And Here It Is -- Thursday Morning -- No Wells Coming Off The Confidential List -- August 19, 2021

Oh-oh: Amazon announces plans to open "huge" department stores. My hunch: Jeff Bezos watches Target and low-hanging fruit. 

Okay: Facebook announces "Horizon Workrooms" to take on "Zoom."

Biggest hoax ever. Rush Limbaugh rode this horse for the last year of his radio show: "Bull" Durham. Durham never went anywhere. Now US senate Republicans want his report to be made public. Give it up. Stay focused on where the president is trying to take us  now.

The "misery index" is being replaced by the "feel good" index. Or as it appears "today," the "not-feeling good index."

• "misery index": unemployment + inflation
• "not-feeling good index: consumer confidence + presidential approval polling number
• the "new misery index": price of beer + price of gasoline
  

Crude oil, US: 27.2 days, down from 27.4 days previous week. Link here. 

EIA "dashboards," August, 2021, posted:

• EIA pdf, Bakken: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/bakken.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Permian: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/permian.pdf
• EIA, pdf, Eagle Ford: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/eagleford.pdf

Guyana, Suriname: oil drilling activity to jump. Link to Irina Slav. This play is tracked here.

Texas: Alphabet's (Google) Waymo building Texas autonomous trucking hub.

• major new hub
• south Dallas
• will accommodate hundreds of trucks
• fifth generation autonomous system
• purpose, local: to grow its presence on the I-10, I-20, and I-45
• purpose, regional: to connect its Phoenix operations and supporting long haul routes

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. 

Tesla: 3Q21 miss looking increasingly likely. Link here.

Toyota: to slash September production due to global chip shortage. Plan A: 900,000 automobiles. Plan B: about 500,000 cars to be produced in September. Announces temporary production shutdown at several domestic factories. Only yesterday no one thought a recession possible.

Robinhood: continues to plunge

• has become a crypto-company
• has no moat

CSCO: beats on estimates, Eighty-four cents vs eighty-two cents EPS. Hits 52-week high; trading at $57.14. Pays 2.7%.

Warren Buffett: five holdings account for 88% of Berkshire Hathaway's unrealized gains. KO surged while I wasn't looking. Led me down an interesting path overnight. The five stocks: BRK, AAPL, AMEX, BofA, KO. These five holdings account for almost 90% of Berkshire Hathaway's unrealized gains. Link here. 

IRA's: retirement account balances hit record for third straight quarter. Fidelity says Baby Boomers are packing away funds at a striking pace.

WTI: crash and burn. Down $2.45 in early trading; likely to go below $63 today. Louisiana Light at $67.30.

• due somewhat to the delta variant slowdown, but the big reason for drop in oil prices --
• insiders see lack of discipline in the Permian; Permian operators ramping up production
• note: even Bakken production maintained under very adverse conditions this past year

Oil prices unlikely to collapse any time soon. Link to oilprice.com.  

Trial balloon: Fed rumored to end stimulus sooner than later; now that the Fed has seen the results of that trial balloon, stimulus unlikely to come to end any time soon.

JP Morgan: doubles down on oil, long term. Link to Tsvetana Paraskova. 

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. 

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 

$63.07	8/19/2021	08/19/2020	08/19/2019	08/19/2018	08/19/2017
Active Rigs	24*	12	62	59	53

*Updated, current, and accurate rig count posted at COB weekdays.

No wells coming off confidential list.

RBN Energy: Appalachia's dwindling natural gas pipeline takeaway capacity.

Northeast natural gas production in 2021 to date has averaged 34 Bcf/d, up 1.4 Bcf/d year-on-year, and the higher gas price environment currently is signaling more upside to production in the years to come.

At the same time, downstream feedgas demand from LNG export facilities is at a record high and also headed higher as more liquefaction capacity is set to come online in the coming months. So, despite lower-than-normal inventory levels in the Northeast, outflows from the Appalachian basin have soared to new highs this year, and utilization of outbound pipeline capacity is up to an average 90%, a level we haven’t seen since the 2016-17 timeframe.

Unlike 2016-17, when there was a slew of major pipeline projects to expand egress, now there are just two or three at most — and two of those are greenfield projects that face an uncertain future.

As such, spare exit capacity is getting increasingly sparse, and Appalachian producers are bound to hit the capacity “wall” in the next two years. When will the Northeast run out of exit capacity and how bad could constraints get? Today, we provide highlights from our new Drill Down report, which brings together our latest analysis on Northeast gas takeaway capacity and flows.

My hunch: Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana producers watching closely.