Active rigs:
| $37.19 | 9/14/2020 | 09/14/2019 | 09/14/2018 | 09/14/2017 | 09/14/2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 12 | 64 | 65 | 55 | 34 |
Three new permits, #37841 - #37843, inclusive:
Apple: wow, I really can't believe this. For $899 one can get the best laptop out there -- the MacBook Air with 256GB for $899.99. Incredible The 512GB model for $1,199.99. Actually, that's a tough choice, the 256GB vs the 512GB model with a significant price difference -- $300, but more importantly, a jump from below $1000 to well above $1000. With all the streaming options out there, iCloud storage, and, peripheral flash hard drives, parents with tight budgets can go with the 256GB model for their high school and/or college students.
Gilead:
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.
Peak oil? Saudi oil production. Link here.
Anticipation: I'm waiting for The WSJ or similar business news publication, perhaps Forbes, doing a feature story on the surge in the amount of "cloud" storage. A year ago, Sophia, age six, uploaded zero -- repeat, zero -- videos to her teachers. On Friday, Sophia uploaded not less than three short videos to her teachers to meet daily requirements for "streamers." Now multiply that by all the elementary school "streamers" x five days a week. Add in all the Zoom meetings held multiple times daily. My hunch: data storage is getting to be a very, very lucrative business.
Snowflake: cloud company raises IPO price range to $100 vs $75. Link here. Twenty-three banks underwriting this deal led by GS and MS.
Anticipation: Apple's special event scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, September 15, 2020, noon CDT.
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.
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EVs
Tesla: new Tesla challengers are scoring huge investments, but Nikola, Rivian, and Lucid may arrive too late to gain ground in the electric car market -- Business Insider.
P/E: Tesla's P/E has dropped significantly -- only 965 this morning. But more interesting, it's forward P/E is "only" 159, suggesting it's a buy.
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.
Nikola. Maybe this was Nikola's game plan all along?
Nikola: lead story over at SeekingAlpha today -- Nikola collapsing under the pressure. That was my thought the other day, I just couldn't articulate it after seeing headline about employees being sent to Europe to face off against short sellers. Weird. How often do we see that? Like never. Archived here.
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Geopolitics
TikTok: Oracle surges; wins bid for TikTok; Microsoft loses. Link here.
Turkey gets unprecedented downgrade, crisis warning from Moody's. Key word: unprecedented. Link here.
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Word for the Day
Word for the day: pocket door. Link here and here.
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The Sports Page
Overall: pretty much dreadful for the weekend, except perhaps mens US tennis Open. Link here.
NFL: A survey that has no validity, absolutely meaningless, but still 52% of respondents: "not watching NLF due to BLM; urge boycott." Link here. I surfed through all football games on Sunday; I paused long enough to see Tom Brady's team lose. I had completely forgotten for whom he was now playing.
Carson Wentz: am I missing something here?
Williston High School: football team is under quarantine until September 23, 2020. Link here.
Biggest disappointment: Dallas Cowboys putting up only 17 points. Win, lose, or draw, the Dallas Cowboys should certainly score more than 17 points. That averages less than one TD each quarter.
Never got the memo: apparently the NFL official, #55, never got the memo that NFL players "need space." Absolutely inappropriate ejection of Jamie Collins. Give me a break.
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Dinner Delivery
Maybe it's just me, but except for pizza I am not impressed with quality of food that is being delivered. I don't know what it is but for the past six months or so, the family gets together for Sunday evening dinner for restaurant dinner delivery.
It started out as a way to support local restaurants.
Orders are often incomplete, but worse, the entrees are just not that good. Somehow they lose something in transit. I assume there are two "delays." First, the delay at the restaurant. When the dinner is ready for delivery, the restaurant must wait for GrubHub, DoorDash, etc., to show up for the delivery; and, second, the time in transit itself.
Also, "fine food" being delivered in styrofoam containers and/or cardboard -- somehow the "fine" in "fine food" is being lost.
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Graphic of the Day
On Labor Day, September 7, 2020, this report about tracking / rail.
Follow-up: today, a must-read story -- west coast shippers can't book rail on BNSF and Union Pacific. Link here to ZeroHedge.
A Northern California logistics consultant was unable to book containers on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) or Union Pacific (UP) railroads for the first week of September going to and from U.S. West Coast ports and Midwest destinations.
The consultant said, “I have been working in the industry for thirty years and I have never seen anything like this. It’s weird.”
The result is that importers of low value products being shipped by containers such as tee shirts would be at an economic disadvantage transporting containers by truck as opposed to by rail between U.S. West Coast ports and Midwest destinations, because of the higher cost.
The consultant explained that there is a huge shortage of rail capacity: “There are no rail cars and there are no chassis.”
The consultant, who is not identified, was contracted to research container rail bookings on the UP and BNSF to and from U.S. West Coast ports including:
- Los Angeles
- Long Beach
- Oakland
- Seattle
The result of the research was that: “The railroads will not take any bookings right now and so all the containers going to and from the West Coast to places such as Chicago and Memphis must go by truck.”
The consultant cited the following trucking rates per container as examples:
- Los Angeles/ Long Beach to Chicago: $7000.
- LA/LB to New Berlin, Wisconsin: $6,700.
- LA/LB to Nashville, Tennessee: $7,200.
- LA/LB to Dallas, Texas: $5000.
- LA/LB to Jacksonville, Florida: $8,800.
OPEC basket, link here: not yet posted for today. Elsewhere being reported at no change, trading at $39.83.
| $37.34 | 9/14/2020 | 09/14/2019 | 09/14/2018 | 09/14/2017 | 09/14/2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 12 | 64 | 65 | 55 | 34 |
Wells coming off the confidential list --
Monday, September 14, 2020: 119 for the month; 190 for the quarter, 636 for the year
Sunday, September 13, 2020: 116 for the month; 187 for the quarter, 633 for the year
Saturday, September 12, 2020: 114 for the month; 185 for the quarter, 631 for the year
RBN Energy: the economics of US LNG in a competitive global gas market.
The economics for U.S. LNG entered new territory this year, as price spreads to international destinations, particularly from the Gulf Coast export terminals, went from an average $4-8/MMBtu a couple of years ago to $1/MMBtu or less in 2020 to date. The tighter spreads reduced netbacks for U.S. offtakers and led to mass cargo cancellations this summer. Moreover, current futures curves show Henry Hub price spreads to Europe and Asia staying mostly in the $1-$3/MMBtu range over the next few years, suggesting that the arbitrage for U.S. LNG exports, particularly from the Gulf Coast terminals, likely will remain tighter and make commercial decisions to lift or cancel U.S. cargoes much more nuanced than they ever were before. Today, we delve into the primary cost components that factor into offtakers’ netbacks.