July 17, 2014: Almost 200 Active Rigs In North Dakota

Active rigs:

	7/17/2014	07/17/2013	07/17/2012	07/17/2011	07/17/2010
Active Rigs	196	189	209	178	132

RBN Energy: Update on NGL fractionation in the Utica/Marcellus.

There is no doubt about it: With its location, infrastructure and long history, Mont Belvieu, Texas, is and will remain the center of the NGL fractionation world. It is worth noting, though, that fast-increasing production in the “wet” Marcellus and Utica has been spurring development of a new NGL hub of sorts in southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio. But the fractionation sector in the Utica/Marcellus is an orange to Mont Belvieu’s apple—that is, the infrastructure needed to separate NGL into its various purity products is evolving in an entirely different (and, well, more “fractionated”) way near Houston, PA than it did near Houston, TX. Today we explain this and summarize new fractionation-related developments in the Utica/Marcellus.

WTI: I assume folks have watched the minor volatility in WTI crude oil -- down to $99 fairly quickly (from $106) and now back up to $102 fairly quickly. A reader suggested the reason a couple of days ago, and I'm inclined to agree. Contracts expired on / about the 14th of the month. Folks holding contracts in oil will get that physical oil -- it will show up somewhere. When oil was getting down to $99, it certainly suggests a lot of folks were unloading oil as fast as they could -- ohterwise they were going to see tankers of oil show up out their back yard, with a sleepy-eyed truck driver asking the speculator where he/she wanted the oil to be unloaded.

The Wall Street Journal

Top story: US escalates sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. I assume New Hampshire will still be allowed to import Russian coal. LOL.

Here we go: Arkansas (Medicaid) denies payment for very expensive cystic-fibrosis drug. 

Slush fund: states increasingly use funds from gas taxes to service debt and spending unrelated to roads and bridges.

Immigrant children fare better in US immigrant courts if they have an attorney. Well, duh.

Quick: which party holds the Senate? Just asking. I see the Senate failed to override the recent Supreme Court opinion on Hobby Lobby and ObamaCare. Talk is cheap.

Shortage of physicians. Missouri will allow medical school graduates to skip required training to become licensed as physicians; instead, these undocumented graduates will be allowed to work as physician assistants in rural Missouri. Memo to self: stay healthy traveling cross-country through Missouri.

Five-hour ceasefire agreed to by Israel to allow Hamas to reload and re-organize.

China's GDP grew to 7.5%, up from 7.4% the previous quarter, reassuring global investors all is right with the world.

As births slow, P&G turns to adult diapers.

Do tax breaks work? Tesla is looking again at building its "big" battery factory in California after the state promises new tax breaks AND regulation changes.

Congress dithers, Obama fumes, pharmaceutical companies invert. Could Apple, Inc., invert?

Dow rises to record close.

Warren Buffett's Achilles' heel: retail. This is not a story about WB's stock-picking skills, this is a story about tectonic changes occurring in the US (can you spell Amazon?) and the very, very, very slow recovery (using the word "recovery" loosely -- the economy collapsed [their word, not mine] in 1Q14).

The Los Angeles Times

Microsoft to cut up to 18,000 jobs in sweeping restructuring. The story was previously reported on the blog but not the exact numbers. Can you spell Apple?