The Ridiculous $19 Trillion Economy Of The US -- Mark Perry - May 14, 2017

Mark Perry does this every once in a awhile, and I love it:

Suggestion:

• Texas: Saudi Arabia
• North Dakota: Libya
• Oklahoma: Kuwait

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Almost Everyone Was A Kramden

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The Art Page

Wow, wow, wow! The Kimbell Art Museum in Ft Worth has another special exhibition, the Phillips Collection.

From the catalogue:

• Featuring paintings by Impressionists and Post-Impressionists such as Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edouard Vuillard; twentieth-century modernists Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso; American nineteenth-century painters Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler; and figures of twentieth-century American modernism such as Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keefe, and Mark Rothko, ...

From wiki:

... opened in 1921, the Phillips Collection is America's first museum of modern art.

And it's a special exhibition at the Kimbell Art Museum, opening today, Mother's Day, and running through August 13, 2017.

That Worldwide RansomWare Hack Attack? -- May 14, 2017

It's a Windows XP hack.

Tim Cook is smiling.

But let's put this in perspective: according to NPR, 200,000 people worldwide were affected. Global population is 7.5 billion.

200,000 / 7.5 billion is 0.03% or 0.000027. And mostly in Russia and Europe. And FedEx. Boo-hoo.

LOL:

How Will They Pay For It? Probaby A 30-Year Loan -- May 14, 2017

Updates

May 20, 2017: $100-billion deal? LOL. It's $110 billion immediately and $350 billion over 10 years. I did not read the story; just the headline. But one must remember this: the Saudis will need foreign expertise to do all they plan including a new militant monitoring operations center, and one can assume "the Donald" was assured by the Saudis that American companies would get first crack at new ventures. I would assume most military hardware will come from the US. By the way, this is single largest arms deal in the history of the US. And had someone else been president, it's very likely Russia would have gotten the sale. Just saying.

May 17, 2017: John Kemp --  SENIOR Gulf OPEC source wonders how to square billions of dollars of deals to be signed in KSA during Trump visit with austerity programme?

Original Post

From Reuters: among everything else, it looks like Trump will announce a $100-billion-arms-deal for Saudi Arabia on his Mideast tour. From the article: 

The arms package could end up surpassing more than $300 billion over a decade to help Saudi Arabia boost its defensive capabilities while still maintaining U.S. ally Israel's qualitative military edge over its neighbors.

Which means Israel is going to get some kind of huge arms deal also. 

It also begs the question where Saudi Arabia will come up with the money. Perhaps some Wall Street bank. You think?

President Obama first visited Riyadh about the very same time in his first term also (June 3 - 4, 2009) and according to wiki it was mostly discussion, not much substance.  

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The Dinosaur Page 

From The Dallas Morning News, no link; the story is probably everywhere. 

A new dinosaur species has been discovered -- the eggs and baby "chicks" were discovered some years ago, but it took researchers awhile to figure out what they had. What they had was this:

"This specimen represents the youngest individual known and the earliest growth stage of a giant oviratorosaur."

The new dinosaur species is Beibeilong sinensis, meaning Chinese baby dragon, and the name, if pronounced "baby-long" is correct, it should be easy to remember: it took a long time time to name a Chinese baby dinosaur.

The species is not found in the Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Gregory S. Paul, c. 2010.

Meanwhile, speaking of dinosaurs, something completely unrelated but pertaining to "Dakota" and "Lakota," from wiki:

Dakotadon is a genus of iguanodont dinosaur from the Barremian-age Lower Cretaceous Lakota Formation of South Dakota, USA, known from a partial skull.

It was first described in 1989 as Iguanodon lakotaensis, by David B. Weishampel and Philip R. Bjork. Its assignment has been controversial.

Some researchers suggest that I. lakotaensis was more basal than I. bernissartensis, and related to Theiophytalia, but David Norman has suggested that it was a synonym of I. bernissartensis.

Gregory S. Paul, working on a revision of iguanodont species, gave I. lakotaensis its own genus (Dakotadon) in 2008.

Well, that should settle that.

While we're at it, where was the most well-preserved dinosaur fossil every found? In the Canadian oil sands? Yup. By a miner. From National Geographic.

In life this imposing herbivore—called a nodosaur—stretched 18 feet long and weighed nearly 3,000 pounds. Researchers suspect it initially fossilized whole, but when it was found in 2011, only the front half, from the snout to the hips, was intact enough to recover. The specimen is the best fossil of a nodosaur ever found.

Not Many Wells Coming Off Confidential This Week -- May 14, 2017

Wells coming off confidential list early this next week.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

• 32452, SI/NC, MRO, Grady USA 21-14H, Antelope, no production data,

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

• 32723, SI/NC, BR, Remington 3E MBH, Blue Buttes, no production data,

Monday, May 15, 2017: 59 for the month; 98 for the quarter.

• 29190, 622, EOG, Parshall 406-34H, Parshall, 21 stages, 5.05 million lbs;  t11/16; cum 42K 3/17; (17580: see this post)
• 30134, drl, MRO, Rough Coulee USA 24-22TFH, Antelope, no production data,

Sunday, May 14, 20177: 57 for the month; 96 for the quarter.

• 28946, SI/NC, Petro-Hunt, Kostelnak 145-97-32D-29-4H, Little Knife, no production data,
• 30135, drl, MRO, Deane USA 24-22H, Antelope, no production data,
• 32722, SI/NC, BR, Remington 3D UTFH, Blue Buttes, no production data,

Saturday, May 13, 2017: 54 for the month; 93 for the quarter.

• 30131, drl, MRO, Blue Creek USA 24-22TFH-2B, Antelope, no production data, 

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29190, see above, EOG, Parshall 406-34H, Parshall:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
3-2017	8230	6355
2-2017	8334	5141
1-2017	6811	2173
12-2016	7755	2056
11-2016	10630	4822

After Being Off-Line Since 9/14, EOG's Fertile 4-03H (#17888) Back On Line -- May 14, 2017

Memo for self: The sundry note received January 20, 2015, is a nice note regarding effect that fracking a new well has on an existing, older well.

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Well, Done, Arianna

Arianna is a flutist in the Cross Timbers Middle School Honors Band, the "highest" band in the school.
Recent CTMS Honor Band competed in Texas-wide competition. Results from the band instructor:

Congratulations to both our Symphonic and Honors Bands for their performances at the Sound Waves Competition in New Braufels on May 13th. Here is the wrap up:

* Symphonic Band - First Division Award (Superior Rating)
* Honors Band - First Division Award (Superior Rating)
* Symphonic Band - Best in Class for all "non-varsity" bands for the entire day!
* Honors Band - Best in Class for all "varsity" bands for the entire day!
* Honors Band - Judge's Choice Award for Best Band of the entire event!

 Photo pending.

Scientists Discover An Extra 5 Million Square Kilometers Of Forest -- May 14, 2017

From Joannenova.com:

Scientists apparently can’t predict where forests are right now, but weather patterns one hundred years from now, no problem.

It’s nearly 60 years since the first satellite was launched, and we are still figuring out basic stuff down here on the surface — like which bits are forest.

It is amazing, isn't it? Algore claims he can predict the "temperature of the earth" 100 years from now down to the hundredth of a degree, and yet we didn't even know how much land was covered by forest until .... well, I guess, yesterday.

Apparently, a "recent discovery" increased the known amount of global forest cover by around 9% -- which is a huge amount -- and a huge source of carbon capture (for whatever that is worth).

Monday morning, if things go right, the Algore global warming computer model programming application (AGW-CMP-App) will have an updated formula predicting global temperatures 100 years from now by updating the amount of global forest. Or not. The app is available at the Apple Store for 99 cents.

Reality Sucks -- May 14, 2017

Updates

Later, 10:28 a.m. Central Time: in the original post I said there was nothing really new that we had not already discussed. Actually there is. It's been obvious for the past year or so, I have just never found it worthwhile to mention, but now Bloomberg mentions in the article linked below.

Merely extending the cuts won't bring oil inventories anywhere close to their five-year average level by the end of December. And let's set aside the fact that the five-year average has been inflated by two years of surplus, which means stockpiles will have to come down significantly below that to return to normal levels.

The first time I saw the John Kemp 2015 and 2016 slides on crude oil inventories, my first thought was that "five-year averages" are now greatly affected by the last two years of huge surpluses.

Analysts are looking at five-year averages. The problem with that is even if we get back to the "five-year average" -- a rolling metric -- we will still be way above the historical average. The historical average, again, as I've been saying for quite some time, is 350 million bbls of oil (not including the SPR) and 22 days of supply.  Of the two metrics, the amount in storage, and the number of days of supply, the latter is more important, but more difficult to forecast than the former, and the former is very, very difficult to forecast besides.

But if analysts are trying to sway the market by talking about five-year averages, the smart investor might want to throw out the "outliers."

Original Post 
 

OPEC (wink, wink) is going to have to much more than simply extend its current production deal -- its own figures show it needs to double the cut (wink, wink) it made in January. I don't think there's anything new in this Bloomberg story. We've been talking about it for weeks. In fact, even doubling the cut for the last half of 2017 won't make any difference in the big scheme of things, mostly because:

• gasoline demand in the US has been dropping
• the cuts were minimal to begin with
• Saudi was caught in a shell game (replacing production cuts with simply drawing from overflowing inventories -- which still exist)
• at least three countries are exempt: Libya, Iran, and Indonesia
• the Permian is about to meet its stride (in 2018)
• the DAPL is flowing
• market shifts attention to potential oversupply in 2018 (previously posted)

Other recent posts:

• reality sucks, May 11, 2017 
• pricing won't significantly affect US production, May 11, 2017 
• caught in a shell game, May 5, 2017
• disingenuous, May 3, 2017
• holy nightmare, Batman, what do we do now? May 1, 2017
• the oil glut is moving to the right, April 30, 2017

ICYMI: Bakken Oil Reaches Asia For First Time Ever -- May 14, 2017

Active rigs:

$47.82	5/14/2017	05/14/2016	05/14/2015	05/14/2014	05/14/2013
Active Rigs	51	27	83	189	190

Wow, it never quits, the real "Orient Express": now we have a twice weekly freight train from China to Europe. Takes 16 days; arrives in Europe in a shorter time than shipping by sea. The 1,000th freight train departed China on Saturday, headed for Madrid. No doubt carrying solar panels.

Meanwhile, ICYMI: Bakken light reaches Asia for the first time, from Oilprice.com, article by Zainab Calcuttawala, an American journalist based in Morocco. We've talked about this before, the difference between US refiners and Asian refiners:

The Swiss energy trader shipped 600,000 barrels of crude from the Bakken formation along with Mars Sour crude from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) onto the carrier Maran Canopus in late March. The vessel is destined for Singapore, according to the document.

North Dakota’s mix of light oil reached Europe last year, just months after the United States Congress lifted the decades-old ban on crude oil exports in December 2015. Japan may soon follow; refiners from the country say the formula of oil works well with existing facilities.