The Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+15 -- August 29, 2018

Canada, late in the day: wow, Trudeau is spooked! After US-Mexico come to "broad" agreement (announced just two days ago), Trudeau who has not had a good year so far, says Canada could have a deal with the US by the end of the week.

Trudeau's country has become known as the country that can't "close a deal." Four pipeline attempts: four strike outs -- Northern Gateway (killed by Trudeau); Keystone XL (killed by Trudeau's close friend Barack Obama); Enbridge Line #3 in deep trouble in Minnesota (arguing over one or two miles of route); and, TransMountain Pipeline expansion (Trudeau had to buy it and all hinges on court decision expected to be announced tomorrow).

Weekly EIA petroleum report: link --

• a decrease of 2.6 million bbls; now at 405.8 million bbls; my "threshold" is 400 million bbls (below 400 million bbls, very, very bullish)
• refineries at 96.3% capacity; down from recent record highs of early 100%
• gasoline production (10.2) and distallate (5.2) unremarkable
• imports coming down a bit
• jet fuel supplied is still up significantly year-over-year
• is air travel impacting gasoline demand? It's hard to believe but one has to start considering that
• gasoline demand will be posted later this afternoon

Markets:

• three of four indices could hit new records at close; only Dow yet to set a new record high
• Nasdaq could set all-time record; in doing so, Nasdaq will have the best August gain in 18 years!
• so much for "Sell in May, go away."

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.

WTI: $69.14 (will struggle to stay above $69 today, it appears).

Market, mid-morning trading --

• Dow, irrelevant: flat; Nasdaq, up 10 point; and the all-important, S&P 500 -- flat, right at 2,900
• AAPL: and there it is, a new all-time record -- up $1.78, now trading at $221.49 -- the previous all-time high was $220.54 (intraday -- it looks like the previous record close was $220.47)
• EOG: up slightly, at $118.96
• CVX: up very slightly; $120.50; well off it's all-time high of $133
• BRK-B: down slightly; owns too many regional newspapers;
• COP: nice; up almost 2%;
• T: down about a percent;
• UNP: flat, slightly positive;
• XLNX: up about 3/4 percent;
• OAS: up about 1.6%;
• NOG: up about 1.6%;
• PLUG; challenges; trading at $2.00;
• YUMC: up another 5% today;

Out to save the world - EVs, gasoline demand, Norway: as is well known, of global electric car sales, Norway has the highest market share --- but that's only due to --

• tax credits; tariffs; government incentives for folks to go "electric"
• incredibly wealthy nation that can afford pricey cars

It will be decades, if ever, where other countries can emulate Norway. Having said that, reality sucks - Rystad Energy analysis --

Despite the fact that electric vehicle sales constituted 48% of all new car sales in Norway in the first quarter of 2018, Rystad Energy has not observed a significant change in transport fuel consumption at the country-level.

From Q1 2013 to Q1 2018, demand for motor transport fuel remained roughly unchanged at 56,000 bpd. we estimate that electric vehicle sales lowered gasoline and diesel consumption in the country by 3% in 2016 and 4% in 2017, but we believe that the effect of electric vehicles on total fuel consumption was masked due to persistent conventional vehicle sales: over 40,000 diesel and gasoline vehicles, or 42% of total new car sales, were sold in Norway during the first half of 2018.

Comment: Norway -- annual car sales, 150,000; it appears North Dakota accounts for about 25,000 bbls gasoline / day