Street": Beam deal jacks up values.

North American whiskey is one of the most rapidly growing spirits in the U.S., particularly at the high end of the market. At Beam, comparable sales of Maker's Mark were up 17% year-to-date at the end of the third quarter, while sales of Knob Creek and Basil Hayden's were up 15% and 34%, respectively. That compares with 3% growth for Jim Beam. Timothy S. Ramey, an analyst with D.A. Davidson, says this trend has staying power. People's palates tend to move on a continuum toward greater complexity and depth of flavor as they age. The fact that 20-somethings are already drinking bourbon bodes well for the continued growth of the industry.

There appears to be a correlation here: 20-somethings not signing up for ObamaCare but increasing their consumption of bourbon.

*******************************

Groups pledge $330 million to save Detroit's art collection.

West Virginia begins to lift water ban.  Another crisis, another day.

Two panels to investigate New Jersey bridgegate. Another crisis, another day. The problem went on for four days and a) no one told the governor "why"; and, b) the governor never asked. Apparently.

No criminal charges will be filed over IRS heightened scrutiny of conservative groups. And this is news? This is as newsworthy as learning that Jesse Jackson, Jr, now in prison, gets around $9,000 monthly in disability (while in prison) after developing a mood disorder following his sentencing. The United States: what a great country.

Supreme Court likely to limit presidential recess appointments. Along with executive orders and picking and choosing which laws to enforce, the US was looking more and more like a banana republic. Or perhaps an Islamic republic without the beheadings.

By not acting, the Supreme Court agrees that abortions beyond 20-weeks "constitutional."

The Los Angeles Times

Disclaimer: this is not an entertainment site. Do not buy any concert or movie tickets based on what you read here or think you might have read here. 

And still more stories on bourbon: at the Golden Globes parties, booze was promoted throughout the show and after.

CALPERS posts 16% return on investments -- best return since 1977. Unmanaged stock portfolios rose about 26% last year, and John Bogle's Vanguard Windsor had a return of about 39%. The North Dakota Legacy Fund probably had a return of less than 1% if the fund did not invest in equities. I have not seen the North Dakota Legacy Fund annual report yet.

In the US, rich kids getting skinnier, poor kids getting fatter.

The Boston Globe

From ancient fish, insight into origin of limbs. 

The 375-million-year-old fish Tiktaalik roseaewas first written into biology textbooks in 2006, when a team of three paleontologists discovered a fossil of the curious crocodile-like fish showing it had front fins resembling limbs, with elbows and primitive wrists. The same team announced Monday that Tiktaalik also had surprisingly large pelvic bones, suggesting the transitional creature was shifting toward “all-wheel drive” though it still lived in the sea.

Senate postpones action on jobless benefits. Memo to unemployed: develop a mood disorder.