Focus On Fracking Has Posted -- August 30, 2020

Link here.  Yes, it was a very slow news week. This is always one of my favorite sections of the weekly update (minor editing):

Meanwhile, US oil refineries reported they were processing 14,712,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending August 21, 2020. 

That is 225,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil they used during the prior week. 

Over the same period, the EIA's surveys indicated that a net of 922,000 barrels of oil per day were being pulled out of the supplies of oil stored in the US. Based on that "reported & estimated data," this week's crude oil figures from the EIA appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports, from storage, and from oilfield production was 438,000 barrels per day less than what our oil refineries reported they used during the week. 

To account for that disparity between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just inserted a (+438,000) barrel per day figure onto line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet to make the reported data for the average daily supply of oil and the data for the average daily consumption of it balance out. 

Essentially, this is a fudge factor that the EIA labels in their footnotes as "unaccounted for crude oil,"thus suggesting an error or errors of that magnitude in the oil supply & demand figures we have just transcribed.

With last week's fudge factor at -421,000, that means our week-over-week comparisons on oil supply & demand changes are off by almost twice as much, even as we continue to report them as an indicator of what most oil traders and analysts believe happened, since that's what affects their behavior.

Much, much more at the link. Most interesting is the section on distillate production and inventory. Just a snippet:

Our supplies of distillate fuels increased for the seventeenth time in 32 weeks and for the 22nd time in 47 weeks. 

After this week's inventory increase, our distillate supplies were 31.7% above the what we had in storage on August 23, 2019, and about 24% above the five year average of distillates stocks for this time of the year.

Staggering. And it doesn't make sense. Why are refiners continuing to produce so much distillate fuel?

*****************

Seven Spanish Angels, Chris & Morgane Stapleton, Dwight Yoakam

AAPL, TSLA: Dominant Stories On CNBC Monday, August 31, 2020

Later:

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

First numbers. Futures, Sunday evening, 6:00 p.m. EDT:

• Dow: up 82 points
• S&P 500: up 9 points
• NASDAQ: up 18 points; later: up 42 points -- now over 12,000;
  
• AAPL, close, Friday: $500 / 4 = $125
  
• TSLA, close, Friday, $2,200 / 5 = $440
  

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Iron Butterfly, Sina
Her most requested cover.
Seventeen minutes long.
Look at the comments at this link.
Is there anything Sina can't play?

Notes From All Over -- The Late Night Edition -- Saudi's Problems Worsen; Peak Oil? What Peak Oil? -- August 30, 2020

Saudi Arabia: this past week, this was a top story: Saudi Arabia crude oil exports drop to lowest on record. Repeat: exports drop to lowest on record. On record. I find it amazing the stories that get so little press. Now this, from oilprice: the world's top oil importer -- CHINA -- is turning away from Saudi Arabia and turning to less expensive oil from Brazil and the United States.

In recent months, the world’s biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, has lost market share in China to the United States as the world’s top oil importer has boosted imports from America and reduced purchases from the Kingdom.

China has imported record volumes of crude oil in recent months, taking advantage of the lowest crude prices in two decades in April stock up on dirt-cheap oil.

In their bargain-hunting for low-priced oil, Chinese state oil giants and independent refiners alike snapped up cheap U.S. cargoes in April, which were loaded in May, started to arrive in China in June, and set records in July.

At the same time, Chinese oil imports from Saudi Arabia – after hitting all-time highs in May and June thanks to the bargain prices the Saudis offered in the brief price war for market share in March and April – slipped in July as availability of crude from the Middle East shrank after May with the OPEC+ cuts.

Chinese refiners were opportunistic buyers of crude in March and April, and given the shorter tanker travel time between the Middle East and China, compared to the U.S.-China route, Chinese imports of crude oil from Saudi Arabia slumped as early as in July from the record highs of the previous two months. Meanwhile, the roughly 45-day route from the U.S. to China means that the cheap American crude oil loaded in May started arriving in China en masse in July.

Much more at the link.

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For The Archives:
Saudi Aramco Announces Two New Oil And Gas Fields

Link here to Reuters:

• Abraq al-Toloul oil field: southeast of the northern city of Arar;
• Hadabat al Hajara gas field in the al-Job region:

Just what they need: more oil. LOL.

********************************
Texas High School Football Players of the Year

On cable sports network now. Amazing to watch. What a great state. What a great country.  4A Texas football athlete of the year: Ashton Stredick. The senior is headed to Princeton University. From Needville, TX, within the Houston-Sugar Land metropolitan area. I'll miss the 5A highlights; headed over to Sophia's house for dinner.

************************************
An Incredible Personal Story -- This Is What Life Is All About

I Just Want To Dance With You, George Strait & Kacey MusgravesUnrehearsed.
Complete surprise.

And With This I'm Off The Net For Awhile -- August 30, 2020

Sunday Morning Coming Down -- Crazy Talk -- The Sports Page -- August 30, 2020

Putting things into perspective: watching the Boxer Rebellion, China, 1899 - 1901 on TCM and thinking about BLM (basketball lives matter) certainly puts things into perspective. Just saying.

Just a matter of time (many to choose from):

Sunday Morning Coming Down, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson

Re-visiting Hurricane Laura.

• The wind-speed dilemma and how to hype a hurricane. From Watts Up With That.
• was Hurricane Laura actually a Category 2 hurricane?
  
• And from NOLA: why the storm surge did not occur -- the hurricane hit 40 miles east of Weather Channel's forecast -- but picking that "wrong" location, drove ratings
• anyone watching the Weather Channel overnight, as Hurricane Laura hit landfall literally saw the wind taken out of the Weather Channel's main sail;
• not one correspondent was seen standing in water more than a few inches deep (if that much)
• most chatter and video was about "swaying trees"; I don't recall even seeing fallen trees;
  

And then: that crazy Canadian oil story. Again, from Watts Up With That:

Western Canadian oil is being shipped, via the Panama Canal, to eastern Canada -- where the cars are; where the demand is, because environmentalists prefer:

• riskier ways to ship oil than by pipeline:
• prefer long-haul shipping and increased CO2 emissions; and,
• prefer higher-priced crude oil at the other end (transportation costs)

*********************************
The Sports Page

BLM: the story changes. Now, the league players (the employees running the insane asylum) are telling us they will play because ... and I can't make this up ... their spokesmen say they can make a bigger "statement" by playing than by boycotting -- i.e., wearing their BLM-league logos on the floor. LOL To quote AOC: it's all about the Benjamins.

Daytona: all I can say, I'm glad that race is over. 

PGA today: most coverage so far this morning is on Tiger Woods, currently 56th in the FedEx standings, and about 12 strokes behind the leader in the BWM tournament.

• Tiger's three weak spots:
• driving off the tee;
• moving the ball from the fairway/rough to the green; and,
• putting.
• Story line today: 
• now that Tiger Woods is clearly not going to advance, he can enjoy his fourth rounds, and "practice" for the US Open, September 17 - 20, 2020.
• expect a great fourth round -- and a lot of flashback videos of his "glory days"

• Final for Tiger:
• lost both mental focus and stamina
• one bogey on the front nine
• one bogey and one double bogey on the back nine; the double bogey on the penultimate hole (had a triple bogey on this hole yesterday)
• no media interviews

PGA:

• coming down to 18th hole, Dustin Johnson needs a birdie to tie the leader, Rahm
• off the tee, into the rough
• in big scheme of thing, does not matter; will advance regardless
  
• Joaquín Newmann has impeccable credentials, but he certainly looks like a dead man walking; I don't recall seeing such a pale-looking, cachectic golfer ... ever

PGA: holy mackerel -- 30-foot putt to take this to overtime. Wow. The playoff will start at hole 18. This is incredible. Rahm's huge mistake -- cost him a stroke -- forgot to mark his ball. But back to Dustin Johnon's 30-foot putt. Incredible.  

PGA: playoff! Holy mackerel! Jon Rahm sinks a 66-foot-putt birdie. Impossible. Maybe some of the greatest golf I've seen in ages. Dustin Johnson needs a huge birdie to extend playoff. Jon Rahm wins by one stroke despite a penalty stroke yesterday.

Tesla "Losing Ground" In Europe; July Registrations Collapse-- ZeroHedge -- August 30, 2020

One may want to go back and look how Tesla made its money last quarter, but that's a story for another day. Today's story: if three's a crowd, a dozen or more is a stampede. And Tesla may be near the back of the pack. I've run out of fingers and toes.

Link here.

JATO's motor vehicle data of the European market reveals Tesla is quickly losing market share as consumers now have a more extensive selection of all-electric vehicle models to choose from. Overall motor vehicle registration in July slumped 4% year-over-year to 1,278,521; meanwhile, electric vehicle registrations boomed. 

On another note, I wonder if JATO used Altyrex technology? 

I mentioned the trifecta the other day: Intuit, CRM, and Altyrex. 

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

Wow, what a digression.

Where was I? Oh, that's right. 

JATO's motor vehicle data of the European market reveals Tesla is quickly losing market share as consumers now have a more extensive selection of all-electric vehicle models to choose from. Overall motor vehicle registration in July slumped 4% year-over-year to 1,278,521; meanwhile, electric vehicle registrations boomed. 

More at the ZeroHedge link.

We'll post more later, but note this:

Half of the vehicles sold in the month had hybrid engines, with demand jumping 89%. 

The hybrid versions of the Ford Puma and Fiat 500 were most sought after by consumers. 

Then plug-in hybrids accounted for 55,800 units, up over 365% over the year, with an increase due mainly to new model releases such as Mercedes A-class, BMW XC40, and BMW 3-Series. 

As for pure electric vehicles, July registrations rose 43% over the last year to 53,200, with consumers now able to choose from 38 different models, as it appears pure electric vehicle models are flooding the market, crowding out Tesla: "Tesla posted a 76% decline to 1050 units following shipping delays to Europe, as a consequence of production challenges in its Fremont, California plant," JATO's report said.

European passenger car sales for 2019 at this link, about 15 million. 

Do the math:

• at a rate of 50,000 EVs/month (based on record month of July, 2020)
• 12 * 50,000 = 600,000
• 600,000 / 15,805,752 = 3.8%
• with increase due mostly to high-end luxury cars: Mercedes A-class; BMW XC40, and BMW 3-series
• disclaimer: I often make simple arithmetic errors

From the linked Zero Hedge story, these two graphics:

********************************
The Big Mistake -- And What Would That Be?

So, what's the "same big mistake?" I've read this article over at Business Insider three times and have three questions:

• who is "everyone"? the consumers, the manufacturers, the media, the environmentalists, the automobile enthusiasts, or someone else? 
• why the focus on passenger sedans when the big "EV" money and opportunities seem elsewhere ("last mile delivery," for example)? 
• what's the "same big mistake"? I think I know but the article wasn't particularly helpful answering that, if that was indeed the "big mistake."

Note: this article was published January 11, 2018, more than two years ago, but I don't think things have changed. 

US Sets Natural Gas Power Production -- August 30, 2020

I think this is third time I've posted this story in some form or another. It's a most incredible story, and it turns out it's even bigger than previously reported. From Watts Up With That.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, these nominally United States set a new record for natural gas-fired electricity generation in July 2020.

Figure 1. Daily US volume of natural gas consumed for electricity generation (billion cubic feet, Bcf). US EIA

On July 27, 2020, US power plants burned 47.2 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas, beating the previous record by nearly 2 Bcf. The US also set a record for electricity generation from natural gas, peaking at “316 gigawatts (GW) in the late afternoon” of July 27.

Figure 2. Daily Lower 48 electricity generation by source. US EIA

 

The lower 48:

• natural gas: 45%
• coal: 24% (twice that of renewable energy)
• nuclear: 17% (could be less in the out years, although Bill Gates trying to salvage his investment)
• renewable energy: 12% (remember: renewable energy in this context includes a lot of hydroelectricity -- dams)

But look at this:

• new natural gas-fired net summer capacity: 8.4 GW
• new onshore wind capacity: 12.6 GW

So, it looks like a whole lotta wind. Hardly. Read the small print (you won't see this at PUC hearings):

The net addition of 8.4 GW of “new natural gas-fired net summer capacity” will actually be capable of generating nearly twice as much electricity as the 12.6 GW of new onshore wind capacity.  

Combined cycle natural gas-fired power plants can deliver >85% capacity factor.  

Wind generally struggles to maintain 30%.

• 0.85 x 8.4 GW x 24 hr/d x 365 d/yr = 62,546 GHh/y
• 0.3 x 12.6 GW x 24 hr/d x 365 d/yr = 33,113 GHh/y

And, natural gas works at night and when the winds don’t blow (or blow too hard).

Oh, one more thing. And this is huge -- this is before the EV revolution. A reader recently suggested his electricity consumption will increase ~ 20% once he switches from his ICE to his Tesla.

Advice for young men and women:

• 1800's: "go west, young man"
• 1950: "plastics"
• 2000: "software"
• 2020: "natural gas pipelines"

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

Speaking of Tesla -- see next post.

Free Verse -- Sunday Morning Coming Down, Part 2 -- Nothing About The Bakken -- August 30, 2020

It's going to be one of those days, I can tell. I didn't take my meds. LOL. Where we go on the blog today is anyone's guess.

Can you believe this article was in Forbes. I said a couple of weeks ago that I needed to re-subscribe to Forbes. Memo to self. Subscribe. 

Turtles are key to tracing birds' "redness gene" back to the dinosaurs. Link here. Of all the animals out there, the one animal that continues to perplex biologists with regard to "where did they come from" and "how to classify them" are the turtles. This article may provide another connecting dot. From the linked article:

The gene responsible for red coloration and color vision in birds is also functional in turtles -- having arisen in a shared ancestor where it was probably used for color vision and possibly also for red coloration more than 250 million years ago

I recently wrote a piece about two elegant research papers that described how birds became red. Those papers, which were published side-by-side in the journal Current Biology, revealed that a gene-encoded enzyme, CYP2J19, converts yellow pigments obtained from the diet into red pigments, which red birds then use to color their feathers, bills and bare skin.

But manufacturing pigments for visual displays probably wasn't the original, ancestral, function for the "redness gene" because even birds that lack red coloring have a functional CYP2J19 "redness gene." In fact, it appears that CYP2J19 plays an important role in color vision. Specifically, CYP2J19 creates the red carotenoid pigments that are found in oil droplets within particular cone cells. These retinal cone cell pigments act as spectral filters to enhance color vision.

More:

Turtles are unique amongst reptiles because they have pigmented cone oil droplet, and their red oil droplet pigments also appear to be ketocarotenoids -- just as in birds. Like birds, turtles have excellent tetrachromatic color vision. Some turtle species, such as the painted turtles, Chrysemys picta, that are found throughout much of North America, have brilliant red pigments on their bodies, and this coloration appears to be acted on by sexual selection.

Where are turtles getting their red carotenoid pigments? Did the ability to manufacture ketocarotenoid pigments arise independently in birds and turtles? Or, as Dr. Mundy and his colleagues suspected, do birds and turtles share a genetic basis for ketocarotenoid synthesis? But if ketocarotenoid synthesis does have a shared genetic foundation in birds and turtles, which was the original function of CYP2J19; color vision or coloration?

Much more at the link. Archived.  

Sophia and I spend a lot of time watching and feeding the turtles at "Turtle Creek," Parr Park, Grapevine, TX. Per "bank-foot," this creek has more turtles than any other creek in the world. At least that's what I tell Sophia.

By the way, next project with Sophia: the night sky. There's a great app at the App Store for identifying night sky objects. Goal: identify a group of stars we can call "Barbie." Her own constellation. 

Oh, back to the original question: where did turtles come from; where do they fit in? From the linked article:

To answer this question, it was essential to look way back in time, back to that time when birds' and turtles' last common ancestor roamed the Earth. Thanks to newly-developed molecular and computer technologies, it was only recently found that turtles and archosaurs form a distinct clade (Archelosauria), independent from lizards, snakes and tuatara (lepidosaurs). Link here to wiki.

Archelosauria is a clade grouping turtles and archosaurs (birds and crocodilians) and their fossil relatives. Multiple sequence alignments of DNA and protein sequences and phylogenetic inferences showed that chelonians are the sister group to birds and crocodilians. Morever, there are about 1000 ultra-conserved elements in their genome that are unique to turtles and archosaurs, but which are not found in lepidosaurs (tuatara, lizards and snakes). Other genome-wide analysis also supports this grouping.

******************************************
My Wife and I on YouTube

You only have to watch the first minute of this video.

These Arms, Dwight Yoakam

Sunday Morning Coming Down -- August 30, 2020

Wow! What a great weekend, and it's not even over yet. Huge rainstorm in the DFW area last night; got lots of reading done -- particularly regarding color vision; saw the Daytona Coke 400; the third round of the BMW, the penultimate run-up to the Fedex PGA championship; a little TCM (including North By Northwest]; several new YouTube discoveries, and best of all, Sina. 

We'll do the links later. 

So, here we go. 

Hurricane Laura: the 20-foot-unsurvivable surge ... never mind. Turns out that didn't happen because the hurricane hit shore forty miles to the east of where the "last" models predicted. Had the hurricane hit 40 miles to the west ... well, we really don't know, do we.

Hurricane Laura: the winds. Still subject to great debate. I did note that the wind did not appear to live up to the Weather Channel's billing. I'm shocked! Shocked!

Tesla: losing ground in Europe even EV sales surge. This is quite a story. Many, many story lines. May re-post as a stand-alone. Will certainly update recent posts on EVs.

Canadian oil being shipped through the Panama Canal. Destination: Canada. Can't make this stuff up.

Dissing the US markets: sovereign wealth funds loading up on global equities, but not US equities -- the buzz: too pricey and uncertainty of US presidential elections.

Fracking: by the way, Joe Biden says he will not ban fracking.

Re-posting: that story on record-setting natural gas power generation. There's actually more to the story. It's even better than it looked. 

Politics: mainstream media not carrying this story -- "Michael Moore suggests Trump .... drum roll ... might win. First page of google search does not reveal any ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, NYT, WaPo, or WSJ links. Story being carried by foreign press; The Hill, and Fox News. This story is not being reported because of the message but rather because the messenger has become irrelevant. But that doesn't mean he's not accurate.

Prediction: AAPL shares will plunge in price Monday. I anticipate AAPL will trade at $110/share, well below the $500/share close on Friday. Oh, that's right -- that 4 - 1 split. Okay. 

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

************************************I Did Not Know This
One of my favorite songs, not necessarily one of my favorite country western singers. But wow, I never guessed who wrote this song -- or at least, who co-wrote it -- John Prine -- died earlier this year, March, 2020, due to coronavirus. Huge underlying medical problems, of course, but still a huge, huge, huge loss. Amazing how a young man made good most unexpectedly, again, through sheer talent -- song writing, singing, and story-telling. 

I Just Want To Dance With You, George Strait, song by John Prine

Initial Production Data For Wells Coming Off The Confidential List This Week -- August 30, 2020

The wells:

• 37328, conf, WPX,  Nokota 24-13-12HQ, Squaw Creek,
• 36213, conf, XTO, Allie 31X-24HXE, Alkali Creek,
• 37133, conf,  WPX, Nokota 24-13-12HA, Squaw Creek,
• 33864, conf, Hess, BL-Myrtrice-156-96-2536H-5, Beaver Lodge,
• 37134, conf, WPX, Nokota 24-13-12HB, Squaw Creek,
• 37135, conf, WPX, Nokota 24-13-12HX, Squaw Creek,
• 35999, conf,  Hess, AN-Mogen Trust-153-94-2932H-8, Antelope,

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
6-2020	15327	28153
5-2020	24368	14591
4-2020	22716	20808
3-2020	20591	18454

• 33865, conf, Hess, BL-Myrtrice-156-96-2536H-4, Beaver Lodge, 
• 36002, conf, Hess, AN-Mogen Trust-153-94-2932H-5, Antelope,
  

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
6-2020	14038	24908
5-2020	19635	10787
4-2020	17593	16277
3-2020	21538	21026

• 35288, conf, Whiting, Berg Trust Federal 31-27HU, Pembroke,
  

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
6-2020	14726	28010
5-2020	11299	22631
4-2020	30565	59459
3-2020	44161	82612

• 35928, conf,  CLR, Jamestown Federal 11-17H, Banks,
  

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	7-2020	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2020	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	5-2020	22	7570	7658	11027	38985	38299	0
BAKKEN	4-2020	30	13180	13334	16960	46814	45902	0
BAKKEN	3-2020	30	9767	9495	16596	22561	22395	166
BAKKEN	2-2020	1	199	0	405	130	0	130

• 33947, drl/NC, MRO, Prior USA42-8TFH-2B, Reunion Bay,
  

Wells Coming Off The Confidential List This Week -- It Looks Like A Very Slow Week -- August 30, 2020

Monday, September 7, 2020:
37328, conf, WPX,  Nokota 24-13-12HQ,
36213, conf, XTO, Allie 31X-24HXE,

Sunday, September 6, 2020:
37133, conf,  WPX, Nokota 24-13-12HA,
33864, conf, Hess, BL-Myrtrice-156-96-2536H-5,

Saturday, September 5, 2020:
37134, conf, WPX, Nokota 24-13-12HB,

Friday, September 4, 2020:
37135, conf, WPX, Nokota 24-13-12HX,
35999, conf,  Hess, AN-Mogen Trust-153-94-2932H-8,
33865, conf, Hess, BL-Myrtrice-156-96-2536H-4,

Thursday, September 3, 2020:
36003, conf, Hess, AN-Mogen Trust-153-94-2932H-5,

Wednesday, September 2, 2020:
35288, conf, Whiting, Berg Trust Federal 31-27HU,

Tuesday, September 1, 2020:
None.

Monday, August 31, 2020:

• None.

Sunday, August 30, 2020:

• None.

Saturday, August 29, 2020: 81 for the month; 152 for the quarter, 598 for the year

• 35928, conf,  CLR, Jamestown Federal 11-17H,
• 33947, conf, MRO, Prior USA42-8TFH-2B,
• 90476, conf, KODA Resources, Stout 29 SWD 1,