This Looks Like A Great Year For The Kennedy Clan To See Snow (Again) -- Storm "Wallops" California; 20 Inches Of Snow -- November 10, 2015

The Los Angeles Times which has reported over and over and over that global warming science is closed is using the word "wallop" to describe the amount of snow hitting California.

The series of storms continues to bring snow to the Sierra, with one part in  the Mammoth Lakes area accumulating 20 inches.

According to the National Weather Service, the Mt. Rose ski resort saw 12 inches, Incline Village saw 7 inches and Alpine Village saw 6 inches. The weather service said the totals marked one of the biggest single storms the region has seen in several years. [Ever since the earth quit warming about 19 years ago, I suppose.]

The storm also brought heavy rain to coastal areas of Northern California. In Monterey, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties, more than an inch of rain fell in some areas. The Bay Area saw less rainfall but more than 500 lightning strikes. Strong wind gusts also were reported, according to the National Weather Service.

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SunEdison Tanks

Despite revenues increasing more than expected, shares tank. Business Insider is reporting:

SunEdison shares dropped by more than 22% in trading on Tuesday. 

The renewable-energy firm reported third-quarter results before the market open, and posted a wider-than expected loss (excluding some items) of $0.92, versus the estimate for $0.65, according to Bloomberg.

Revenues of $476 million beat the consensus forecast for $452.6 million.

Data points:

• at $5.59/share; lowest in more than two years
• announced last month to lay off 15% of its workforce 
• major investor: hedge fund, Greenlight Capital
• Greenlight Capital recorded its worst monthly performance since October, 2008, most due to SunEdison
• shares popped by as much as 6% on October 30, 2015, on rumors that another hedge fund billionaire had bought a position in SunEdison

Six (6) New Permits; Three Wells Coming Off Confidential List Wednesday -- November 10, 2015

Active rigs:

	11/10/2015	11/10/2014	11/10/2013	11/10/2012	11/10/2011
Active Rigs	66	192	182	191	199

Wells coming off the confidential list Wednesday, will be reported Thursday:

• 30081, SI/NC, Sinclair, Highland 3-9TFH, Sanish, no production data, API 33-025-02826
• 30521, 1,588, Whiting, Charging Eagle 9-19-18-2H3, Twin Buttes, producing, frack'd 5/6 - 10/15; 3.52 million gallons water, proppant 8.8% by mass; t5/15; cum 43K 9/15; off-line most of August/September, 2015 after huge production in earlier months;
• 31002, 1,034, Hess, EN-Cvancara A-155-93-3231H-9, Robinson Lake, producing, API 33-061-03650; frack'd 8/9-10/15; 1.644 million gallons water, proppant 14.73% by mass; t8/15; cum 30K 9/15;

Six (6) new permits --

• Operators: HRC (2), Denbury Onshore (2), SM Energy (2)
• Fields: Antelope (McKenzie), Cedar Hills (Bowman), Ambrose (Divide)
  Comments:

Renewals:

• Slawson, 4, four Gabriel permits in McKenzie County; but they also are shown as PNC; if I remember, I will check later to see status
• Hess and EOG each have one renewal

Producing wells completed:

• 30604, 609, SM Energy, L. Johnson 4-30HS, Burg, t10/15; cum 3K 9/15;
• 30603, 203, SM Energy, L. Johnson 4-30HN, Burg, t10/15; cum --
• 30703, 283, SM Energy, Hagen 3-28HN, Burg, t10/15; cum 2K 9/15;

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31002, conf, Hess, EN-Cvancara A-155-93-3231H-9, Robinson Lake:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
9-2015	20720	21081
8-2015	9341	10237

30521, see above, Whiting, Charging Eagle 9-19-18-2H3, Twin Buttes:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
9-2015	5232	0
8-2015	1892	0
7-2015	11104	0
6-2015	11468	0
5-2015	12472	0

It Was Anadarko That Approached Apache -- November 10, 2015

Original post here.

Reuters story here: U.S. oil and gas exploration and production company Anadarko Petroleum Corp has approached Apache Corp with a potential acquisition as low crude oil prices prompt companies to seek merger partners, according to a person familiar with the matter.

EIA's November Short-Term Outlook -- November 10, 2015

Winter Fuels:

High natural gas inventories and expected warmer weather will lead to lower natural gas prices this winter, which could reduce the heating expenditures for households that heat primarily with natural gas by an average 13% compared to last year.

Crude Oil:

Total oil production from non-OPEC countries is expected to decline next year for the first time since 2008, because of lower oil output from the United States.

Gasoline/Refined Products:

U.S. gasoline demand this year is on track to be the highest since record levels were set in 2007, due in large part to low pump prices and more people working.

Natural Gas:

• U.S. natural gas inventories could reach 4 trillion cubic feet for the first time ever in November, especially if above-normal temperatures reduce home heating demand.

Electricity:

• Milder weather is expected this winter in most of the eastern United States, including the southern states, which will reduce the demand for electric heat and lead to an expected 1.6% decline in retail sales of electricity to the residential sector this winter.
• While natural gas prices are expected to rise next year, power plants are not expected to switch back to coal as a generating fuel because gas prices will still be low compared to recent years.

Renewables:

• Total utility-scale solar power generating capacity in the United States is expected to more than double between the end of 2014 and the end of next year.
• U.S. wind power generating capacity is expected to increase by 14% next year.

Four Years Ago To The Day, I Called The Keystone XL Dead; For President Obama, Cognitive Dissonance -- And One Could Tell That From His Speech Killing The Keystone -- November 10, 2015

From one of the better writers on staff at The Wall Street Journal: Keystone Is a Fake Green Victory -- If abundant fossil fuels is what affords such victories, well, you see the paradox:

By all means, read Bill McKibben’s victory proclamation on Keystone XL posted by the New Yorker, first for its infantile analysis.

• He sees Keystone as a harbinger, which it surely is: President Obama waited seven years to kill the pipeline, then did so when he no longer had to face voters and when gasoline prices are near an all-time low in real terms. If abundant fossil fuels is what it takes to afford Mr. McKibben such victories, well, you can see the paradox. 
• He celebrates the divestment movement as if it means anything. But buyers will always materialize for profitable businesses. Anyway, 80% of the world’s fossil-fuel reserves are not held by publicly traded businesses, but by state-run companies—run by states that have never shown interest in anything but revenue maximization.
• He thinks solar is somehow changing the energy picture, but for every additional unit of solar the world consumed in 2014, it consumed 325 additional units of fossil energy. 
• He is fooled by warnings from the BlackRock investment house and Mark Carney of the Bank of England about fossil-fuel reserves becoming “stranded assets,” as if energy shares are priced in the expectation that 100% of hydrocarbon reserves will be produced. 

All assets are liable to become stranded, i.e., not profitable. This is called risk. 

There hasn’t been a day in the past four decades when energy investors haven’t complacently priced into shares the prospect of legislation or regulation depressing their returns.

Remember the Clinton-Gore BTU tax proposal? The colossal lie that greenies tell themselves is that the machinations of Exxon are what’s holding up climate policy. Big Oil is an attractive villain to eco activists because Big Oil is already a villain to the public, but mainly because the public suspects Big Oil of conspiring to hike gas prices. 

Much, much more at the link.

To get an idea of much fossil fuel is used to make solar panels, do a google search. One hit is over at Spectrum.

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As The World Turns

This is so cool. It was four years to the day -- November 10, 2011 -- that I said the Keystone was dead. I never realized it was four years to the day until Don sent me an article and then got to rambling in this post.

Wow, what great memories. Do you remember the series that the blog developed on the Keystone story? I forget which episode we started with and which episode we ended with but here are the ones I have:

Episode 50
Episode 49
Episode 48
Episode 47
Episode 46
Episode 45
Episode 44
Episode 43 

Venezuela #1 Beneficiary Of Blocked Keystone XL -- Bloomberg -- November 10, 2015; What Do You Think?

Back on November 5, 2015, I selected a few countries to see where the US was getting its imported oil. Venezuela stood out; while imports have been decreasing overall, US imports from Venezuela have been increasing. See data at the link which will also provide links to official government sites. (In retrospect, I might be wrong; snapshots of particular monthly imports can be deceiving; see below.)

I have talked about this before. US refiners along the Gulf Coast need heavy oil to off-set the glut of light oil.

US refiners along the Gulf Coast invested $6 billion to optimize their operations for heavy oil from Canada before the Bakken shale revolution. Refiners scrambled to figure out what to do. It turns out a blend of heavy oil and light oil works (though not as good as what the refiners had expected if using only heavy oil from Canada). Now we have a Bloomberg story that says the same thing -- regular readers of the blog and RBN Energy were already well aware of this. From the Bloomberg story:

President Barack Obama’s rejection of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline could give Venezuela’s ailing economy a lifeline.

With the world’s largest oil reserves, the South American country produces heavy crude that’s similar in consistency to the one coming from Canada’s oil sands, and its economy relies largely on shipping it to the same U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that Keystone XL was meant to supply.

“The number one beneficiary of all this will be Venezuela and other suppliers of heavy oil that ship to the Gulf Coast by tanker,” IHS Energy Inc. Vice President Jim Burkhard said by e-mail.

Venezuela is facing an economic crisis as the price of crude, its main source of revenue, has plummeted by more than half since June last year to trade below $50 a barrel. The slump has caused a rift within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Venezuela is a member, as Saudi Arabia continues to pump crude from the ground at an unprecedented pace.

The Canadians should be paying attention.

The Bloomberg article negates to tell us the the Keystone was dead November 10, 2011.  Wow, it's November 10th today -- that was exactly four years to the day that I said the Keystone was dead. Obama simply made it official last week, but it didn't change anything. Venezuela imports have been increasing ever since 2013.

By the way, although I showed data that US imports from Venezuela were increasing, in fact, the data is not so clear. One can take snapshots of various intervals and prove the opposite. Check out the Venezuela data for the past five years and I don't think it's all that clear. 

This will be very, very interesting to follow for the next twelve months -- to see if the official announcement made any real difference. I bet not based on past history.

Remember: the Bakken boom in North Dakota began in 2007. Imports from Venezuela started falling after that. The Keystone was dead as of 2011.

November 10, 2015

Active rigs:

	11/10/2015	11/10/2014	11/10/2013	11/10/2012	11/10/2011
Active Rigs	66	192	182	191	199

RBN Energy: School of Energy opportunity.

Update on slump in crude oil prices: Breitbart, September 5, 2015. Some nice graphs.

EIA "Energy Cookie" on the Highway Trust Fund:

In the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2015, the average monthly net HTF tax receipt was about $3 billion, and the average monthly outlay was nearly $4 billion. With outlays exceeding receipts and HTF balances dwindling, Congress in July transferred $8 billion from other sources to ensure the fund's solvency. Before this transfer, the HTF was at $6.1 billion, the lowest monthly value in decades. --- EIA

Another shout-out / thanks to the reader who reminded me to check in on FracFocus if the NDIC file does not include completion data. FracFocus requires the API number so if I check FracFocus I include the API number when reporting the well.

Flashback: it's hard to believe that a single wildcat well started "all this in the Three Forks" and that it was as far back as 2008 (I would have guessed, 2010, and would have been wrong). From The Bismarck Tribune, June 17, 2008:

A single successful oil well tapped below the Bakken shale formation in western North Dakota has spurred speculation that a separate - and perhaps rich - oil-producing reservoir may be buried in the state's oil patch.

Enid, Okla.-based Continental Resources Inc. says its new oil well in Dunn County produced an average of about 700 barrels of oil a day during its first week of production last month.

It was Continental's first well in the Three Forks-Sanish formation, said Harold Hamm, the company's chairman. The formation is made up of sand and porous rock directly beneath the Middle Bakken, which lies two miles under the surface in western North Dakota and holds billions of barrels of oil.

See this presentation which I believe was published about that time. I might come back to this one again, particularly slide 30. 

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Notes to the Granddaughters

After two hours of water polo practice, our oldest granddaughter is ravenous for a snack on the way home. Last night I forgot to bring something from home, so after dropping her off at the natatorium, I drove back to Tom Thumb (major grocery store in this part of the world) to see what I could find. Incredible. Apparently, at the end of the day, they clear out their pastry shelves and mark everything down for "quick sale." Plastic containers with six big fancy donuts, priced at $4.99 during the day, are marked down to 99 cents. [This might explain why Houston and San Antonio lead the nation in obesity data.]

I had one donut this morning; I did not notice much "aging." Actually, it was quite good. Less than 20 cents vs regular price of 75 cents and much less than chocolate croissant at Starbucks. I won't even get into cost of coffee at home vs Starbucks.

Meanwhile, the middle granddaughter, 4th grade, is working on her "healthy eating assignment" this week. Students are recording everything they eat and calculating the calories.