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Friday, April 21, 2023

A Random Note On Numbering Of Wells In The Bakken -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44451B. 

From today's NDIC daily activity report:

The circled "172" and "173" are the "chronologic" numbers for these wells.

We talked about these "chronologic" numbers a decade ago when I first started blogging about the Bakken. Chronologic numbers are assigned to single family of wells, the section in which the wells are sited, the drilling unit, or some such limited geographic area. To the best of my knowledge, they do not apply to an entire oil field.

Let that sink in.

Week 16: April 16, 2023 -- April 23, 2023

Locator: 44450B.

Top story:

  • Fox News settles with Dominion; pays record settlement;
  • Joe Biden is still president

Top international non-energy story:

  • Russian-Ukraine war continues

Top international energy story


Top national non-energy story:

  • Bud trans pretty much dies out.
  • Intel axes top-of-the-line, game-changing chip; will outsource.
  • Space X blows up shortly after launch.

Top national energy story:

  • WTI at $77
Focus on fracking: most recent edition.

Top North Dakota non-energy story:


Top North Dakota energy story:

  • Enerplus: two cases; twenty wells each.

Geoff Simon's top North Dakota energy stories:

Bakken economy:

Commentary:

Entertainment

WTI Holds; Two New Permits; Eighteen Permits Renewed -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44449B.  

Abortion: breaking -- SCOTUS allows "morning after" pill -- the one "we've" been using for twenty years now -- one would think there might be "statute of limitations" at some point. But then, if we're talking "murder," maybe not. Perry Mason would know.

California bullet train: most recent update. My thoughts: vote to complete it. I'm curious if it can be accomplished at all, at any expense. Call "their" bluff  -- vote to complete it. GOP: vote nolo contendere. I would be surprised if the California teachers union would support it if their pension was at risk.

*******************************
Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 44.

WTI: $77.95.

Natural gas: $2.220

Two new permits, #39846 - #39847, inclusive:

  • Operator: EOG
  • Field: Parshall (Mountrail)
  • Comments: 
    • EOG has permits for two Parshall wells, lot 2 section 3-152-90; 
      • both to be sited 2325 FEL with one 360 FNL and one 400 FNL

Eighteen permits renewed:

  • SOGC (Sinclair --10): Forest, Horovitz, and Diamond, all in Lone Butte, McKenzie County;
  • Enerplus (8): Addax, Camel, Genet, Gnu, Madrigal, Opera, Quartet, and Rhythm, in McGregory Buttes, Dunn County;

Two Rambling Thoughts -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44448P. 

Well, duh but ... 

The vast majority of "journalists" are under 30, have few life experiences, and have no idea what it means to be an octogenarian. 

Much more could be said, but I will leave it at this:

  • would you rather die of old age, in diapers, in a nursing home, attended by a matronly aide, watching CNN all day; or,
  • would you rather die of old age, in diapers, sitting in the Oval Office, watching young female staffers all day?

Link here.

Does one think he's really listening to his doctors? LOL. And does the electorate even care?

**********************************
Investing

I'm an investor, not a trader, and have a 30-year-rolling horizon.

I have a bucket list of equities from which I select for new additions to my portfolio.

I invest twice a month, month-in / month-out, regardless of what the market is doing. I don't buy bonds.

Right now there is a certain equity in which I have never invested and that equity is not on any of my bucket lists. 

And thirty years from now, whatever it is doing today, won't matter. 

However, it is so hard to ignore.

The CEO is under great pressure to get the company's share price back to where it was three years ago. Under great pressure. Enough pressure that his/her job may depend on how the stock is doing one year from now. 

The stock is well off its highs, pays a small dividend that is likely to grow significantly, and the company itself will never fail.

I invest next week. We'll see. 

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.

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

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source

**********************
Recession? What Recession?

Story everywhere.

**********************
Bud

I've never paid attention to Bud's dividend.

Memories -- Nothing About The Bakken -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44447L.

A reader sent me a link to this story about Harvard pranksters deflating tires on Beacon Hill in Boston.

My not-ready-for-prime-time reply:

That was up on Beacon Hill in the city.
We lived in a suburb to the west, Belmont, but went into Boston almost everyday when we lived there.
One doesn't need a car in Boston so this tire-deflating action will be just a moment of irritation. These folks are so rich, they will have their factotums simply call AAA or whatever insurer they want to use and have things back to normal by dinner time.
A smart entrepreneur would drive his mobile tire-repair operation up and down Beacon Hill and start repairing tires on site. This isn't rocket science.The story brings back great memories.

**********************************
Boston

Memories.

My coming-of-age stories. 

At least four great loves of my life. I've lost count. LOL.

The great loves of my life, not necessarily in chronological order:

  • San Francisco. East of Eden. Twice? [A, B]
  • Hearst Castle. Wow, Sophia and I need to take a road trip. [B]
  • Anaheim. And not Disneyland. Charlie Rich. [C]
  • Boston. Everything. [B]
  • Westfield, NJ. Sultry, sweaty, definitions one and two. [B]
  • The secure, undisclosed location. Sultry, definition #2. [D]
  • Santa Barbara, CA. Picnic with glass wine glasses. [C]
  • Pasadena. Wow! [C] 
  • West LA. Glen Campbell. [A]

Seriously, I need to consider one last "fling." If I'm in good health, i.e., "alive," next summer, that may be my last opportunity.

Budget: $200 / day -- lodging, food, gasoline. Oh -- gasoline. Forgot that. $300 / day.

  • DFW --> Los Angeles (three days).
  • Los Angeles: three days/nights -- no lodging expenses.
  • Los Angeles to Paso Robles, CA (Hearst Castle) --> one day, one night.
  • Hearst Castle to Vacaville, CA --> three days.
  • Vacaville, CA --> Portland, OR --> five days, no lodging expenses.
  • Portland, OR --> Flathead Lake, MT -- seven days, no lodging expenses.
  • Flathead Lake, MT --> DFW -- three days.

Days: one month.

Budget: 30*$300 = Credit card: $2,000 / week.

Plan: new Schwab account. LOL.


When I re-live my coming-of-age stories, it reminds me that I need to talk to Sophia about some of these things.

Marco And Ron Slugging It Out -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44446B.

This story has no legs, and outside of one or two counties in Florida, it holds no relevance whatsoever, but it sure is fascinating.

Marco and Ron slugging it out. Link here.

Panic in south Florida: 49% of service stations without gasoline. Two-hour wait where gasoline is available.

Doesn't take two hours to charge a Tesla. 

How are folks going to drive to the Magic Kingdom?

President-wannabe Newsom: "Gasoline may be more expensive in my state, but at least we never run out."

The reason for a shortage of gasoline in south Florida? Rain.

And its not even the hurricane season yet.

Japan To Celebrate Earth Day Tomorrow -- Will Announce CO2 Emisssions Rose For First Time In Eight Years -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44445B.

Of the major industrial nations, only two bother with the Kyoto accords any more:

  • the Biden-Kerry US; and,
  • Germany.

Japan: no more with the accords. Link here.

The EU is absolutely committed to destroying its economy. When will Daimler say enough is enough?


Link here. This was in USA Today. This is the kind of graphic Bloomberg should have posted.

  • of the entire EU, only Germany makes the chart
  • the US-EU industrial gap continues to widen and yet US has greatest emissions decline
  • this graph is worth the subscription price of The Million Dollar Way blog!

My Magazine Reading In A Nutshell -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44443R.

How I wish we had a Powell Bookstore in the DFW area. Powell literally has every American magazine on its shelves. Every. One. 

What I'm reading now -- three completely different genres:

  • Texas Monthly: western porn. (That's a good thing.) Playboy when I was 21; Texas Monthly, at age 72.
  • The New Yorker: for faux intellectuals who don't read. Acronym: TLDR. Why do I even bother? For the digital trove. 
  • The Atlantic: Of no party or clique. Simply the best of the three. Articles one can actually understand. Hunter S. Thompson would have loved this one:


 I honestly have to set my timer whenever I read The Atlantic so I don't spend the entire day ...

Just a handful of articles this month:

And that kitchen gadget?

And I just ordered one -- but a smaller, less expensive version -- the kind a dorm rat would use. Amazon will deliver it to my door this afternoon.

A few minutes ago, our daughter needed to drop something off at our apartment. I wouldn't be home and I needed that activity bag for Sophia this afternoon. I sent our daughter the code to our apartment, and voila, delivered. Technology is great. Someday, I'll give Amazon a one-time code to set deliveries inside the doorway. Wow. 

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Rice Cooker Vs 90-Second Rice

Link here.

Busy, Busy, Busy Friday -- So Much To Post -- The EU Just Can't Help Itself -- Aprll 21, 2023

Locator: 44442B.

Before we start: might the US have its first cybernetic president in 2025? Something to think about.

The EU is absolutely committed to destroying its economy. When will Daimler say enough is enough?


Link here. This was in USA Today. This is the kind of graphic Bloomberg should have posted.

  • of the entire EU, only Germany makes the chart
  • the US-EU industrial gap continues to widen and yet US has greatest emissions decline
  • this graph is worth the subscription price of The Million Dollar Way blog!

*******************************
Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 44.

Peter Zeihan newsletter.

WTI: $78.12. Apparently ...

Natural gas: $2.239.

Monday, April 24, 2023: 41 for the month; 41 for the quarter, 296 for the year
None.

Sunday, April 23, 2023: 41 for the month; 41 for the quarter, 296 for the year
38682, conf, Whiting, LBJ 14-14HU,
36146, conf, BR, Mazamaphantom 1A MBH-ULW,

Saturday, April 22, 2023: 39 for the month; 39 for the quarter, 294 for the year
None.

Friday, April 21, 2023: 39 for the month; 39 for the quarter, 294 for the year
39062, conf, KODA Resources, Bock 3229-2 BH,
37474, conf, Petro-Hunt, Watterud 160-95-11C-2-3H,

RBN Energy: huge incentives, rising demand drive boom in clean ammonia project development. Link here.

For some time now, clean ammonia proponents have been talking up its potential as a very-low-carbon alternative for power plants, ships and other hydrocarbon consumers. Still, rock-solid plans for U.S. projects to produce large volumes of ammonia from clean hydrogen remained few and far between. Until lately, that is, with the recent uptick in project announcements spurred on, in large part, by the supercharged tax credits for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the newly firmed-up efforts by power generators in Japan and South Korea to make clean ammonia an important part of their fuel mix going forward. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the progress that clean ammonia has made since the IRA became law and the growing list of projects advancing to a final investment decision (FID), construction and production.

We’ll begin with a brief refresher course on what clean ammonia is, how it’s produced and what it can be used for. Then we’ll look at the primary drivers behind the development of clean ammonia production facilities (and ammonia export terminals), and after that (in Part 2) we’ll discuss in detail the bevy of U.S. projects now being planned.

Schlumberger -- April 21, 2023

Locator: 44439B.

Link here.

Also:

This is my toughest decision this month: whether to accumulate more shares in SLB. Next week I have to decide.

From February 8, 2023 -- just two months ago:

Summary: oilfield services -- Alex Kimani.

  • SLB reported full-year revenue of $28.1 billion, good for a 23% Y/Y increase while net income of $3.4 billion grew a robust 83%Y/Y. SLB raised its quarterly dividend by 43% and resumed share buybacks. The company says that it expects to distribute more than 50% of free cash flow to shareholders in dividends and buybacks in the current year. SLB has also been strengthening its balance sheet, managing to pay down $1.7B in debt during the year to bring it down to $9.3B.

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.

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

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source.

Intel Axes Top-Of-The-Line, Game-Changing Chip; Re-Affirms Plan To Outsource All Manufacturing — April 21, 2023

Locator: 44438C.

Updates

Later, 10:58 a.m. CT: down another 2% today.

Later, 9:21 a.m. CT: earnings preview, Zacks.

Original Post 

These stories are tracked herehttps://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2020/11/quick-how-many-transistors-on-new-apple.html.

Link herehttps://blockworks.co/news/intel-bitcoin-mining-chip.
US tech giant Intel has cooled on bitcoin mining after discontinuing its practically new Blockscale 1000 chip series.

The move comes about a year after Intel announced its standalone crypto mining chip, pegged to be more powerful and energy efficient than top-of-the-line ASICs [application-specific integrated circuit].

“As we prioritize our investments in IDM 2.0, we have end-of-lifed the Intel Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC while we continue to support our Blockscale customers,” Intel told Blockworks via email on Wednesday.

IDM 2.0 refers to Intel’s strategy of utilizing third-party foundries to manufacture products including graphics and chipsets.

Intel’s decision to axe its mining chips was first reported by tech outlet Tom’s Hardware, which noted the company often cites a focus on IDM 2.0 when it plans to tighten resources or pull out of businesses.

Intel had previously announced its Blockscale ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) would ship in the third quarter of 2022, and named Argo Blockchain, Block (formerly Square), GRIID Infrastructure and Hive Blockchain as its first customers.

Hive Blockchain later touted Intel’s chips as playing an important role in improving the efficiency of its ASIC fleet.

But the company now anticipates it will cease taking orders for Blockscale in another five months and stop shipping the chip by April 20 next year, Reuters reported, citing a document on Intel’s website.

N.B. When first announcing its energy-efficient computing technology in Feb. 2022, Intel’s former graphics chief Raja Koduri said a custom compute group would be created within the company’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics business unit.

N.B. However, Intel split the unit in December to focus on “critical growth engines” and Koduri returned to his previous position as Intel’s chief architect.

N.B. Not long after, Koduri left Intel to create an AI-focused software company, CEO Pat Gelsinger said on Twitter.

Intel signaled that it isn’t completely turning away from the bitcoin market. “We continue to monitor market opportunities,” the chipmaker said.

More at the link.

Dashboards — April, 2023

Locator: 44437B. 

EIA dashboards:

Two consecutive months, Bakken is the only one with "up" arrows. And both arrows are "up."



Laser-Focused On Dividends — April 21, 2023

Locator: 44436D.

DFS:  Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) declares $0.70/share quarterly dividend, 16.7% increase from prior dividend of $0.60. Record: May 25, 2023. Pay date: June 8, 2023.