Notes From All Over -- Off The Net For Awhile -- Traveling -- October 27, 2021

Commentary: I'm not exactly sure where I am mentally. By that I mean, I'm not exactly sure what I want to focus on today or this week for that matter. It's been an incredible couple of weeks and this week has a slew of US companies reporting their 3Q21 earnings. 

It's a bit difficult to report on what's happening in the Bakken. With the NDIC reporting issues it's hard to know what's accurate, what's not, what's current, what's not. 

On tap today ... oh, fantastic ... I had forgotten -- the weekly EIA petroleum report. 

• US crude oil in storage increased by 4.3 million bbls; remember, 1.1 million bbls came from the SPR, I am told; needs to be fact-checked;
• US crude oil in inventory now stands at 430.8 million bbls; 6% below the already-fat five-year average;
• US refiners are operating at 85.1% of their operable capacity; it must be perplexing to understand why refiners aren't doing more; they must be making tons of money off $5-oil;
• US crude oil imports in line with past weeks (yawn)
• distillate fuel inventories pretty much flat and still 8% below five-year average
• jet fuel supplied as up 44.9% compared with same four-week period last year; too back they don't compare 2021 with that of 2019;

Meanwhile:

• US crude oil, days supply: remains in narrow range, at 27.9 days now.
• US: crude oil imported from Saudi Arabia: for most recent month for which we have data, July, 2021, lowest amount ever imported from Saudi Arabia for the month of July.
• market, opening: taking a breather after setting records yesterday, but let's see some of the headlines:
• 3Q21 earnings are a surprise on the upside;
• the Tesla-Hertz deal is a win-win for everyone (I agree completely);
• MSFT: shares up after company reports strong earnings; pressure is now on AAPL to deliver;
• twitter sees growth despited Apple changes re: privacy
• no labor shortage at Costco (previously reported)
• selected ticker symbols:
• UNP: one word, amazing, up another $1.67 today;
• SRE: down 0.2%
• AAPL: flat, specifically, down 9 cents  or 0.05%;
• OKE: down 13 cents or down 0.15%
• that's enough to tell me where energy is headed today

North Dakota in the news again. See this over at the weekly CDC "flu" update.

Two human infections with novel influenza A viruses were reported. One infection with an influenza A(H1N1) variant (A(H1N1)v) virus was reported by North Dakota that occurred during the 2020-21 influenza season and one infection with an influenza (A(H3N2)v) virus was reported by Ohio that occurred during the 2021-22 influenza season. Both patients are <18 years of age, were not hospitalized, and have recovered or are recovering from their illness. One of the patients had close contact with swine prior to illness onset. The other patient had no known swine contact or attendance at agricultural exhibits where swine were present; it is possible that limited human-to-human transmission occurred. No ongoing human-to-human transmission has been identified associated with either patient.

When an influenza virus that normally circulates in swine (but not people) is detected in a person, it is called a “variant influenza virus”. Most human infections with variant influenza viruses occur following close proximity to swine, but human-to-human transmission can occur. It is important to note that in most cases, variant influenza viruses have not shown the ability to spread easily and sustainably from person to person.

Weekly "flu" update: same link as above. Mostly a yawner. "Flu" is minimal right now; 

Covid - US: link here.

Covid - UK: link here. Amazing -- look at "cases" vs "deaths."