From SeekingAlpha: "Texas power grid passes biggest test since last winter's disastrous freeze."
LOL ... "from last winter's disastrous freeze ...." Twelve months. Okay.
Next: the average household electricity / natural gas bill for the month of February, 2022.
On another note: today was a beautiful day, and tomorrow we (north Texas) should be back to normal.
Meanwhile, the New England grid held, also, but wow, the expense and all the oil it took.
Rig counts: finally, after ten years of blogging about this, someone else is saying the same thing, link here.
Comparing rig count to historical is a waste of time. We're drilling wells twice the length in half the time.
Length doesn't matter. The point is how fast these rigs can now drill a well.
A new term in the oil and gas business: HGLs. Link here. Later: See comments. Apparently nothing new under the sun.
Oil and gas experience in 2020, the year of the plague: same link as above. By the way, there's a "new" hashtag at the link above which is "must" hashtag. We're going to see a lot more of this. I've alluded to it on the blog numerous times.
Crude quality matters: link here. This graph did surprise me.
See this post: six reasons why Meta is failing from The New York Times.
One: user growth has hit a ceiling. Not only hit a ceiling but numbers are actually declining.
Two: Apple. Security. Will cost Meta $10 billion in revenue "next year" (2022).
Three: Google is stealing online advertising share.
Four: TikTok vs Reels. Videos harder to monetize at same level as other options.
Five: Spending on metaverse is bonkers. No one understands it, and those that say they do, know it won't be profitable for years. And who will have the best headsets when the metaverse really is a thing? Apple.
Six: The specter of antitrust looms. Won't happen.
The most obvious question was not asked / not addressed by The New York Times. I will come back to this later, but right now I have an errand to run with Sophia. But see if you can guess the most obvious question that was not asked / not addressed by anybody as far as I can tell with regard to this.
This is a fascinating article in The New York Times. For some reason it was not behind a paywall.
"Six Reasons Why Meta Is In Trouble."
See if you can spot how many of these six reasons affect any of the other stocks you own.
One: user growth has hit a ceiling. Not only hit a ceiling but numbers are actually declining.
Two: Apple. Security. Will cost Meta $10 billion in revenue "next year" (2022).
Three: Google is stealing online advertising share.
Four: TikTok vs Reels. Videos harder to monetize at same level as other options.
Five: Spending on metaverse is bonkers. No one understands it, and those that say they do, know it won't be profitable for years. And who will have the best headsets when the metaverse really is a thing? Apple.
Six: The specter of antitrust looms. Won't happen.
Investors may worry about shale oil and frackers (I have to get back to that Wall Street Journal -- memo to self) but Facebook - Meta - metaverse -- is already here as a very, very concerning investment issue.
So, of the six points made above, how many of those affect your investments? For me: none. Nada. Zilch. Goose egg.
Not mentioned: inflation. Facebook is still free-to-use as far as I know (I don't "use" Facebook) so Meta's costs increase but it's hard to raise subscriptions prices that don't exist, unlike Amazon. Almost all other successful businesses are going to be able to pass inflation costs on to their customers, like Amazon. And Procter and Gamble. And Ford.
Not mentioned: the Canadian #GoFundMe fiasco. Did #GoFundMe just shoot itself in the foot? It's hard to believe one would use #GoFundMe now that the truth is out. It's a "woke" slush fund. a
Not mentioned: how much everyone likes Mark Zuckerberg.
Not mentioned, except as a sub-bullet for reason #1 above: the most important demographic, those between the ages of 14 years old and 45 years old, have moved on, not using Facebook as much as they used to, so it's not just subscriber growth, but also time spent on the site:
Not mentioned: it was Facebook's heyday when everyone was stuck at home during massive lockdowns. But Covid-19 is in our rear view mirrors and receding fast. The TikTok users are driving Teslas; the F-150 Lightning; the Facebook users are driving "The Little Blue Truck" -- the favorite book of our two-year-old twin grandsons. Once the lockdowns end, people will use Facebook a whole lot less.
Not mentioned: other than advertising, what other revenue stream does Meta have?
Not mentioned: panic. To right the ship, Meta is likely to make some bad choices and/or bad acquisitions. At the top of that bad-choice list: Pelaton.
Not mentioned: no content, except that provided by users.
Not mentioned: folks getting more clever. If small businesses want exposure, they can easily set up their own webpage without going through Facebook. Or they can set their webpage up through Facebook and then tell their users to bookmark their site and skip going through Facebook in the future.
Not mentioned directly: with a market loss of that extent, Meta has fewer options going forward investing in their own company; paying a dividend; announcing a share-buyback program. Sort of a death spiral unless things correct quickly. In the short term, investors are jumping ship as fast as they can making the situation worse. To get through this period, better guidance is needed. That guidance is not only forthcoming but anyone can see the six reasons listed by The New York Times are not going to go away any time soon.
It's funny how things work out.
We all know about the "Waffle House Index."
But with the New England cyclone bomb this weekend and Winter Storm Kenan, we saw how well another index worked, the "airline index." Following "flightradar24" tonight, as soon as I saw flights returning to a particular airport told me that the worst was over. I don't need to have the denominator (the usual number of aircraft flying in or out), all I needed to see was any aircraft flying back into airports that had been closed in anticipation of the event.
If you haven't played around with "flightradar24" -- it's a hoot. The free version will give you hours of "fun," and for a very nominal price, one can have "basic" service with much more to offer.
By the way, some planes are "blue," some are "yellow." There's a reason.
Hint: generally speaking, all "yellow" planes are over land or near land. All "blue" planes are over the ocean.
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Sophia and the iPad
For work, I use a laptop, but for games, reading, relaxing, surfing the net, I use the iPad.
Sophia, eight years old this summer, loves the iPad for watching YouTube videos; using educational apps, like learning Spanish; using creativity apps to learn to play the piano, and paint. It is amazing how she navigates the iPad. Yesterday, I saw her with multiple windows open on the iPad -- I asked her how she was able to do that and she showed me. She taught me short cuts that make YouTube much more useful. Now that she has become a better speller, she knows how to search on YouTube.
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Easier Sung, Than Done
The well:
| Pool | Date | Days | BBLS Oil | Runs | BBLS Water | MCF Prod | MCF Sold | Vent/Flare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BAKKEN | 11-2021 | 30 | 10200 | 10190 | 31902 | 13778 | 13115 | 135 |
| BAKKEN | 10-2021 | 31 | 12796 | 12772 | 32377 | 12959 | 12346 | 51 |
| BAKKEN | 9-2021 | 30 | 10965 | 11248 | 34454 | 11201 | 10451 | 375 |
| BAKKEN | 8-2021 | 31 | 16494 | 16211 | 51959 | 16173 | 16148 | 25 |
| BAKKEN | 7-2021 | 31 | 17394 | 17575 | 48461 | 11576 | 9079 | 2497 |
| BAKKEN | 6-2021 | 30 | 23659 | 23605 | 59900 | 13615 | 7315 | 6300 |
| BAKKEN | 5-2021 | 24 | 15448 | 15500 | 37507 | 11253 | 11220 | 33 |
| BAKKEN | 4-2021 | 24 | 20664 | 20373 | 44006 | 14809 | 14809 | 0 |
By the way, something very interesting on this scout report. This is probably something that "happens all the time," but this is the first time I have seen it, and then looked at the file report to see why.
See if you can spot the interesting data point in this screenshot:
Later: a reader suggested the interesting data point ... my not-ready-for-prime-time reply --
I am so sorry to waste your time with something so trivial, but for me, following the Bakken like I do, it's important.The permit expired in 2015.Generally when a permit expires, if it is not renewed within a year, it suggests to me the operator no longer cares for that site, no matter what. The operator may even be planning to sell the mineral rights in that area.In this case, the waiver expired in 2015 and wasn't renewed until 2019, four years later. That really caught me by surprise -- such a long gap. The mom-and-pop mineral owners would have thought this site was "long gone."Often when a permit expires it is simply an oversight and the NDIC sends a letter to the operator saying the permit is about to expire and asking if they want to renew the permit.In this case, the NDIC sent the letter, and something I had not seen before, the operator told the NDIC to let the permit expire and go PNC (permit now canceled) because the operator had no desire to drill the well in the current price environment.That usually means the end of that permit "forever." If the operator wants to drill there in the future, the operator will submit a new permit and add an "R" (revised) to the original name.In this case, in 2019, the operator came back and renewed the permit.The reason this is important to me: operators let a huge number of permits expire in 2019 and 2020. I assume those permits would be "lost forever," but it now appears it's relatively easy to go back and renew an old permit. There's a ton of EXP permits and I've always thought they would eventually come back to them. A lot of money went into all the work to do the surveys, etc. necessary for a permit application.One reader suggested to me a long time ago, that operators would easily let permits expire, that cost of developing a permit were not onerous. I don't think I replied, because I did not, but time and expense would not be trivial, in my estimation.Trivial, but it caught my attention, how things work in the North Dakota.
These are just some of the examples. I've noted these stories have pretty much disappeared from the mainstream media outlets since we've had a change in presidency. In some cases the stories have never received much coverage:
Come back in about six hours.
Word for the day: haimish. Or heimish. Definition here.
I first saw this word in this ad which appeared on my blog.
My wife and I love babka. Not sure if we would have known much about it except for "that" Seinfeld episode. Looks like a drive to Central Market to get a chocolate babka today. It's still a bit cool outside today -- you know, that dreaded Texas winter storm -- and a babka would make the house feel so cozy and haimish. Will need to get two loaves; one for Sophia's family.
I thought "babka"had a Russian root but I was wrong. Apparently, Polish, baba:
How did babka get its name?It started when Jews on Shabbat took leftover challah and twisted it with seeds and nuts, such as poppy seeds and walnuts.
The word 'babka' means grandmother, referring to the grandmothers on Shabbat who made this out of the leftover challah.
Chocolate wasn't added to babka until Jews arrived in New York.
And there you have it, your cocktail party trivia for tonight.
The twins call me "Papa." Perhaps we can get them to call their grandmother, "baba."
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The Book Page
Again, if interested in origin of solar system, earth, fossil fuel, origin of life, this is currently the best new book on the market right now for armchair/amateur biologists, geologists, fossil fuel aficionados.
From the book, pages 293 - 297:
Throughout the Cenozoic Period (modern), the Atlantic Ocean has been opening and the North American [tectonic] Plate has been moving westward, as both continue to do today.
For forty million years the Farallon Plate [a Pacific Ocean plate] collided with the North American Plate all along the western boundary ... but that changed when an edge of the NAP had moved far enough west to begin to override the oceanic spreading center ... and at that moment, the San Andreas fault was born.
As the North American Plate continued its westward movement, it ran over more and more of the Farallon Plate, lengthening the San Andreas fault ... today the fault runs for four hundred miles from Cape Mendocino [in the Bay area] to the eastern edge of the Salton Sea.
The Salton Sea could someday be renamed the "Lithium Sea." More on this later.
The San Andreas Fault run remarkably straight for more than four hundred miles from Cape Mendocino to the southern end of Carrizo Plain. There there is the first of two large bends, first to the left, and then to the right, before it ends at the Salton Sea.
About six million years ago, the southern position of the San Andreas Fault jumped a few hundred miles south and east to a point on the NAP. That caused a slab of North America to shear off and swing away from the continent. The slab is the peninsula of Baja California. The new seaway being formed and continues to grow wider between Baja California and the North America is the Gulf of California.
And so, though much of South California and all of Baja California were once part of North America, both are now firmly attached to and are moving slowly in a northwest direction as part of the Pacific Plate.
[The same separation is happening all along the San Andreas Fault, north to Mendocino.]
And so it is conceivable, given the current state of earthquake activity, that the plate boundary could shift again and, in the distant future, essentially, the entire state of California will detach from the North American Plate, become part of the Pacific Plate, and drift slowly as a collection of large islands into the northern Pacific Ocean.
For some, it cannot happen soon enough.
Note:
The San Andreas Fault is also responsible for the three main corridors that are land connections into and out of the Los Angeles Basin. All of the interstate highways, main railways and most of the pipelines, water lines, and power lines that link the basin to the rest of the continent run through one of these narrow corridors, through what would otherwise be a long line of continuous high mountains. And it is at each of these points -- Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles, Cajon Pass north of San Bernardino, and San Gorgonio Pass east of San Bernardino that the San Andreas Fault cuts through the mountains.
The three passes:
My hunch: we are "way overdue" for a major San Andreas / southern California earthquake. Maybe our grandchildren will get to hear reports of same some day.
Kraken.
A reader noted that I completely missed Kraken activities in Montana in that post.
I am so embarrassed.
As mentioned early in my blogging days, I said that I don't follow the Bakken in Montana or Saskatchewan, simply because: a) I don't have time; and, b) states other than North Dakota seem not to provide data as clearly and as easily accessible as North Dakota.
With regard to the first point, considering all the time time I spend on non-Bakken issues, I really do have time to follow the Bakken outside North Dakota but the bang for the buck (the second point) it would not be worth it. It took quite a while to figure out the NDIC website, the counties, the townships, etc., and that would be incredibly challenging for me to do the same for states and provinces outside North Dakota.
At the linked post, I noted that Kraken would be focusing "all" of its attention on Williams County.
Well, that was wrong.
Kraken also has operations in Richland County, Montana, the county directly across the state line from McKenzie County in North Dakota. Sidney, MT, is the big city in Richland County. Richland County is known for its sugar beets and broad, beautiful bottomlands along the Yellowstone River.
Anyway, several quick links. I'll update the Kraken post later.
As noted, all for now. I will update the recent Kraken post later.
Several new "observations" from overnight and earlier this morning. It will take time to get to all of them but I think I'm going to be posting some worthwhile information. I will post that later. I have to wake up first so, first, just a bunch of rants and raves.
If interested only in the Bakken, skip this page and come back later. Say, about eight hours from now.
ProBowl tomorrow. No, I have no plans to watch.
Tracking Elon Musk: I would post the link to the twitter account that tracks Elon Musk's jet but it's the most obnoxious account I have ever run across.
Won't post it. Absolutely worthless, but I did see where the jet was flying this past week. Whoo-hoo! By the way, if Elon Musk is seriously worried about security issues, as I've stated before, he simply has to buy three or four jets, rent them out to, say, NetJet, and that would be the end of that.
#GoFundMe with regard to the Canadian convoy:
I'm getting reports that #GoFundMe for the Convoy, shut down by Trudeau, is now refunding all donations directly by e-mail. There is no need to request the refund, and the money is not going to be "stolen" by the Canadian government and donated to other "worthy funds." Unconfirmed.
Spotify: as the numbers come out --
it's becoming more and more obvious why Joe Rogan will win this battle, and Joni Mitchell will not.
Spotify: unfortunately it's behind a paywall, but The WSJ has an incredibly (everything is relative) good article on Neil Young and Spotify. "Inside Spotify's Joe Rogan Crisis." From that article we get the following graph:
How is that graph helpful? LOL. This is what Wall Street analysts do. In three clicks or three steps one can find the "dollar value of Apple Music." Maybe I'll do that later.
The bigger story for non-Wall Street analysts: that graphic told me what Apple has to gain.The average Spotify user will stick with Spotify or move to Apple. Period. Dot.
The most interesting item from that graphic: how far down "YouTube Music" is in the rankings.
And finally, a reminder, Apple Music just announced that its free trial is being cut from three months to one month.
ISO NE:
Texas grid:
Ford: waited until after closing time, Friday night to make this announcement -- chip shortage will force Ford to halt or cut production at eight plants.
Can you imagine what this would have done to share price of Ford shares had this been announced during trading hours. Sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's 10:39 a.m. CT; the source published this article "7 hours ago" or around midnight. It's possible this information was announced during the day but I didn't see it until well after closing time.
However, having said that, there are a number of story lines here. I might come back to this later.