Gas deal, long story, short version:
... and ends tonight. This is quite incredible. A one-game playoff between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Win or go home. Well, only true for NYY ... the game is being played in Boston.
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Printing Money
Literally. The debt limit? Janet Yellen can raise the debt limit on her own --apparently she doesn't need permission. As US Secretary of the Treasury she can apparently authorize her department to print a "one-trillion-dollar" coin and deposit it with the Federal Reserve. Link here.
A White House spokesperson has ruled this out. My hunch: the White House will launch its own cryptocurrency, and call it, not Bitcoin, but Bidencoin.
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WTI: To Infinity And Beyond
Per bbl:
Killing the Keystone XL could come back to haunt Resident Biden.
If OPEC+ is near their capacity short term, and WTI moves toward $100 / bbl, it's unlikely US shale operators would hold back.
OPEC+ raises November oil production quote to 39.7 million bpd. That was the headline. Link to Tsvetana Paraskova. Some details:
Now look at this:
Bloomberg estimates put Russian crude and condensate production in September at 10.7 million bpd. If condensate production was around 880,000 bpd, this would put Russian crude oil output at 9.83 million bpd, which would be 130,000 bpd above quota, as per Bloomberg calculations.
Analysts say that Russia may have reached its capacity to produce oil, while several OPEC members of the pact such as Angola, and at times, Nigeria, have struggled to pump to quotas over the past few months.
This is one of the key reasons for the over-100-percent compliance with the total cuts.
And then this:
The OPEC+ group of producers raised their compliance with the production cuts to 116 percent in August, up from 109 percent compliance in July, sources from the alliance told Reuters in September. Despite the higher production, OPEC was actually pumping at some 10 percent below its overall quota for the 10 members bound by the OPEC+ pact in August, due to outages and technical difficulties in countries such as Nigeria and Angola, Bloomberg noted last month.
***********************
Aramco Mega Deal
Saudi Foreign Investment to Record in 2Q21
Saudi's foreign direct investment (FDI)
Breaking: Jim Cramer will be interviewing ENB/CEO at top of the hour on Mad Money. Jim has made it very clear. He said he has been very, very negative on oil. He says very clearly four oil companies represent change: ENB, PXD, CVX, and DVN. "These are real change companies" -- Jim Cramer. Quite amazing. See my "Devon post," August 7, 2021.
$3.5 trillion bill: LOL. I've been saying this for weeks. Joe Manchin has his price. LOL. He must have finally gotten something he wanted into the spending bill. Now signals he's ready to support super spending. It's good that the $3.5 trillion won't cost taxpayers a dime, according to Resident Biden. LOL.
Debt ceiling: meanwhile, GOP getting ready to support raising the debt ceiling.
Simple arithmetic: 1+1 = 3.
NFLX: surges on back of "The Squid Game." Netflix hits record high. Netflix downloads hit record high. This is quite incredible. No link. Featured on CNBC. Google it. In original language. Dubbed. Still #1 in US. Reminder: Seinfeld back on Netflix.
WTI: wowza! Closes just seven pennies below $79. Nothing to suggest this isn't going higher in the short term.
Hold your horses: link to Tsvetana Paraskova. The energy transition will take decades, not years. Some / many / most energy transition proponents (may) have confused Covid energy demand destruction with a change in consumer behavior.
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Back to the Bakken
TENORM:
Active rigs:
| $78.93 | 10/5/2021 | 10/05/2020 | 10/05/2019 | 10/05/2018 | 10/05/2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 23 | 11 | 58 | 64 | 59 |
Four new permits, #38598 - #38601, inclusive:
Ovintiv resurveyed five locations, the Kramer pad in NENE 18-150-97, McKenzie County;
Shale, some of those who make money from the US shale oil and gas industry:
So, of the categories above, where is the biggest shift, taking into account the data at this article?
Comments:
Derivatives:
In other words:
Bottom line:
Breaking: WTI goes over $79. No doubt Resident Biden is calling OPEC this morning. I don't know what Biden is calling OPEC but it's probably a four-letter word. LOL.
Road to New England: link here. ISO NE.
Streaming: in passing on CNBC --
Dividend increase: Centerpoint
Awards: nominee for "Doofus of the Year, 2021” award:
Mileage this past weekend:
|
Date |
Location |
Time |
Mileage |
Miles Traveled Since Last Stop |
Gallons To Fill Up |
MPG |
Price per gallon |
Cost to Fill Up |
|
Thursday, Sept 30, 2021 |
|
12:20 p.m. |
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4:15 p.m. |
271 |
271 |
9.823 |
27.5 |
$3.29 |
$32.41 |
|
Sunday, October 3, 2021 |
|
3:00 p.m. |
775 |
504 |
13.354 |
37.8 |
$3.09 |
$41.38 |
|
|
|
10:00 p.m. |
1186 |
411 |
10.237 |
40.1 |
$2.69 |
$27.64 |
|
7:00 a.m |
1516 |
330 |
8.721 |
37.8 |
$2.73 |
$23.80 |
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total Gallons Gasoline / MPG |
|
|
|
|
42.135 |
36.0 |
|
|
|
Total Gasoline Costs |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
$125.23 |
|
Cost Per Mile |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
$0.08 |
When I read this story, I immediately thought of the US lobster story.
Headline: dwindling Alaska salmon leave Yukon River tribes in crisis. Link here.
This is what caught my attention: some are blaming the disappearance of salmon on global warming, and yet there is no research or data to back up that claim. What is not discussed is the "over-fishing."
"Over-fishing" is mentioned but it's deep in the article, easily missed "... a state that supplies the world with salmon ..." "... it's increasingly clear that overfishing is not the only culprit."
A long, long article and absolutely no numbers -- how much salmon is actually harvested every year.
From another source:
Alaska ranks ninth among seafood-producing nations in the world. Forty-two percent of the world's harvest of wild salmon and 80 percent of the production of high-value wild salmon species such as sockeye, king, and coho salmon, come from Alaska waters.
From the linked article:
STEVENS VILLAGE, Alaska (AP) — In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them.
This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote communities that dot the river and live off its bounty — far from road systems and easy, affordable shopping — are desperate and doubling down on moose and caribou hunts in the waning days of fall.
“Nobody has fish in their freezer right now. Nobody,” said Giovanna Stevens, 38, a member of the Stevens Village tribe who grew up harvesting salmon at her family’s fish camp. “We have to fill that void quickly before winter gets here.”
The "chum" numbers plunged in one year. Climate change doesn't work that way.
King, or chinook, salmon have been in decline for more than a decade, but chum salmon were more plentiful until last year. This year, summer chum numbers plummeted and numbers of fall chum — which travel farther upriver — are dangerously low.
... a state that supplies the world with salmon ...
For a completely different view, see this article published July 28, 2021: after a difficult year (Covid-19 related), Alaska's salmon industry is back.
This year, optimism among those who are out fishing is bolstered by forecasts.
Bristol Bay is home to the world’s largest wild sockeye salmon run.
Prices are way up from last year and biologists believe they might see the largest run of Alaskan sockeye on record this summer.
“We are expecting a big run,” said Travis Elison. He’s the Bristol Bay area management biologist for Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game.
“We forecasted over 50 million fish for Bristol Bay total. We are seeing indications of a run that could be much larger than that. This one has the potential to be a record total run to Bristol Bay.” The number of fish caught this year has already surpassed 60 million. It’s all welcome news for fisherman Nathan Hill. He uses a 300-foot setnet that’s fixed to the beach to harvest sockeye out of Naknek. When the tide is in, it floats his net and dozens of salmon swim straight into it.
Time to get out the atlas:
For the archives: Antarctica posts coldest winter since records began.
FWIW, top stories from The LA Times today:
Energy crisis: scanning through my twitter feed this morning suggests this could be a very, very interesting year with regard to price of oil and natural gas. It's almost as if the folks following this closely are seeing one story and mainstream media is either seeing another story, missing it completely, or simply uninterested.
Peak oil? This has been a consistent them on the blog for perhaps as long as the blog has been running. Not sure when I first posted this likelihood / possibility. Link here to Irina Slav. Most interesting: CNBC, et al, do not seem to have considered this. See Saudi Arabia production numbers -- non-government sources -- here. All things being equal, Saudi production is increased in the summer to meet domestic demand (power for a/c).
Bottom line: when it comes to OPEC production, ignore the speeches and press releases coming out of OPEC (Saudi Arabia); watch the production data.
Oil, days of supply: the best indicator of where the US stands with regard is the amount of oil in storage measured in "days of supply" and that number is gradually increasing.
WTI: solidly above $78.
Is EU changing the narrative? A reader notes that the EU is suggesting more government control to supply affordable energy and confront climate change. The tea leaves suggest the EU leaders are not concerned in the least about the price of natural gas, with tea leaves suggesting they actually want natural gas to go much higher, make it so painful that voters clamor for more renewable energy. This is very fascinating.
In the US: would the price of oil be the top story if it weren't for Covid?
Let's check some ticker symbols, pre-market:
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Back to the Bakken
Active rigs, updated end of day:
| $78.48 | 10/5/2021 | 10/05/2020 | 10/05/2019 | 10/05/2018 | 10/05/2017 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active Rigs | 27 | 11 | 58 | 64 | 59 |
One well coming off confidential list:
Tuesday, October 5, 2021: 6 for the month, 6 for the quarter, 230 for the year:
RBN Energy: western Canada's propane balances look even tighter.
It wasn’t that long ago that Western Canada was awash in propane, sending the vast surplus for export by railcar to the U.S. That has changed in the past two years as direct exports to Asia opened up and Canada’s domestic demand for propane rose. With supplies becoming tighter, the combined effect with increasing demand spells trouble for higher exports to the U.S. this winter, a time when they are desperately needed. In today’s RBN blog, we explore the current Western Canadian propane market and what might be next in store.
Summary:
Of course, this does not mean supplies are in danger of running out, only that the difference between production and demand in 2021 and 2022 will be met from inventories. The stark shift in 2021 inventory levels so far this year versus 2020 reflects what has been a major mismatch between demand and production. For 2022, we think the increase in demand will still exceed rise in supply, resulting in another downshift for propane inventories, possibly sending them close to the record low seen in March 2013, when just 0.28 MMbbl were reported in storage.
There are plenty of uncertainties in this outlook, not the least of which is how severe the coming winter will be, not just in North America but also in Asia. A mild versus a cold winter could result in huge swings for either railed or marine exports and turn what is currently a snug market balance to an extremely tight or very loose one.
Putting that aside, there are some certainties that we can wrap our arms around looking to the end of 2022. For instance, Alberta propane demand will rise as Brookfield’s Heartland petchem complex begins operations. Marine exports are likely to be stronger next year compared to this year as the full impact of the Prince Rupert terminal becomes clear. Depending on the full magnitude and timing of these demand increases as well as the winter weather, railed propane exports, to the U.S. Midwest in particular, could fall as Alberta’s consumption and marine exports gobble up supplies.
But one needs to read the article to see how the summary is reached. Much more at the linked article.