Monday -- February 10, 2014

Active rigs:

	2/10/2014	02/10/2013	02/10/2012	02/10/2011	02/10/2010
Active Rigs	192	185	203	165	91

RBN Energy: Gulf Coast condensate splitter economics.

Midstream companies are building or planning 400 Mb/d of new condensate splitter capacity to process Eagle Ford production by 2016. BASF/Total have been operating a 75 Mb/d splitter at Port Arthur since 2000. The new splitters are being built in response to a flood of condensate range material coming out of the Eagle Ford into Houston and Corpus Christi. So what’s the big deal with condensate splitters? Today we look at splitter economics.

The Wall Street Journal

Millions trapped in health-law coverage gap.  

Ernest Maiden was dumbfounded to learn that he falls through the cracks of the health-care law because in a typical week he earns about $200 from the Happiness and Hair Beauty and Barber Salon. Like millions of other Americans caught in a mismatch of state and federal rules, the 57-year-old hair stylist doesn't make enough money to qualify for federal subsidies to buy health insurance.

If he earned another $1,300 a year, the government would pay the full cost. Instead, coverage would cost about what he earns. 

Not to worry. This will be corrected before the election.

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Even the WSJ can spin a story. More people quit their jobs, as optimism grows.

The percentage who volunarily left their job -- the nation's "quit rate" -- hit 1.8% in NOvember, the highest in the recovery and up from a low of 1.2% in September, 2009. Some retired or simply chose not to work. But most quit to hunt for a new job or because they had already found one.

Sure.

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Five days without power -- Pennsylvanians. A global warming storm hit the southeastern part of the state, knocking out power for more than 50,000 Pennsylvanians.

Even Senator Charles Schumer knows that President Obama would interpret any new immigration law any way he wanted, using executive orders to enforce the law selectively.


UAW, auto industry hold breath on VW vote. [Update: UAW lost; workers vote down union.]

The future of the United Auto Workers union and a large swath of the U.S. auto industry may be decided this week when workers at the three-year-old Volkswagen AG plant here vote on whether they want union representation.

For a time, Donna Allmon, a quality inspector on the assembly line, was open to the idea of a union, and looked positively on the UAW's practice of giving preferences based on workers' seniority.

But then she took into account the UAW's history of confrontations with the Detroit auto makers, and its role in the long decline that culminated in the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler.

"Anything they have been involved with has had problems," she said Saturday, leaving a meeting hosted by a group of antiunion workers where she picked up a blue "NO UAW" T-shirt and stack of leaflets to pass out to co-workers.

"We are a great company. I just don't feel we need this."

If the UAW prevails in the vote, it would be a rejuvenating victory for an organization whose membership rolls and influence have declined steadily for 30 years as GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. struggled and downsized. It would also signal new hope for unionizing other foreign-owned plants in the South, where antiunion sentiment runs deep.

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The Los Angeles Times

Winter Olympics: USA steamrolls Switzerland 9 - 0 in women's hockey.  

Jamie Anderson completes gold-medal sweep for US in slopestyle (snowboarding).