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Thursday, December 17, 2020

Notes From All Over -- After-Hours Edition -- December 17, 2020

Background: US household net worth surges in 3Q20, during the pandemic.

The net worth of U.S. households rose to a record in the third quarter as the value of stock portfolios and real estate surged, a Federal Reserve report showed, highlighting the skewed nature of an economic recovery that has disproportionately benefited wealthier Americans.

Household net worth rose 3.2% in the third quarter from the second quarter to $123.52 trillion, the Fed said Thursday. Household debt rose 5.6% to $16.4 trillion, its fastest pace in at least two years.

Stock-market gains have driven much of the increase in net worth. The S&P 500 index and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 8.5% and 7.6%, respectively, in the July-September period, building on even bigger advances in the second quarter.

Many economists have described a K-shaped recovery from the coronavirus-induced shock early this year. More affluent Americans are doing well, while millions of others—including lower-paid workers in vulnerable jobs in retailing and restaurants—are seeing their incomes and net worth decline. 

So, if you have a house and haven't lost your job during the pandemic and remain an investor and can work from home, you are doing very, very well. Which pretty much describes the people Steve Liesman was addressing in the note below.

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Original Post

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. 

TSLA: did anyone see this coming? TSLA up almost $30 today; trading at $649. 30 / 620 = 5%. Raised $5 billion without blinking an eye. Today is December 17th. At the end of two business days (is that correct?) TSLA will be trading in the S&P 500 which changes everything.

Steve Liesman: I thought he was going to cry on "Fast Money" on CNBC. I truly thought he was going to break down. He was visibly shaking by the time he signed off. His "colleagues" did what they could to shore him up. 

By the way, my pet peeve: headlines like this one ... "how Covid-19 is damaging our economy." In fact, Covid-19 is not damaging our economy. It's our reaction to Covid-19 that is damaging our economy -- if one agrees the economy is being damaged at all. 

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Later

A reader asked about my Steve Liesman comment above. I knew it would raise questions when I posted it. I was curious if anyone else had similar thoughts or if I was completely off-base. I was "trolling" in the sense that I was curious what others who caught the segment might have thought.

This was my reply to the reader who asked the question. My "not-ready-for-prime-time" reply with some slight editing:

During Fast Money today, for some reason, they called on Steve Liesman regarding the jobs report today.

Steve Liesman sounded incredibly disturbed that the four traders +1 (moderator = Melissa Lee) seemed to be gloating about how well investors were doing in the market and specifically these four making tons of money on the market when another 800,000 people were collecting unemployment checks today. [If not gloating, they certainly seem completely removed from current events.]

Liesman, of course, has been reporting these jobless numbers on a weekly basis for months now and today he seemed to be taking it too personally. [I haven't watched CNBC in months and generally try to avoid watching Liesman so I don't know how his response today compared to his composure over the past year, or even longer.]

Several times during the segment he said "he loved those guys (the four traders on Fast Money)" and "that they were his friends" so it wasn't a personal attack on them. [But it certainly seemed like a personal attack to me.]

But many of these guys (I think all four now) appear to be reporting from home and they are in what appear to be million-dollar homes -- and to me, Steve Liesman, simply seemed to be losing it. These four guys making money on the stock market while the population Steve Liesman is reporting about is made up of folks collecting unemployment checks.

I know exactly where Liesman is coming from but generally reporters -- unless they are supposed to be giving their opinion -- just stick to the news, or the report, but today Liesman really seemed to go off-script.

The Fast Money traders all gave lip service to the great job Liesman is doing and said they agreed exactly with what he was saying: whatever that was. It seemed, to me, it was uncomfortable for everyone. There was no closure, no real wrap-up and then Melissa Lee quickly cut to commercial -- not necessarily unusual -- but it seemed a "cold" end to the segment.

I assume I am over-reading what I saw because of my general dislike of Liesman's reporting over the years (I remember all the Joe Kernen discussions with Steven Liesman) but the "conversation" did seem a bit unusual.

Here's the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTwkfOzzzxs.  

I'm re-watching the segment now and I don't think I'm too far off the mark. Look at the nice homes these folks live in and reporting from and seemingly oblivious to the unemployed. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that's what Steve Liesman seemed to be reacting to. I think he embarrassed the four folks reporting from their million-dollar homes.

Watch Michelle Lee's "weird" smile when Liesman began his monologue at 0:47 -- was she taking Steve Liesman's comments seriously; was she hearing what he was saying; or was she completely missing this, trying to keep the show upbeat? This reminds me of the very famous segment when Jim Cramer blew up (seemed "to lose it") some years ago on live television and Erin Burnett appeared worried about whether she might have to react to a reporter having a seizure (or worse) on live television.

Right now, in the background is a segment on The News With Shepard Smith: luxury gifts for dogs. I don't have the sound on so I don't know where it's located ... oh, here it is ... via google -- https://mishkacakes.com/. This is in San Francisco, home of the homeless. The video on TNWSS was downright obscene; scroll down through the website and imagine all this put to video and music and being watched by the 855,000 newly unemployed today. 

This is one of the problems. It's not that there's a pandemic; it's the way the media is televising it and reporting it and the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Again, I watch a lot of television (mostly old black and white movies on TCM and unless the ad is a PSA regarding the importance of wearing masks, no one in televised commercials or in the programming itself are wearing masks. Nothing is shut down -- there are no lock downs on television. Life appears to be going as normal, and I think it finally got to Steve Liesman today on nationwide television. 

So much more could be written; now I see a segment in the background on teachers "pushed to the brink." I have strong thoughts on that, too, as we all do, but on this one I'm so far out of the mainstream I won't say a thing. Again, none of the talking heads on television are wearing masks. Shepard Smith isn't wearing a mask.

One New Permit, Thirteen Permits Renewed, Five DUCs Reported As Completed -- December 17, 2020

Mark Perry, Carpe Diem: Wednesday evening links, all chart edition. 

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Back to the Bakken


Active rigs:

$48.40
12/17/202012/17/201912/17/201812/17/201712/17/2016
Active Rigs1452685340

One new permit, #38019:

  • 38029, conf, Slawson, Teapot Federal 1 SLH, Big Bend,

Thirteen permits renewed:

  • Hess (8): four EN-Madisyn permits in Mountrail County; two AN-Lone Tree permits and two AN-Double Bar permits, all four in McKenzie County;
  • Equinor (5) five Pyramid permits in Section 15-154-10, Williams County; these are the wells on the northwest side of Williston, inside city limits now;

One permit cancellation:

  • Whiting: one Monson permit, McKenzie County;

Five producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

  • 34380, drl/A, EOG, Clarks Creek 151-0720H, Antelope-Sanish, no production data,
  • 37346, drl/A, WPX, Fast Dog 7-6HWL, Eagle Nest, no production data,
  • 37347, drl/A, WPX, Fast Dog 7-6HA, Eagle Nest, no production data,
  • 37348, drl/A, WPX, Fast Dog 706HX, Eagle Nest, no production data,
  • 37350, drl/A, WPX, Fast Dog 7-6HS, Eagle Nest, no production data,

January, 2021 -- NDIC Hearing Dockets Posted

Link here

Wednesday
January 20, 2021
Two Pages

The cases (again, these are cases, not permits):

  • 28645 (sic), NDIC, Dollar Joe or Wheelock-Bakken; establishing or altering lease-line spacing units in sections 13, 14, 23, 24, 25, 26, 35, and 26 -- 156-98; and sections 18, 19, 30 and 31 -- 156-97; Williams County;
  • 28644 (sic), Hess, Alkali Creek-Bakken; establish an overlapping 2560-acre unit, sections 25/26/35/36-154-94; one well; McKenzie, Mountrail,
  • 28646, NDIC, MRO, McGregory Buttes-Bakken, consider the appropriate spacing for wells in the 2560-acre unit, sections 16/17/20 and 21 and portions of sectons 28/29-147-94 within the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, Dunn County;
  • 28647, Whiting, Sanish, Bakken, establish an overlapping 2560-acre unit, sections 24/25-154-92 and sections 19/30-154-91, Mountrail County;
  • 28648, BR, pooling,
  • 28649, Hess, pooling,
  • 28650, Kathryn Mattison, converstion of Grace Oyloe 1-4, #10080, into a freshwater well, Williams County;

Thursday
January 21, 2021
Four Pages

The cases (again, these are cases, not permits):

  • 28651, WPX, Reunion Bay-Bakken, establish i) an overlapping 640-are unit, section 25-150-93, one well; ii) an overlapping 1920-acre unit, sections 26/27/28-150-93 for one well, Mountrail, Dunn counties;
  • 28652, CLR, Chimney Butte-Bakken, establish two overlapping 5120-acre units, sections 4/5/8/9/16/17/20/21 and sections 5/6/7/8/17/18/19/20 - 146-95, two wells on/near the section line; Dunn County;
  • 28653, CLR, Banks-Bakken, establish two overlapping 1280-acre units, i) sections 34-153-99 , W/w section 5, E/2 section 6-152-99; and ii) E/2 of secton 34, W/2 of section 35-153-99 and all of section 5-152-99, one well in each of the units; or the alternative ...Williams, McKenzie counties;
  • 28654, Liberty Resources, Temple-Bakken, establish an overlapping 2560-are unit, sections 25/36-159-96 and section 1/12-158-96, multiple wells on that unit; Williams County
  • 28655, Liberty Resources, Temple and/or Northwest McGregor-Bakken, establish an overlapping 2560-acre unit, section 30/31-159-95 and sections 6/7-158-95, multiple wells on that unit; Williams County
  • 28656, Ovintiv Production, Inc, Westberg-Bakken, 12 wells on an existing 1280-acre unit, section 1/12-152-97; McKenzie County
  • 28657, Ovintiv Production, Westberg-Bakken, i) 12 wells on each of two existing overlapping 1280-acre units: sections 29/32 and section 30/31-152-96; ii) two wells on an existing overlapping 2560-acre unit, sections 29/30/31/32-152-96, McKenzie County;
  • 28658, CLR, pooling,
  • 28659, CLR, pooling,
  • 28660, CLR, pooling,
  • 28661, CLR, pooling,
  • 28662, CLR, pooling,
  • 28663, White Rock Oil & Gas, commingling;
  • 28665, Don Lindvig, conversion of theLindvig 10 1 well, #11316, into a freshwater well; McKenzie County;

Note: Ovintiv Production formerly known as Encana.

With Or Without A Test Drive, I Would Take The E-Mach Ford Mustang -- December 17, 2020

The re-sale value of the Ford Mustang will be phenomenal. 



Maybe There's A Reason For The "Happiness Trade" -- December 17, 2020

Yesterday, I noted that AMGN announced a dividend increase of 10%. Can you think of anything more bullish for any given company than an announcement that it is increasing its dividend 10% in the middle of a pandemic, when both California and New York are looking to shut down their states again? AMGN is up slightly today but well off its 52-week high. 

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. 

Maybe there's a reason to be "happy."



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Meanwhile, Her Hair Looks Nice, As Does His Haircut

I imagine she will think about this over a quart of Ben and Jerry's.

When It Comes To EVs, Who Are You Gonna Believe? The Industry Or Big Orrin? -- December 17, 2020

From social media today:


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Why Would Anyone Want To Go Back To School
When There's Remote Learning?

 Especially when you can go to school in your pajamas and take all your friends.


Do Folks Really Notice The Difference Between Four Feet Of Snow And Five Feet Of Snow? -- December 17, 2020

This morning Weather Channel was simply amazed with all the snow winter storm Gail was dumping on New England and the northeast. 

Winter storm Gail.

Historic storm in the northeast: link here. We will see snow reports that will break records like never before. Where are the Kennedys -- you know, the  guys who told us their grandchildren would never see snow again. 

AMHQ: "'We never imagined this once." "We completely missed this in Binghamton." Snowing at a rate of 5 inches/hour. Unprecedented.  "We can keep up with 2 inches/hour, but no way can we keep up with 5 inches of snow per hour." 

The number of commercials on this station exceeds any other network I watch but the optics this morning are worth sitting through the commercials. Keep your remote handy. So much going on across all networks this morning, including North By Northwest on TCM
Binghamton record: 18 inches in 24 hours; currently about 34 inches in past 24 hours. Something like that.  Now being reported: 40 inches of snow in Binghamton. Where is Binghamton? Western NY right on the Pennsylvania state line. Normally about 2 hours southeast of Rochester, NY, which sits on Lake Ontario. Three hours southwest of Albany. Record snowfall in Broome County, NY: 31.2 inches, March 14, 2017. That was only three years ago. Say what? Global warming? Never saw this coming.
Note: no one wearing masks in any of the commercials. Finally aerial drone coverage -- but video is from a private source, not from Weather Channel.

But that got me to thinking.

When I was growing up in Williston, ND, the national media thought it was a big deal when winter temps in North Dakota dropped to forty degrees below zero. But honestly, I was never able to tell the difference between thirty degrees below zero and forty degrees below zero.

So, one wonders: do the folks in Pennsylvania and New York really notice a difference between four feet of snow and five feet of snow? 

 Probably. 

By the way, we will hit a new snowfall record in these areas today (2020) and the most recent record prior to that was just three years ago (2020) and I assume they had similar amounts of snow the last couple of years. 

Global warming? Say what? 

Oh, that's right. The global warming folks said they predicted more snow all along.

We'll Know In 24 Hours --- We Might Get Some Indication Today -- The Market -- December 17, 2020

Both NASDAQ and S&P 500 hit new records today

New number to watch: 3,750.

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 social media today:

Chinese Flu Watch: California Enters Top-5 List At #3 -- State Will Likely Be Shut Down For The Holidays -- December 17, 2020

 Chinese Flu Watch

Johns Hopkins data just updated a few minutes ago:

  • Oh, oh, this is not good. New York is now moving up; it's showing up as #6 this morning! But even worse, California is now among the top five! CA enters the list at #3.
  • Tennessee: #1
  • followed by Rhode Island (#2), California #3), Arizona (#4) and, Indiana, #5).
  • North Dakota and South Dakota fall off the top-5 list;

I talked to a very, very smart friend of the family last night who lives out in California. He/she does still not "get it." He/she has no idea how much worse it's going to get in southern California. Seeing California jump to #3 on the top-five list is ... alarming. The only question I have: why did it take so long?

Herd immunity: some folks don't "believe" in herd immunity. LOL. 

North Dakota active cases plummeting. Chinese flu penetration trending toward 12%.

California active cases surging. Chinese flu penetration not yet at 5%.

Coronavirusstatistics. By country. By state.

The World In Data.

WSJ - Johns Hopkins data.   

Most recent data.

Herd immunity (penetration rate):
North Dakota leads the nation at 11.6% and rising quickly.
South Dakota #2 at 10.5%.
US average at: 5.3%, less than half the penetration seen in North Dakota.
California: at 4.3% -- a long, long way to go. 

Is it herd immunity or something else?


With regard to herd immunity, North Dakota is #1, whereas California is #38, following by New York at #39.

Remember: North Dakota has been almost hands-off with regard to state mandates. On the other hand, California and New York have had some of the most draconian interference.



By the way, there's another derivative from this. Due to the shortage of vaccine, the amount each state receives was supposedly based on population (I'm not sure if that's how it played out). If so, then North Dakota and South Dakota with more than 10% of their population already have less folks (on a percentage basis) than states like California and New York.

WPX: Huge Well, Small Frack --December 17, 2020

Active rigs:

$48.12
12/17/202012/17/201912/17/201812/17/201712/17/2016
Active Rigs1452685340

Two wells coming off the confidential list: Thursday, December 17, 2020:

  • 37317, drl/A,  WPX, Topaz 24-13HF, Mandaree, t--; cum 26K in 13 days extrapolates to 60,000 bbls over 30 days; Topaz wells are tracked here;
  • 36684, drl/A, Hess, BL-Iverson C-155-96-2314H-7, Tioga, t--; cum 86K 10/20;

RBN Energy: a novel effort to recover diluent for reuse in Alberta's oil sands.

As bitumen production in Alberta’s oil sands has grown over the past decade, so has demand for diluent, which is blended with molasses-like bitumen to help it flow through pipelines or be transported by rail. 
With bitumen output expected to continue rising through the first half of the 2020s, we have estimated that Alberta demand for field condensate, natural gasoline and other diluent will increase by more than 40% — to almost 1 MMb/d — by 2025. 
The catch is, diluent production in Western Canada isn’t growing fast enough to keep pace, and there are limits to how much diluent can be imported on the two existing pipelines from the U.S. What if there were a way to slash how much diluent is needed to put bitumen in rail tank cars — and make rail transport safer in the process? 
Today, we discuss Gibson Energy and US Development Group’s new diluent recovery unit in Hardisty, AB.

Fracking. the well:

  • 37317, drl/A,  WPX, Topaz 24-13HF, Mandaree, t--; cum 26K in 13 days extrapolates to 60,000 bbls over 30 days; fracked 9/19/20 - 9/25/20; only 5 million gallons of water; 83.4% water by mass; Topaz wells are tracked here;

Fast, Furious, And Complete -- December 17, 2020

This page is now complete. No more updates; there may be some editing, but this page is done. Stick a fork in it. It was time to move on when the Weather Channel starting demonstrating how to shovel snow. Seriously. LOL

Can you say, "albedo"? See comments.

Tell me again Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humor: just as the airline industry kicks into full gear to deliver "the" vaccine, this winter storm hits the most populated are in the US. LOL. 

Sure, most airports will be open, but the trucks have been banned from interstates, and the secondary roads are impassable. Tell me again why the FAA hindered the rollout of drones. Obviously the folks behind Operation WarpSpeed completely missed this one. Didn't anyone look at the calendar? Covid-19 testing sites are closed today in New England, northeast US.

2020: after everything else this year ... now a record-setting snow storm just days before the end of the year. 

41 inches of snow on the ground in Binghamton, NY

Weather Channel now admitting that their forecast yesterday failed to predict this much snow 24 hours later, but they can forecast/predict/guarantee that the earth's global temperature will be 2.2 degrees warmer 100 years from now.

Electricity prices (times in CT):

  • New England:
    • 8:00 a.m.: $103; oil up to 4%; coal up to 3%; hydro, 9%;
    • 9:00 a.m.: $114; it looks like natural gas has maxed out; hydro (very expensive) surging; hydro, 11%; renewables down to 8%; oil, 5%; coal, 3%;
    • 10:00 a.m.: $138;
    • 12:00 noon: $144; natural gas has peaked; hydro at max for the day; oil, 5%; coal, 3%; coal flatlined; oil started peaking at 0700; solar peaked earlier and now slowly declining;
  • Long Island:
    • 8:00 a.m.: $86
    • 9:00 a.m.: $94
    • 10:00 a.m.: $94
    • 12:00 noon: $93;

Winter storm Gail.

Historic storm in the northeast: link here. We will see snow reports that will break records like never before. Where are the Kennedys -- you know, the  guys who told us their grandchildren would never see snow again. 

AMHQ: "'We never imagined this once." "We completely missed this in Binghamton." Snowing at a rate of 5 inches/hour. Unprecedented.  "We can keep up with 2 inches/hour, but no way can we keep up with 5 inches of snow per hour." 

The number of commercials on this station exceeds any other network I watch but the optics this morning are worth sitting through the commercials. Keep your remote handy. So much going on across all networks this morning, including North By Northwest on TCM
Binghamton record: 18 inches in 24 hours; currently about 34 inches in past 24 hours. Something like that.  Now being reported: 40 inches of snow in Binghamton. Where is Binghamton? Western NY right on the Pennsylvania state line. Normally about 2 hours southeast of Rochester, NY, which sits on Lake Ontario. Three hours southwest of Albany. Record snowfall in Broome County, NY: 31.2 inches, March 14, 2017. That was only three years ago. Say what? Global warming? Never saw this coming.
Note: no one wearing masks in any of the commercials. Finally aerial drone coverage -- but video is from a private source, not from Weather Channel.

Follow price of electricity here:

  • New England: here.
    • as natural gas maxes out, one can see hydro increase
    • price will surge
    • we've already seen surges to $200/MWh overnight
  • New York: here.

LNG: "There is hardly any gas" -- LNG price rally exacerbates gas crunch in Asia. Link here.

Market: should be a nice day for most. It's 8:32 a.m., market opens, here we go:

  • Dow: up 147 points
  • S&P 500: up 23 points
  • NASDAQ: up 82 points
  • individual stocks:
    • IMUX: still above $18 but opens down about 1%;
    • JNJ: up 1%; up $1.50;
    • PFE: actually down a bit;
    • AAPL: up $1.56; up 1.2%;
    • BRK-B: up slightly; essentially flat;
    • UNP: up a bit, but still below $200;
    • SRE: up about 1%; trading at $129;
    • DFS: up slightly

New Mexico: doing what it can to shut down their shale oil bonanza. First, they vote for Joe Biden, and now they will ban freshwater for fracking. Maybe not ban, but severely limit amount of freshwater for fracking. We've been through this argument before. Check the amount of water used on golf courses. Just saying.

Other news (you mean there is other news):

  • New York state lawmakers weigh crushing tax increases on the wealthy: WSJ. Why the wealthy continue to live in New York state, or even worse, NYC, is beyond me.
  • Toyota CEO: "Electric vehicles are overhyped." WSJ.  Elon Musk himself said as recently as yesterday it's going to take alot more energy once we move to EVs. The good news: plenty of cars. The bad news: most Americans won't be able to afford them.

  • Olympics 202One: not gonna happen. No way will Japan let a gazillion super-spreaders into their country. Along with retirement communities, sports venues seem to be the most common source of the spread of Chinese flu. After WWII experience, is this China's revenge on Japan?

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Chinese Flu Watch

Johns Hopkins data just updated a few minutes ago:

  • Oh, oh, this is not good. New York is now moving up; it's showing up as #6 this morning! But even worse, California is now among the top five! CA enters the list at #3.
  • Tennessee: #1
  • followed by Rhode Island (#2), California #3), Arizona (#4) and, Indiana, #5).
  • North Dakota and South Dakota fall off the top-5 list;

I talked to a very, very smart friend of the family last night who lives out in California. He/she does still not "get it." He/she has no idea how much worse it's going to get in southern California. Seeing California jump to #3 on the top-five list is ... alarming. The only question I have: why did it take so long?

Herd immunity: some folks don't "believe" in herd immunity. LOL. 

North Dakota active cases plummeting. Chinese flu penetration trending toward 12%.

California active cases surging. Chinese flu penetration not yet at 5%.

Coronavirusstatistics. By country. By state.

The World In Data.

WSJ - Johns Hopkins data.  

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$48.12
12/17/202012/17/201912/17/201812/17/201712/17/2016
Active Rigs1452685340

Two wells coming off the confidential list: Thursday, December 17, 2020:

  • 37317, drl/A,  WPX, Topaz 24-13HF, Mandaree, t--; cum 26K in 13 days extrapolates to 60,000 bbls over 30 days; Topaz wells are tracked here;
  • 36684, drl/A, Hess, BL-Iverson C-155-96-2314H-7, Tioga, t--; cum 86K 10/20;

RBN Energy: a novel effort to recover diluent for reuse in Alberta's oil sands.

As bitumen production in Alberta’s oil sands has grown over the past decade, so has demand for diluent, which is blended with molasses-like bitumen to help it flow through pipelines or be transported by rail. 
With bitumen output expected to continue rising through the first half of the 2020s, we have estimated that Alberta demand for field condensate, natural gasoline and other diluent will increase by more than 40% — to almost 1 MMb/d — by 2025. 
The catch is, diluent production in Western Canada isn’t growing fast enough to keep pace, and there are limits to how much diluent can be imported on the two existing pipelines from the U.S. What if there were a way to slash how much diluent is needed to put bitumen in rail tank cars — and make rail transport safer in the process? 
Today, we discuss Gibson Energy and US Development Group’s new diluent recovery unit in Hardisty, AB.

Fracking. the well:

  • 37317, drl/A,  WPX, Topaz 24-13HF, Mandaree, t--; cum 26K in 13 days extrapolates to 60,000 bbls over 30 days; fracked 9/19/20 - 9/25/20; only 5 million gallons of water; 83.4% water by mass; Topaz wells are tracked here;

Notes From All Over -- Midnight Edition -- The Covid-19 Debacle In Sweden: Clogged British Ports; Mrs Bezos Giving Her Wealth Away As Fast As She Can -- Sets New Standard For Philanthropists -- December 17, 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.

Dominion:

  • Forbes, July 7, 2020: is there a merger in the cards? I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole but there's much to be learned from this debacle.
  • Recently slashed its dividend by 33%: this picture says it all:


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Storm Hits Northeast

For the most part, it's been a nice winter so far. Link here. Warmest December on record until it wasn't.

ISO New England.     ISONYMore here.

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The Boring Company

It appears another company is about to leave California and move to Austin, TX. 

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Mrs Bezos -- Yes, That Mrs Bezos -- Sets New Standard Of Philanthropy

$4.2 billion.

Plans to give her fortune away as fast as she can.

Link here

From the article:

Sager says it’s difficult to compare [Mrs Bezos'] donations with other gifts, since most gifts represent one donation to one organization, or to a handful of organizations. By comparison, the Gates Foundation gave away $5.1 billion in 2019. 

“Only the very largest foundations will give away anything near $4 billion in a year, much less $6 billion in six months,” Sager says.

Traditionally, women philanthropists tend to give anonymously, the Women’s Philanthropy Institute research shows. “Scott explicitly lists all the causes she supports—a balance between basic needs and systematic change—based on research and data. She’s really leading the way as a woman philanthropist,” Sager says.

[Mrs Bezos] did not specify the amount she donated to each organization, but some of the recipients quickly celebrated their grants after her announcement. Goodwill Industries International, which provides a breadth of services that range from job training and placement to housing and child care, and YMCA of the USA each received $20 million. 

Several historically-black colleges and universities received their largest single-donor gift in history, according to their news releases. Those include Texas’s Prairie View A&M University, which received $50 million; Virginia’s Norfolk State University, with a $40 million grant; and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, with a $20 million grant.

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British Ports Struggling With Too Many Container Ships

Link here

IKEA and Honda are among the prominent companies hit as a flood of pre-Brexit business floods major UK gateways. England's Port of Felixstowe is clogged with containers as the UK bids final farewell to the European Union in around two weeks (the never-ending story). But experts say that is not the only reason. 

The bottlenecks are triggered in part by preparations for Brexit, which have British companies trying to stockpile food, medicine and other goods ahead of the country’s divorce from the European Union at the end of the year.

But shipping experts say they are driven by far more. They point to an unusually strong seasonal rush to stock up for holiday sales, big imbalances in transport equipment created by pandemic-related disruptions and ongoing operational problems at the Felixstowe port that have pushed some ocean carriers to skip the U.K.’s main gateway and unload Britain-destined cargo at other ports.

A scramble among Western retailers to restock goods has clogged distribution channels in Asia, Europe and North America. Gateways including Los Angeles, Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan in China, Belgium’s Antwerp, Sri Lanka’s Colombo and Auckland in New Zealand have all been handling record container volumes since the end of the summer and shipping rates on major trade lanes have been skyrocketing. 
“We’re essentially in a triage situation,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said Tuesday in announcing that inbound volumes at the largest U.S. gateway rose by more than 25% in November from a year ago. 
“This is a really big storm for global container flows,” said Lars Mikael Jensen, head of network for Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s biggest boxship operator by capacity. He said the restocking comes as “measures to contain the pandemic cause severe strain across the supply chain from lack of vessels, containers and trucking capacity as well as significantly reduced productivity across ports, warehouses and inland terminals.”

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Sweden: China Flu

So much for all those ZeroHedge stories telling us how Sweden's strategy for coping with Chinese flu was working out great. 

Link here.  Sweden's strategy has become a complete debacle.

Holy Mackerel -- That Hit Fast -- Overnight -- Ten To Sixteen Inches Of Snow In Eastern Massachusetts -- December 17, 2020

Midnight. Electricity should be dirt cheap. Link here to ISO-NE.

Right now: surged to over $200 / MWh (should be $10 to $20; maybe even negative if renewable energy was doing what we were promised.

Coal should be zero percent: it's 4%.

Oil should be zero percent: it's 1%.

Hydro up to 8%. For some reason, natural gas is not providing a larger share.

ISO-NY not as bad Long Island only $67/MWh. 

Expect to see energy outages. 

Boston

BOSTON (CBS) – Gas up the snowblowers, a major winter snowstorm is headed to Massachusetts!

It has been a while since we have had a storm of this magnitude for our entire area. In fact, you have to go back to March 14, 2018 for the last snowfall in Boston resembling anything like what we are about to receive (Boston got 14.8 inches in that storm).

It is even more rare to get a storm of this size before Christmas. The last time we had a foot of snow from a storm pre-Christmas in Boston was back in 2008 (12.5″ on December 20).

Worcester had a foot of snow (12.2″ to be exact) back in December of 2019, but this storm will likely exceed that as well.

I will sort these graphics out later: