July 28, 2014 -- A Very, Very Quiet Monday Morning -- Except For Those Holding Family Dollar (Being Bought By Dollar Tree); Buffett Buys Canadian Utility (AltaLink); Pending Home Sales Post First Drop In Four Months

Active rigs:

	7/28/2014	07/28/2012	07/28/2011	07/28/2010	07/28/2009
Active Rigs	193	207	181	139	40

RBN Energy:

In 2013, refineries in Eastern Canada imported 642 Mb/d of light crude. Today there are no pipelines connecting western Canadian crude supplies to the East Coast. By the end of 2014 the Enbridge Line 9 pipeline will link Canadian supplies from Alberta and Bakken supplies from North Dakota to refineries in Montreal. By 2018 the Energy East pipeline could be flowing 1.1 MMb/d to Canada’s Atlantic Coast and beyond.

Today we begin a new series on eastern Canadian transport options by reviewing existing crude supply.

There are 9 refineries in Eastern Canada with combined capacity of about 1.3 MMb/d.

Although Canada produces far more crude than it consumes, much of this output is heavy crude from Western Canada.  

Eastern refineries are not configured to process this type of crude but instead mostly consume light crude supplied from a mixture of offshore Atlantic seaboard production, imports from international suppliers and increasingly – imports of light crude from the US. Offshore eastern Canadian production averaged 240 Mb/d in 2013 and East Coast refiners processed about 47 percent of that - mostly light sweet crude. Eastern refiners have also traditionally processed imports from the Atlantic basin – particularly light crudes from West Africa.  

But imports of US crude into Canada – primarily used to supply Eastern Canadian refineries reached a record 268 Mb/d in April 2014, double the level a year earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). As we described last December, eastern Canadian refiners have been importing US crude even as exports of local offshore production have increased.

The blog discusses the Canadian refineries (three "buckets") and what the Enbridge 9A reversal means.

The Wall Street Journal

US push for Gaza truce yields little. Hamas starting firing rockets as soon as the truce ended.

The Los Angeles Times

How much water do golf courses use? This is an interesting bit of trivia.

Then there is San Juan Capistrano, which the state said had a 37% increase in water use. City officials, however, note that May was an outlier. A new golf course opened in the city, and there was an unusual amount of construction.

Los Angeles Metro (subway; light rail) uses "honor system" for riders; wondering why they are losing money. Last year: 115 million riders; 70 million paid.

Reducing fare jumping as much as possible has become increasingly important to Metro, which is under pressure to boost ticket revenue as its rail network rapidly expands.

Income from fares covers just 26% of Metro’s bus and rail system operating expenses, one of the lowest rates of any major world city. That ratio must increase in the next few years or the agency risks losing crucial federal funding needed to continue building and operating the train network.

“This isn’t Chicago or New York, where you can’t get through unless you pay,” Fields said.

I can't make this stuff up.

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Non-Bakken Stuff; For Investors Only

AAPL flirting with $100 ($700 pre-split). 

WTI crude oil at $101 -- trending toward $100. Again.

Pending home sales: first decline in four (4) months. Analysts had expected an increase:

The pending home sales index slipped 1.1% from an index reading of 103.8 in May to the June reading of 102.7. That is 7.3% lower than in June 2013, when the index reading was 110.8. The consensus estimate called for a month-over-month increase of 0.3% in pending sales. The index reflects signed contracts, not sales closings. An index reading of 100 equals the average level of contract signings during 2001.

About 30 companies -- much longer list than usual -- announce increased dividends.

Warren buys Alberta (Canada) utility:

The federal government [Candad] has signed off on the controversial $3.2-billion sale of Alberta’s largest electricity transmission provider to a company owned by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett.

The approval, however, comes with a long list of conditions, including the guarantee that buyer Berkshire Hathaway Energy must reinvest every penny it earns from AltaLink in the company, the province or Canada, if it is allowed to complete the purchase from Quebec-based SNC Lavalin.

AltaLink president Scott Thon said the approval should reassure Albertans who fear the image of a big American company milking the province’s infrastructure for its enrichment.

Samson Oil & Gas provides Q2 update: Co files its Q2 quarterly report.

• 72% increase in oil production in the June 2014 quarter over the March 2014 quarter
• 75% increase in estimated oil revenue in the June 2014 quarter over the March 2014 quarter.

Investors dumped this stock (data from Yahoo!Finance which might lag a quarter)

• market cap: $148 billion
• enterprise value: $145 billion
• annual revenue: $82 billion
• total cash: $8 billion
• total debt: $3 billion
• operating cash flow: $5 billion
• forward P/E: 149; trailing P/E: 500

Darling of Wall Street (data from Yahoo!Finance which might lag a quarter)

• market cap: $4.2 billion
• enterprise value: $6.5 billion
• annual revenue: $1 billion
• total cash: $15 million
• total debt: $2.3 billion (almost as much as the company above with a market cap of $148 billion)
• operating cash flow: $600 million
• forward P/E: 15; trailing P/E: 28

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The 20:15 Train Wreck

The AP is reporting, two data points from this article on ObamaCare:

• Automatic enrollment for ObamaCare enrollees for 2015I could be a new twist on an old public relations headache for the White House: You keep the health plan you like but get billed way more.
• Even with such generous subsidies [see below -- monthly premiums as low as $82 are too onerous for many], about 4 in 10 who bought a health law plan say they have trouble paying their premiums, according to a poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

But much more serious:

In the 36 states served by the federal insurance exchange, the tax credits average $264 a month, reducing the average monthly premium of $346 to just $82.

The most recent court ruling says that subsidies paid by the "federal insurance exchange" (in 36 states, by the way), is unlawful. [Update: A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled Tuesday that subsidies may not be offered in the federal health exchange. That was the ruling I was referring to. It turns out that "hours later the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals offered its own decision, which upholds the Obama administration's arguments that subsidies can be applied in the federal exchange." I assume this will head to the Supreme Court; regardless, it puts the few million that are actually enrolled into more turmoil. A huge "thank you" to a reader for alerting me to the "most recent" ruling. That explains the "split ruling" that hit the news about the same time. For now, the subsidies remain in effect.]

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Ignorance Is Bliss

Easy Come, Easy Go

Almost Half Of ObamaCare Enrollees Receiving Subsidies Don't Even Know They Are Receiving Subsidies -- Think How Much They Would Like The President If They Only Knew

I make so few errors when blogging that when I do make an error it bothers me for days. I will be upset for a month on how I wrote the ObamaCare update above before a reader caught an error. But I'm in very good company it seems. I can't make this up.

I just now received this next link from another reader. CNBC is reporting:

Nearly 40 percent of Obamacare enrollees who receive federal financial assistance to help pay for insurance sold through HealthCare.gov don't even know they're getting any such aid, a survey stunningly found. [Really, stunningly?] (UC-Irvine -- really?]

That finding means that about 2.1 million people—at the very least—are unaware that they stand to lose thousands of dollars worth of aid that makes their health insurance affordable if the Supreme Court upholds a new court decision that said such subsidies are illegal under the Affordable Care Act. [I think that's almost exactly what I wrote. Memo to self: send a note to CNBC: hey, look at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.]

Ignorance is bliss.

Easy come, easy go, if the subsidies are lost.

I can't make this stuff up.

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A Note for the Granddaughters

Virginia Woolf remains my favorite author, or perhaps better said, the author that is most important for me.

I have transcribed -- completely, word for word -- two of her novels: Mrs Dalloway and The Waves. In transcribing Mrs Dalloway I discovered on my own that it was a "prose poem," something I did not know existed until then, and then discovered I had "re-invented the wheel," as they say. Having said that, it was one of the best "literature" things I have ever done, transcribing Mrs Dalloway in free verse.

I transcribed The Waves for a number of reasons. It is perhaps the most difficult to follow, and yet it is considered by many to be her best novel. In addition, closer to home, a close family friend, Ellen, considers it her favorite novel.

Mostly because I could not understand it, I transcribed The Waves.

Today I added the following to that transcription:

Perhaps somewhere else I tried to correlate the Greek party-goers and the characters in The Waves with Virginia Woolf’s circle, but if I did not, a couple of thoughts:

Jinny: serial lover of men, can only be Nessa, (Vanessa, Virginia’s sister; who had at least three lovers)

Percival: can only be Thoby; a he-man who died falling off a horse; Virginia worshipped her brother Thoby

Neville: homosexual; could only be Clive Bell, Nessa’s husband

Susan: possibly Virginia – Jinny’s life partner through extension of Greek counterparts

Socrates: could Virginia’s husband Leonard Woolf be Socrates?

Bernard is the storyteller in The Waves which is most likely Lytton Strachey. From wiki: he is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit. His biography Queen Victoria (1921) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He was perhaps best known for his Eminent Victorians.

Rhoda is the youngest; I can’t think of a third woman in Virginia Woolf's circle; it was just Virginia and Vanessa, and many men: Leslie, Thoby, Adrian, Clive, Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey. Roger Fry was also one of Vanessa’s lovers – she had at least three lovers: Clive, whom she married; Duncan Grant, whom she probably loved most, if I remember correctly; and, Roger Fry. There were several women in the group, but less well-known: Dora Carrington, Angelica Garnett, Julia Strachey, Molly (Mary) MacCarthy, Lydia Lopokova. Based on the linked essay below, Mary MacCarthy. 

A superb essay, by the way on The Waves and the Bloomsbury Group: Utopian Wholes: Virginia Woolf's The Waves and the Bloomsbury Group.