Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Majority Party Prevents Mediation That Might Have Stopped The Railroad Strike -- September 14, 2022
Joe Biden canceled the Keystone XL the first day of his presidency.
The US government had wanted to bring union and management to the bargaining table, perhaps preventing a strike. The majority party prevented cooler heads from prevailing.
Get out the popcorn.
Weekly EIA Petroleum Report -- September 14, 2022
Breaking
Natural Gas: from a reader:
Natural gas at $9.09 right now.
US natural gas futures jumped more than 6% toward $8.8/MMBtu, the highest in almost 2 weeks and slowly approaching 14-year highs of $10 reached in August, boosted by higher demand forecast and more coal-to-gas switching in case of a rail strike.The potential railroad strike, which could come as early as Friday, could force generators to burn more gas to produce electricity as about two-thirds of the nation's coal-fired power plants receive their coal by rail.
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Near-Term Risks
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Weekly EIA Petroleum Report
US Crude Oil Inventory
Weekly EIA Petroleum Report
US Crude Oil Inventory
- US crude oil inventories increased by 2.4 million bbls.
That is all.
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Gasoline Demand
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The Book Page
I'm pretty happy with the reading program I had this past summer.
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Back to the Bakken
Active rigs: 45.
WTI: $88.83. Creeping up.
Natural gas: $9.062. Trending toward 10-year high. Could benefit from a railroad strike.
No new permits:
One well permitted for recompletion:
- 8324, White Rock, Barkland 1-18-2A, wildct; Bonnie View.
Off The Internet -- Away From Keyboard -- September 14, 2022
Actually I'm on the internet and at the keyboard but not at the blog. I'll be back on the blog later today.
I'm working on a special "music"-themed post for the blog. Getting into a fugue-state-of-mind.
Apple -- TSM -- M3 Chip For Macs, A17 Chip For iPhone 15 -- September 14, 2022
This is simply incredible, how fast Apple is moving. Link here.
Apple's future M3 chip for Macs and A17 chip for iPhone 15 Pro models will be manufactured based on TSMC's enhanced 3nm process known as N3E next year. The devices are expected to launch throughout 2023.
N3E will offer improved performance and power efficiency compared to TSMC's first-generation 3nm process known as N3, according to the report.
In the meantime, the report claims that Apple plans to use TSMC's first-generation 3nm process for some of its upcoming iPad chips. It's unclear which iPad models the report is referring to, as rumors suggest that Apple will update the iPad Pro next month with the M2 chip, which is manufactured based on TSMC's second-generation 5nm process. A new entry-level iPad with an older A14 chip is also expected later this year.
Chips, semiconductor: link here.
Two Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- September 14, 2022
Russia: crude oil production starting to drop?
- annual state of the union address, Ursula von der Leyen
- mostly about Ukraine (of course; what would one expect?)
- EU will launch a "deep and comprehensive reform" of the electricity market
- oh-oh: "consumers should reap the benefits of low-cost renewables. So we have to decouple the dominance of the price of gas on the price of electricity"
EU: vaccine; worth up to $35 billion for Pfizer;
- unprecedented deal for Pfizer
- EU won't divulge details; "highly unusual"
- deal made at the height of the pandemic
- came after the fallout of the AstraZeneca debacle (remember that?)
- originally, each dose cost $15.50; then hiked to $19.50 (priced in Euros but dollars/ Euros close enough for the blog -- in fact, today, one euro = one US dollar)
- previous two contracts had secured a total of up to 600 million doses. But this next one, for up to 1.8 billion doses, would prove to be the largest by far of all the deals signed by Brussels. It foresaw the upfront purchase of 900 million doses, with the option to order 900 million more, for delivery in 2022 and 2023.
- the contract would be worth around $35 billion if fully exercised. “It is the biggest COVID-19 vaccine contract signed by the Commission and will dominate the EU’s vaccine portfolio until the end of 2023.
PFE:
- 2Q22 results: revenues soar, but income does even better
- diluted EPS: 77% growth y/y
- adjusted EPS: 92% growth y/y
- excluding foreign exchange impacts: EPS grew 100% y/y (in other words, doubled)
- adjusted income:
- 2Q22: ~ $12 billion (doubled y/y)
- 1Q22: $6 billion
- revenue:
- 2Q22: ~ $28 billion (an increase of 47%)
- 1Q22: ~ $19 billion
- EPS:
- 2Q22: ~ $1.75
- 1Q22: ~ $1.00
- growth on the back of its Covid-19 vaccine and its oral Covid-19 treatment
- market cap: $260 billion
- p/e: 9
Australia:
- New South Wales = Sydney;
- "bold" target to electrify bus fleet running five years late;
- now, extended to 2047; I'll be long dead by then
European energy crisis:
- France: will count on electricity from UK
- UK: will count on electricity from France
- I can't make this stuff up; from Reuters via twitter;
Ukraine:
- Germany not supply Ukraine with needed tanks?
- Schwarzmalerei
- German defense ministers with little or no military experience, made clear that Ukraine’s battlefield gains would not alter Berlin’s refusal to provide the country with much-needed battle tanks.
- amazing article, if accurate
- also being reported in The Washington Post;
- from the US, announced just days ago (Seeptember 8, 2022):
WASHINGTON ― The U.S. unveiled nearly $3 billion in new aid for Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors on Thursday as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with allies in Germany and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unscheduled visit to Kyiv.
Alongside a $675 million package of heavy weaponry, ammunition and armored vehicles for Ukraine, the administration notified Congress of its intent to make $2.2 billion in new Foreign Military Financing available. The recipients include NATO members and Eastern European security partners the State Department called “most potentially at risk for future Russian aggression.”
Fable: The Little Red Hen.
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Back to the Bakken
The Far Side: link here.
WTI: $87.33. Unchanged.
Natural gas: $$8.409.
Thursday, September 15, 2022: 24 for the month, 74 for the quarter, 413 for the year
- 29294, conf, Slawson, Vixen Federal 6-19-30TFH,
Wednesday, September 14, 2022: 23 for the month, 73 for the quarter, 412 for the year
- 37693, conf, BR, Lone Beaver 1-1-17TFH, North Fork,
- 29782, conf, Zavanna, Galloway 18-30 2H, Stockyard Creek,
RBN Energy: refined product price spreads spur pipeline projects in PADDs 2, 3, and 4 -- part 3.
Refined product markets in the U.S. are constantly morphing. Over time, demand for gasoline and diesel rises or falls, refineries are shut down, and the price spread between products sold in neighboring regions widens or narrows. These changes can incentivize refiners and marketers to push into new areas — and encourage midstream companies to develop pipeline capacity to ease the flow of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel into newly attractive markets. Midstreamers have advanced a number of pipeline projects in the past few months to help move increasing volumes of products west across Texas to the Permian, the Great Plains and into the Rockies. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss these projects and what’s been driving their development.
Our goal in this blog series is to provide an overview of the U.S.’s major refined product pipelines and to describe how the network continues to be reworked — extended, expanded, repurposed and/or reversed — to reflect changing market dynamics. First, we looked at the big picture, discussing many of the large pipelines and pipeline systems that transport gasoline, diesel and jet fuel long distances from refineries to product terminals throughout the U.S. We noted that in addition to these long-haul, higher-volume pipelines, there are scores of shorter, lower-volume pipes that fan out from these lines to distribute refined products to terminals in smaller cities and towns. In most cases, gasoline and diesel are transported “the last mile” to service stations by truck. Then, later, we discussed the changing market dynamics between the East Coast (PADD 1) and the Midwest (PADD 2), and the resulting increase in refined product pipeline capacity east across Pennsylvania.