Quickies -- Links To Follow -- December 20, 2022

New link: alternative fuels data center, US DOE. 

Cold: This week tens of millions of Americans are about to experience one of the coldest days of their life. Wind chills as cold as -70F in Wyoming and Montana, negative wind chills as far south Austin, Texas, and even single-digit wind chills in the Florida Panhandle. Deadly cold.

China: without an effective western vaccine -- cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever screening clinics as authorities reported five more deaths and international concern grew about Beijing's surprise decision to let the virus run free. New analyses by various modeling groups predict the reopening could result in as many as 2.1 million deaths.

China : western vaccines :: New England : western PA natural gas.

Lucid: raises $1.5 billion cash from new equity issue; most of that was bought by Saudi Arabia.

Natural gas: In case you missed why Henry Hub natural gas is getting hammered down ~$1.50 from Friday is supposed to turning from today's very cold to very warm after Christmas. Never a positive when it's very warm in key Dec/Jan/Feb months.

Freeport: starting to take natural gas from pipelines.

Europe: "Europe is depleting gas stockpiles faster than usual as most Russian gas exports remain shut off. Since storage levels peaked on Nov. 13, the region has tapped almost 12% of its reserves, exceeding the pace of decline seen in the five-year average.

Europe:Europe agrees to buy more LNG from the US. This time until nearly 2050 Portugal-based Galp inked a 20-year deal with NextDecade to buy 1 million tons/year from its plant in Texas starting ~2027 That's ontop of Galp's deal to buy US LNG from Venture Global from 2023.

Tylenol shortage: appears to be regional. Demand for children's pain relievers and fever reducers due to seasonal flu, RSF, and Covid.

Russia:

• Russia’s seaborne crude shipments collapsed in the first full week of G7 sanctions targeting Moscow’s petroleum revenues.
  
• Russia: The data must be treated carefully, because weekly flows are at the mercy of the timing of cargo scheduling, the weather, and even the quality of signals that the vessels themselves transmit.
• Russia overtakes SaudiArabia as China's top crude supplier in November 
  

New England: United States' New England set to get second LNG cargo this winter.

Wells Fargo: fined, $3.7 billion. Wells Fargo's rinse-repeat cycle of violating the law has harmed millions of American families,” the CFPB said.

EVs: automakers starting to get cold feet? Automakers are finally admitting what they have known from the get go. Electric vehicle market takeover is impossible.

Steel: from Peter Zeihan today --

Steel.

The backbone of...just about everything. The cars we drive. The buildings we work in. Where we store our food. You get the point. But what happens when access to the inputs necessary for steel production starts to disappear?

As we continue down the path of deglobalization, getting those inputs will become increasingly difficult. We are already seeing this playout as the Ukraine War has cut off supply from Russia and Ukraine.

Leaving Brazil as the only major supplier of pig iron for the US.

Luckily, some locations will weather this storm better than others. Topping that list is The Hoosier State - Indiana.