Friday, December 15, 2023

Headlines — December 15, 2023

Locator: 46307B.

Did JPow wait too long? Empire State manufacturing index down a whopping 14% versus an estimated increase. A decline in any manufacturing index makes some folks think “recession.”

COP28: time to phase out natural gas. Final statement. Meanwhile, coal? Demand will hit all-time high in 2023 — current year. I assume the same in 2024. 

Inflation: two components — go back to this post — goods and services. Now, see Peter Zeihan today. Consider his prediction in light of AI.

I've got some good news and some bad news on inflation in the US...one has to do with COVID, and the other is about the labor market. Which do you want first? 
Let's start with the good news. The US is finally emerging from its COVID mask of changing consumer behavior and crazy supply chain dynamics. That means we've settled into more stable consumption patterns, and supply chains have finally caught up...so headline inflation is decreasing. 
Yay! Now, onto the bad news. We're entering a (two-decade-long) period of labor shortages. As baby boomers retire, the Zoomers won't be able to keep up with labor demands. And that shortage is only going to get worse until the mid-2030s. While it's nice to finally see COVID in the rearview mirror, we're coming up on something much stickier that will plague our inflation rates for a while.

Southern surge: jobs these folks are taking won’t be affected by AI to extent others may be.Think about that in regard to Peter Zeihan’s comments today.

Missed the rally: 85% of individually-held stocks are owned by millionaires. Most missed the 2023 run because they were weighted heavily in cash. Study: CNBC. See “my favorite chart.” 

Work force participation disconnect: “return-to-work” mandates disconnected with role of stay-at-home moms with children.

RMDs: fifteen days left. Trading days? Eleven days including today. Twenty percent of folks haven’t taken their RMDs. It will start next week. How does that impact the rally? Link here. Those folks that waited are going to do very well.

RMD reminder: This year is unusual in that there isn’t a big cohort of 70-somethings taking their RMDs for the first time. The starting age had been 72 until the Secure 2.0 Act passed at the end of 2022 bumped it up to 73, effective this year. People turning 73 this year were subject to the requirement last year at age 72, while people turning 72 this year got a reprieve until 2024. All things being equal this will extend the bull market through 2024.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $72.15

Sunday, December 17, 2023: 21 for the month; 170 for the quarter, 740 for the year 
39696, conf, WPX, North John Elk 28-27HIL, 

Saturday, December 16, 2023: 20 for the month; 169 for the quarter, 739 for the year 
None. 

Friday, December 15, 2023: 20 for the month; 169 for the quarter, 739 for the year
39291, conf, Hess, GO-TONG Trust A-17-96-2032H-3,

RBN Energy: how will EPA’s methane rule impact the certified/differentiated gas market?

The Biden administration’s recent announcement at the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai that it has issued a final rule on reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas industry raises an important question: If the feds will be requiring every producer to phase out flaring, install new equipment, and meet new, aggressive standards for emissions monitoring and leak detection and repair, will there still be a need for entities like MiQ and Project Canary to score or assess the lower-emissions natural gas produced by a significant subset of enviro-conscious E&Ps? 
In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the potential impacts of the new EPA rule on gas certification/differentiation and the development of a market for low-methane gas. This blog series’ aim is to examine the certified/differentiated gas movement, which has been driven to a large degree by growing interest among gas producers, shippers and buyers alike in gas that is produced, processed and transported with minimal emissions of methane along the way. 
In Part 1, we discussed the outsized climate impact of methane emissions — a greenhouse gas (GHG) with more than 80 times the atmospheric heat-trapping effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the short term (five to 20 years) — and the push by an increasing number of E&Ps to reduce their methane emissions and get credit from the market for those achievements. Part 2 focused on the push by gas producers to have their gas certified as a “low-emissions” hydrocarbon and differentiated (i.e., scored or assessed) based on the percentage of methane that escapes into the atmosphere during the production process, with higher marks being given to gas with a lower methane intensity (MI). We also discussed the two primary alternatives for gas producers seeking to certify or differentiate their gas (MiQ and Project Canary) and noted that as much as one-third of the natural gas being produced in the U.S. each day is certified/differentiated by one of them.

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