No Wells Coming Off The Confidential List -- December 8, 2021

Omicron? Virus burning itself out. ala Spanish Flu? Whatever. Pfizer booster handles the variant just fine. Sort of like how seasonal flu is handled. Annual "seasonal flu" shot. PFE up slightly (very slightly) in early morning trading. 

Omigoodness: I just returned from the grocery store where I get potatoes, Spam, and Covid shots. I went in to get my Pfizer booster. No waiting, no appointment necessary, just walk-in. But I was early. I'm not "eligible" until December 19, 2021, to get the booster. That tells me everything I need to know about the seriousness of Covid-19 omicron. LOL.

From the Los Angeles Times: not saying this would happen in Texas, but my hunch is not as likely -- it's not as if the families didn't have enough time ...

Thousands of L.A. Unified students have not shown proof of vaccination About 34,000 students have yet to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the Los Angeles Unified School District — and there’s no longer enough time for students to get the first shot and complete their required inoculation by the January 10, 2022, start of the second semester. 

This will probably force the nation’s second-largest school system into some difficult decisions. Students who are not fully vaccinated — or exempt — will be forced into the district’s independent study program or will have to leave the Los Angeles public school system. Shifting 34,000 students 12 and older into independent study would be challenging. And who would teach these students? 

The 34,000 total, by itself, would make up one of the 25 largest school systems among about 1,000 districts in California. There’s no current indication, however, that L.A. Unified is backing down. 

Chips to watch: XLNX, AMD. Link here. 

• two SeekingAlpha articles remain optimistic: one week ago, and, about five days ago.
• arbitrage: right now the spread is $24. Whoo-hoo. 
• if the merger goes through, 1.7234 shares of AMD for every share of XLNX
• today, at $144.57 (AMD) x 1.7234 = $249.15
• XLNX at $225.70
  

Another one I missed: Trupanion (TRUP). Not related to The Don.

• DWAC: surged yesterday but down today in early trading.

Kellogg: strike over?

• strike has gone on for over two months;
• union has rejected multiple offers
• Kellogg announced yesterday it will start hiring permanent replacements;
• no new talks scheduled (I've heard that before); links everywhere; here's one;
• has anyone noticed any shortage of Kellogg products in the last two months; I have not;
• Kellogg has adequate capacity in Mexico
• Kellogg shares in trading range for past year; generally green; down slightly yesterday
  

Global warming:

• Hawaii reported record cold temperatures yesterday;
• early winter storms hampering Russian oil exports;

Smack-down: but no one will read it or hear about it.

• EQT response to Senator Elizabeth Warren;
• links pending

COP: misleading dividend announcement by MarketBeat.com

• see this post for explanation;

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: last year at this time, we were down to sixteen active rigs in North Dakota; now, we're back to 32. The definitive rig report currently shows 29 active rigs but that's because some rigs are in the process of moving to new sites. 

Active rigs:

$71.72	12/8/2021	12/08/2020	12/08/2019	12/08/2018	12/08/2017
Active Rigs	29	16	55	64	53

No wells coming off confidential list today.

RBN Energy: Very low- and no-carbon alternatives to old-school bunker fuels, part 2.

International shipowners need to significantly reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030 and will come under pressure to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Given that the industry currently depends almost entirely on fossil fuels for ship propulsion — and that every zero- or near-zero-carbon alternative faces serious headwinds — it won’t be an easy or low-cost transition. One pathway would be expanding the use of LNG as a bunker fuel in the near term and then shifting to alternatives like bio-LNG and synthetic LNG as they become more commercially available and economic. Another would be to use “green” or “blue” hydrogen, ammonia, or methanol. But there are challenges to each, not the least of which are the small volumes of non-traditional fuels being produced — and their high cost — and the need for new infrastructure both to produce and distribute them, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog.

This is the second blog in our series on efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases in the shipping industry, which accounts for about 3% of global GHGs. Previously, we looked at the push by leading international shipping associations and many large shipowners to have the International Maritime Organization (IMO) ratchet up the industry’s decarbonization goals. In effect, shipowners — themselves under pressure from their large, ESG-minded customers, shareholders, and lenders — are telling the IMO that its goals of reducing global shipping’s carbon intensity (CI) by 40% from its 2008 level by 2030 and total GHG emissions by 50% by 2050 are far too timid. They want the IMO to set a more aggressive CI-reduction target for 2030 as well as a goal of eliminating or fully offsetting GHG emissions by mid-century.

Further, a long list of international shipping associations — including the International Chamber of Shipping, Intercargo, and the World Shipping Council — has been pressing for the creation of a $5 billion research-and-development fund to accelerate the advancement and introduction of zero-emission technologies and fuels for maritime transport. If approved, the IMO-administered fund would be financed by a proposed $2-per-metric-ton ($2/MT) levy on all marine-fuel sales. There also have been a number of proposals — by countries, shipping organizations, and individual companies — to implement a levy on shipping companies for each metric ton of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂e) their fleets emit.