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Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Good On Ya; And, Good Luck -- June 28, 2023

I can't think of many things in the business world more exciting / more rewarding than reporting four new permits for oil wells in the Bakken for a family-owned business. 

Good on ya, Slawson.

And good luck. May the oil god(s) be looking out for you.

I hope they're all out barbecuing and celebrating tonight.

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A Blessing

Due to a last minute schedule change, Sophia's entire immediate family is tied up with "outside" events -- paddle-boarding; concerts; flying lessons with the USAF -- and I'm asked if I can "take care" of Sophia for the evening.

Wow, I can't think of anything I would rather do than spend one-on-one time with Sophia. After this note, and when she's done with her croissants, we're out to the pool and then dinner at our favorite "watering hole," The Thirsty Lion. She will get a Shirley Temple. If she prefers sushi, we will go across the street. I'm not sure what drink she will get but I'm getting a Lotus Blossom Martini, though they call it something else. 

But if she prefers, we will come home and watch movies. 

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A Musical Interlude

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End-Of-Day Report -- June 28, 2023

Market:

  • AAPL: up another $1.19; closed at $189.25; another all-time (?) high. 
    • holds gains after hours;
  • WTI: up 2.2%; up $1.46; still below $70, closing at $69.16.

Gasoline demand, link here:

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 36.

Four new permits,  #40006 - #40009, inclusive:

  • Operator: Slawson
  • Field: Tobacco Garden (McKenzie)
  • Comments:
    • Slawson has permits for four Thor wells, lot 3 section 6-150-99; 
      • to be sited 2282 FWL and between 452 FNL and 602 FNL

Four permits renewed:

  • Ovintiv: two Sorenson Federal and two Clear Creek Federal, Sand Creek / Westberg, McKenzie.

Two producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

  • 39033, no IP test, CLR, Rhonda 12-28HSL1,
  • 39034, no IP test, CLR, Rhonda 11-28H,

Bud -- An Update; Bloom's Major Novelists -- June 28, 2023

Bud, an update, link here:

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Our Craft Beer

Right here in our town, just up the street from us: Hop and Sting Brewing Company, Northeast Texas India Pale Ale.

  •  This is Bud's problem:

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The Book Page

For The Grandchildren
The Archives

I'm in my Russian 19th century literature phase.

Notes on Tolstoy here.

Leo Tolstoy, Harold Bloom Study Guide, c. 2002.

A fugue state: page 19, a narrative summary of War and Peace:

"Another Tolstoy moment opens Book Four. Nikolay, with Denisov, home on leave, halts before the threshold, remembering the beloved crooked steps."

I have no more than that one sentence on which to draw on, so I may be way off base. But the line, the "vision" as it were, immediately made me think of a fugue state in which "out of nowhere," an individual senses / experiences an out-of-body sensation / experience, transporting himself to another time. 

I have experienced such sensations on numerous occasions. The "out-of-body" experience I have is always peaceful and joyful. It lasts not very long. Later, much later, I will recall the experience and wish that it could have / would have lasted but knowing, ironically, for such an experience to last longer would destroy the magic. 

[Thinking of Einstein, time, and relativity -- perhaps I am wrong .... perhaps those "states" last a very long time, but moving at the speed of light to some other place or time and returning, it's as if no time has passed. Petit mal seizures always come to mind in these discussions.]

Geography: nothing like a war to learn geography. LOL In the book, a key character (and family) live in Bald Hills, Russia.

1812. Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski's estate, lay forty miles east from Smolénsk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.

Smolénsk in on the road, about midway, from Minsk, Belarus, and Moscow. 

Fast forward: General Prigozhin, of course, is "exiled" in Minsk.

There Seems To Difficulty Reconciling A Recession With Home Sales Data -- June 28, 2023

Link here.

We're already in a "mild recession" -- Charlie Munger.

Today's story:

By the way, home prices? What are they doing? 

Glad you asked: since 2012! How many presidents have there been since 2012.

Well, with this data, maybe we are in a recession. But then there's that 1960s fixer-upper in / on Lake Tahoe (with not enough water to float a boat) going for $35 million.

Vision Pro

Vision Pro will be tracked here.

Updates

June 28, 2023: Sony and Qualcomm sign multi-year smartphone agreement.

June 28, 2023: SONY and Apple partner on Vision Pro.

  • Apple had targeted 500,000 units/year
  • Sony can only supply lenses for 300,000 units/year
  • Sony also supplies cameras for Vision Pro.

Original Post

Link here.

Google has scrapped its latest augmented reality (AR) headset that was meant to rival headsets from Apple and Meta, according to reports.

The search giant’s ‘Project Iris’ was abandoned earlier this year, Insider reported, making it the second major set of smart glasses to be ditched following Google Glass.

The latest AR glasses were first teased last year at Google I/O, with a video showing wearers using the device to translate conversations in real-time.

“What we’re working on is technology that enables us to break down language barriers,” Max Spear, a product manager at Google, said in the video.

“Making access to information just instant and intuitive, and by doing that technology fades into the background.”

Since the glasses were teased, Apple has unveiled its Vision Pro headset and Meta has shown off its latest Quest 3 goggles, which will be available later this year.

Google’s aborted project comes eight years after the firm discontinued its Glass smart glasses for consumers, and just months after it stopped producing the enterprise version.

It follows the departure of Clay Bavor, Google’s chief of augmented and virtual reality, with the company’s focus now switching to AR software rather than hardware.

Fourth Industrial Revolution -- June 28, 2023

Locator: 4INDREV.

 Tech:

Link here.


Themes Posted in 2023 for 2024.
With updates.
 
Vision Pro.

AI / AV / AR:

  • OpenAI --> ChatGPT

EVs

  • transition continues  
  • "holy grail" -- a universal supercharger: Ford and GM both partner with Tesla for superchargers (June, 2023)

Fourth Industrial Revolution

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Updates

September 13, 2023: Apple iPhone 15.

Holy Mackerel -- Texas To Hit All-Time Record -- 100K And Grid Looks Strong -- June 28, 2023

Locator: 44827TX. 

Link here.

I wonder if all those folks complaining about Governor Abbott and management of ERCOT are sending him notes of thanks today. The big irritation for me: is why we even have to have these worries when natural gas is abundant, and incredibly cheap right now?



Weekly EIA Petroleum Report -- June 28, 2023

Locator: 44826WTI.

Link here.

  • crude oil
    • a whopping decrease of 9.6 million bbls
    • inventory: 453.7 million bbls
    • 1% below average
    • imports: yawn
    • refiners: 92.2%
  • distillate fuel inventories
    • up marginally
    • 14% below five-year average
  • airlines: up a whopping 9.6%
  • And how did WTI respond?
    • up $1.51 but it took awhile for the market to move:
    • JPow's remarks unhelpful
    • $69.13

It's hard to believe that we're in a mild recession (quoting Charlie Munger) when there's a draw of 10 million bbls of oil (and an SPR release of another million bbls) and the airlines jet fuel increased by 9.6% y/y, but whatever.

By the way, JPow still blames the current rate of inflation, currently running about 5%, on too many people working. Seriously. The story will be posted later. But let that sink in. Too many Americans working. That's the complaint.

Catch Me If You Can — Samsung To Produce 2NM Chip — AAPL At 3 — INTC At 10 — June 28, 2023

Locator: 44825CHIPS.

Link here.

So many data points in that article.

  • Samsung’s foundry lags Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer, by some distance. In the first quarter of the year, TSMC accounted for 59% of global semiconductor foundry revenue, versus 13% for Samsung
  • Samsung is now looking to play catch up by upping its capacity and laying a roadmap out for high-growth areas in the chip market. 
  • the company reiterated that its 1.4nm process will begin in 2027 as planned. 
  • for reference, Apple’s latest iPhone processor is made using a 5nm process. 
  • Samsung anticipates that smartphones will require more advanced chips moving forward and is preparing for that in 2025. 
  • earier this year, Samsung said it would begin making chips with a 2 nanometer process in 2025. The company has now given a more detailed roadmap, saying it will begin mass production of the 2nm process for mobile applications in 2025, then expand to high-performance computing in 2026 and to automotive in 2027. 
  • Samsung also said it is continuing to expand its chip manufacturing capacity, with new manufacturing lines in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, and Taylor, Texas, which Samsung has previously announced.
Background:
  • Perhaps best known for its smartphones, the South Korean technology firm has a huge semiconductor business that is its main profit driver. 
  • Samsung makes memory chips that go into data centers and laptops. But Samsung also has a chip manufacturing business known as a foundry, which produces semiconductors for other companies that design chips, such as Qualcomm.

Focused On Dividends — GIS —General Mills To Increase Dividend By 9 Percent — June 28, 2023

Locator: 44824DIV.  

Apparently stagflation, stay-flation, inflation, the recession, or whatever one wants to call it, didn’t hurt the cereal company. Oh, wait.

Quarterly dividend to be increased from 54 cents to 59 cents.

If your sole income was from GIS dividends, you just got an annualized 9% raise, regardless of what the current GIS dividend return is, if that makes sense.

Coincidentally, the same thing seems to have hit sales of potato chips based on recent sales prices at Target. The retailer cut prices for brand name potato chips by 50% going into July 4th weekend. I haven’t bought chips in months; yesterday I stocked up but their shelf life, unfortunately, is short. Oil doesn’t age well.

Cruise Ship Viruses -- June 28, 2023

Locator: 44823MED.    

From The WSJ. Apparently, now with the "disappearance" of Covid-19 on cruise ships (?), the incidence of GI viral infections is simply returning to the norm. And all this time, folks just thought they were "sea-sick." They were.

Our Town -- Cowtown -- Now, Boomtown -- Ft Worth, Texas -- June 28, 2023

Locator: 44822TX.   

From The WSJ no less

And, Ft Worth did it without the "San Antonio shenanigans" that city used to grow its tax base. LOL.


No Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today; WTI Up Slightly But Still Well Below $70 -- June 28, 2023

Locator: 44821B.   

US crude oil production record: not quite yet but almost guaranteed


Recession: this is pretty funny -- posted several months ago on the blog (actually, more than once), the next US recession pushed out to ... 2026 -- three years from now ...

Low unemployment: apparently one can have high employment even with a recession. I read that somewhere

Economic data: to be released tomorrow, Thursday --

  • first quarter GDP, third estimate (+1.4% annualized rate expected, +1.3% previously
  • first quarter personal consumption, third estimate (3.8% expected, 3.8% prior); 
  • initial jobless claims, week ended June 24 (265,000 expected, 264,000 previously); 
  • continuing jobless claims, week ended June 17 (1.78 million expected, 1.76 million previously); 
  • pending home sales month-over-month, May (-0.5% expected, 0.0% previously)

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $68.02.

Thursday, June 29, 2023: 38 for the month; 146 for the quarter, 401 for the year
None.

Wednesday, June 28, 2023: 38 for the month; 146 for the quarter, 401 for the year
None.

RBN Energy: midstream giants prepare for more NGLs bound for export docks, part 2

Natural gas and NGL production growth in the Marcellus/Utica slowed and then leveled off in the early 2020s, largely due to gas-pipeline takeaway constraints. Still, the Northeast remains a key supplier of natural gas and NGL “purity products,” and Energy Transfer’s NGL pipelines and Philadelphia-area marine terminal continue to play critical roles in balancing the region’s ethane and LPG markets.
In today’s RBN blog, we continue our series on the U.S.’s robust-and-growing networks of NGL pipelines, fractionators and export terminals, this time with a look at Energy Transfer’s Mariner West and Mariner East pipeline systems and the company’s Marcus Hook terminal.

Cleariing Out The Material Accumulated In The In-Box Overnight -- Junee 28, 2023

Locator: 44820MISC.  

Volvo: adopts Tesla's supercharging plug. Links everywhere.

Bud: apparently the marketing chiefs at the center of the controversy are no longer with the company. 

Wes Anderson movie: all of a sudden, overnight, the reviews rave about Asteroid City.

Wes Anderson movie: somewhat misleading headline but accurate --

  • Scarlett Johansson's new movie Asteroid City sets box office record; full frontal seems not to be  mentioned anywhere (?); up there with Fatal Attraction?

Wes Anderson movie: story primarily followed here.

Tech:

Duolingo: WSJ update.