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Thursday, March 21, 2019

March 21, 2018, T+78, Part 5

Wow, this is incredible. The market had an incredible day.

Now, futures tomorrow are green. But futures will turn red overnight.

Earlier I posted (re-posting after Jim Cramer's note, LOL):
The market: best market ever for investors -- especially those in energy -- what's not to like? Let's count the reasons --
  • the Fed is spooked; Jerome Powell throws in the towel on rate increases [later, Jim Cramer agrees; says Jay Powell made a "rookie mistake." LOL.
  • Trump is in control: the only thing holding back the market, now that the Fed has quit raising rates (maybe one more) are the tariffs on Chinese trade -- and Trump alone will decide when
  • the market is clearly climbing the wall of worry
  • huge upgrade for AAPL today; shares jump almost $4.00; movers and shakers took advantage of recent AAPL sale, I'm sure
  • jobs: unemployment claims fall more than expected; first time unemployment claims drop 9,000; link here
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Dinner and then to Olivia's track meet:


Recommendation: if you don't have a grandchild, go over to "Adopt-A-Grandchild-By-The-Hour." Sophia and I are BFFs. We have so much fun together. But only two more years. By the time she is seven years old, she will have her own friends, and at best I will be her chauffeur and that's all. We work on it every night, and I think within the next three or four days, she will be able to type in my very complicated password to access the computer.

Meanwhile, at the border ... three hot meals and a cot ... or a bus station. You decide.

South of the Border Down Mexico Way, Patsy Cline

Enerplus With A Proposed 9-Well "Metamorphic Rock" Pad -- March 21, 2019

On twitter this evening:


My response which was posted on twitter in reply:
Absolutely untrue for the Bakken. All DUCs are completed within two years, and there are very few -- maybe a dozen -- that are older than two years -- Approximately 1,200 wells will be drilled in the Bakken this year. There are about 900 DUCs in the Bakken.
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

NOG: up over 9% today; up 24 cents/share; closed at $2.87; I haven't followed NOG very closely (I don't follow anything very closely) but I think a 24-cent/share gain is one of the biggest gains NOG has had on any one given day. NOG is an important equity to follow with regard to the Bakken.


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The NDIC Daily Activity Report   
High Points

Active rigs:

$59.983/21/201903/21/201803/21/201703/21/201603/21/2015
Active Rigs67595032107

Eight new permits:
  • Operator: Enerplus
  • Field: Moccasin Creek (Dunn County)
  • Comments: Enerplus has permits for an 9-well "Metamorphic Rock" pad in section 17-147-93 in Moccasin Creek; see graphic below
Four producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:
  • 34178, n/d, CLR. Ravin 10-1H1, Dimmick Lake, no production data,
  • 34453, 1,223, XTO, Cherry Creek State 14X-36EXH-S,  Pembroke, t3/19; no production data,
  • 34368, 1,894, XTO, Cherry Creek State 14X-3EXF, Siverston, t3/19; no production data,
  • 34370, 1,530, XTO, Cherry Creek State 14X-36B, Siverston, t3/19; no production data,
  • 34366, 1,615, XTO, Cherry Creek State 14X-36AXD, Siverston, t3/19; no production data,
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Proposed Location For The Enerplus "Metamorphic Rock" Pad


The "Metamorphic Rock" pad:
  • 36225, loc, Hornfels 147-93-08D-05H, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
  • 36226, loc, Mylonite 147-93-08D-05H-TF, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
  • 36227, loc, Eclogite 147-93-17A-20H, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
  • 36228, loc, Phyllite 147-93-17A-20H-TF, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
  • 36229, loc, Slate 147-93-08D-05H-TF, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
  • 36230, loc, Quartzite 147-93-17A-20H-TF, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
  • 36231, loc, Argillite 147-93-08D-05H, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek, 
  • 36232, loc, Marble 147-9317A-20H, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
  • 36233, loc, Gneiss 147-93-17A-20H-TF, Enerplus, Moccasin Creek,
Producing wells of note:
  • 18752, 2,194, Enerplus, Henry Bad Gun 17A-20-1H, Moccasin Creek, t7/10; cum 480K 1/19;
  • 18790, 1,773, Enerplus, Henry Bad Gun 16B-21-1H, Moccasin Creek, t10/10; cum 466K 1/19;

Bakken Infrastructure Bill Signed -- March 21, 2019

From The Williston Herald, data points:
  • $250 million to cities, counties, and townships in non-oil producing counties
  • a gift for Williston, but no cash: a "gift of time"
  • the bill removes the "sunset for funding" for Hub cities like Dickinson, Minot, and Williston
    • cities: $115 million
    • counties and township: $115 million
    • airport infrastructure fund: $20 million
    • road improvements, water systems, utility upgrades
Later: a reader tells me that this is what it means for the Hub cities (again, the sunset clause was removed, if I understand the story correctly) --
Hub cities, meanwhile would be funded a similar levels as before, based on things like mining employment, oil production and population changes.
Williston’s starting percentage would be 58.5 percent, Dickinson’s 28.3 percent and Minot’s 13.2 percent.
Those percentages might shift among cities based on mining employment and population statistics, but the overall funding for hub cities would remain the same.
Much appreciated to get that update. Thank you. 

Making America Great -- Driving Faux Environmentalists Nuts -- March 21, 2018, T+78, Part 4

Driving faux environmentalists crazy --

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The Book Page

The Comanche Code Talkers Of World War II, William C. Meadows, c. 2002, University of Texas press. 

One of the problems the Comanche code talkers had was that their native language had very few if any words for many military words.

The Comanches first had to come up with a word for military lingo and then put that word into code.

I won't provide the native Comanche word, nor the code word, but here is an example of English military lingo and the word or phrase the Comanches took from their language to name/describe it. Again, once they had the "translation" they then had to put that same word into code.

So, let's go:
  • airplane: "flies by itself"
  • bomber: "pregnant bird"
  • bombs: "baby birds"
  • fighter: "they fight flies by itself"
  • bayonet: "gun knife"
  • 0.30-caliber machine gun: "sewing machine gun"
  • 0.50-caliber machine gun: "big sewing machine gun"
  • 55 howitzer "two fives or double five big gun"
  • automobile: "runs to and fro by itself"
  • jeep: "little car"
  • mine sweepers: "find it"
  • rank: "soldier branded"
  • officer: "solder-chief"
  • General: "star chief"
  • Brigadier General: "one-star branded"
  • colonel: "big bird"
  • Germans: "our enemy"
  • Adolf Hitler: "Crazy White Man"
  • railroad: "fire wagon road"
  • tunnel: "dugout" -- exact etymology never determined
Roderick the Red Elk recalled how the group decided on a code term for the tank:
Well, we kind of set around in groups you now and we kicked it around [the proposed term] and we all agreed on something and we'd go with it. We would sit around like this, just kind of battin' the breeze.
We got to talking about that and somebody come up an idea to call a tank a turtle. Somebody asked him why. He says, "Well the only reason I came up with a turtle is a turtle is like a tank. It's got a hard shell and that's the only reason I believe we could associate the turtle with a tank." We kicked that around and as we passed one word we would write it down.
"Forty turtles" equaled forty tanks.

The same process had to be repeated for various types of artillery and aircraft. Artillery was distinguished by the caliber size, using standard Comanche numbers, and by the addition of "big" and "small."

Because only one word existed in the Comanche language for all types of airplanes, new terms also had to be created for different types of planes, and the same principle of a base word with various prefixes was used for distinguishing different types of aircraft.

The code talkers [in training] took this very seriously. Fights occasionally broke out over arguments about which words to use. Code talkers were very, very proud of their ideas and would fight to keep them.

Thursday, March 21, 2019, T+78, Part 3

Basketball: NDSU (16) will play Duke (1) tomorrow (Friday) at 6:10 p.m. Talk about incredible exposure -- a Friday night. What could possibly be better. March Madness.

The market. WTI just went green (10:31 a.m. Central Time, March 21, 2019); up 9 cents to $60.32.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do no make any investment, financial, job, relationship, or travel decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Make my day:
  • NOG: up another 5% today; now trading at $2.77
  • AAPL: up over $6; up over 3%; now trading at $194 with a target of $225
  • EW: up almost 2%; over over $3/share
  • UNP: climbing a wall of worry
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The Book Page

The Comanche Code Talkers Of World War II, William C. Meadows, c. 2002, University of Texas press.
On June 6, 1944, D-Day, thirteen Comanches in the Fourth Infantry Division, Fourth Signal Company, made an amphibious landing with thousands of Allied troops along the Utah Beachhead on the Normandy coast of France. While under German fire, they immediately began to lay wire for communications transmission lines and began to send their messages in a form never before heard in Europe, in coded Comanche. During the next eleven months ...
The first message received in Comanche by the code talkers at the division command was from Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., reporting that he had landed safely. As Forrest Kassanavoid described:
One of the boys, Larry Saupitty, was the driver-radio operator-orderly for Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., who was the Assistant Division Commander.

When they made the landing at Utah, General Roosevelt was the field commander of the forces that landed on Utah and he sent a message back to the command ship and didn't want the Germans to know that they had landed at the wrong space because they landed about 2,000 yards away from where their initial point was supposed to be.
And he didn't want the Germans to know that, so he sent a message back and he had Larry send a message back to the command ship in Comanche telling them that ... the landing was good, but it was in the wrong place.

The message read: "Tsaaku nunnuwee. We made a good landing. Atahut nunnuwee. We landed at the wrong place."

And that as the message he sent and this was Larry Saupitty, a code talker ... sending the message for Brigadier General Teheodore Roosevelt, Jr. ... As far as we know, that was the first [combat] message that was sent in code, as a code by a [Comanche] code talker.
General Roosevelt had two options ... his decision ... "We'll start the war from here."

Comanche code talkers also involved at the Battle of Bastogne.

Kiowa is an extremely difficult language for a non-Kiowa to learn for several reasons.
First, Kiowa is a tonal language, having ten possible pronunciation pitches for ever single syllable and one hundred possible pronunciation pitches for every two-syllable word (only a few of which have any assigned meaning).
Kiowa contains a hearsay tense not found in English, lacks the equivalent of English articles, and has 550 syllables.

Grammatically, Kiowa has nouns, verbs, adjectives, and verbal-adjectives. Furthermore, Kiowa contains a complex system of seventy pronoun forms which differ greatly from English pronouns and contains a system of multiple and irregular use of dual embodiment in pronoun forms (two subjects conveyed in a single pronoun form).

Kiowa is also characterized by frequent contractions or "clipped forms," agglutination of numerous words and clauses into lengthy expression, and contains an irregular pattern of expressing single, dual, and triplural forms for any object -- the rules for which have still not been completely and grammatically understood or recorded to this day by Kiowa or Anglo scholars. -- pp. 66 - 67.
Do not watch if easily offended by politically incorrectness:


Hard to believe this was ever an issue. Glad to see North Dakota has such a progressive governor. I understand Pocahontas has been invited to give commencement address at a Dickinson, ND, middle school. Probably just a rumor.


Thursday, March 21, 2019, T+78, Part 2 -- The Passing Of Dick Dale, March 16, 2019

Talk radio yesterday: Dick Dale, left-handed, played right-handed guitars, but unlike Jimi Hendrix, did not re-string the guitar; simply flipped the guitar over and kept the strings "upside down."
Famously, the left-handed Dale’s trademark staccato picking stems from playing a right-handed guitar upside down. But this was no Jimi Hendrix-esque modification. Hendrix, a fellow lefty, restrung his guitars when he flipped them over, but Dale kept his strung the way they were, with the heaviest strings on the bottom. Because this reverses the angle of the bridge pickup, Dale achieved more high-end bite on the bass strings and warmer treble tones.
Smoke on the Water, Dick Dale
 
North Texas: beautiful, beautiful day; will get to a high of 75 degrees. Watching truck traffic move slowly south on TX Highway 121 into Ft Worth. Hope they have Sirius.

Anticipation: we enjoyed the hospitality and food so much at Copeland's Famous New Orleans Restaurant yesterday in Southlake, TX, we have reservations for same "booth," this Sunday, for brunch/buffet. If son-in-law/daughter let us, we will take Sophia. She won't want anything from the buffet so we will order off the menu: strawberry cheesecake. LOL. We haven't enjoyed a buffet/brunch in years. Perhaps the best brunch/buffet I've ever had? Jewish, west side, Los Angeles, forty years ago. Or thereabouts. 

This is a classic: play loud, headphones, -- 

Misirlou, Dick Dale

Dick Dale: Lebanese-American from Boston. That would be Boston, Massachusetts. Link here.

State with greatest number of highly successful Lebanese-American wheat farmers who entered the country legally: North Dakota. 

Thank you, Mr Tarantino: link here.

Flashback: Solyndra -- March 21, 2019, T+78, Part 1

Solyndra.
Ten years ago today, President Barack Obama gave the Solyndra solar panel company $535 million of Energy Department loan guarantees as part of his economic stimulus program, Sandra Smith reported on "America's Newsroom."

"The true engines of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra," Obama said of the California company at the time.

Then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu also heralded the taxpayer funding for easy-to-install solar panels.

Looking back on the failed investment, Smith played video clips of Solyndra's early days, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) breaking ground on part of the company's property.

Smith said that just days after the ensuing 2010 midterms, Solyndra filed for bankruptcy and finally went under in 2011, taking with it the half-billion taxpayer dollars and hundreds of jobs.
Two words: money laundering.

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Overheard At Starbucks This Morning

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

Art Berman: besides not understanding tight oil, Art apparently doesn't understand free market capitalism; hasn't read the latest news on Exxon-$15-Permian; and may be unaware of the "illegality" of cartels in the US. Just saying.

First things first, a mash-up:

Pretty Woman, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison

The market: best market ever for investors -- especially those in energy -- what's not to like? Let's count the reasons --
  • the Fed is spooked; Jerome Powell throws in the towel on rate increases [later, Jim Cramer agrees; says Jay Powell made a "rookie mistake." LOL.
  • Trump is in control: the only thing holding back the market, now that the Fed has quit raising rates (maybe one more) are the tariffs on Chinese trade -- and Trump alone will decide when
  • the market is clearly climbing the wall of worry
  • huge upgrade for AAPL today; shares jump almost $4.00; movers and shakers took advantage of recent AAPL sale, I'm sure
  • jobs: unemployment claims fall more than expected; first time unemployment claims drop 9,000; link here
Intelligent animals: I see there's another article today about how smart animals are, an article on an anteater using a tool or something .. [later, right on cue, bears communicate like humans ... what a bunch of crap ....National Geographic also had a submerged Statue of Liberty due to rising oceans/global warming ---]....


Apparently a whole cottage industry ...

Only One Well Coming Off Confidential List Today; WTI Around $60 -- March 21, 2019

A fourth of the Bakken at risk? US judge halts drilling projects in Wyoming -- operators did not address climate change. Affects federal land. Much of Dunn County -- one of four main Bakken counties with large amount of federal land. Story in the liberal The [London] Guardian

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Back to the Bakken

Only one well coming off the confidential list today -- Thursday, March 21, 2019: 91 wells for the month; 311 wells for the quarter
  • 33894, 993, Oasis, Berry 5493 44-7 14TX, Three Forks, 50 stages; 9.9 million lbs, Robinson Lake, t10/18; cum 92K 1/19;
Active rigs:

$59.783/21/201903/21/201803/21/201703/21/201603/21/2015
Active Rigs65595032107

RBN Energy: part 3, the rise of US feedgas demand in 2019.
After a period of delays, commissioning activity at the newest U.S. LNG export terminals is poised to accelerate in the coming months, in turn bringing on incremental feedgas demand. Sempra’s Cameron LNG has said it’s ready to introduce feedgas to its fuel system and is awaiting federal approval. Meanwhile, liquefaction projects at Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island LNG and Freeport LNG terminals are gearing up to take feedgas in the next month or so. Feedgas deliveries to the operating export facilities in the past seven days have averaged 5.5 Bcf/d. These three projects alone are slated to add another 1.2 Bcf/d of incremental feedgas demand by July, bringing the total to 6.7 Bcf/d by then, if all goes well. In today’s blog, we continue examining the status and timing of LNG export projects in 2019, this time with a closer look at the Cameron, Elba and Freeport projects.
Previously we looked at the various systems involved in the liquefaction and export process and what it takes to bring a train online, using Train 1 at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG (SPL) terminal in Cameron Parish, LA, as an example of how the various commissioning stages correlate to the ramp-up of feedgas demand. Since Train 1 began full operations in February 2016, Cheniere has brought online four more trains at SPL, including Train 5 a couple of weeks ago, as well as Train 1 at its new Corpus Christi LNG (CCL) facility. The general timeline for commissioning Cheniere’s trains has been anywhere from 200 to 260 or so days from the first indications of start-up activity (such as introducing fuel gas, for example).