Update: COP's Giant Willow Oil Field, North Slope, Alaska -- December 26, 2022

Before we get started: who needs this oil? Which US state most needs this oil? That may be the thumb on the "decision" scale.  

And, before we get started, globally, is it coming down to this for three US giants?

• XOM: Guyana
• CVX: Venezuela
• COP: Alaska

Alaska oil future is tracked here.

COP's Alaskan projects: link here.

• Willow oil field
• project planning has spanned five presidential administrations

On the radar scope: COP's giant Willow oil field.

• 600 million bbls over ten years
• only three or four summer months each year to build
• timeline:
• Biden administration promises to have:
• final environmental report released by the end of February, 2023;
• final decision by end of March, 2023:
• three options:
• deny entire project;
• grant approval for two pads;
• approve entire project.

COP: says it won't settle for anything less than full approval; a two-pad approval is not economic according to COP

My hunch:

• Biden will thread the needle and gain max political leverage by approving two pads;
• if COP won't accept, then COP gets the blame; Biden can say he approved the project;

Comments that will affect the outcome:

• Comment: after killing the Keystone XL, if Biden is seen as killing yet another project ...
• Comment: Biden's official energy program -- "no more drilling"
• Comment: the project has bipartisan support in Alaska
  
• Comment: could delay decision long enough to make construction "moot" this year; if so, there's no reason why Biden couldn't delay decision until well late into 2023 or 2024
• a delay of the decision would allow Biden and COP to continue negotiating;

For investors: if approved, it's going to be a huge drag on earnings short term.

More background data, from the EIA, April 26, 2021: 

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Binge Television

The "Jason Bourne" franchise.

I think there's only one of the five I haven't watched more than once.

I was surprised to find myself enjoying The Bourne Legacy as much I as I did considering this is one of the five in which Matt Damon did not appear. It may be my favorite of the five. The cinematography is spectacular and the story line pulls the Jason Bourne story together.

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Amazon Prime Video

The Sound of 007: Live From The Royal Albert Hall

Most enjoyable, Paloma Faith.

Cinematography outstanding. 

A keeper. 

Also on Amazon Prime Video:

From wiki:

Paloma Faith Blomfield was born in the Hackney area of London on 21 July 1981,  the daughter of an English mother and Spanish father. Both of her parents were raised in Norfolk.

Her parents separated when she was two years old and divorced two years later. She was raised by her mother in Stoke Newington, although she maintains a close relationship with her paternal grandmother.

As a child, she took ballet classes in Dalston. After completing her A-levels at City and Islington College, she went on to study for a degree in contemporary dance at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, while working as a hip-hop dancer at the nightclub LoveDough.

She then studied for an MA in theatre directing at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and took various part-time jobs as a sales assistant at Agent Provocateur, a singer in a burlesque cabaret, a bartender, a life model, and a magician's assistant.

Faith's first foray into music began when she mimicked famous soul and jazz singers including Etta James and Billie Holiday, whom she admires and cites as influences for her own work.

She met her managers Jamie Binns and Christian Wåhlberg of Lateral Management in 2007.

Binns had been tipped off by the producer Peanut, a client who had recently worked with Faith in his studio and been impressed.

He met up with Faith shortly afterwards and was "completely blown away", later saying, "I wasn't sure what this girl was going to do – she was an actress and a singer – but there was just something about her in that artistic realness that when I came out of the meeting I called Christian and said, 'We have to do something with this girl!'"

During her time at college, Faith worked in a pub where the manager asked her to front his band, which they later called Paloma and the Penetrators.

During a performance with the band at a cabaret show, she was scouted by an A&R man from Epic Records, who invited her to sing for the manager of the label.

Twenty minutes into the audition, she asked the manager to turn his phone off; when he refused, she walked out.

The manager later called her and offered her a contract, claiming that he had seen many acts since their meeting but none had been as memorable as her.

She turned down an opportunity to join Amy Winehouse's band in order to write and perform her own songs.

Her first recognised work was the song "It's Christmas (and I Hate You)," which she recorded as a duet with Josh Weller in 2008.

Paloma Faith and Josh Weller