Clearing Out The In-Box -- December 18, 2021

NFL starts postponing games due to Covid-19. Link here. 

NOG: link here for the NOG non-op model:

• low G&A that scales with bolt-ons
• low competition for deals

US oil demand: surges; hits all-time records; link here.

• this story has been told many, many times this past week;
• gets no air time in the evening news according to others; I don't watch the evening news;
• no air time? It's not the Greta narrative faux environmentalists want to hear;
• the surge in crude oil demand comes before the airlines are back to full capacity, full demand;
• demand , on a four-week basis, hit an all-time high last week. Link here. 
  

Congestion at the port, link here:

• containers actually reaching the terminal and being off-loaded has plummeted since Brandon intervened;
• at the time Brandon intervened, there were 60 cargo ships anchored off-shore; now there are 102 container vessels waiting for berths in Los Angeles and Long Beach
• unloadings have dropped 14% month/month (November/October)
• unloadings have dropped 13.2% year/year (2021/2020)
• smoke and mirrors: for the year, 2021 will be better than 2020, but the import volumes were front-loaded in the first half of the year, when congestion, though significant, was less severe than it is now -- after Brandon interceded
• November, 2021, after Brandon interceded:
• capacity (ships anchored off shore): has increased
• unloadings have decreased
• November, 2021:
• at the beginning of the month: 637,329 TEUs (a measure of capacity)
• at the end of the month: 745,305 TEUs
• once containers get unloaded at the terminal, it's call dwell time, until they are loaded on rail or truck for movement;
• dwell time by rail has dropped from a high of 13.5 days this summer (2021) to just two days, the lowest since pre-Covid; this is from the port's spokesperson; it needs to be fact-checked and definitions provided; a drop from 13.5 days to two days seems almost impossible; if not, investors, take note.

Coal, link here.

• before we get started: whatever happened to "clean coal"? asking for a friend;
• as noted earlier, this is the story of the week, and it is going to be the biggest untold energy story for 2021;
• IEA: amount of electricity generated by coal -- worldwide -- will hit a record high in 2021, and another record in 2022
• coal-generated electricity soared 9% in 2021 to an all-time high of 10,350 terawatt-hours
• exacerbated by decommissioning oil- and gas-fired power plants, ironically resulting in an energy crisis worldwide
• the economic rebound coincided with these policy changes
• after two years of declines, coal use in 2020 (sic) is set to jump 9%; link here:
  
• biggest increases by the following:
• US: 20%
  
• UK: 20%
  
• India: 12%
  
• China: 9%
  

UK energy crisis, link here:

• natural gas and coal now accounting for 60 - 70% of total power generation;
• this is before the cold winter weather arrives next week;
• wind? Producing 0.77 GW out of a total demand of 40.4 GW.

Auto sales plummet worldwide, link here.

• this comes at a time when auto manufacturers desperately need the cash to advance their EV-revolution; the quarterly and annual reports could be disasterous
• European auto stocks are on watch heading into Friday's cash session in the U.S., after ugly November sales data was released from across the pond.
• new registrations plunged 17% in November, marking the fifth month in a row where the region's auto market contracted, according to Bloomberg Friday morning.
• new car registrations came in at 864,119, the worst number since the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association started tracking figures in 1993, the writeup says.

Saudi Aramco: From Shubham Garg, link here:

• drilling costs are down 70%;
• completion costs are down 90%;
• productivity is up 500%
• Garg: even with the above, $70 billion cost to generate $8.6 billion of annual net income results in a project that doesn't even pay out on NPV5 (NPV definition).

Saudi Arabia: Prince MBS takes the reigns; new leadership coincides almost exactly with what is now going on in London;

Covid-19, NYC, link here:
cases hit an all-time high, on a daily basis, this past week: 20,000 new cases in one day

ROCE: definition over at Investopedia.