Russian Oil Company Sets Depth Record (Drilled Almost 40,000 Feet); Huge Apple Mis-Step; Netflix Surges -- April 16, 2015

Netflix surges 16% today, up $76. This is also a new high for Netflix trading at almost $555.

Philip Morris is also surging after beating expectations. 

But you all know that this is not an investment site.

Nothing to do with the Bakken but still very interesting. Bakken.com is reporting:

Rosneft, an integrated oil company majority owned by the government of Russia, broke another world record Tuesday. Off the coast of Russia’s Sakhalin Island at the Chayvo field, the company reports that it has drilled the longest well in the world. Petro Global News reports that the O-14 production well drilled to a depth of 44,291 feet and reached horizontally to 39,478 feet.

Part of the Sakhalin-1 project, the offshore drilling endeavor is tapping into the Arkutun-Dagi, Odoptu and Chayvo deepwater fields. Since the project’s beginnings, Rosneft has broken nine world records. In 2013 alone, the company set two world records for measured drilling depth.

Two more feet and they would have reached 39,480 feet horizontally. 

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How Big Was Apple's Mis-Step?

The big question of the day: how badly did Apple miscalculate this time? Apple said that the AppleWatch would be launched on April 24th -- which also meant that one could make reservations for that day at one's local Apple retail store, select a watch, buy one, and walk out the same day with a new Apple Watch. But that isn't going to happen. On launch day, all one can do is order on-line and then wait -- for up to two months.

With dozens of choices, I think it's going to be quite some time before watches will be available in-store for same-day selection and purchase. 

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News Embargo Partially Lifted

Two news stories coming out of the Middle East: 1) Saudi Arabia - Iran compete for domination of the Middle East (with Iraq no longer functioning as a viable state); and, b) Yemen falling into chaos (that's a news story?).

First, the Saudi Arabia - Iran rivalry to control the Mideast. The AP is reporting:

Saudi Arabia's government insists it is not at war with Iran despite its three-week air campaign against Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, but the kingdom's powerful clerics, and its regional rival's theocratic government, are increasingly presenting the conflict as part of a region-wide battle for the soul of Islam.

The toxic rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran is playing out on the battlefields of Yemen and Syria, and in the dysfunctional politics of Iraq and Lebanon, with each side resorting to sectarian rhetoric. Iran and its allies refer to all of their opponents as terrorists and extremists, while Saudi Arabian clerics speak of a regional Persian menace.

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran does not date back to Islam's 7th century schism, but to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which toppled a U.S.-backed and Saudi-allied monarchy and recast alliances across the region. The standoff worsened after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled a Sunni-led dictatorship that had long been seen as a bulwark against Iran's efforts to export its revolution. But even if today's power struggle has more to do with politics than religion, the unleashing of increasingly sectarian rhetoric on both sides has empowered extremists and made the region's multiplying conflicts even more intractable.

The second story, the AP is also reporting:

Al-Qaida seized control of a major airport, a sea port and an oil terminal in southern Yemen on Thursday, consolidating its hold on the country's largest province amid wider chaos pitting Shiite rebels against forces loyal to the exiled president and a Saudi-led air campaign.

Military officials and residents said al-Qaida fighters clashed briefly with members of one of Yemen's largest brigades outside Mukalla, a city the militants overran earlier this month and where they freed prison inmates. The militants then seized control of the Riyan airport and moved to secure their hold on the city's main sea port, which is also an oil terminal.

The latest advance marks a major gain for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni affiliate is known, which has been linked to several failed attacks on the U.S. and is widely seen as the global network's most dangerous franchise. The group claimed responsibility for the attack on a French satirical magazine earlier this year.

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Demise of The American Buffalo

Perhaps the best "reader's digest" explanation of the demise of the American buffalo (Bison bison) might have been written by an English writer, Jonnie Huges, On the Origin of Tepees, c. 2011.

Quick summary:

• the Oregon trail cut the vast American buffalo herd into the "northern herd" and the "southern herd"
• the transcontinental railroad, Union Pacific and Central Pacific followed the Oregon Trail from Missouri/Iowa to Idaho where Oregon Trail continued northwest to Oregon; railway straight west; the railroad continued to separate the northern herd from the southern herd
• the American buffalo could survive one railroad
• the Kansas Pacific, came second, straight through the heart of the southern herd, wiping it out
• the southern herd might have been saved had the banking panic of 1873 not delayed the Northern Pacific
• by the time the Northern Pacific was built, the southern herd was gone
• the Northern Pacific finished off the northern herd

The American buffalo could outrun one railroad, and even a second railroad, but not three.