Friday, August 5, 2022

Week 31: July 31, 2022 -- August 6, 2022.

Currently I am on the road: my notes will be less frequent, perhaps shorter. I will not get to my e-mail as often and I will not be able to post comments as often or in a timely manner.

Road trip.

 Top Stories

Top energy story: EIA's "gasoline demand" statistics defy common sense, and expose the politicization of even the EIA. Link here

Focus on fracking: link here.

Javier Blas:

Focus on fracking: link here.

Top story of the week:

  • Joe Biden is still president.
    • "rebound Covid-19"; or,
    • as we used to say: "lab error"

Top international non-energy story:

  • The Ukraine war drags on. 
  • US "votes" to bring Sweden and Finland into NATO; that's all four Scandinavian countries in NATO now;
  • WBNA star Griner sentenced to nine years in Russian prison;

Top international energy story:

  • Now, it's being reported that southern Germany is experiencing a run on diesel, distillate
  • Situation continues to worsen in Europe; countries returning to coal
    • use of coal will set a new all-time record in 2022
  • Critical Russian turbine for Nord Stream 1 is apparently still held up in Germany

Top national non-energy story:

  • "January 6th" hearings continue — how long will this go on? 
  • "Fed" raises rates another 75 basis points.

Top national energy story:

  • WTI plummets; trading below $90
  • US gasoline continues to drop in price;

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

Top North Dakota energy story:

  • ND Supreme Court overturns 2019 legislative initiative on "pore space"
  • supreme court ruled in favor of landowners
  • saw the 2019 initiative as an "illegal land grab"

Geoff Simon's top North Dakota energy stories:

Bakken economy:

Commentary:

CLR With Six New Permits -- August 5, 2022

WTI: $89.01.

Natural gas: $*.604

Active rigs: 49

Six new permits, #39136 - #29141, inclusive:

  • Operator: CLR
  • Field: Jim Creek (Dunn County)
  • Comments:
  • CLR has permits for six Micahlucas wells in SESW / SWSE 5-145-96; more later;

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

  • 35434, no IP test, XTO, Emma 31X-30E,
  • 36676, 3,125, Graysoon Mill, Lucy Hanson 15-22XE, more later;
  • 38822, 2,476, Graysoon Mill, Ron 28-33 2H, more later;

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For The Archives

Road trip.

Currently I am on the road: my notes will be less frequent, perhaps shorter. I will not get to my e-mail as often and I will not be able to post comments as often or in a timely manner.

Jobs -- August 5, 2022

Post-Pelosi: China will end climate change initiatives. Consider that another win.

Gasoline demand: link here.  

  • then explain:
    • gasoline under $4.00 / gallon and dropping fast;
    • WTI below $90 and dropping fast;
    • US refiners operating at a very low capacity; trending toward 90% of their operating capacity; lowest in the last few years;

It's all about jobs today. But once the numbers come out, traders will forget about them in less than a nano-second. Trust me. See if anyone is talking about jobs on Monday. Link here.

  • some say the unemployment drop to 3.5% is a record low. I don't know.
  • July nonfarm payrolls: 528,000 vs 250,000 forecast
  • and there are still a gazillion "now hiring" signs / "signing" bonuses;

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. Full disclaimer at tabbed link.

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.

Currently I am on the road: my notes will be less frequent, perhaps shorter. I will not get to my e-mail as often and I will not be able to post comments as often or in a timely manner.

Two Wells Coming Off Confidential List Over Next Four Days -- August 5, 2022

Some things I will probably not get a chance to return to, but important for the archives.

US energy: it's still all about distillate fuel. This can all be traced back to keystoning America. Thirty-second elevator speech:

  • US light oil: gasoline
  • Canadian heavy oil: distillate

Germany: run on diesel oil, fuel oil, heating oil. Several stories being reported all at the same time. Affects southern Germany now due to barges unable to get down the Rhine river all the way to Switzerland, due to low water, due to drought, due to poor planning. Link here; here; here; oilprice. This should not be happening this early, and what will Germany end up doing? Burn more oil.

EIA data: back in June, what was really going on? Link here. And here. Things just seemed to work out very conveniently. Doesn't pass the "smell" test.

Great Barrier Reef: social media. Junk science. The real story? Ultra-liberal CNBC is reporting this story. This is being reported at same time Bloomberg is reporting ESG is losing its mojo.

Tesla: 3 - 1 split approved by shareholders. Had they split 30 - 1 ..... 

Semiconductors / chips: TSMC will scale back; INTC has cut / delayed orders; will negatively impact Apple according to some analysts. Perhaps. I doubt it. Link here

$70 oil: huge for the oil sector. Link here.

APA: disappointing Chalk? I don't know. Need to check when I have more time. 

From a reader: so amazingly interesting. The important thing in the graph: understanding the methodology

But it is simply a snapshot in time, without context. As just one of a hundred comments one could make: my hunch is that pre-pandemic  many/most Uber drivers were supplementing their income by also driving for Uber. They were using Uber as an opportunity to make money to pay for a new EV instead of watching television. In the establishment survey, that individual would show up twice, maybe even three if they also worked for DoorDash at the same time (assuming I haven't confused the two surveys).

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Back to the Bakken

Far Side: link here.

WTI: $88.11.

Natural gas: $8.084.

Monday, August 8, 2022: 5 for the month, 36 for the quarter, 375 for the year

  • None.

Sunday, August 7, 2022: 5 for the month, 36 for the quarter, 375 for the year

  • None.

Saturday, August 6, 2022: 5 for the month, 36 for the quarter, 375 for the year

  • 37205, conf, Grayson Mill, Larsen 10-2 XE 1H,

Friday, August 5, 2022: 4 for the month, 35 for the quarter, 374 for the year

  • 37008, conf, CLR, LCU Reckitt Federal 4-22H, 

RBN Energy: Democrats' bill touts fight against inflation, but real focus is clean energyArchived.

As a piece of legislation makes its way through Congress, the name it’s given can say a lot about its overall importance and what it intends to accomplish, but also a little bit about the current political environment. Surging inflation has been one of the biggest stories of the past year and politicians of all stripes have been looking for ways to ease the pressure on consumers. Those concerns were a big reason why the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act (BBBA), which included several climate- and energy-related measures, ultimately died in Congress late last year. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which Democrats in Washington hope to pass soon, embraces the fight against inflation and includes other significant provisions, but clean energy is at the heart of the bill. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the legislation's climate and clean-energy initiatives — including a methane-reduction program, more tax credits for electric vehicles, and incentives for renewable energy and clean hydrogen — and how they would help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

A key element in President Biden’s 2020 campaign was a promise to reduce fossil-fuel usage and GHG emissions and to promote the development of a clean-energy industry as a way to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, a goal established by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Biden acted as soon as he took office, revoking the border crossing permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline and issuing an executive order to rejoin the Paris agreement on Inauguration Day. (President Trump announced plans for the U.S. to withdraw from the agreement in 2017, which became official after a three-year waiting period ended in 2020.) Days later, Biden issued another order that outlined plans to put climate concerns at the heart of U.S. foreign policy and national security.

Many of the administration’s plans to reach that net-zero target were included in the BBBA, which, among other things, boosted the 45Q federal tax credit for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), as we discussed in Way Down in the Hole, Part 5. The wide-ranging BBBA also included major changes in taxes, health care, and ­several other domestic programs. It was narrowly passed by the House in November 2021 but died in the Senate a month later when Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, came out against it. With a 50-50 split in the Senate, Democrats needed every one of their votes (plus that of Vice President Harris to break a tie) to pass the measure via reconciliation, a special parliamentary procedure that allows Congress to pass certain budgetary legislation by a simple majority.

Conversations about legislation that would include some of the priorities under the BBBA have been going on since then, but it was a surprise when news of an agreement between Manchin and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader and a Democrat from New York, was announced on July 27. Just as with the BBBA, Democrats are relying on the reconciliation process — and gaining approval from every Democrat in the Senate, plus the tie-breaking vote by Harris — to pass the IRA. Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has been reluctant to go along with many of the Democrats’ major initiatives — much like Manchin has been — but said in a statement late Thursday she would "move forward" on the legislation, subject to a final review by the Senate parliamentarian, who must determine whether it complies with congressional rules for budget reconciliation. Some parts of the bill's tax provisions were revised to win Sinema's approval.

More at the link.

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. Full disclaimer at tabbed link.

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.

Currently I am on the road: my notes will be less frequent, perhaps shorter. I will not get to my e-mail as often and I will not be able to post comments as often or in a timely manner.