Fact-Checking -- Covid-19 -- Florida -- August 25, 2021

Link here.

Florida is the only state where more people are dying of COVID now than ever before. What went wrong?

A few months ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida, declared his hands-off approach to COVID-19 “a tremendous success.” Politico announced that he had “won the pandemic.”

But then came the hypercontagious Delta variant, which continues to hit Florida harder than anywhere else in the country.

The result? DeSantis just added another, less flattering distinction to his résumé. When COVID first surged across the Sun Belt last summer, the average number of Floridians dying of the disease every 24 hours peaked at 185, according to the New York Times’s state-by-state COVID database. The same was true over the winter.

A few days ago, however, Florida’s daily death rate cleared 200 for the first time, and today it stands at 228 — an all-time high.

This makes DeSantis the first (and so far only) governor in the U.S. whose state is now recording more COVID-19 deaths each day — long after free, safe and effective vaccines became widely available to all Americans age 12 or older — than during any previous wave of the virus.

That surprised me. Florida is having a rough time, but I didn't think the current surge / wave was any worse than the earlier waves.

So, let's check. 

Link here.

CLR With Six New Permits; CLR Renews Five Permits; Kraken Renews Four Permits -- August 25, 2021

Active rigs:

$68.02	8/25/2021	08/25/2020	08/25/2019	08/25/2018	08/25/2017
Active Rigs	23	10	64	62	55

Twenty-two active oil and gas rigs according to the daily activity report. A 23rd rig is drilling a SWD well. 

Six new permits, #38513 - #38518, inclusive:

• Operator: CLR
• Field: Little Knife (Dunn)
• Comments: 
• CLR has permits for six Thorp Federal wells in SWNW 21-148-97;
• the wells will be sited between 2036 FNL and 1861 FNL and between  and 990FLW and 1132 FWL

Nine permits renewed:

• CLR (5): four Kennedy permits and one Miles permit, all in SESW section 31-151-96;
• Kraken (4): three Raymond permits, and one Washburne permit, all in Williams County

EOG cancels five Pankake permits:

• permits: 37526, 37527, 37529, 37559, and 37561
• all in Williams County

Another eighteen wells transferred from Equinor to Grayson Mill Operating

Deere Announces A Huge Dividend Increase -- August 25, 2021

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

DE:

• record date: 9/30/21
• pay date: 11/8/21
• new quarterly dividend: $1.05
• previous: ninety cents (paid in past two quarters -- 5/10/21 and 8/9/21)
• prior to that: seventy-six cents (nine consecutive quarters)

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Collapsing Wind Towers

Link here. Graphic pending.

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Gasoline Demand

Dropped again, week/week. 

Link here.

EIA Weekly Petroleum Report -- Off The Net -- Going Swimming -- August 25, 2021

EIA weekly petroleum report, link here.

• US crude oil inventories decreased by a modest 3.0 million bbls from the previous week
• US crude oil inventories stand at 432.6 million bbls, 6% below the five-year average
• US crude oil imports average 6.2 million bopd (yawn); down by 193,000 bbls per day; over the past four weeks, imports average about 6.3 million bpd, 8.8% more than same four-week period last year;
• propane inventories increased by 2.0 million bbls and still remain 17% below the five-year average;
• US refiners operated at92.4% of their operable capacity last week;
• US jet fuel product supplied was up 45.4% compared with same four-year period last year

WTI: following the report, WTI was trading up 0.8%; up 54 cents; trading just above $68

DXY: trending slightly lower; now at 92.97

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Gasoline Demand

Up slightly, week/week, month/month. 

Link here.

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Market

NASDAQ sets new intra-day high moments after opening.

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The Book Page

A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake: Unlocking James Joyce's Masterwork, Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton Robinson, c. 1944, 1961, and 2005. This is probably the gold standard. I try to re-read this book or least most (some?) of it every three to five years. I don't think I've re-read this book in five years. A reader reminded me it was time. LOL.

L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron", Lucasta Miller (who also wrote The Bronté Myth), c. 2019.

We recently moved from a small hovel in Grapevine, TX, to a smaller hovel in Euless, TX -- about three minutes apart by bicycle. We love our new apartment, about the size of Algore's walk-in shoe closet. Over the years I've amassed one of the best private libraries ever in the history of mankind but due to moving into smaller and smaller abodes, I've been forced to a) dispose of many of my books; and, b) severely limiting new purchases. 

[Speaking of which, I don't think I've bought a new book in years. I get them "free" from Amazon Prime -- cashback from using the credit card.]

Last school year I gave our granddaughter's high school English teacher three boxes of very, very good books. That granddaughter is now in college.

I estimate I have twenty-seven shelves (each shelf three feet wide or long), but only four shelves in this apartment, so 90% of my books are still in storage. I am adding more shelf space to our garage and will add one new Stickley bookshelf to the apartment, taking advantage of the Labor Day summer sale. 

So, now that we are finally settled, and getting some of our books out of storage, I now have something to read again. Oh, happy days. 

So, off to the swimming pool to read. I won't actually go swimming for another two hours.

Notes From All Over -- The Number To Watch Today: 35,615? August 25, 2021

First things first: I don't know how they do it, but Einstein Bros Bagels cream cheese is so much better than Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and the latter is so far ahead of whatever is in third place. My wife buys me a lox and bagel when she likes me. Today I got a lox and bagel. LOL.

Ten-year treasury: 1.307%. Starting to climb. 

Durable goods: down 0.1% vs a negative 0.5% -- so very, very good news. Durable goods ex-transportation, up 0.7% vs 0.5% forecast. Durable goods ex-defense, negative 1.2% in July, 2021. 

Market reaction: mute. Steve Liesman thinks these are relatively good numbers. I agree with Liesman: US corporations don't just quit in the face of inflation or a pandemic. They keep moving along. 

Dividends: for those interested, September is always a great month.

August doldrums: not! 

White paper: most anticipated "white paper" -- the IG report on amount of equipment US turned over to the Taliban. Top line: 75,000 vehicles left in Afghanistan.

Most important business story of the day: US is nearing a deal for Nvidia supercomputer as it waits for delayed Intel machine -- sources. Link here. Wow, wow, wow -- just as I was posting that, it was a headline story over at CNBC minutes ago -- 7:15 a.m. CT, August 25, 2021. 

Nancy Pelosi: running the show. Will have $5 trillion spending bill up for vote next week, or something like that; I"m not sure of the details; might have it wrong. Bottom line: it's going to be hard for any politico to vote against this except the few in certain very conservative districts. Huge implications. Pre-K to two years of college free. That's just the beginning, just the meme.

Feature story for the day: whether you like him, hate him, or completely indifferent, Jim Cramer is incredible. 

Jim is up at 4:00 a..m. preparing for his day. He is on CNBC from 8:00 - 9:00 a.m. CT -- perhaps the best hour of the day for investors. Then again, he closes out the day on CNBC from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. CT which is really, really good if one understands Cramer talks as an investor at times, and as a trader at other times, and it's difficult to tell the difference. On top of that, he writes some good stuff, exhibit A: "The days of Amazon as "Death Star" are over." Link here. A must read. I may come back to this one if I have time. 

Note: There is so much going on. I don't know if folks are paying attention, but things are moving very, very quickly. And this is August when things should be slowing down.

Court rulings:

• I'm not going to post any updates regarding court rulings over the past few days. I don't want to jinx all the good news.
  
• may do that later, for the archives;
  

USC scandal:

• another mom pleads guilty. Link here.

Afghanistan:

• in Kabul: 5,000 US troops need to be off the ground by August 31, 2021; movement needs to start this Friday if that's going to happen;
• remember: it was the president's own line in the sand; now it's the Taliban telling him to not cross that line; if he does, it will be ugly on the ground
  
• in Washington, DC: Biden's press conference on Afghanistan was four hours late; lasted six minutes (and not all of it related to Afghanistan); and, took no questions (he's handling the press perfectly -- whether you like him or not, he's handling the press just right; he's staying focused on his plan).
• military following orders: greatest humanitarian airlift in history -- apparently upwards of 70,000 people evacuated since August 14, 2021; needs to be fact-checked;
  

Energy:

• natural gas production hits new year-to-date high. Link here.
• top energy stocks for September, 2021: MPC, COP, DVN -- Investopedia.
• propane: US consumption to increase this winter, especially in the winter. EIA. And it's going to be very, very expensive.
  

Headlines: stories I probably won't get back to today:

• T-Mobile wins title of fastest US carrier. Whoo-hoo! That's what we have. LOL. Link here.
• Covid-19: as posted on the blog yesterday, it appears delta surge has peaked. Now, lambda; what happend to the kraken variant? Link here.
• Smartphone fire: Samsung phone fire results in emergency evacuation. Alaska Airlines. Link here.
• Luxshare: "Little Floxconn" for Apple. Reported record revenue and profit in 1H21 -- proxy for AAPL Stay tuned. Link here.
• Farmers / inflation: US farmers brace for inflation as highs of crop rally wear off. Link here.
• Cathie Wood is back! Alibaba and other Chinese tech stocks are rallying. Seriously. Huge. Link here. Be greedy when others are fearful; fearful when others are greedy.
• Samsung: will hire 40,000 in $205 billion three-year spree. Link here.
  

China / Taiwan: I'm not going to provide links, comments now regarding this subject, but watching hard / soft takeover possibilities closely. My hunch: it will be a combination of both. Deadline for China: 2027.

US equity markets: both NASDAQ and S&P 500 hit new highs yesterday, and it looks like the markets could hit a new high today. 

Chip shortage: if the president's not worried, I'm not worried. LOL. From twitter:

Markets; three-day win streak for the Dow? The Dow opens higher and is 0.7% away from a new all-time high. Let's see: 35,367 x 1.007 = 35,615.

One Well Coming Off Confidential List -- August 25, 2021

Dick's: blow-out quarter. Driven by e-tail. Not displaying supply chain shortages. Increasing dividend and doubling share buyback. Shares up 8% on news.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: accurate daily update at COB on daily activity report.

$67.75	8/25/2021	08/25/2020	08/25/2019	08/25/2018	08/25/2017
Active Rigs	23*	10	64	62	55

One well coming off confidential list:

Wednesday, August 25, 2021: 14 for the month, 25 for the quarter, 205 for the year:

• 37918, conf, Slawson, Sniper Federal 4-6-7TFH, Big Bend, no production data;

RBN Energy: coronavirus surge blurs global demand picture for crude oil.  

This summer’s resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic in many parts of the world will wreck forecasts of demand for petroleum products and, therefore, for crude oil. Most oil-market forecasts published in the first half of 2021 didn’t anticipate the 75% jump in new weekly coronavirus cases that has occurred since mid-June, or new possibilities for travel limits and other restrictions of the type that clobbered economies — and oil demand — around the globe in 2020. Obviously, swerves away from expectations for oil consumption scramble the supply-demand balances widely used in oil-market analysis. But they do happen. 

In fact, deviation between forecast and actual demand is the rule, not the exception. It’s just not always as extreme as the balance adjustments likely to be needed after the latest COVID surprise. Even when there’s no deadly pandemic to worry about, demand can be tricky to define, difficult to measure, and frustrating to predict. In today’s blog, we discuss the intricacies of oil-demand assessment and explain why balance calculations, based on forecasts destined to be wrong, remain meaningful to analysts mindful of their limitations.