Gasoline Prices Rise For The First Time Since June, 2014 -- March 24, 2015

In the Bakken: 50,000 bopd pipeline proposed for Divide and Burke counties.

The [46-mile] pipeline would carry crude from the Divide Pump Station, about 10 miles southeast of Fortuna, to the Basin Transload Rail Facility about 2 miles southeast of Columbus. The $33 million project would include the construction of one above-ground tank with a storage capacity of 400 barrels. 

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For Investors

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. See the blog's disclaimer.

Dow futures are falling -- this is probably the reason, Reuters/Yahoo!Finance is reporting:

U.S. consumer prices rebounded in February as gasoline prices rose for the first time since June, and there were also signs of an uptick in underlying inflation pressures, which could keep a June interest rate increase on the table.

In the 12 months through February, the CPI was unchanged after slipping 0.1 percent in January. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the CPI to rise 0.2 percent from January and slip 0.1 percent from a year ago.

Federal Reserve officials have long viewed the energy-driven weakness in inflation as transitory. The U.S. central bank, which has a 2 percent inflation target, has kept its short-term interest rate near zero since December 2008.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said last week policymakers could raise interest rates when they had "seen further improvement in the labor market" and were "reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term."

The verbiage about CPI, inflation, targets, Janet Yellen interests me not at this particular moment. What caught my eye was the same thing I posted just a few days ago -- in that first paragraph above:  as gasoline prices rose for the first time since June.

Oil prices continued to slump and "gasoline prices rose for the first time since June." 

It all sounds a bit ... fishy? Not really. There may be a reason of which long-time readers of the blog are aware, and was pointed out by RBN Energy the other day: a mismatch in the "right type" of oil reaching the nation's refineries. Very interesting.

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Greece Has More Lives Than A Cat

Reuters reports that Greece has enough cash to last through April 20, 2015. 

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Plane Crash

German airline, Lufthansa subsidiary. ~ 150 souls on board.

• distress signal before dropping off radar. Comment/opinion: Authorities minimize what that "distress signal" was; if it was mechanical problem, generally not "immediately catastrophic" and crew able to discuss with ground controllers; authorities would release that information immediately to reassure flyers if that information known
• origin: Barcelona, Spain
• destination: Dusseldorf, Germany
• passengers: Spaniards, Germans, Turks
• weather not an issue
• cruising altitude -- Comment/opinion: planes simply do not have mechanical problems or pilot error at cruising altitude
• crashed in most difficult area to search
• Airbus 320: workhorse of the industry
• witnesses: describe "strange" noises before the plane went down
• dropped 14,000 feet in minutes suggesting the plane was gliding, "crew" possibly in control, looking for place to land (or crash); the plane was 32 miles from a 11,000-foot runway; the plane was in the air for eight minutes -- on a glide path -- before it was lost 

More idle chatter on this plane crash:

Go to Google maps:

Put in

• Barcelona (where it took off)
• Dignes-les-Baines - the Alps where it crashed
• Dusseldorf (where it was headed)

1. The crash was way too far away to think that the pilots were in a long descent toward the airport. They were nowhere close to Dusseldorf. They weren't even in Germany yet.

2. There was no reason to be flying over the Alps -- it's a straight shot over flat France and flat Germany -- going over the Alps is definitely out of the way to the east.

3. The first question I would ask is whether this plane was on its pre-flight flight plan. If the answer is yes, I would ask air controllers, Lufthansa why a flight like this is routed over the Alps.

The synopsis, the plane sent out no distress signal. The distress signal was from the air traffic controllers:

• 10.01am CET Flight 4U 9525 takes off
• 10.44am Plane reaches cruising altitude
• 10.45am Plane begins unexplained descent
• 10.47am Air traffic controllers issue ‘third phase’ distress call
• 10.53am Radar and radio contact breaks off

A long descent

According to [a spokesperson], the plane started to descend very shortly [yeah, like one minute] after it reached its cruising altitude – and continued to do so for eight minutes until it crashed into the mountain at an altitude of some 5,000ft.

He said there was no explanation for why this descent from 38,000ft began, but said the 24-year-old plane was checked the day before the flight and that the captain on board was very experienced, with more than 10 years’ service and 6,000 hours of flying time.

Black boxes found

• #1: voice data recorder -- last transmission was normal
• #2: data recorder -- found badly damaged, memory card missing; tweeting:  Germanwings flight's 2nd black box found but severely damaged, memory card dislodged and missing - @nytimes

On March 24, 2015, I wrote this to a reader in an e-mail:

Was the pilot suicidal and just as he reached cruising altitude, the co-pilot walks back to use the bathroom when the checklists are all complete and it's now on autopilot, leaving a single suicidal man in the cockpit (locked cockpit doors). 

Tonight, March 25, 2015: that's exactly what happened; one of the pilots left to use the bathroom (or some other reason) just as they reached cruising altitude -- it's almost standard operating procedure in the past -- and the other pilot locked out the other one, and then suicidally brought the plane into the mountain. It will be interesting to get the background story on the pilot that flew the plane into the mountain.

March 26, 2015, 9:16 a.m.: We now know what happened; over the next 48 hours we might learn why it happened. I follow the story elsewhere and because it has nothing to do with the Bakken I won't link the post where I track the story. As for me, the story is pretty much closed. [Early on I mentioned that the pilot better have a non-Arabic name, a happy marriage, two non-adult children at home, and no skeletons in his/her closet. Interestingly enough, the easiest thing to release -- the name of the pilot alone in the cockpit -- has not been released. Update, March 26, 2015, 9:16 a.m.: co-pilot's name is released -- Andreas Lubitz. Why is it, the British papers do such a better job on-line reporting the news -- the Daily Mail in this case.]

March 26, 2015, 11:14: would you knowingly fly with a co-pilot who dropped out of flight training for 11 months due to depression, and during that time, worked as a flight attendant? Reuters is reporting:

He said the co-pilot had taken an 11-month break, during which he worked as a flight attendant but that he passed all the relevant checks upon restarting. Spohr said the break was not unusual and declined to give details of the reasons behind the pause in training. 

It was a bit unclear when he took the 11-month break, but it sounds like it was during flight training. The co-pilot only had 600 hours of flight time -- sounds like he was depressed most of that time.

March 30, 2015: at this point it's Lufthansa lawyers vs the victims' families' lawyers. Lufthansa starting to dig in their heels -- international limits at $175,000; US history suggests upwards of $5 to $10 million/victim. I think it will be closer to $3 million average, and it's going to be an international scandal if Spaniards are awarded $150,000; Germans $200,000; and, the three US citizens, $5 million each.

March 30, 2015: there is evidence that the co-pilot had been treated for suicidal tendencies in the past; if prosecutors can find the smoking gun that Lufthansa was aware of this prior to hiring him as a pilot, all bets are off with regard for liability.

March 31, 2015: it's now being reported that the co-pilot had sexual identity issues; not a bit surprising; predictable.

March 31, 2015: early reports suggest Lufthansa was very aware of the co-pilot's past mental health history.

April 3, 2015: this provides some insight into the incredible lack of psychiatric insight investigators have. WTOP is reporting:

The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings flight repeatedly sped up the plane as he used the automatic pilot to descend the A320 into the Alps, the French air accident investigation agency said Friday.

The chilling new detail from the BEA agency is based on an initial reading of the plane’s “black box” data recorder, found blackened and buried at the crash site Thursday.

It strengthens investigators’ initial suspicions that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz intentionally destroyed the plane — though prosecutors are still trying to figure out why. All 150 people aboard Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf were killed in the March 24 crash. 

Let's review the clues:

• history of psychiatric depression requiring 18 months of intensive therapy
• suicidal ideation
• 11 months as a flight attendant when flight training interrupted due to severe depression
• likelihood of losing his job due to eye problems (likely to have been psychosomatic)
• "fear of flying"
• sexual identity issues
• broke up with his girlfriend almost immediately before the flight
• doctor's recommendation that he not fly (had this come to attention of his employer, it should have ended his flying career
• he said that all he ever wanted to do in life was fly for Lufthansa
• not yet flying for Lufthansa per se, but a subsidiary airline
• a loser 

April 5, 2015: a mood disorder or a personality disorder -- The Los Angeles Times

"We need to stop talking as if this was a suicidal guy with access to an airplane," said Dr. Jeff Victoroff, a neuropsychiatrist at USC's Keck School of Medicine and a leading researcher on aggression. "This was a murderous guy who probably had elements of a mood disorder and personality disorders."

"People who have depression alone are much, much more likely to bring harm to themselves alone," said Dr. Steven E. Pitt, a forensic psychiatrist who consults with the Phoenix Police Department and conducted the Columbine Psychiatric Autopsy Project after the 1999 high school shootings in Colorado. "There has to be a maladaptive character defect, a character disorder here."