Active rigs:
| 5/14/2014 | 05/14/2013 | 05/14/2012 | 05/14/2011 | 05/14/2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 189 | 190 | 208 | 173 | 114 |
RBN Energy: coordinating the natural gas and electricity industries.
The most significant of FERC’s proposed changes is to move the start of the “gas day” —that’s the time when any change in a daily nomination will take effect— up from its longstanding 9 AM Central Time to 4 AM Central, in order to allow gas nomination changes to better match the ramp-up in electric loads. The electric industry has long explained that if they’re right at the end of the prior gas day when everyone turns on the lights, heat, and computers, it is very difficult to have enough gas scheduled to supply the ramp-up of the generators. Basically, the flowing volume on, say, Wednesday morning is the tail end of the daily amount that was nominated in the middle of the day on Monday—a day before the selection of generators for Wednesday took place. On top of that, generators explain that at the tail end of the gas day they are often balancing flows to make up for higher takes earlier in the day, which restricts their availability of supply right when they need it (this explanation doesn’t get a lot of sympathy on pipelines where shippers are supposed to take their gas at even hourly rates, but nonetheless it’s a fact).
From the responses we’ve seen so far, it seems like most producers haven’t been all that happy about the change in the gas day. The stated concern is that not many wellhead facilities are remote-controlled, so someone actually has to go to each well and make physical adjustments when changes are made. With the new rules, that would be happening sometime between 2 AM and 4 AM Central, or 1 AM to 3 AM in the Rockies, or midnight to 2 AM in the far west. As compared with today’s schedule, where the earliest anyone has to be somewhere is between 5 AM and 7 AM in the west, the argument goes that this could mean a whole lot more midnight drives on dirt roads or no roads in the middle of nowhere, and it could mean that critical operations where safety is paramount would be carried out around the time other people are leaving the bar, not in morning daylight. There are plenty of dedicated well-operation technicians, and they are no stranger to difficult operations, but the producers argue that the FERC’s proposed 4 AM Central Time start of the gas day would impose an unnecessary safety issue across the industry.
The Wall Street Journal
Here we go again: White House and regulators are backing off on stringent mortgage rules; back to the housing bubble?
US reconsiders crude-oil export ban. Won't happen in my investing lifetime, but fun to talk about. Heard on the street: Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz's comments about "considering" US oil exports don't offer real support for crude prices.
Okay, how does this happen? Rep John Conyers, age 84, didn't file enough valid signatures to make the August 5, 2014, ballot for the Democratic primary -- thus forcing him into a write-in campaign to win his 26th term in the House. Apparently the lawmaker used several unqualified people to collect a significant portion of his petition signatures, among other problems. State law requires those who round up petition signatures for candidates be themselves registered to vote. That nasty voter ID law. Wanna bet he ends up on the ballot?
Tea-Party candidate wins in Nebraska likely making him the next senator in the antiestablishment mold of Senator Ted Cruz.
Makes the front section: Karl Rove questions Clinton's sanity.
Front page story on the western sage grouse.
Russia bans US sales of rocket engines; also bans US astronauts from International Space Station.
This is interesting: US steel imports are approaching record levels. I wonder who is using all that steel? Oil and gas industry; rail industry, no doubt.
Front page, second section: some farmers grow worried. US rail snarls have delayed fertilizer deliveries in the upper Midwest, raising fears that farms in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin won't have adequate nutrients to sow corn, wheat, and barley. Not a problem: go "organic."
Canadian canola farmers feeling crushed. The rail delays that slowed shiopments of grains in North America this past winter continue to ripple across western Canada, hurting canola farmers while providing grain processors with an abundance of cheap seed.
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Beyond ridiculous: high-tech bicycling.
I was a little embarrassed when I stepped into the elevator with my neighbor. I was wearing bright orange spandex, with an LED display protruding from my sunglasses. I wheeled in my brand new bicycle, equipped with two iPhones, a GPS unit and a small, Bluetooth-connected computer.You won't see me in spandex. You won't see with sunglasses, much less an LED display protruding from same. Nor will you see one, much less even two, iPhones or a GPS unit or a small Bluetooth-connected computer. Maybe someday I will get a GPS monitor. You probably won't even see me with a helmet. The only thing my bike and I are decked out in is lots of reflective tape and lots of white and red lights.
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Best article in the Journal today: concerts in New York and Washington, DC, will celebrate the most-performed classical-music composer alive. Maybe a stand-alone "note to the granddaughters on this one.
The Los Angeles Times
Landmark tax law Proposition 13 could get first change since 1978. Going down a slipper slope.
Median net worth of grads under the age of 40 still with student debt is only $8,700. The Obama legacy:
The financial travails of people under 40 with student-loan debt extend far beyond the college loans themselves, according to a new study.
That’s because people with student loans often have other types of debt as well, such as car loans or credit-card borrowing, that weigh heavily on their overall financial well-being.
As a result, college graduate heads-of-household under 40 with student debt have a median net worth of only $8,700, according to the analysis by the Pew Research Center. That’s a fraction of the $64,700 the same group without college loans is worth.
The median student debt is about $13,000, a seemingly manageable amount.
But because of the other loans they’ve taken out, the median total indebtedness of college graduates under 40 with student loans is $137,010, according to the study. That is almost twice the $73,250 debt level for their counterparts with no college debt.Back to the '70s: Orange County clears way for court-ordered treatment of mentally ill.
LA Times on Benghazi: "what does it matter?" At the end of the day, it will be the military that will be shamed for not tkaing the bull b the horn when given the order to "stand down" by someone other than the commander-in-chief. No one knows where the commander in chief was when Benghazi went down. Hillary was not in the chain of command. The real question: where was the commander, US Africa Command, or whichever joint command had responsibility for Libyan operations.
The Dickinson Press
The Press could have gone with a hundred different headlines, but chose the only one that could be viewed as a negative. And, in fact, they are wrong: production probably hit the 1-million-bopd milestone in April. The figures The Press cited were outdated but the most recent ones available. Both Reuters and the MDW suggest that North Dakota hit the 1-million-bopd milestone in April. Flaring dropped from 36% to 33% and will likely fall to a surprising 25% or better next month. Maybe we'll see that as a headline next month. I doubt it.
On the other hand, although not yet there, and possibly not there until the end of the year, The Press headlines that Minnesota wind power met renewable-mandate eleven years early, mostly because of North Dakota wind farms. No mention of all the dead migratory ducks, whooping cranes, eagles, and drones.
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