The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog): 12/25/19

Weather: wow, it's a beautiful day in north Texas. If this is global warming, I'm all for it. It feels like 60° -- almost too hot to ride a bike. LOL.

#1 internet peeve: those "I accept cookies" pop-ups.

Wouldn't you just hate getting a pop-up warming every time you went to open the refrigerator? Or every time you turned on the lights:

"You will be adding 0.000000000000001 milligram of CO2 to the atmosphere if you flip that switch."

By now, one should assume all sites collect cookies. The blogging app I use apparently collects cookies but I've never done a thing with them. I wouldn't even know how to access them, and I don't know what I would do with them. I guess the google app that I use must know from cookies that a lot of my readers are interested in the Bakken.

But I digress. Weather radar is clear. Good. I hate to ride home in the rain. Wow, 60°? Nope, 73°. Wow. What a beautiful day.

Starbucks is open.

Ya gotta love Boris. This is worth looking at. From Powerline. And if you don't want to go to that link, it's also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzJQ0TcBmqU.

Omaha Steaks. Speaking of YouTube. I don't think I've ordered from Omaha Steaks in over a year until last week.

Last week surfing through YouTube a pop-up for Omaha Steaks appeared with an incredible deal. I started the process of ordering the item for my brother-in-law but it became such a hassle to check out. Every time I tried to check out Omaha Steaks offered me another "great deal." So, I simply closed the site and didn't order anything.

The next morning, while watching business news on television, an Omaha Steaks ad appeared; it was almost the same deal, not quite as much and it cost $10 more. I quickly went back to YouTube -- thinking that the deal would be gone. But nope, it was there. On checkout the site reminded me that as a veteran I would get a 10% discount. Shipping was free. By the time I was done, Omaha Steaks was practically paying me to take their deal. LOL.

Costco: speaking of steaks, I did not order anything for myself.

We got a huge check from Costco this year -- cash back -- for all our shopping this past year using their credit card. Wow, what a deal. Steak, salmon, and this is what amazes me -- if the cash-back certificate is greater than what you purchase, you get the difference in cash. You don't even have to spend your "cash-back" cash at Costco. I don't shop at Costco often; it's out of the way, but that's where I bought my new Apple iPad. Best price ever. And then cash-back on top of that. What's not to love.

Impeachment 101. Wow, I wish I taught school. For those who do not understand "impeachment" this is the explanation.

Definition. Epstein's cause of death depends on what your definition of "suicide" is. -- Bill Clinton.

(Re-posting) Notes from Alaska: Jones Act leave New England out of the LNG boom.

Western Canada, the U.S. Gulf Coast, West Texas and Appalachia are all overflowing with natural gas. So much so that prices are down and occasionally have turned negative in some areas, when producers actually had to pay someone to take their gas.

Too bad there is no easy way to move more of that gas to the U.S. East Coast, New England and Canada’s Maritimes provinces, where natural gas customers are paying the highest prices in North America.

The obstacles are by land and by sea.

There is not enough pipeline capacity to reach the Eastern Seaboard. And a 99-year-old federal law, the Jones Act, requires that only U.S.-built and U.S.-flagged ships can move cargo between U.S. ports. The problem is, no such liquefied natural gas carriers exist.
Examples of too much supply in gas-producing regions and too little of it reaching the gas-consuming coast are economically painful.

Next-day natural gas prices at the Waha hub in the Permian Basin in West Texas tumbled to their lowest on record November 27, 2019, because of limits on the amount of gas that could move out of the region by pipeline. Prices fell to an average of 25 cents per million Btu that day. Even worse than a measly quarter, traders said small amounts of fuel were sold at negative prices as producers struggled to get rid of their gas.

That compares to the U.S. benchmark price at Henry Hub, Louisiana, which averaged about $4 per million Btu in November.

The imbalance is just as noticeable in Canada, where last May 3 spot prices at Alberta’s AECO pricing hub closed at just 5 cents per million Btu, about $2.50 less than the U.S. benchmark price that day.

Then in October, gas prices in Western Canada went into a freefall as a ruptured pipeline limited producers’ ability to get their gas to market. With one less conduit to move Canadian gas to customers south of the border, spot prices at Alberta’s AECO trading hub fell to 8 cents per million Btu on October 19, 2019.

At the other end of the price spectrum in November, gas prices at the New England trading hub rose to $13.70 per million Btu for Nov. 21, about triple the year-to-date average.

And when gas costs more, so does electricity. Next-day power prices in New England on November 21, 2019, were about four times the national average.

When winter hits New England, power and gas prices can spike quickly because most consumers use gas to heat their homes and businesses, and most of the region’s electricity usually comes from gas-fired power plants.

There was a reason I re-posted that, but now I forget. Oh, this is why. I have followed the market since 1984. To the best of my knowledge I have never, never, never seen "U-Haul" on any list of recommended companies/stocks to buy. Never. But I've written about U-Haul a number of times on the blog, particularly in respect to the Bakken boom some years ago. But now, of the tens of thousands of publicly traded companies one can invest in, Barron's names "U-Haul" to its top-ten list for 2020. Posted previously.

Think about that. Of the tens of thousands of publicly traded companies one can invest in, Barron's lists U-Haul on its annual list of ten companies they recommend for the coming year.

Some dots to connect:

California's population growth is the slowest in recorded history -- Los Angeles Times, May 1, 2019.

Why California still doesn't have 40 million people -- NY Times, December 23, 2019.

The state’s population growth rate sank to a new low from July 1, 2018, to July 1 of this year, to just 0.35 percent. That’s down from 0.57 percent in the previous year, which was the lowest recorded rate since 1900.

Experts have said that the slowing of California’s once stratospheric population growth is caused by dwindling immigration into the state, coupled with larger numbers of people moving to other states.

Retirees leaving these three states (NJ, ME, CT) in droves; destinations: New Mexico (#1), Florida (#2); Arizona (#3) -- CNBC, May 31, 2019.

Winners, losers, with regard to the U-Haul story:

other trucking companies, like United Van Lines
housing industry -- but it will be regional
real estate companies; Warren Buffett owns a huge real estate company, through BRK

it was in the news lately

home improvement stores, and other big box companies, like Best Buy
Florida, New Mexico, Arizona do not restrict new pipelines; natural gas hook-ups; are not anti-business

The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Pages

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Twenty Wells On Confidential List Yet To Be Reported Through Boxing Day -- December 25, 2019

Off The Net For At Least An Hour -- Home Alone --

Merry Christmas, 2019 -- Notes From All Over, Part 1

Merry Christmas -- 2019