German Company Outsells Tesla's Powerwall Units -- Just Barely -- June 7, 2016; Biggest Energy News Story Of The Week? India To Build Six Nuclear Reactors With Help Of US Firm

Updates

June 7, 2016: how big is the Indian energy story? Huge. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a US company will be building six nuclear reactors in India.

The U.S. and India agreed to move forward with construction of six nuclear reactors in India by an American company, the first such move since the countries signed a landmark civil nuclear deal in 2008.

The breakthrough capped a wide-ranging White House meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who are seeking closer cooperation and to boost New Delhi’s role in counterbalancing China.

Under the agreement, Nuclear Power Corporation of India and Westinghouse Electric Co., a U.S. unit of Toshiba Corp., will begin engineering and site-design work for the reactors, though the final contract won’t be completed until June 2017, White House officials said. The deal marked a significant step in resolving obstacles to the sale of nuclear reactors and fuel to India.

Original Post

 

Summer has certainly started off with a bang. The market is showing some life, "oil" starts the day right at $50, and ... well, let's begin.

Yesterday, a reader alerted me to movement on the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa. Here's the link today from the Des Moines Register.

I started beating the drum on India some years ago, but the drumming has become increasingly louder over the past few days, much of it because of Al Troner's articles. Now, a headline story over at The Wall Street Journal -- 24 million new vehicles in India give oil prices a lift. Over at "The Big Stories" I have a link to "India: The New China" - first posted in April, 2016. That's how fast this story is moving.

“The big news in demand is growth in India, which now rivals China,” said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of consulting firm IHS. “India really is seen as the growth market for oil.”

India is fueling a rapid economic expansion, with consumption hitting a record 4.35 million barrels of refined fuels a day during the first three months of the year, according to the International Energy Agency. That is up more than 10% from a year earlier and a big pickup from 2015’s pace.

CVX is making news over at Yahoo!Finance In-Play: Chevron extends solid early run near the upper end of its May trading range at around $103. Later, XOM began to move; XOM edged just slightly above its May peak at 90.46 to set a new 52-week high of $90.50. Later, near the end of the market day, it was noted that there were 198 issues that hit 52-week highs, and only 8 issues that hit 52-week lows. Some of those making 52-week highs today: Allete (again, at least 3rd day in a row); Black Hills (again); CenterPoint Energy (again); XOM (wow); ONEOK (again); QEP (again); Raytheon (again); TransCanada; and, UnitedHealth Group.

Perhaps the biggest news of the day: atmospheric CO2 barely budged month-over-month. It was "407.57" in April. For May, it hardly moved:

I can never get my hands around big numbers, but "407.70" is "parts per million." So if I gave Sophia one million dollars and asked for $407 back, she might not give it to me, but she would hardly notice.  From April to May, at a time when fossil fuel use is surging, atmospheric CO2, using the same million-dollar analogy, rose .... drum roll ... 13 cents over a million-dollar denominator.

As the Democratic presumptive nominee would say: what does it matter?

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Active rigs:

	6/7/2016	06/07/2015	06/07/2014	06/07/2013	06/07/2012
Active Rigs	26	82	194	189	214

RBN Energy: LNG glut challenging suppliers.

GE acquires Germany's Sonnen; solar power initiative, from SeekingAlpha --

• General Electric agrees to acquire an unspecified minority stake in Germany’s Sonnen to improve its presence in the fast-growing market for battery systems built to store solar power.
• GE Ventures is paying a “mid double-digit million-euro" amount for a stake in Sonnen, which started operations in 2010 and has become Europe’s largest maker of rechargeable energy storage units.
• The German company so far has sold 11K lithium-ion battery packs powered by solar energy, including 2,600 units worldwide during Q1, just enough to outpace sales of Tesla’s wall-mounted Powerwall units.

Permian "springs to life" with $50 oil -- Oilprice at Yahoo!Finance -- 

Operators in the Permian added five rigs to their active count during the week, in the latest demonstration that the basin is perhaps the most viable across the shale patch, with its low production costs and abundant reserves.

The Permian is enjoying a lot of attention from the energy industry and from private equity alike. Those with a presence in the basin are upbeat about the future, and those without are trying to step into it in order to share in the riches.