COP To Use New Diluent To Thin Canadian Bitumen -- October 1, 2019

The new diluent: a condensate, a light hydrocarbon, produced from natural gas wells. Interesting. Article does not say from where the condensate will come. All I know is that North Dakota has a lot of it and is relatively close to Alberta.

Later: see first comment regarding source of diluent --

Trend has been, for a while, for more use of local Canadian lease condensate. There's a fair amount of growing shale gas/condensate in AB and BC. This replaces (i.e. is cheaper than) local syncrude or imported plant condensate* or naphtha from the US.

So I really doubt, they are using Bakken oil. There's not really that much higher API condensate in the Bakken anyways. And even if they were using some before, the metatrend is really in the opposite direction. Using local cheap diluents versus importing from the US (as Canadian shale production has grown).

*Plant condensate is the byproduct of a wet gas (NGL) processing plant. It is very high API gravity (60+). It's the "second squeeze". The "first squeeze" is the simple lease separator. Lease condensate is usually about 50 or so API. 

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Rope-A-Dope

North Kore set to resume nuclear talks with US in "coming days," according to source at Twitter.

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Here We Go

Discussed for the past several months. Interactive Brokers forced Schwab's hand(s).

From The WSJ: Schwab ending online trading commission on US-listed products. Wow, wow, wow.

E*Trade, Ameritrade, need to follow suit, I would assume. Tectonic.

Charles Schwab Corp. said it would eliminate commissions on trades made on its mobile and web channels, rattling the online brokerage industry.

Shares of brokerage companies E*Trade Financial Corp. and TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. fell by 16% and 20% respectively after the market opened Tuesday.

The move also sent shares of Charles Schwab down 6.2%.

The change applies to commissions for stocks, exchange-traded funds and options listed on U.S. or Canadian exchanges. The San Francisco financial-services company currently charges a commission of $4.95 for online U.S. stock, ETF and options trades.Charles Schwab said clients trading options will continue to pay 65 cents per contract.

Immediate impact:

• Schwab shares down almost 10%.
• E*Trade shares down over 20%.
• Ameritrade shared down over 22%. 

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And Here We Go, Again

Amazon to open new chain of grocery stores. Will not be in same niche as Whole Foods.  Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia. Relatively small. Target: middle income customers. Link at WSJ.