Rumor Has It That The US House Passed The B-M Debt Ceiling Bill -- May 31, 2023

Locator: 44809BIZARRE.

Now ... unto the US Senate where Lindsey Graham says he will kill the bill. At least that's what the press says he said.

From one news source:

McCarthy, R-Calif., touted the bill’s spending cuts even though it fell short of conservatives’ original aim of slashing spending by roughly $150 billion from this year to the next.

$35 trillion deficit and the GOP is willing to put the US into default over $150 billion. 

Okay. 

I see who the adults in the room are. AMIRITE?

LOL.

Just think if we could just cut spending by $150 billion this year -- what that would mean for all of us.

Activity In Killdeer -- June 1, 2023

Locator: 44808B.  

On the way to looking for something, we came across a very, very active section in Killdeer oil field.

Homesteaders Gap Oil Field

Locator: 44809B.  

See this note.

NDIC has approved new name for Squaw Gap oil field. Now Homesteaders Gap oil field. The Bismarck Tribune today, behind a paywall.

Already updated at wiki.

A point of interest:

A local independent telephone exchange was inaugurated on December 15, 1971, with an NBC broadcast of a first phone call from Squaw Gap to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz in Washington D.C

The community was one of the last to obtain landline telephone service in the continental United States. (Iowa Hill, California lost its service in the 1960s, but regained it in 2010.)

Monthly Utility Bill -- May 31, 2023

Locator: 44807ELEC.  

Our only utility bill, this is it. Only electricity; no natural gas. The company says  it's 100% wind whhich I highly doubt.  We made no attempt to conserve electricity last month.

Monthly utility bill:

No New Permits; MRO Reports Four Completed DUCs -- May 31, 2023

Locator: 44806B.  

Synthetic natural gas plant:

• another Biden-win / Inflation Reduction Act, link here;
• TotalEnergies: one of Europe's biggest oil and gas firms
• a blow to the European Union's ambitions to lead in green energy technologies;
• of course, the MAGA Republicans will give Biden no credit for the IRA
• the synthetic natural gas would be made from "renewable" hydrogen and CO2; it gets tedious;
  
• preliminary only; $2 billion project;
• 100,000 to 200,000 metric tons of e-NG / year
• also reported in The [London] Telegraph;
• if the site for the project was announced, I missed it

Weekly EIA petroleum data will be reported tomorrow: one day "late," due to Memorial Day observance on Monday.

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

Active rigs: 35.

WTI: $68.09.

Natural gas: $2.266.

No new permits.

Four producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 38793, 1,213, MRO, Rowe 14-21H, Dunn County,
• 38794, 2,803, MRO, Erling 24-21TFH, Dunn County,
• 38795, 4,976, MRO, Ravin 24-21H, Dunn County,
• 38796, 3,416, MRO, Valborg 34-21TFH, Dunn County,

INTC -- Feature Story In WSJ Today -- May 31, 2023

Locator: 44804INV.

Link here.

Unfortunately behind a paywall. My hunch: this article will show up later this week as a reprint elsewhere ... with no paywall. Hopefully. 

Huge CAPEX at a time the Fed is raising rates. 

This is the fifth or sixth paragraph but is probably the essence of the article:

Gelsinger’s plan is to invest as much as hundreds of billions of dollars into new factories that would make semiconductors for other companies alongside Intel’s own chips. Two years in, that contract-manufacturing operation, called a “foundry” business, is bogged down with problems.

"Hundreds of billions of dollars." 

Does "hundreds of billions" trend toward a trillion? 

The following have huge moats: TSM, NVDA, AVGO, QCOM, AAPL, AMD, ASML. Good luck.

101 Days Of Summer -- Day 5 -- May 31, 2023

Locator: 44803B.

Day 1: Saturday, May 27, 2023

Today, day 5:

• biking weather, scale 1 - 10: an 11
• a swimming day later this afternoon

Headline of the day: think what Ford is really, really, really saying -- I'll help you out later with what I see in that headline, if I don't forget. 

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

Active rigs: 36.

WTI: $68.61.

Natural gas: $2.360.

Peter Zeihan newsletter. E-mail campaign archive.

Thursday, June 1, 2023: 3 for the month; 113 for the quarter, 368 for the year
39242, conf, CLR, Meadowlark FIU 5-6H1,
39166, conf, WPX, Pennington 16-15HA,
36294, conf, WPX, Skunk Creek 3-24-25-14HB,

Wednesday, May 31, 2023: 58 for the month; 110 for the quarter, 365 for the year
 None (there was no November 31, 2022)

RBN Energy: as crude oil exports grown, the mercaptans issue can't be ignored.

Crude oil quality has been a hot topic lately. With the increase in waterborne activity along the Gulf Coast, a high-quality barrel is desired now more than ever. Permian WTI exports have continued to increase as production rises and refining capacity remains relatively stagnant (outside of ExxonMobil’s recent Beaumont expansion). This has resulted in more scrutiny on Permian quality and more concerns rising to the surface — both from the pockets of lower-quality WTI produced at the wellhead and from blending by market participants, as many midstream providers and traders have become efficient at capturing arbitrage opportunities. Recent WTI quality concerns have primarily been around metal content, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and mercaptans, while nitrogen has become a major issue in the natural gas market. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the issue of mercaptans in WTI.

Let’s start with the basics. Mercaptans are naturally occurring contaminants in crude oil and natural gas — also called thiols, mercaptans are organic compounds bonded to sulfur. Their presence can range from a few parts per million (ppm) to several thousand ppm. While mercaptans are undesirable in crude oil (for reasons we’ll get to in a moment), they do have some commercial applications. Some non-corrosive mercaptans are injected into natural gas to provide a distinctive “rotten-egg” odor to help detect leaks, and another type of mercaptan is used to produce methionine, which serves as an intermediate in the production of pesticides, fungicides and animal feed additives.

Happy 93rd Birthday — Clint Eastwood — May 31, 2023

Locator: 44802BDAY.

Born in 1930.