Notes From All Over -- Bobcats On Steroids -- November 10, 2021

RIVN: offering price, $78. Raises $11 billion in IPO. Offering size, 153 million shares. Rivian pick-up trucks: tank turns. Market cap will exceed that of Ford or General Motors. Only one car manufacturer will have a higher market value than Rivian. If you can't guess, you are a nominee for the annual Geico Rock Award. 

• 9:30 a.m. CT: RIVN yet to open.

Rivian tank turns, Bobcats on steroids: the possibilities are endless when each wheel can be independently controlled:

Wholesale inventories: huge and positive. Puts the "supply chain shortage" meme in perspective. Up 1.4% vs 1.2% estimate. 

Road to New England: still cheap compared to the rest of the world, but "Mainers" will face double-digit shock in electricity rates next year, from the Portland Press Herald, Maine. Wait, how did this happen? Link to ISO NE here.

A majority of Mainers could see the rate they pay for their home's electricity supply jump between 60 and 80 percent next year, based on assumptions provided to the Legislature by the state Public Utilities Commission, as well as wholesale prices observed by energy experts.

Home customers of Central Maine Power and Versant Power who buy their electricity via the PUC's "standard offer," or default power supply, now pay roughly 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, or $33 for the typical 550 kWh of use a month. Assuming a 60 percent rise to 9.6 cents per kWh, the cost of power would climb to nearly $53 a month. Such an increase would push an average residential customer's bill, which also includes a distribution charge, from about $90 to $110.

Where are all the truck drivers? Link to The WSJ. So many data points that contribute to the problem. Much of the problem developed over time, but I would argue the tipping point -- the current problem -- is / was President Donald Trump's fault. I've mentioned this once before on the blog. In no particular order:

• first, perception: is there really a shortage of truck drivers or a surfeit of consumer orders? A chicken or egg problem.
• regulatory creep: truckers will argue this is the number one problem resulting in a shortage of drivers; not so much a shortage of truckers but rather shortage of truck availability;
• short-haul drivers stealing from pool of long-haul drivers; previously discussed;
• long-haul trucking same problem US Navy has with maintaining submarine fleet (and a/c carriers, for same reason, but worse)
• but these problems / issues all developed over time; what is responsible for the tipping point?
• I will argue we would not be talking about a shortage of truck drivers had it not been for President Trump. One of the reasons I have become quite cynical about the American public. Discussed previously.

The Rocky Mountain Oil Journal: this was one of my favorite sources for information in the early days of the Bakken. It was hard to find a library that carried this bi-weekly (?) newspaper but the public library in Williston, ND, did. 

Every time I visited Williston in those days, I visited the library almost every day. The RMOJ was one of the reasons I started the blog. Last night, for the first time in a long time, I checked in on RMOJ. Dated 4/30 (no year -- but I assume it was 2021), this sad news, link here:

After a century of providing upstream data for the oil and gas industry, effective immediately the Rocky Mountain Oil Journal (RMOJ) will be shutting down the remaining vestige of the publication, its online website. We were hoping the RMOJ might recover from the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lethargic rebound of oil prices; however, it was not to be.

Even though the end of the pandemic seems to be approaching, the fossil fuels industry will be fighting for its survival against the current administration, mainstream media, and every green-related organization. With no new pipelines allowed, millions of federal acres locked up, and rising costs because of bureaucratic meddling associated with proposed tax increases, domestic exploration is currently almost non-existent. This new paradigm, which will cause many known and unknown problems, will be felt long after the current administration is gone from the political stage.

We have made many good friends while publishing the RMOJ and we are sorry that our relationship will end. We wish each and every one of our customers the best this great country has to offer.

Cody Huseby and Jerry Davis

Quick! For Willistonites, what was the name of the public library in Williston back in the day? I guess somewhere along the line, the city decided to drop the original name which lent a lot of history to the library as well as the city, and changed the name to the milquetoast name: Williston Community Library. How sad. I guess just another casualty of white privilege.

Quick! Etymology of "milquetoast." Synomym: bïden.