What Will Happen When Cushing Reaches Capacity? -- February 22, 2015; Short Note On "Cold Drafting"; Mismatched Socks -- A New Fashion Trend

That was the question I left readers with last night: what will happen when Cushing reaches full capacity, which should happen sometime in April or May of this year, just months from now.

I suggested back on January 19, 2015, that when that happens, the US will notch another record:

I am unaware of any weekly period in which gasoline demand in the United States went over 9.5 million bopd over the Memorial Day Weekend, but it certainly looks like we could do that later this spring, 2015.

Gasoline stocks continue to rise ...

... but gasoline demand continues to fall, typical for this time of year, scroll down at the previous link. 

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Quick: Pop Quiz

Which Country Was The 2nd Leading Contributor to Global Oil Supply Growth in 2014?

Your choices:

• the United States
• Canada
• Mexico
• Brazil
• Venezuela
• Saudi Arabia 
• Iraq
• Iran
• China
• Luxembourg

The answer at this link. Before you look, who was fifth? The levels shown on the bar graph at the linked article represent the increase in oil production over calendar year 2013.

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Local Gossip

A writer in the Montana Bakken suggests to me that he may have been the target of some "cold drafting," and we're not talking about furnaces.

According to this blog, "cold drafting" is:

a term used for the practice of sending a lease to a landowner with a draft for the bonus, in effect making an offer to lease, but with no present intent to honor the lease; evaluating whether to pay for the lease after the draft has been deposited and the lease signed and returned to the landman; and then picking and choosing which leases the company wants to take and which they want to reject. It allows the company to “lock up” the acreage by committing the landowner to the lease for the (usually 90) days that the draft is outstanding. Landmen should, in my view, refuse to participate in such practices, and they should certainly be considered unethical.

Update: a former landman writes that there is a way to prevent oneself from being the victim of a "cold draft": ask for a 20% "upfront signing bonus" with the balance due a year later when the existing lease expired. 20% helps keep the landman "honest" and preventing him from trying to "peddle" the lease...

Update: another reader, from Ray, North Dakota, also wrote to say they were victims of a "cold draft" also. I suppose things have slowed down a lot now in the leasing business but it sounds like if one has sizable interests in oil, consulting an oil and gas lawyer would be highly advised. 
 

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A Note to the Granddaughters

About a year or so ago we noted that our 8.5-year-old granddaughter was routinely wearing mismatched mid-calf socks  or mismatched knee-high stockings. At first we were caught a bit off-guard but over time, we really enjoyed the color and playfulness. We never really talked about it, maybe mentioning it once or twice.

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, front page, lower right: "Socks Are No Match For This Teen Clothing Trend."

Susana Yourcheck keeps a basket of mismatched socks in her laundry room, hoping that the missing match will eventually reappear. The pile is getting smaller these days, but not because the solitary socks are magically being reunited with their mates.

The credit for the smaller stash goes to her two teenage daughters, who no longer fuss to find socks that match. That’s because fashionable tweens and teens favor a jamboree of solids, colors and patterns on their feet.

“All my friends do it. Everyone in school wears them this way,” says 15-year-old Amelia Yourcheck.

For laundry-folding parents, the best match is sometimes a mismatch.

When asked about this story, our granddaughter said it was simply to save time when folding laundry. The granddaughters are required to sort and fold laundry, a chore they do not like. I think the older one spends most of her time griping about doing the sorting and folding whereas the younger one simply finds shortcuts.

If I remember, a photograph soon.