Apple Confirms Four Million iPhones Sold First 24-Hours, September 15, 2014; Holding At 199 Active Rigs In North Dakota; CLR Reports A Rare Dry Hole In The Bakken; Support Grows For ObamaWar

Link here for the Apple story.

That's just the first day. The current poll concerns the entire weekend, and then the entire first week to include both weekends on either end.

Active rigs:

	9/15/2014	09/15/2013	09/15/2012	09/15/2011	09/15/2010
Active Rigs	199	178	193	200	146

Almost set another record: "we" came within two wells of setting a record that could never be broken, at best only tied -- eleven wells came off the confidential list today. Nine of them went to DRL status. One was dry; the other was a huge CLR well. But nine wells out of eleven (9/11) going to DRL status. The number of wells waiting to be completed at any given time in the Bakken continues to increase; I noted this two months ago. The NDIC director commented on it in the most recent Director's Cut.

Old news, but over at Seeking Alpha:

North Dakota oil output jumps to new highs even as flaring rule changes loom • 11:58 AM

Carl Surran, SA News Editor

• North Dakota's daily oil production jumped 5% in July to an all-time high 34.4M barrels (~1.1M bbl/day), state regulators say, although the number was lower than expected as producers worked to meet aggressive flaring-reduction targets.
• Natural gas production hit 1.3B cf/day, also an all-time high, but the percentage of natural gas flared in the state fell to 26% in July from 30% in June.
• In an effort to curb flaring, state regulators issued strict goals earlier this year with key benchmarks for flaring percentages each month; for October, for instance, the state's oil producers cannot flare more than 74% of natural gas produced.

"The amount of crude oil produced was lower than expected." My hunch is that mineral owners will see less return on their wells; certainly less than what was expected; a bbl of crude is going for $50 - $75; natural gas, $3? But everyone will feel better not seeing those flares.

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CLR reports a rare DRY well in the Bakken:

• 27832, dry, CLR, Jersey 29-6H, Alkali Creek, a 4-section well; no production data, nothing yet in the file report that might explain what happened; the scout ticket:

NDIC File No: 27832     API No: 33-061-03000-00-00
Well Type: OG     Well Status: DRY     Status Date: 4/4/2014     Wellbore type: Horizontal
Location: SENE 6-153-93     Footages: 2033 FNL 584 FEL     Latitude: 48.104684     Longitude: -102.679215
Current Operator: CONTINENTAL RESOURCES, INC.
Current Well Name: JERSEY 29-6H
Elevation(s): 2046 KB   2030 GL     Total Depth: 1995     Field: ALKALI CREEK
Spud Date(s):  3/13/2014
Casing String(s): 9.625" 2018'  
Completion Data
Pool: BAKKEN     Comp: 4/4/2014     Status: DRY     Date: 4/4/2014

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RBN Energy: Gulf Coast supply and demand. 

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The Wall Street Journal

Support grows for ObamaWar. Turkey says "no." Iraq says "limited air strikes." Arabs are confused. Iran says "no." UK (with or without Scotland), Australia are on board.

India's economy? Look back at China in 2001.

Long legs for the US energy boom.  Current top well produces five times as much as record setter a decade ago. And both Mr Schumer and Mr Obama want to ban fracking in New York based on my reading of the tea leaves.

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Ahead of the tape: industrial production's strength is masked by weather. What? Did "they" really say that. Another bad month blamed on the weather? You have got to be kidding. But that's what they are saying. Due to "cool weather" -- I thought it was all about "global warming." 2 C. 400 ppm. 2100.

Sometimes a chill wind just means cool weather.

Investors taking the U.S. economy's pulse have to keep that in mind when August's industrial-production data are released Monday.

Economists, and especially executives, love to use the weather as an excuse when numbers are weaker than expected. In the case of this important indicator, though, an unusually mild summer means that an already upbeat result understates the good news.

Electric utilities see peak residential and commercial demand in the summer as air conditioners hum. But in July, and to a lesser extent in August, demand for artificial cooling was far weaker than normal.

For example, New York City had no heat wave this summer—defined as three days of 90-degree-plus temperatures—for the first time in a decade. Normally steamy Atlanta hit 95 degrees once, versus 11 times typically. And Chicago had only three days above 90, compared with a more-usual 17.

The upshot was that the utilities component of industrial production, which carries a lot of weight in the index, fell by 1% in July versus a year earlier. As it was, the overall index registered 5% growth, its quickest pace since the winter of 2010-2011.

Subcomponents such as mining, business equipment and construction rose by 8.6%, 7% and 5.3%, respectively. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expect the index to post a a slightly weaker 4.7% year-over-year gain in August. That may be too conservative. Even if it isn't, the fall months, which are less affected by temperatures, may present a stronger and truer picture of industrial strength. 

Global warming? What global warming? 400 ppm, 2 C, 2100 is the mantra.

A while back I said that it appeared to me that this summer was cooler than usual ....

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The Los Angeles Times

That story of methane in drinking water in Texas is a non-story but it will get lots of press. For one day.

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The New York Post

The scientists have thrown in the towel on global warming; they've turned it over to Hollywood and politicians.  Their words, not mine. If you didn't hear about the record amount of Antarctic sea ice reported last week you've haven't been paying attention.