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Tuesday, November 10, 2020

BR With Five New Permits -- November 10, 2020

WTI: if this is not a head fake, or a dead cat bounce, happy days could be here again. 

Active rigs:

$41.36
11/10/202011/10/201911/10/201811/10/201711/10/2016
Active Rigs1555665238

Five new permits:

  • Operator: BR
  • Field: Lone Butte (Dunn County)
  • Comments:
    • BR has permits for four Tilton wells and one Harry Dunne well in section 7-147-97, most in lot 4
    • the wells will be between 639' and 436' FSL and between 1278' and 1224' FWL

Two producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

  • 35763, drl/A, Enerplus, Wisteria 149-93-21C-22H-TF, Mandaree, no production data,
  • 31794, drl/A, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-96-12D-1-1H, Charlson, no production data,

Ford Announces Further EV Manufacturing Plants -- November 10, 2020

A Reuters article but looks like a press release from Ford.

Having said that, absolutely incredible how the "Tesla economy" is moving. From Reuters/Ford:

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co said on Tuesday it plans to hire 350 more U.S. workers to expand production capacity for its electric F-150 pickup truck in Michigan and add assembly of electric commercial vans at a plant near Kansas City, Missouri.

The company said it also will add a second vehicle at the Mexican factory that is already set to build the Mustang Mach-E electric sport utility vehicle.

Ford will invest $150 million to add production of electric vehicle motors and transaxles at a transmission factory in suburban Detroit, retaining 225 jobs.

The automaker's latest electric vehicle investments are part of an $11.5 billion plan mapped out through 2022. Ford has promised the United Auto Workers union that it will invest $6 billion in U.S. factories to build electric vehicles.

Ford will increase production capacity for an electric version of its F-150 large pickup by 50% from its original plans, adding another 200 permanent jobs at a complex near its headquarters in Dearborn, Mich. Those jobs would be on top of 300 jobs previously promised for the electric F-150 line.

Utilities, like MDU, et al, need to stay on top of this. It doesn't take many EVs in one neighborhood to require a significant upgrade in the grid.

ACB Could Make A Huge Splash -- November 10, 2020

It only takes one US Supreme Court justice to agree to take a case, as I understand it. Could be wrong. But if that's true, ACB could certainly make a name for herself and go down in history, far outshining the current chief justice. Just saying. 

Later: see first comment regarding referrals to the Court -- 

It takes 4 justices to vote to grant Cert. for a case "take the case" for argument. However each Circuit Court is assigned to (normally one) Justice for "immediate" appeals. That justice can refer the "immediate" case to the full Court and issue emergency stays and such. These situations are not the actual resolution of the case, which only occurs at the full Court (9 justices).

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The "Pandemic"
and
Western Civilization

Link here.  

I don't agree with the premise of the article at all. The writer implies that the Chinese orchestrated the Wuhan flu pandemic from the beginning to destroy western civilization. No one could have predicted how this would have played out. Even the writer, Helena Handbasket, admits this virus is no more serious than "seasonal flu."

My worldview follows.

The Italians and then the Europeans in general panicked. Their response was worse than the disease. I have no trouble agreeing with those who suggest this is a terrible disease (I don't buy it but for sake of argument, I won't disagree). I just don't agree with those who say this "terrible disease" required the response that was taken, and I definitely don't agree with those who say the response was not severe enough. Hiden' Biden, Dr Faust, and Kash 'n Karry want at least six more weeks of total lock down and Biden/Harris plan to hire ten-thousand out-of-work census workers to monitor the lock down. 

But I digress.

So, the Italians and the EU panicked.

This president had few options. From my perspective he threaded the needle quite nicely but this is where the Hillary War Room went into overdrive. The "Hillary War Room" is a metonym. 

But regardless of what happened and why it happened, it is what it is. Let's move on. I won't entertain discussion on the forementioned.

The writer  mentions that the estimated number of retail stores closing will be upwards of 15,000. The closing of retail stores hardly proves the western economy as we know it will be destroyed. In fact, the western economy will come out of this stronger than ever. 

The writer than lists twenty-one major chains that have announced they are closing. Hellooooo...they were on death's doorstep years ago. In most cases, it is amazing they lasted this long. The only one on that list that surprised me was Walgreens. But if Walgreens fails, the chain will be bought by someone else and 90% of their existing stores will remain but with a different name. 

But Sears? I thought it was dead twenty years ago. K Mart? Are you kidding me? K Mart closing is a sign of the demise of western culture? LOL. Now, if Walmart were to announce its closure the writer might be on to something.

Here's the bottom line. "Western culture" -- whatever that was -- economy, technology, politics, energy -- was headed in a certain direction and the difference between 2020 and 2035 would have been notable. The "response" to the pandemic and the pandemic itself simply "telescoped" those fifteen years into five years, from 2020 - 2035 to 2020 - 2025. 

With technology, why are folks still working in high-rise offices? The pandemic proved quickly that working from home is incredibly more efficient and rewarding. Telemarketers do it all the time. Farmers and ranchers have been working from homes since the demise of the hunter-gatherer economy.

Travel? How much of the travel industry was driven by business men and women flying to conferences when Zoom meetings and Webex would have been so much more efficient. Number one complaint from business men and women: all the flying they have to do. A full day of travel on Monday for an inefficient three-day meeting followed by a full day of travel back home on Friday. Blue collar workers are expected to work full five-day, maybe six-day, weeks. White collar men and women: they were expected to work Tuesday through Thursday, travel on Mondays and Fridays. 

Sports events? One-hundred thousand people in a stadium? We've been doing that since the days of Caesar Augustus. Perhaps with technology we could watch these games on television? And, if we didn't like how the game was going, we could use AI and change the ending for our own personal enjoyment. For example, Dallas Cowboys fans would have AI installed that showed no interceptions by Garrett Gilbert and the Cowboys defeating the number one team, the Pittsburgh Stealers, this past weekend. What's not to like?

Politics? We now have the husband of the Speaker of the US House owning the computers that count the votes, or so I'm told, and the mainstream media declaring the winner based on faxes received from the Hillary War Room. Did I mention that the Hillary War Room is a metonym? This was going to happen by 2035 based on tea leaves, but the pandemic simply telescoped this to happen in one election cycle. Wow.

Remote learning? Incredibly efficient. Huge cost savings. Harvard has been doing this for decades. Professionals have been doing this for decades. I wonder if the number of MBAs obtained through distance learning exceeds those who paid gazillions of dollars in dormitory rent to live on campus when they could just have easily done it from home. In their pajamas. Something called "executive MBAs" were awarded through on-line learning. The only travel, maybe: a graduation ceremony.

Those twenty-one chain stores will fail but trucking companies and logistics companies will replace them. The most common truck sighted on my trip from Dallas to Tucson and back? FedEx. Then Amazon. 

This meme that Papyrus failed due to the pandemic is ludicrous. When was the last time you visited a Papyrus store? Probably not since the Pharaoh's daughter found Moses. How many folks even knew a store called Papyrus existed outside of Cairo? We had a Papyrus store just down the road and we often visited a Papyrus store at the malls in California -- over-priced, and everything at those stores could be bought online. 

Anyway, enough of this. You get the gist. I need a cup of coffee. From a Keurig coffee maker ordered from Amazon. And at 67 cents per K-cup al lot less expensive than a $3.00 cup of black, sugar-free coffee from Starbucks.

10-Year Treasury: Trending Toward 1% -- November 10, 2020

Link here

I'm not following this but it is in my social media stream and I'm getting a lot of tweets and re-tweets on the ten-year Treasury (lousy grammar but I'm in a hurry). Whatever.

ENB: Re-Posting This Little Nugget -- November 10, 2020

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.

From Fitzsimmons over at SeekingAlpha:

Heading into winter season, ENB's underappreciated Union Gas utility - the largest gas utility in North America by volume - will shine.

More from the post:

The Q3 EPS report was solid. Financial highlights included (all figures in C$):

  • GAAP earnings of $990 million, or $0.49/share, up two cents per share over the $0.47/share in Q3 of 2019.
  • Adjusted EBITDA of $2,997 million, compared with $3,108 million in 2019.
  • Cash Provided by Operating Activities of $2,302 million, compared with $2,735 million in Q3 of 2019.
  • Distributable Cash Flow of $2,088 million was relatively flat compared with $2,105 million in Q3 of 2019.
  • DCF of $1.03/share compares favorably to a quarterly dividend of $0.81/share for a coverage ratio of 1.27x.
  • Full-year 2020 financial guidance range is reaffirmed for $4.50-$4.80 DCF/share. At the $4.65/share midpoint, that implies a 1.44x coverage on the current $3.24/share annual dividend obligation.

After suffering a ~400,000 bpd reduction in mainline volumes early in the year due to pandemic demand destruction, Al Monaco, President and CEO of Enbridge, said:

"In liquids, Mainline heavy capacity is now fully utilized and full year volumes are tracking to the guidance range that we provided in May for the remainder of 2020, and we're on track to deliver $300 million of cost reductions in 2020."

As a result, the Liquids Pipelines Segment EBITDA of $2.09 billion was up 27% over Q3 of 2019 ($1.65 billion). That was a positive development considering overall results were down due primarily to an outage on the Texas Eastern mainline due to an explosion in May in Kentucky

Monaco gave an update on the repair work on the Texas Eastern pipeline:

"In Gas Transmission, the vast majority of work has been completed on Texas Eastern to ensure safe and reliable natural gas delivery and the system has returned to its normal operating capacity for eastbound service in time for the winter heating season. Construction on the T-South Expansion, Spruce Ridge and our modernization program continue to progress well."

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BLM Basketball

A reader noted that "breaking news" reports that BLM basketball will resume December 22, 2020, on the eve of Festivus. Link here: https://www.foxnews.com/sports/nba-comes-back-on-dec-22-a-72-game-season. The social media comments are better than the story.

My reply:

I've been watching this story on ESPN for the past two weeks. Players did not want to start before Christmas.

Delaying start until after Christmas would result in $600 million loss of revenue for the BLM.

The owners prevailed.

And you are correct. No one is going to be watching BLM basketball over the Christmas holidays, but the networks will sell a lot of advertising.

I could have added the tie-in with Kwanzaa but thought that would be politically incorrect. By the way, Kwanzaa begins on Boxing Day here in the fifty-seven states on December 26, 2020, and ends not a day too soon on January 1, 2021. I have nothing against Kwanzaa; it just seems the festival would do much better in, let's say, October. Or September. Or March. But December is already pretty busy, and squeezing in another festive event during that period just seems ... well ... let's just say, someone should have looked at the calendar. 

It was bad enough when they added Festivus. 

By the way, as noted above, Festivus (for the rest of us) falls on December 23 this year (2020), as it does every year. From the internets:

While the Latin word festivus means "excellent, jovial, lively", and derives from festus, meaning "joyous; holiday, feast day", Festivus in this sense was coined by the elder O'Keefe. ... It is now celebrated on December 23, as depicted in the Seinfeld episode written by the younger O'Keefe.

Most Interesting Factoid -- Woke NFL Football Ratings -- November 10, 2020

See this link: NFL ratings down 7% year-over-year when "everybody" home watching television.

But then look at this. There is one broadcast network that has not shown a year-over-year decline.

And you ask, what network would that be?

Fox.

Link here

All five NFL windows on FOX this season have increased over last year, making it the only NFL broadcaster that has not posted a decline yet.

Fox: the unwoke network. 

OXY-WT Jumped Nearly 25% Yesterday; Down 2% In Pre-Hours Trading Today; Update On ENB --November 10, 2020

Note: by the way before we get started. "That Covid-19 vaccine" news story? I'm not buying it. Ninety percent effective? 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. 

Enbridge: so, in all the noise this past week, how did ENB do? From SeekingAlpha:

Summary
  • Enbridge yields a safe and secure 8.5% in an era of near-zero interest rates and a 0.78% 10-year U.S. Treasury.
  • 3Q20 results announced Friday morning were solid. The mainline is back at full-capacity; repair work on Texas Eastern's eastern leg has been completed and is back in service before winter.
  • DCF/share of $1.03 easily covered the $0.81 dividend by 1.27x. The $4.65/share midpoint of full-year DCF guidance covers the current annual $3.24/share dividend by 1.44x.
  • Heading into winter season, ENB's underappreciated Union Gas utility - the largest gas utility in North America by volume - will shine.
  • ENB have highly visible cash flow and is a STRONG BUY with a $40 price target.

Note: I haven't watched the market or the news in weeks (months?) but after a reader sent me the Dow news yesterday, I thought I would look. One word: wow. Up another 163 points in Dow Futures today.

ENB: up 5.5% yesterday; up another 2% in before-hours-trading now. What's not to like. LOL. And the really, really great news: if Biden is sworn in, new pipeline construction is dead:

  • ENB CAPEX plummets --- great news for ENB traders;
  • existing pipelines: artificial moat for investors;

Nikola: reports a 3Q20 net loss of $117.5 million. Nikola founder Trevor Milton subpoenaed by DOJ. Well, doesn't that just make your day?

Beyond Meat tanks after hours. Well, there goes another fad. Hey, guys -- one needs five things for a healthy immune system. Unless your diet is full of oysters, the "only" thing that provides zinc is ... North Dakota beef. Okay, just joking. All beef. Not just North Dakota beef.

AAPL: EU's anti-trust action against Amazon must be spooking AAPL investors. LOL. But here's what's really going on: it appears Warren Buffett sold about $4 billion of AAPL in 3Q20.

Tesla: EV sales more than double in China, but Tesla lags.

Plug: best quarter yet.

Boeing: 737 MAX approval "imminent." Apparently, according to social media, so is "the vaccine."

OXY: drops another 4% as 3Q20 earnings disappoint.

OXY-WT:
jumped 25% yesterday; down all of 2% in before-hours trading.

"Seasonal Flu" -- We'll Sort This Out Later -- November 10, 2020

From October 31, 2020. At the link, scroll down to the CDC's MMWR "seasonal flu" data. 

Update here. "Influenza-like-illnesses" (ILI) will include both Chinese flu and "seasonal flu" this year. For week ending October 31, 2020, most recent report available:


Last year the threshold was 7.3%. Link here.

So, during week 44, they tested 16,456 specimens, and all of 21 were positive. Exactly what did the other folks (16,435) "have" if they came in with flu-like symptoms and didn't test positive? I assume they were given clinical diagnosis of Covid-19.

Wow -- Things I Missed While On The Road -- November 10, 2020

Epstein didn't hang himself. Link here. Another role model.

Two Wells Coming Off The Confidential List; WTI Moving Up; OPEC Basket Moving Down -- November 10, 2020

OPEC basket, link here: trading at $39.22, dropping 57 cents/bbl overnight. Meanwhile, WTI continues to surge, now trading at $40.57. 

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$40.57
11/10/202011/10/201911/10/201811/10/201711/10/2016
Active Rigs1555665238

Two wells coming off the confidential list -- Tuesday, November 10, 2020:

RBN Energy: eight steps that could upend Texas Gulf Coast natural gas markets. I can name the top seven without even thinking. Biden, 1 - 7. From RBN Energy:

Within the next year, the Permian Highway and Whistler natural gas pipelines will add 4.0 Bcf/d of incremental capacity from the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast, with gas supplies on those pipes primarily targeting LNG exports. But in the years since these pipeline projects were initially envisioned, market conditions have been radically transformed by consequences of the COVID era, on both the supply and demand sides of the equation. The outlook for supply growth is lower, while the dependability of LNG exports has been thrown into question following massive cargo cancellations this summer. In RBN’s special-edition multi-client market study, titled Some Beach, we break down the consequences of these developments into eight distinct steps that demonstrate how Texas gas markets are likely to evolve as flows and basis respond. Today’s blog summarizes those conclusions.

Our eight steps assess prospective changes on both the supply and demand sides of the Texas natural gas market. On the supply side, the outlook for Permian natural gas production growth is down considerably from the pre-COVID era, due primarily to lower crude oil prices resulting in cutbacks in drilling and completions by Permian producers. Instead of providing crucial pipeline takeaway capacity to handle rapidly growing Permian gas supply, the new pipelines will create a pipeline capacity surplus, which will disrupt regional gas flows and prices.

Most Under-Reported Energy Story Last Week -- Natural Gas -- November 10, 2020

Updates

November 10, 2020: see first comment re: NASCAR! Whoo-hoo!!

Original Post 

"Focus on Fracking" is linked at the sidebar at the right; it has been moved near the top of the sidebar so that folks find it more easily. 

Look at the lede this week:

EIA reports largest October natural gas storage draw on record; October's gas inventory build is smallest on record. 

I completely missed that and the individual that posts "Focus on Fracking" assumes almost everyone missed that little gem. 

I was going to post the anyway, but it coincidentally dovetails with the blog by RBN Energy that was posted today. This is huge. Of course, President-elect Biden has promised to end fracking, federal fossil fuel leasing, etc., so this won't last. By this time next year, we will all be using electricity generated by windmills and drivings Teslas. 

See this link. The one week I fail to post the graphic/data, is the one week that the graphic/data is most striking. 

From a reader: I live twenty miles north of the Iowa border in Minnesota. In October, 2020, werecieved in three different snows total of 10 inches of snow. Also the morning low October 25, 2020, was 17 degrees, October 26, 16 degrees and October 27, it was a bone chilling 7 degrees. Check the Fairmont weather service if you need verification.

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The Most Under-Reported Entertainment Story:
Ratings Plunge -- Woke!

From twitter this morning:

From another site yesterday: link here -- https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/11/09/losing-halftime-nfl-midseason-viewership-still-down-7-last-year/.

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Bubba Wallace
Sportsnaut Pulls "The Equipment" Card
Says Bubba Did Really, Really Well Despite His "Bad" Equipment
Story Fails to Post Number of DNFs

No wins this season, but he did "get" a "Participation Trophy."

Link here.