The Market And Energy Page, T+108 -- May 8, 2017

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.

Miffed? A follow-up. Don sent this link as a response to my earlier post about Iowa being the first state in decades to build a new fertilizer plant in the US.  From The Dickinson Press:

• $500 million urea fertilizer plant
• Hazen, ND: north of Beulah, adjacent to Basin Electric Power Cooperative's synfuels plant 
• synfuels plant: turns lignite into natural gas
• 750 workers to build; 60 employees to operate
• won't take up all the slack created by the Bakken but it's a start
• the urea plant is a bet that the next generation of farmers moves away from potentially dangerous and cumbersome cylinders of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer and moves to urea pellets
• (anhydrous ammonia fertilizer -- also made by the synfuels plant)
• so, we have anhydrous ammonia fertilizer: the big white cylinders on wheels seen everywhere in farming communities, and not urea pellets
• about half of the anhydrous ammonia fertilizer made by the synfuels plant is shipped elsewhere
• urea is safer to ship, safe to store
• should be ready for the 2017 planting season
• Basin plans to produced 380,000 tons annually
• ND is estimated to use 450,000 tons urea annually 

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Northern Oil And Gas: 1Q17 Results

From a press release:

• production: averaging 13,299 boepd
• producing wells with a 30-day IP average of 1,485 boepd; a 34% increase over the 2016 additions
• 2016 producing wells are tracking a 1 million boe average type curve, a 59% increase over the 2015 additions

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OPEC Crude Oil Exports -- A Shell Game

This is why the attempt by OPEC to boost oil prices fizzled. In graphic form:

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Monday's Market

Opening: the market is down a bit on opening, but I believe AAPL has just hit another all-time high. [Update: AAPL hits an all-time high; up about 3%; adds another $4 / share; company hits a market value of $800 billion.]

Snarky: a news report talked about the fact that Warren Buffett does not own Amazon. A comment from a reader suggested that he (the one commenting) preferred hard assets, not virtual assets like Amazon. Companies with lots of hard assets: deep sea drilling. All underwater -- literally and figuratively.