EIA's Weekly Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Gasoline Demand Data -- December 23, 2020

Weekly petroleum report, link here.

• US crude oil in storage decreased by 0.6 million bbls from the previous week;
• US crude oil in storage is now at 499.5 million bbls;
• refineries are operating at 78.0% of their operable capacity;
• distillate fuel inventories increased by 2.3 million bbls last week and are about 10% above the already-fat average for this time of year;
• US crude oil imports averages 5.6 million bbls per day last week, up by 140,000 bopd from the previous week;
• jet fuel supplied was down 32.9% compared with the same four-week period last year;

Natural gas fill rate, link here:

Gasoline demand, link here:

*******************************************
Lego

There are many ways to "filter" items over at the Lego website. One way is by price. At the highest price, over $199, every set is "out of stock."

Lego has three pages of "high-price" sets, about eighteen sets on each page. 

I couldn't get a screenshot of whole page even after zooming out, but here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Every high-priced Lego set is now "out-of-stock."

There is a retired pirate ship that can be had for $240 at our local "Bricks and Mini-Figures" store which is about the price it originally sold for. One can also find it from a third party seller on Amazon for $599. Pretty amazing. 

*********************************
Fanciful AppleCar Reservations And Pricing

The tea leaves suggest it is only a matter of time before a monthly subscription will be the way folks buy EVs in the future. 

For example:

• Apple sets the base price of their 2024 model for $100,000;
• one can reserve a 2024 model by subscribing;
• the initial down payment is $1,000 and then a monthly "fee" of $500 until the car is delivered;
• the initial down payment gets you a coupon to purchase the car at 75% of the advertised price ($100,000 in this case);
• the delivery date is stamped on the coupon (first come, first served method) and guaranteed; every month delay would require the regular $500 subscription fee but the price of the AppleCar would come down by a similar amount each month until delivery;
• the AppleCar like all Apple products would have a warranty for one year, with an extended AppleCarCare warranty up to ten years, also at a subscription/streaming price;
  
• the coupon is transferable with no strings attached, and can be bought and sold like any other equity; the AppleCarCare warranty would also be transferable.

The price points shown are just pulled from thin air, but "Disney analysts" could easily come up with the best price points for the initial down payment and the monthly "fees."