Pop quiz. Fill in the blank / compete the sentence:
Mexico relies mostly on pipeline imports from the United States to meet its natural gas needs, although Mexico’s LNG import terminals have played an important role in system balancing since Mexico ___________________________. The answer is provided below.
Note: due to the condition that my condition was in when I wrote this, I anticipate there will be more typographical and content errors than usual.
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.
Paywalls: they don't work. They are a hassle but there are always ways to get around them if one tries hard enough. Don't take that out of context. Without subscriptions, one can't access gazillions of great articles. However, when it comes to news -- political, science, business -- if one finds a headline through googling only to be stopped by a paywall, there's usually another source. Earlier this evening google brought me to a CNBC link with BofA's eight picks for 2Q21. It led to a subscription site. Another google query and I easily found BoA's eight picks. The elite eight, as it were.
The elite eight: link here. The only one that caught my eye -- Schlumberger. That suggests to me it's not only Pioneer's CEO Sheffield who thinks oil is going to $80 to $100.
Will oil go to $80? It's a fool's errand to predict oil prices, but having said that, no, I don't think it's going to happen by the end of the month. I do know that the Biden administration will do wonders for the non-federal land in the Permian and the Bakken. The new Secretary of the Interior telegraphed that on Friday. Maybe Pioneer's CEO Sheffield saw that coming. One wonders what percent of "the Permian" is on federal land? Having said that, maybe it's more of a factoid / meme than a fact. From a quick google query:
Q: How much of America's oil-and-gas production happens on federal lands?
A: Most U.S. oil-and-gas drilling now takes place on state or private land, so the freeze only directly affects a fraction of total production. Output from onshore federal land comes to roughly 9% of the U.S. total. Jan uary27, 2021.
Saudi Aramco: will likely cut dividend. I guess I posted that earlier. Forgot.
The cult of the mask: I used that phrase in a throwaway line with a reader earlier last night. I was surprised, that later, when I googled it, how much has been written about "the cult of the mask." I truly had no idea. Apparently among Catholics it's a big deal. At least for some Catholics.
Calculus: this is really, really interesting. In response to my post on the jobs numbers released Friday, April 2, 2021, a reader who really follows this stuff closely noted that nine months of one million added jobs each month will get us back to where we were pre-pandemic. That reminded me, which I mentioned in my reply, of my days in calculus. The absolute numbers don't matter. It's the rate of change that is important. Velocity is one thing, acceleration is another.
Biden's Amtrak Plan: perhaps the most exciting thing to be announced this week. I was wrong. This will not be hard to do at all if the money is allocated. The track is already there in most cases. At most, simply upgrading some of the track, maybe putting in side tracks at some points. But it pretty much amounts to locos (GE), cars, and right-of-way deals. If Buttigieg pulls this off, he will be in Washington for quite some time. Will it happen? Unlikely.
Color me impressed, what semiconductor shortage? Tesla's numbers. Earlier I suggested the number to watch was 160,000. Elon Musk blew past that number with reports that 184,800 Tesla vehicles were delivered in the first quarter. That's really, really impressive on so many levels. Analysts had projected only 168,000, which would have been a good number. He now says he wants to increase global deliveries by more than fifty percent this year. Right now, and for quite some time to come, it looks like Tesla's biggest competitors are Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG. From the linked WSJ article:
Deliveries of Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles in the first quarter totaled around 2,020. Tesla handed over about 182,780 Model 3 sedans and Model Y compact sport-utility vehicles combined. Tesla doesn’t disclose deliveries by region.
Tesla also said it produced 180,338 vehicles in the quarter, all of them Model 3s or Model Ys.
The company said the new Model S and Model X have been “exceptionally well received,” adding that it is in the early stages of boosting production after installing and testing new equipment.
The strong delivery numbers are poised to underpin what Wall Streets expects to be robust first-quarter earnings for Tesla, due in a few weeks. Sales are expected to top $10 billion, helping generate around $470 million in profit, according to a FactSet survey of analysts before the latest delivery figures were posted.
Tesla is aiming to open two new vehicle factories this year, one near Austin, Texas, and the other outside of Berlin. That plant will be the company’s first in Europe, the world’s largest electric-vehicle market as of last year, and is seen as key to improving Tesla’s fortunes in the region.
Tesla registrations in Western Europe slipped roughly 11% last year compared with 2019, as auto makers such as Volkswagen and Renault SA gained traction in the all-electric vehicle market.
Natural gas fill rate, link here. One word: amazing. Less than two months after the Texas Deep Freeze --
Road to Mexico: the country is relying more and more on natural gas from the United States even as its president tries to stop it. Link here.
New Fortress Energy Inc. (NFE) said Monday it has signed an agreement to supply natural gas to two power plants owned by Mexican state power utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) in Mexico’s difficult-to-reach Baja California Sur (BCS) state.
The NFE agreement comes amid rising tensions between Mexico’s government and the private energy sector, punctuated by a recently passed law to give power plants owned by CFE priority in the dispatch order regardless of marginal generating costs.
Implementation of the law has been blocked for now as multiple lawsuits against it are considered by the courts.
Mexico relies mostly on pipeline imports from the United States to meet its natural gas needs, although Mexico’s LNG import terminals have played an important role in system balancing since Mexico has no underground storage capacity.
Back to Amtrak: who makes Amtrak's passenger cars? Wow, talk about a rabbit hole. This rabbit hole doesn't belong to Peter Cottontail; it belongs to Franz Kafka. Two links and you are on your own:
Bud Company, perhaps it will rise again, if so, to be renamed the Hunter Biden Bud Company:
Budd Company became part of Budd Thyssen in 1978, and in 1999 a part of ThyssenKrupp Budd. Body and chassis operations were sold to Martinrea International in 2006. No longer an operating company, Budd filed for bankruptcy in 2014. It currently exists to provide benefits to its retirees.
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