Thursday -- August 28, 2014; President To Meet With National Security Council In The Situation Room

News report: vacation over; President Obama will meet with National Security Council in the Situation Room this afternoon. My hunch: a) President Obama thinks they're talking about the Situation Room Wolf Blitzer anchors over at CNN; and/or, b) the President will need help finding the Situation Room. In the big scheme of things, I find it amusing that this is news/headline: that the president is meeting in the "Situation Room." Isn't this sort of standard practice for most presidents to meet in the Situation Room at least once or twice during a four-year term? Is this something so new for this president that it makes headline news? Maybe.

Hey, I gotta go. I will be off the net for several hours. Good luck to all. It's been fun.

Jobs report: 298,000, a decrease of 1,000. The four-week average at 299,750. Nice graph at the linked article.

I track the "big stories" here. Today, Europe at a tipping point. A top story over at Rigzone today -- Germany's energy transition dream at risk of becoming a nightmare.

Wintershall's head of exploration and production warned Thursday that Germany's 'Energiewende' (or Energy Transition) dream of pursuing an economy powered by the wind and the sun is in danger of turning into a nightmare.

Speaking to energy journalists at the ONS exhibition in Stavanger, Norway, Wintershall Executive Director Martin Bachmann said he was concerned about figures recently published by Statistics Norway that showed overall investment in Norway's petroleum sector will drop by EUR 6 billion ($7.9 billion) next year.

"That is actually bad news for Europe's security of supply and I think Germany – as the biggest market in Europe – has played a large part in creating this uncertainty," Bachmann said.

RBN Energy: continuation of the series on Enbridge.

Enbridge is investing close to $9 billion between 2013 and 2016 in its Eastern and Light Oil Market Access initiatives. A major goal is to improve access for Enbridge shippers – particularly shippers of light shale crude from North Dakota, to refineries in the Midwest and eastern Canada. And by the end of 2014 refineries in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio as well as in Ontario will have better access to Enbridge crude. But even when the reversal of Line 9 in Ontario is completed and Enbridge crude can flow as far as Montreal, only about 300 Mb/d will be available for Quebec refineries to process. Today we continue our review of Enbridge eastern expansion plans.

In Episode One of this series, we reviewed the 9 refineries in eastern Canada with combined capacity of 1.3 MMb/d. These refineries mostly process light crude that until recently has come from offshore Atlantic seaboard production and imports, but they are processing growing volumes of US shale oil today. Extensive upgrades, reversals and expansions to the Enbridge network have begun to change the dynamics of these refineries to increase supplies from western Canada and the Bakken.

In Episode Two we began a description of Enbridge expansion plans with the Eastern Access project.

In Episode Three we finished up the Eastern Access project and started on Enbridge’s Light Oil Markets Access  (LOMA) initiatives with the Sandpiper project that will deliver increased supplies of light crude from North Dakota.

In Episode Four we covered the expansion of the Southern Access line to deliver Sandpiper crude to Flanagan and its extension to Patoka that provides a path to Marathon’s Midwest refineries. We also covered the Line 78 project that will increase capacity northeast from Flanagan to Griffith allowing more light crude to flow to Eastern Canada on Line 6B. In this episode we cover planned expansions to Line 6B and how new flows on Line 9 will feed refineries in Ontario as well as Warren, PA.

Active rigs:

	8/28/2014	08/28/2013	08/28/2012	08/28/2011	08/28/2010
Active Rigs	194	181	191	199	140

The Wall Street Journal

Declining attendance by students at college football games.

CBO: federal budget deficit to be smaller than predicted over next decade; revised GDP estimated downward for 2014.

The Los Angeles Times

Top story: experts see long, tough battle to contain Islamic state.  

Slow news day.