NE ISO Alert; Two New Whiting Permits; Nine Permits Renewed; Hess Reports A Completed DUC But NDIC Provides No Data -- October 14, 2021

23andme: next Robin Hood stock? You heard it here first.  

Politics: not many things are decided unanimously

 ... but FDA advisers unanimously recommended Moderna booster. Mix and match may be better than sticking with original series. Exciting. Regardless where one stands on Covid vaccines, we have learned a lot. From an investor's point of view, never let emotions control investment decisions.

Virgin Galactic: the "Boeing" of space flight? Shares sinking after hours.

• Jeff Bezos: 6
• really takes you to space -- though barely
  
• that Virgin Galactic fellow, what is his name? 0
• really doesn't take you to space
  

CDC: dated their release with today's date but did not update the numbers. Link here. 

Harsh Thanksgiving: US Navy will expel personnel who refuse Covid-19 vaccine by 11/28/21.

Huge market today:

• CNBC chartist says we may have seen the high for 2021 today;
• and Jim Cramer said we saw the high for WTI earlier this week;
• wow.

Clearing off the desk:

• weekly influenza surveillance report, the CDC;
• every day it's a different state that's in dire Covid-19 circumstances; today it's Alaska;
• yesterday it was Michigan and Minnesota; was this the last Covid surge?
• "money ball" thinking killed the stolen base -- WSJ; the question I have, have they ever found that stolen base?
• another meme put to rest: mass evictions did not result after US ban ended -- WSJ;
• Energy:
• oil and gas not going away; will be here for decades -- Russia; link to Charles Kennedy;
• US crude oil in storage; days of supply increased slightly; so why is Resident Biden worried about lack of production; nothing makes sense;
• most interesting: is the US still a swing producer of oil? -- Oilprice -- link to Irina Slav; this is interesting because I've argued for years that shale is the swing producer; Simon Watkins actually addressed this in a post linked earlier; swing producer and spare capacity;
• are you kidding me? Some folks think gas-rich Israel could save Europe from its self-inflicted energy crisis; link to Charles Kennedy;
  

ISO NE: why I love to blog. Folks, I hope, have noted my increased frequent links to ISO NE -- a reader much more knowledgeable on this issue than I sent this note. It's a brief note because the reader is time-constrained but hopefully will expand on this later. The note:

At 15:00 Eastern Time, NE ISO issued alert relating to potential capacity shortage shortly (evening 'rush hour'). 2 nuke plants - Seabrook and Millstone (3?) have been down for, I guess, routine maintenance. 

That would take about 2,200 Megawatts offline. Next few hours could be ... interesting. The current hydro generation comes from ~60 tiny, mostly run of river old plants. The hoped-for Canadian input is looking to be shot down in coming weeks via ballot, as you have noted. I will follow up - hopefully - tomorrow.

Link to ISO NE.  

Holy mackerel, or holy lutefisk! The reader is correct. ISO NE just went "yellow." Cost of electricity is now well north of $100 / MWh. The mix:

• nuclear: 10%
• natural gas: 76%
• renewables only 5%
• which means New England is counting on expensive hydroelectricity from Canada: 9%
• it's 5:00 p.m. on the east coast; the data lags by about an hour; one would expect peak demand over the next one to three hours;

Later, the reader added this about ISO NE:

Yes ... and the 'Day Ahead' pricing (dark grey tab in that upper right, real time chart) shows ~$120/Mwh for this time tomorrow.

The Day Ahead pricing actually comprises the vast bulk of the  contracted electricity amount/cost as the ISO folks ensure a set amount will be generated and the producers - bidding against one another, lowest winning - are prepared/committed to providing it at an already-known cost. 

The spot pricing (the default setting when one pulls up the site) is the difference between the contracted Day Ahead and the actual, real time market needs.

This can be seen in the very first, left top chart as the difference between the Green line (Day Ahead/Cleared) and the Orange line (actual, real time demand).

Speaking of New England, this may be the problem:

A Vermont farmer decided he was going to save the world from climate change, so he traded his tractor for a mule. 

He soon realized that feed for the mule cost more than fuel for the tractor. He decided to train the mule to eat less. 

Just when he got that damn mule trained to eat nothing it died. When neighbors asked him why his mule died he just said  "climate change."

Sounds similar to Covid. Motorcycle fatalities who test positive post-mortem for Covid -- to protect the pathologist -- are recorded as Covid deaths. 

Carl Icahn back in the news: Southwest Gas spiked over seven percent today. As Jim Cramer would say, "there's always a bull market somewhere." Nice chart action today:

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Back to the Bakken

Amazing: NDIC has been working on its IT user interface since July 14, 2021. Scout tickets not being updated. Map not being updated. No progress from the user's point of view. Three months for something that should have been resolved in a day or two. Is the CIO even in Bismarck, ND, working the issues? At home with Covid? Asking for a friend. 

Active rigs:

$81.45	10/14/2021	10/14/2020	10/14/2019	10/14/2018	10/14/2017
Active Rigs	29	16	58	67	59

Two new permits, #38617 - #38618, inclusive:

• Operator: Whiting:
• Field: Sanish (Mountrail)
• Comments:
• Whiting has permits for two Savannah TTT wells in NENE 26-154-92;
• one well will be sited 351 FNL and 439 FEL and the other well will be sited 351 FNL and 469 FEL

Nine permits renewed:

• Zavanna (4): four Galloway permits, all in SESE section 18-154-99, Williams County
• MRO (3): an Arnew permit; an Archie permit, and, an Erbe permit, all in lot 1 section 6-144-96, Dunn County
• EOG: a West Clark permit in McKenzie County; lot 2 secton 01-151-95;
• Slawson: an Armada Federal permit in in NENE section 15-151-92

One producing well completed:

• 37707, 2,297, Hess, EN-Johnson-155-94-2017H-7, Manitou, not updated by NDIC; again, no idea what's going on; interestingly enough, the well is sited in Manitou but the horizontal runs south into the Alkali Creek;
  
• two adjacent pads, a six-well pad to the north, Manitou oil field; an eight-well field to the south, Alkali Creek
• 28250, SI/AB, scout tickets not updated so I have no idea what's going on;
  
• 28251, 683, off line 8/21; t11/14; cum 166K 8/21;