Thursday, January 10, 2019

Divorce? What A Difference A Year Makes -- January 10, 2019

Can't Buy Me Love, The Beatles


The big divorce? What a difference a year makes!

And you all know which song I'm going to play, LOL.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E, Tammy Wynette
 
Now back to Mr and Mrs Bezos. Nine days into the new year! Who comes out ahead in the next tax bill? Which president pushed for the new tax bill? Some say Mr Bezos bought The Washington Post to .... shall we say, beleaguer, badger, bedevil, and pester the president. Did the president get the last laugh? If this was all serendipity, this is truly irony. But not much in Washington is serendipity.

A huge thank you to a reader for bringing this to my attention. Especially "beleaguer." LOL.

Active Rigs In North Dakota Jump To 66 -- January 10, 2019

The refinery near the park: one step closer -- the administrative judge recommends issuing a "water permit." Non-binding but the regulators, not wanting to be second guessed, asked an administrative judge to weigh in on the request. The judge, said, "Sure, go for it. It's just one of a dozen permits that they will need. Faux environmentalists will have endless opportunities to stop this refinery. So, what the heck. Issue the water permit. Whatever." I was paraphrasing. LOL.
Active rigs:

$52.591/10/201901/10/201801/10/201701/10/201601/10/2015
Active Rigs66533658167

Five new permits:
  • Operator: Hess
  • Field: Truax (Williams)
  • Comments: Hess has permits for a 5-well SC-Bingeman pad in 9-154-98; fourteen miles directly east of Williston;
Four producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:
34708, 1,136, Whiting, Vance 11-17TFH, t12/18; cum --; #22189, #19405;
34705, 1,166, Whiting, Vance 11-17TFHU, t12/18; cum --;
34707, 1,692, Whiting, Vance 11-17-2H, t12/18; cum --;
34709, 2,216, Whiting, Vance 11-17-3H, t12/18; cum --;

WTI Clawing Its Way Back -- January 10, 2019

WTI settles at $52.47.

Brent settles at $61.44.

Saudi needs, at a minimum, $80 oil (Brent) -- not gonna happen this year.


NOG: settles down a nickel, at $2.70.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on anything you read at this site, or what you think you may have read at this site.

It's Only Make Believe, Conway Twitty

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Notes to the Granddaughters

I suppose we all have memories of our coming of age days.

Mine were in Boston.

1971.

1973.

In the "Back Bay," Beacon Street.

Today, I read the "bridge" was shut down temporarily due to a fire under the bridge.


Median Household Income In Williams County: $90,000 -- KXNET -- January 10, 2019

Posted from KXNET.com:
According to a data survey by financial website 24/7 Wall St., the oil and gas boom in North Dakota is what has helped propel Williams County into the top spot for the most wealth per county in the state.
The median household income in the county is nearly $90,000, almost $30,000 higher than the state average and $32,000 higher than the national average.
Unemployment is lower there than the state or national averages. You can read more on the data survey, as well as see where the wealth lies in other states, here, at 24/7.
Let's look at some of the other counties:
  • New Mexico: Los Alamos -- the lab -- $110,000
  • North Dakota: Williams County -- oil --$90,000
  • California: Santa Clara -- $107,000
  • Massachusetts: Norfolk County -- $96,000
  • New York; Nassau County -- $106,000
  • Texas: Fort Bend County -- $94,000
  • Washington: King County -- Seattle -- $84,000

Better Late Than Never -- The Well That Started It All -- January 8, 2019

From The WSJ published on June 29, 2018.
DISH, Texas—Twenty years ago this month, a well was drilled here that changed the world.
Nothing at the time suggested the unassuming well in this rural town north of Fort Worth would hobble OPEC, the powerful oil cartel that had governed prices of the world’s most important commodity for more than a generation. Or that it would help turn the U.S. into a global energy exporter, or shuffle the geopolitical deck.
But it did all of that—and more. The well used hydraulic fracturing to crack the incredibly tight shale rocks below. It fired the first shot in the fracking revolution—a blast soon felt in Riyadh, Tehran and Moscow.
“I had no idea it would cause so much change. I was just trying to keep my job,” said Nick Steinsberger on a recent visit to the well pad. He was the engineer who obtained permission to try a new approach to completing the well that had been drilled a mile and a half deep into a thick grey wedge of rock known as the Barnett Shale.
Mr. Steinsberger, now 54, called the experiment “my slick-water frack.” It was the first commercially successful use of sand, water and chemicals, pumped into the shale under high pressure, to break open the rock and unleash the natural gas trapped inside. It was the beginning of modern fracking.
Long, long, article at the link. I assume it's behind a paywall. Hopefully most can access it. Great story. Sent to me by Don many weeks ago. 

T+63 -- OPEC Cuts Won't Move The Needle -- January 8, 2019

They're reading the blog. On January 8, 2019, I wrote:
More nonsense, from Bloomberg. A great headline but half-a-million bopd won't even come close to making a dent. Saudi Arabia is in deep trouble. Over at oilprice, "oil prices rise as Saudi exports plummet."
Today, in the Financial Times, this headline: OPEC's usual cut gambit is unlikely to move the needle. Saudi Arabia needs to trim quality not just volume in order to balance markets. 

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Non-Bakken Stories

Blow-out: and we're not talking in the oil patch but out in Santa Clara, CA. Alabama scores two touchdowns in the first quarter and not one more TD in the entire game. Clemson calls it a game after three quarters; both teams quit playing in the fourth quarter. A lot of folks lost a lot of money; a few won huge jackpots: the odds were on Alabama to win by 5.5 points, and the over/under number was 57 points total for the entire game. In fact, 60 points scored -- most of them belonging to Clemson. 44-16. 

Beto; it turns out he's a flake, too. The WSJ had an article on him yesterday, and the comments suggest that outside of California he's a disaster. I was unaware that he is a three-self-admitted felon and  has done time for burglary. My wife tells me there is more to the store regarding jail time/burglary. One word: Kavanaugh.

"Lara's Theme" from wiki: 
Initially David Lean had desired to use a well-known Russian song but could not locate the rights to it, and delegated responsibility to Maurice Jarre.
On the soundtrack album for Zhivago, there is no one track listed as "Lara's Theme."
A variation of the piece appears in numerous sections, however.
Some tracks briefly cite it, while others are composed entirely from the motif. The orchestration is varied, most notably with balalaika and orchestra.
One of the main reasons the theme is featured in so many tracks is that Lean had hired an impromptu balalaika orchestra from several Russian Orthodox Churches in Los Angeles; the musicians could only learn 16 bars of music at a time, and could not read written music.

Around The Bakken -- January 10, 2019

Antelope-Sanish: It should go without saying that the Antelope-Sanish field is going to be a great field for re-fracks and impact of children on their parents. See #19473.

Antelope-Sanish: this well was re-fracked, #19144.

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WTI

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.


Later: A reader asked the meaning of "Man City." My reply:
I had no idea what "Man City" referred to but I do believe you are correct. The day this was posted or the day before it was posted "Man City" won 9 - 0 in the English League Cup semifinal. But wow, that was a stretch to have figured that obscure point on twitter.

Germany Won't Meet Climate Goals -- Probably Ever -- January 10, 2019

Natural gas fill/withdrawal, link here:


The big story, of course, is how this year will significantly change the graph going forward. The "minimum" will drop significantly, as will the 5-year average. Five years from now, it will long be forgotten that 2019 was the year that the graph changed. But it will be archived here. Maybe I need a new tag, whengraphschanged. LOL.

But this is the other big story. From an energy standpoint, the US is in the catbird's seat, as they say. The energy gap between the EU and the US continues to widen, and that yawning gap is going to get wider and wider -- there is a huge risk that the jaw will dislocate! LOL.


  Over at the "Big Stories," the European situation is followed at "Europe at a tipping point."

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Reality Sucks

Google Germany wont meet 2020 CO2 targets or 2030:

Texas Crude Oil Production Continues To Increase; First Time Unemployment Claims Plummet -- January 10, 2019

Jobs. Link here.
  • prior (revised): 233K
  • consensus: 224K
  • actual: 216K -- way below consensus
  • change: a decrease of 17,000 -- another huge (and surprising) drop
    • why aren't we seeing an increase due to the government shutdown?
ISO New England: either that New England winter storm isn't as big as the weather people forecast (shock, I'm shocked) or the natural gas distributors are on top of their game. Link here

Joanne: time to take a look at Australia's problems. The country won the 2019 Patsy award.

An adult Dem in the room: Cher tells Pelosi to give Trump the wall, and end the shutdown.

Peak oil? Texas oil and gas production increases with stalled job growth.
... the state’s crude oil production was 1.35 billion barrels through November 2018 with a total of 1.5 billion barrels expected through 2018. November’s figures represent an increase of 209 million barrels. Natural gas production was at 7.5 trillion cubic feet through November.
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Back to the Bakken

Two wells coming off the confidential list today -- Thursday, January 10, 2018:
Active rigs:

$52.181/10/201901/10/201801/10/201701/10/201601/10/2015
Active Rigs64533658167

RBN Energy: more US LPG export capacity on the way, part 2.
LPG exports out of Gulf Coast marine terminals averaged nearly 1.04 MMb/d in 2018, a gain of 12% from 2017 and 35% from 2016. And, with U.S. NGL production rising steadily, 2019 is looking to be another banner year for LPG shipments to overseas buyers. The increasing volume of propane and normal butane — the NGL purity products generally referenced as LPG — is filling up the existing export capacity of the Gulf Coast’s six LPG terminals and spurring the development of a number of expansion projects. Today, we continue our blog series on propane and butane export facilities along the Gulf, West and East coasts, and what’s driving the build-out of these assets.