Holy Mackerel It's A Nice Day In North Texas! Science Lesson For The Day -- January 25, 2021

First things first: IMF says Iraq has requested emergency assistance, talks ongoing. Data points:

• $6 billion loan package requested
• requested for "economic reforms" (LOL)
• IMF's Rapid Financing Instrument provides quick financial assistance, which is available to all member countries facing an urgent balance-of-payments need.

Now, back to science:

Chinese flu update:

• variants:
• Variant: 1.1.7 (UK)
• Variant 1.351 (South Africa)
• Variant P.1 (Brazil
• vaccine efficacy:
  
• under Trump: current vaccines won't work
• under Biden: current vaccines will work
• vaccine rollout
• under Trump: corporations did not reach out to help vaccine distribution. 
• under Biden: corporations stepping all over each other trying to be the first to help with vaccine distribution.
  

NYC: unable to open up new vaccination center; doesn't have enough vaccine. In fact, New York is near the bottom of the list among states who have used the vaccine already distributed. Does anyone remember the NY "ventilator" problem? It never quits. 

Holy mackerel it's a nice day today. Winter -- north Texas. I don't know what the temperature is outside but I've not got the heat on -- always a good sign -- and the sun is shining and it's a bright, sunny day. It's incredible. And on top of that, Tom Brady is going back to the Super Bowl. 

Hallelujah! The Google blogger app I use "fixed" a glitch over the weekend. Makes blogging a whole lot easier. Improves my efficiency by an average of 37% when updating older posts. Hallelujah!

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$52.22	1/25/2021	01/25/2020	01/25/2019	01/25/2018	01/25/2017
Active Rigs	12	56	65	56	38

Wells coming off the confidential list are tracked here. No wells are coming off confidential list today. Nor are Tuesday or Wednesday, and then just one on Thursday. 

RBN Energy: how will Biden XL's latest setback impact Canadian crude oil producers? Archived.

Sure, there was at least some hope among Keystone XL’s supporters that President Biden might back away from his promise to kill the much-maligned crude oil pipeline project. 

After all, KXL developer TC Energy had done all it could to make the 1,210-mile project more palatable to the incoming administration by making Canadian First Nation groups partners in the project, reaching a favorable labor agreement with the four U.S. unions that would build the pipeline, and, most recently, committing to invest in renewable energy to power KXL’s pumps and other equipment. 

But it wasn’t enough, and now, with Biden’s decision to revoke the project’s Presidential Permit, it appears that the Alberta-to-Nebraska pipeline is all but dead, and that Western Canada will need to get by without its 830 Mb/d of southbound capacity. The looming question now is, what does that mean for Alberta’s producers — particularly those that have signed up for more than 500 Mb/d of space on KXL? Today, we discuss what’s ahead.