Notes From All Over -- Catching Up -- Part 1 -- July 2, 2021

Market:

• NASDAQ and S&P 500 both hit new records.

Chariots on fire: wow, this is quite a story. Link here: https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/six-figure-tesla-model-s-plaid-burst-into-flames-with-driver-inside-attorney-says. The social comments have it exactly right. One of the better comments:

Electric vehicles are a pipe dream of the radical left. They are not practical. They go for a couple hundred miles, then need to be recharged but you can't count on a charging station being nearby and it takes OVERNIGHT or longer to charge them. Plus, what you aren't told is that the cost of producing the electricity to run them makes them more expensive than a gas engine vehicle. Add in their utterly astronomical maintenance costs (just wait until you're told, "You need a new battery system, sir" by the guy at Pep Boys then see what the bill is) to their ridiculously high purchase price, then consider that only a handful of places are qualified to repair them ("Sir, we might possibly have your car back to you in 11 months....we have 306 vehicles in front of you") and, finally, contemplate the fact that many of them just burst into flames like this guy's did......and you'll never even consider buying one.

Earnings season: just yesterday I noted that "earnings season" seems to be 365/24/7. AMIRITE? Yesterday, first day of the new quarter, and Micron reports earnings. Micron reports huge earnings, up 129%; revenue surged 36%. On top of that, Micron has a 76 RS rating. Whoo-hoo.

Vultures swoop in: shadow lenders take over in the US shale patch. Link to Tsvetana Paraskova.

While traditional lenders are cutting their losses and de-risking energy loan portfolios, alternative capital providers are stepping up to scoop up U.S. energy debt at a discount and take part in debt or equity transactions that could give them returns sooner than a loan would for a bank. 

Coal is dead! Long live coal. Form the EIA, hardly a friend of coal. US coal consumption for 1Q21 jumped 13.5% from 4Q21. Electric power sector, of course, accounted for about 92% of this consumption. Link here. 

Fossil fuel still king of the hill: petroleum, natural gas, and coal accounted for almost 80% of total US energy consumption in 2020. 

Solar?

Doesn't even appear on the graphic. Who would have thought? Based on the amount of solar stories I see everyday, I would have thought solar power would have accounted for 75% of energy consumption in the US. LOL. Wind does show up but it's such a small sliver, I had to us a magnifying glass to "find" it. EIA publication here.

Norway flips-flops: first it pivoted to green energy, now it backpedals to fossil fuel. LOL. Link to Felicity Bradstock. Will post as a stand-alone later. This is a huge and important study. Again, we're starting to see the widening gap between those who see reality and those who got caught up in the "moment." 

Panic buying: yup, it's gonna happen. Fill your tanks today; by Monday, the service stations will be out of gasoline. Link here. 

Perfect timing: Williams' addition of gas marketer Sequent lifts midstream operator's LNG profile. Link here. If you can't build a pipeline, buy one.

Williams boosted its gas pipeline marketing footprint to more than 8 Bcf/d and increased its exposure to growing US LNG exports when it closed July 1 a deal to acquire Sequent Energy Management, North America's seventh-largest natural gas marketer. 

The operator of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line and other midstream infrastructure has been seeking to leverage its scale and relatively low capital requirements to maintain some of its assets.

It has also been focusing more heavily on its ties to natural gas and strong global economics, including wide price spreads, that are spurring robust deliveries of gas from the US Gulf Coast to Asia and Europe.

With Sequent, which moves gas through transportation and storage agreements on strategically located infrastructure, including Transco, Williams complements the geographic footprint of its core pipeline transportation and storage business. The addition also allows Williams to access new markets to reach incremental gas-fired power generation, in addition to LNG exports and future renewables opportunities.

Williams also sees additional ways with Sequent in the fold to source responsibly produced gas. Amid the global energy transition to greater use of cleaner-burning fuels, US shale faces an image problem, especially with climate-conscious buyers in Europe. Certifying gas as responsibly sourced, pursuing carbon capture and sequestration projects, and measuring and reporting the greenhouse gas intensity of emissions are ways US producers and midstream operators are increasingly responding to the challenge.

Williams' acquisition of Sequent from Southern Company included affiliate Sequent Energy Canada. Sequent focuses on asset management and the wholesale marketing, trading, storage, and transportation of natural gas for gas utilities and producers.

In the latest S&P Global Platts North American marketer rankings , Sequent placed No. 7, based on the 7.1 Bcf/d of volumes marketed during the first quarter. That was an increase of 3% from the same period a year earlier. BP continued to top the list, even as it decreased its volumes marketed by 20% compared with Q1 2020.