Again, The Bakken Is The "Gold Standard" -- June 13, 2016

Locator: 10010ARGENTINA.

 

Updates

September 13, 2023: Argentina ordered to pay $16 billion. 

June 14, 2016: see second comment. The dating of the Vaca Muerta compared to the Bakken was misleading / poorly written in the linked Bismarck Tribune article. The Bakken is much, much older than the Vaca Muerta. 

Later, 3:46 p.m. Central Time: see first comment. Actually quite embarrassing for an article coming from "ground zero" when it come to the oil and gas revolution. I've updated the faux pas in red bold in the linked Bismarck Tribune article below.

Original Post

 

The four shale basins in Argentina:

• Vaca Muerta
• Chaco basin (northern Argentina; Paraguay-Brazil-Uruguay border)
• Golfo San Jorge basin (Patagonia centered on Comodoro)
• Austral-Magallanes (extreme south)

A report earlier today mentioned that COP would begin exploring the Magallanes in southern Argentina. The Magallanes was not on my radar scope. It is now. From The Bismarck Tribune, from last fall, September 25, 2015:

After drilling two vertical wells into a tight shale formation called the Vaca Muerta (“Mad Cow”), YPF completed its first horizontal well in July 2011. The formation is located in western Argentina just east of the Andes in the Neuquen basin.

(It is one of four shale basins in the country.)

Current reserve estimates for the Vaca Muerta are 16-22 billion barrels of oil and 308 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Numbers like those attract lots of attention.

The Vaca Muerta is made up of shales, chalks and other sedimentary rock units. It was laid down about 145 million years ago, so it predates the Bakken by nearly a quarter of a billion years of earth history. At that time the area to the east of the emerging Andes was covered by a shallow sea, which ultimately accumulated the microscopic organisms that became oil and gas. It’s also a time when the super continent Gondwana was breaking up sending South America, Australia, Africa, India, and Antarctica on their separate ways.

The formation covers about 12,000 square miles, about the size of Maryland, with incredible thicknesses that reach 1,000 feet in places. Its depth averages 7,000 to 8,000 feet. Similar to the Bakken and other North American tight shale plays, the Neuquen basin has had a conventional oil and gas industry for decades, which offers a number of advantages for further development. First and foremost is that local officials understand the oil business and are generally amenable to further development. In addition, the region has a skilled workforce, one steeped in all technical aspects of exploration and production.

The Argentine government has divided the Vaca Muerta play into exploration and development blocks managed by the consortiums of companies with which the government has deals. YPF is a partner in several blocks.

While the Vaca Muerta has gotten the lion’s share of attention, Argentina has three other tight shale formations that harbor significant amounts of oil/and or natural gas and will require fracking to exploit. They include the Chaco basin along the Paraguay-Brazil-Uruguay border, the Golfo San Jorge basin in Patagonia centered on Comodoro, and the Austral- Magallanes basin in the extreme south.

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The Apple Page

Updates

Later, 4:25 p.m. Central Time: okay. I was completely wrong in the original post. I am completely blown away by what Apple has come up with. If one wants to learn about "coding" and what our granddaughters were working on all last week at "computer coding school" at the University of Texas, Dallas, one can go to this link, and skip ahead to 105:25/-17:25. I don't know if the video link works on all browsers; it is optimized for Safari. 

Later, 4:07 p.m. Central Time: okay, I was completely wrong with my original comments. What I said still holds true for a particular part of the presentation, but now that I have seen almost the entire presentation, I have to admit that it is absolutely incredible the software that Apple has. Absolutely incredible. As just one example: the comment about being able to control the hot tub from a distance was just the tip of what "Home" can do. The one thing I hope "they" do is make the door locks digital. Garage door openers are digital, but conventional door locks need to be upgraded. I am tired of fumbling for my keys to the apartment; it would be great to click on an "opener" while riding my bike up to the door. 

Later, 3:30 p.m. Central Time: I am watching the WWDC presentation from the beginning. The note below was based on what I saw tuning in late. I think the remarks below are still valid, but the "stuff" at the beginning, which I missed by tuning in late, was quite incredible: that had to do with the Apple Watch, AppleTV, and OS X.  From what I'm seeing now, advances in those three were the highlight of the presentation. (I've yet to see the full presentation, so something may yet "wow" me more.)

Based on what I saw with the Apple Watch presentation, it appears that the AppleWatch -- the hardware and the software -- is ahead of 90% of Americans by about ten years, and probably ahead of 50% of Americans by about two decades. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know, but it's clear that the gap between "American haves" and the "American have-nots" will widen even more quickly.

Apple has changed the name of its operating system: macOS. The latest version is code-named macOS Sierra. 

Original Post

 

Unless things "pick up a bit," and I doubt they will, the Apple presentation today is very, very weak. So far, it appears that, at best, Apple has simply tweaked a few operating systems and applications. The amount of time spent on "Photos" pretty much tells me they don't have much new to offer today. Likewise, it wasn't just "Photos." The amount of time spent on "Music" was uninspired.

It will be interesting to read the comments later today. I don't think they will be good. A typical comment: Apple's keynote might be out of touch with many consumers by letting us know that Homekit is now able to turn on a hot tub?

The amount of time spent on "emoji's" tell us how far Apple has fallen; this is starting to feel like a Microsoft/Ballmer presentation. Steve Jobs would be embarrassed. 

The market? The overall market (the Dow) is down about 75 points; AAPL is down about 1.3%, at about $97.50.

Of course, this conference is geared for developers, and, it appears, mostly for developers working in Chinese.

By the way, Microsoft announced it will pay $26 billion in cash to buy LinkedIn. That represents a 49% premium from Friday's closing price.

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The Microsoft Page

Why Microsoft bought LinkedIn? For the archives. Hopefully the link doesn't break. This will be interesting to come back to in five years. But my first thought: while Apple was busy designing emoji's, Microsoft was buying the Facebook of the business world. And although Facebook has its place, when you get right down to it, "Facebook of The Business World" is going to be the next big thing -- if it's done right.

Microsoft will use the LinkedIn information to empower applications like Delve—which is already part of Office 365. By making Office 365 a more potent application, Microsoft sells more Office 365 subscriptions, specifically to enterprises and small businesses—and possibly sell Lynda training subscriptions right alongside. There are already 1.2 billion Office users, and 70 million Office 365 monthly users in business, Microsoft said. Add to that the 433 million users who have already signed up for LinkedIn (though only 105 million actively use it per month) and Microsoft feels like it can make the two networks, together, indispensable.

Was that synergy really worth $26.1 billion, especially after Microsoft essentially blew $7.2 billion chasing Nokia’s handset business?

Well, think about this: LinkedIn is essentially the Facebook of the business world, and the digital repository of most of the world’s resumes. You may lie to your friends about whether or not you like Journey, but very few people lie about their resumes to potential employers. And that’s information that Microsoft is willing to pay for.

With LinkedIn, what will Microsoft know about your?

Right now, Cortana provides some basic information about your calendar, suggesting, for example, what time you’ll need to leave to ensure you arrive at your next meeting on time. In Microsoft’s digital future, Cortana will be able to sum up what you need to know both about your business relationship, and what information you can use to cement a more personal connection, too. It sounds smarmy, but a good salesperson will tell you that an emotional connection helps seal the deal.

If the thought of Microsoft owning more data about you—well, you probably should go delete your LinkedIn profile, now. Microsoft already knows your calendar (Outlook), your meetings (Outlook), your coworkers (Delve) your accounts (Microsoft Dynamics CRM) and some of your expertise (Delve). Microsoft calls this the Office Graph.

This is the screenshot, modified slightly from my perspective:

Note: there is no direct connection between you and your spouse, but I love how one receives "insights" from God (click on graphic to enlarge it).

By the way, there's no question that "an emotional connection helps seal the deal." I'll post some photos later this month and next showing what I have been buying (tangible goods, not stocks) based as much on an "emotional connection" as anything else.