Less Blogging About EVs -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45394B.

Early on with the blog, I posted a lot of "stuff" with regard to wind and solar energy, but then about two years ago, I started blogging less with regard to renewable energy. The main purpose of the blog is to educate ME on various issues that may or may not be related all that much to the Bakken.

Once I sort of have something sorted out [right, wrong, or indifferent], I lose interest and will decrease the amount of blogging on that issue.

I was reminded of that by two notes I got today, from two different readers, one on Knife River, the spin-off from MDU, and Rivian's earnings after the close today.

I didn't blog about either. I've lost interest in both MDU and EVs in general. I have them figured out as far as I am concerned, not much more to learn, and neither interest me as far as investing goes. [That doesn't mean I'm not investing in them in some way or another, they just don't interest me as investing stories go, if that makes sense.]

I haven't blogged about MDU in months (years?) and as of today I'm going to stop blogging much about EVs. One exception, of course: Daimler.

I was going to start a series on EVs -- an unmitigated disaster -- but I won't do that either. I've lost all interest. I've got the "EV-thing" figured out -- and it no longer interests me, either as a subject or an investment.

I've moved on, as they say.

Oh, I'll still blog occasionally about all these things, but a whole lot less.

[By the way, same with pipelines: I'll post important updates, but I've lost interest in pipelines, also -- oil and natural gas pipelines. Having said that, my hunch is Enbridge is going to be incredibly interesting going forward.]

COP -- August 8, 2023 -- IN PROGRESS

Locator: 45393CANADA.
Locator: 45393COP.

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.

I have a large position in COP which I've held for decades. I have added nothing to this position in at least the last ten years. I have no plans to add to this position and no plans to sell. It's a "hold" and will go to the grandchildren.

This may be the biggest energy story so far this year. We'll talk about it more later this evening.

From the blog, May 26, 2023: prescient.

COP: Part 1

• 1.22 billion outstanding shares
• $11 billion
• $11 billion / 1.22 billion shares = $9 / share.

COP: Part 2

COP: Part 3

• $9 / $115 = 7.8%.

COP: Part 4

Link here. From Zacks:

ConocoPhillips COP exercised its rights to acquire the remaining interest in the Surmont oil facility for $3 billion, thereby gaining complete ownership of the Alberta operation.

The acquisition involves a $3-billion price tag and $325 million in contingent payments. The transaction, expected to complete in the second half of 2023, will be funded with cash, and short and medium-term financing or a combination of both.

Surmont, located in northeastern Alberta, is the fourth-largest oil-sand well site in Canada. The facility produced about 135,000 barrels of oil per day in April. Oil is produced at Surmont by injecting steam into underground wells to push the region’s heavy bitumen to the surface.

Canada’s Alberta oil sands hold some of the world’s largest crude reserves, which are appealing to oil and gas producers looking to boost production. The acquisition enables ConocoPhillips to operate the assets at a rate of its choosing instead of coordinating with partners.

Gaining control of Surmont’s low-cost production will help ConocoPhillips reach its goal of returning $11 billion in cash to shareholders this year. The acquisition will add about $600 million of free cash flow per year in 2024. It will provide diversity to ConocoPhillips’ portfolio, which is mainly focused on U.S. shale right now.

COP: Part 5

Athabasca: RBN Energy, part 1 and part 2.

Links, part 1 and part 2.

Part 1 of the RBN Energy series:

The US Energy Information Administration ranks Alberta’s bitumen oil sands reserves second or third to those of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. However, evidence from the field and new research indicate that Western Canada’s oil reserves are possibly far larger and could rival or exceed those of the Saudis or the Venezuelans. Today contributor Mike Priaro begins a two part series describing Western Canada’s vast bitumen resources.

The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) extends from the Williston Basin, which straddles the Canada-US border, north to the Mackenzie Basins, west to the Rocky Mountains and east to the edge of the Pre-Cambrian Shield, (see Figure 1).Significant production of conventional oil, defined as crude light enough to flow in a pipeline (gravity lighter than 20° API), started in the WCSB with the discovery of the Turner Valley oilfield in the 1930s, expanded greatly with discovery of the Leduc reef trend by Imperial Oil in 1947, and peaked at 1.4 MMbd in 1973.

Part 2 of the RBN Energy series:

Western Canada’s vast bitumen sands are estimated to contain reserves of 575 billion Bbl of recoverable crude oil. The largely untapped bitumen carbonate formations lying beneath the oil sands could contain another 243 billion Bbl of recoverable reserves. When added to untapped tight oil shale reserves these huge hydrocarbon deposits potentially could make the Province of Alberta the world’s largest crude oil resource.

Today contributor Mike Priaro concludes his description of Alberta’s crude oil reserves.

In Episode 1 of this series we learned about the history and nature of Alberta’s vast bitumen sand deposits in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) as well as three extraction techniques used to produce bitumen crude – surface strip mining and in-situ thermal recovery using cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) or steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). In this episode we update efforts to exploit Alberta’s bitumen carbonates that are situated underneath the bitumen sands formations. We then discuss recovery factors achieved by the various bitumen extraction techniques, and describe how Alberta’s crude oil reserves compare with those of OPEC giants Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

COP: Part 6 

• Cash on hand: less than $9 billion.
  

• COP will pay for purchase with cash on hand and bonds. More on this later.
  

• Companies are rushing to finalize bond deals before the next CPI is released. Bloomberg.
  

May 26, 2023, Reuters:

May 26 (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips said on Friday it was buying the 50% stake in the Surmont oil facility held by TotalEnergies' Canadian subsidiary for about $3 billion, giving it full ownership and elbowing away rival Suncor Energy.

Canada's Alberta oil sands hold some of the world's largest crude reserves, which appeal to cash-flush producers looking to bolster production.

Sunco (sic) last month agreed to buy TotalEnergies’ Canadian operations for C$5.5 billion ($4.11 billion), including Total's 50% stake in Surmont, which ConocoPhillips operates.

But ConocoPhillips, which held the other 50% stake, held right of first refusal to buy the rest of Surmont. Conoco's decision to exercise that right is a setback to Suncor's plans to boost its long-term bitumen supplies to replace its aging Base Mine.

Suncor, in a statement, said its deal with Total was conditional on ConocoPhillips waiving its right of first refusal, and it is now re-assessing the transaction.

COP: Part 7 

Wiki.

The geo-politics of oil -- particularly what's going on in the Mideast -- Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia -- and what's going between OPEC and OPEC+ (Russia) -- and what's going on due to the Ukraine war -- and what's going on with the two big consumers, China and India, -- and to a lesser extent, what's going on in US shale -- has, all of a sudden made the Canadian oil sands very, very interesting.

Let me put that in bullets:

• Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia;
• OPEC vs OPEC+ (Russia);
• XOM mulling pulling out of Vaca Muerta (Argentina)
  
• Ukraine: flow, sanctions, ports, etc
  
• India and China
• US shale
• the (relative shortage) of the "right kind of oil" (heavy, a little bit of sulfur)

All of a sudden, the Canadian oil sands are becoming much more interesting, and COP pounced.

Of course, this goes all the way back to the Keystone XL pipeline but that train has left the station -- actually, more precisely it never left the station. The Trans Mountain Pipeline did leave the station -- to continue the metaphor -- but has become a veritable train wreck. As has the Canadian prime minister's marriage.

The wiki entry is linked above (and here again, in case you missed it).

COP: Part 8.

• COP's Surmont project. Link here. 
• Alberta oil sands: I never took an interest in this subject ... until now. This is one of the few blogs in which I mentioned Canadian oil sands / Alberta / Athabasca -- and that was back in 2012. Wow.
  

COP: Part 9.

• SAGD. Wiki.
• COP: SAGD technology. 
• Dr Karl Clark: the father of oil sands extraction.
  

COP: Part 10.

Knife River Reported Earnings After Hours -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45392INV.

Knife River (spin-off from MDU), earnings released after hours:

• ticker: trading at $51.50; up $3.95; up 8.31%.

US Charging Stations -- Mid-2023 -- For The Archves

Locator: 45391EVS.

For the archives. Hopefully the study is re-accomplished annually. By 2035, Washington, Oregon, and California will require that all newly registered cars be EVs.

US charging stations, update, Charles Kennedy.

An executive summary of the study is posted here. Includes an interactive map. The darker, the more difficulty finding an available charging unit. The complete, original study is here.

The study and the charts raise many, many questions.

North Dakota leads the nation in this metric (in this map) = "best state with access to a charging unit."

For example, just to get started, North Dakota has 2.2 EV per charging station. In other words, if North Dakota has two EVs total, it has one charging unit for the entire state, and that state (North Dakota) is light blue suggesting more than enough charging units for the number of EVs in the state. 

It's possible the study answers this question but I doubt it:

• in a given daylight hour when the majority of folks are traveling, how many vehicles can each state charge / re-fuel per hour. 

The average time it takes to re-fuel an ICE: ten minutes, or thereabouts. No waiting.

The average time it takes to re-charge an EV: one-half hour, minimum. Waiting time significant depending on location, number of charging ports at charging station.

Another metric: the area (square fee, square miles, or acres) in each stated devoted to:

• EV charging stations;
• gasoline service stations.

According to the study:

• North Dakota has 0.13 EV stations / 100 square miles.
• North Dakota: 70,000 square miles
• x / 70,000 = 0.13 / 100
• [0.13 *70,000]/100 = 90 EV stations in the state?

How many ports, not just stations; how many gasoline pumps, not just number of stations.

Whatever.

For the archives. I don't think the study tells me much.

Knife River Reported Earnings After Hours; WTI Flirting With $83 Again; Thirteen New Permits; Four Permits Renewed; Three DUCs Reported As Completed -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45390B.

EPD, CVX: recommended, Motley Fool. 

Knife River (spin-off from MDU), earnings released after hours:

• ticker: trading at $51.50; up $3.95; up 8.31%.

******************************

Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 36

WTI: $82.92.

Thirteen new permits, #40102 -  #40114, inclusive:

• Operators: Enerplus (7); CLR (6); 
• Fields: Lone Butte (Dunn County); Little Knife (Dunn); Rattlesnake Point (Dunn County)
• Comments:
• Enerplus has permits for seven (7) Devils Canyon wells SWSE 8-147-97; 
• to be sited between 953 FSL and 1059 FSL and between 1526 FEL and 1634 FEL; 
• CLR has permits for six Lundberg Federal wells , NENW 8-146-96, 
• to be sited 383 FNL and between 1789 FWL and 1949 FWL

Four permits were renewed:

• Grayson Mill (2): two Martin permits in Williams County, Rosebud oil field;
• Liberty Resources: one Blomquist E permit, Burke County, North Tioga oil field;
• Enerplus: one Christine Joe permit, Williams County, Climax oil field.

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 39162, 2,179, CLR, Micahlucas 11-5H, 
• 39164, 1,620, CLR, Micahlucas 13-5HSL, 
• 39287, 1,117, CLR, Smouse 9-28H, 

Is Anyone Paying Attention? GDPNow -- Latest 3Q23 Estimate -- Released August 8, 2023: 4.1.

Locator: 45389ECON.

Latest 3Q23 estimate: 4.1.

GDPNow, link here: 

CVX - PDC Closes Today -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45388CVX.

CVX: deal to acquire PDC closes today. WTI touches 10-month high. Link here.

From PDC Energy website the day the deal closed. Link will probably disappear.

• GEOGRAPHICAL DIVERSITY 
• We currently operate in two geographically distinct areas of the country, with primary interests in the Wattenberg Field and Delaware Basin. 
• Denver – Julesburg Basin Core Wattenberg Field – Weld County, Colorado 
• Permian Basin Delaware Basin – Reeves County, West Texas 
• EMPHASIS ON OIL AND NGL 
• Our focus is on horizontal Niobrara and Codell development in the liquid-rich Wattenberg Field, where liquid content in new horizontal wells is expected to average 50% – 75% of the production stream. 
• In the Delaware Basin, the Company is primarily targeting Wolfcamp A and B development where we expect the Eastern acreage block to be 70-80% liquids and the Central block 60-70% liquids.
• DRILLING AND DEVELOPMENT 
• Annual production for 2021 averaged 195,000 Boe per day and proved reserves at year-end 2021 totaled 814 MMboe.

Inherited IRAs -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45387TAXES.

This is about as clear as one can get.

Non-spouse inheritors (typical: baby boomer inherits an IRA from a parent of the greatest generation):

• key date unchanged: December 31, 2019.
• inherited before key date: RMDs required; 10-year rule DOES NOTE apply; can stretch
• inherited after key date: RMDs still waived; 10-year rule DOES apply; cannot stretch

Exceptions apply.

From this week's issue of Barron's.

Apple To Invest In Arm -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45386AAPL.

Breaking now, over at MacRumors: 

Other Apple news this morning:

AI, Foxconn, link here:

The new M3 chip, link here:

Apple watch, fast charging, link here: 

************************
The Book Club

Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life, Joan D. Hedrick, c. 1994.  

Notes.

9th Circuit Court -- Reacts To SCOTUS -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45385LAWANDORDER.

Tag: gun, gun rights, 2nd amendment, butterflies, butterfly knives, knives.

From The LA Times today. No comment:

From "NPR" in Kalispell, MT, link here:

From the link:

Unsheltered people in Kalispell are banding together to stay safe after one man was beaten to death in late June, 2023. 

The killing of 60-year-old Scott Bryan wasn't the end to violence against the homeless in the region. Jessi Green, a 45-year old veteran with a peppered gray beard, walked down a local bike path as the sun set on a band playing at a park in downtown Kalispell. Green fell on hard times when he hurt his back, making it hard for him to work. He’s lived on the streets of Kalispell off and on for decades. Lately, he walks the local trails when it starts to get dark to check on unsheltered people he knows as they head to camp. 

“It was right when Scott died. I didn’t feel the need to do that before,” Green said. 

According to police, Scott Byan, who lived unsheltered in Kalispell, was beaten to death this summer in a gas station parking lot. Police say 19-year-old Kaleb Fleck beat Bryan and then bragged about it on a video posted to social media. Fleck has pleaded not guilty to the charge of deliberate homicide.

And then this for the ---- crowd:

Bryan’s murder was infuriating for Green and other unsheltered people, especially after Fleck was bailed out of jail by a former state lawmaker with white supremacy ties.

Disclaimer -- Briefly -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45384DISCLAIMER.

I can never point this out too often:

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.

The Market Rally -- Hedge Funds / Big Banks -- Short Squeeze? It Certainly Looks That Way -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45383INV.

A very, very interesting story over at The WSJ, link here:

The whole article is a must-read but look at this from the article:

TMDW blog was the first ad-free blog to link the Carl Icahn story yesterday, and now TWSJ  catches the story, which I think may be the biggest investment story of 2023 (so far).

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.

From yesterday: 

Tired Of AI Yet? It Never Quits -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45382TECH.

Before we get to tech, this "breaking" story over at The WSJ, link here:

Nvidia: just when you thought Nvidia would go into free-fall -- this from MarketInsider, from BofA, no less, and if you can't trust BofA, whom can you can trust?

Palantir: the gold standard -- at least according to Barron's -- 

Buffett: so, if Palantir is the one to beat, is the gold standard, does Warren Bufffett own any? Apparently not.

• ten stocks Buffett just bought and sold; US News, May 16, 2023;

• update, BRK, USA Today, August 3, 2023. "Are you diversified?" 
• Among the 47 companies that Berkshire Hathaway holds, eight stocks represent roughly 80% of the company’s holdings. Here’s a rundown of Warren Buffett’s eight largest holdings as of the end of the first quarter of 2023.

A reader got to this before I did. I was going to comment on Buffett and tech. But the reader just asked if I had any idea why Buffett reversed course on TSM so quickly. My not-ready-for-prime-time reply:

No idea. It was very strange. 

At the time tensions between China and Taiwan were all over the news and that’s what I talked about on the blog. But it was obvious that China wasn’t going to invade any time soon. 

TSM and AAPL are joined at the hips —. TSM is practically a division of AAPL. Buffett has a close personal relationship with Tim Cook. My hunch: Tim Cook said something to Buffett about chips. Just a few months later, Tim Cook at the June WWDC announced huge advances at Apple Silicon …. but Apple Silicon only designs whereas TSM does the actual manufacturing … so I have no idea. 

Buffett seems very adverse to tech. I was going to write about that today. 

Buffett missed on all three: he bought SNOW which hasn’t done a thing and completely missed Nvidia (209% gain) and missed the gold standard, Palantir (Barron’s today). 

He likes big cap, dividend-paying stocks in companies selling cheaply, and tech fails on two out of three — seldom any dividends and extremely high P/Es. And except for Japanese banks and a couple of conglomerates, he likes American. 

And, who knows, he may be right yet.

Russia -- Foreign Exchange Reserves -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45381RUSSIA.

Russia’s foreign exchange reserves: an increase, latest data, July, 2023. Link here.

China, India Oil Imports -- This Month's Data -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45380OIL.

For now, just the links.

India.

China, by Charles Kennedy.

One Well Coming Off Confidential List Today -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45379B.

Reuters today: there seemed to be more interesting news than usual in Reuters daily morning newsletter but these two are particularly noteworthy:

• burping cows: compared to China adding two new coal plants every week for the foreseeable future, burping cows seem to be the least of our problems (if one is worried about manmade CO2; I'm not) but .... we now have cows that burp less -- from Reuters:
• when Canadian dairy farmer Ben Loewith's calves are born next spring, they will be among the first in the world to be bred with a specific environmental goal: burping less methane. 
• Loewith, a third-generation farmer in Lynden, Ontario, in June started artificially inseminating 107 cows and heifers with the first-to-market bull semen with a low-methane genetic trait.
• AI: "everyone" ("everyone" does not include me) says AI is hyped, is a bubble. Today, again from Reuters, so you know it has to be true: 
• Disney has created a task force to study artificial intelligence and how it can be applied across the entertainment conglomerate, even as Hollywood writers and actors battle to limit the industry's exploitation of the technology.
• I assume Bob Iger did this to get folks' attention off his real problems of the day.

***************************************

Back to the Bakken

WTI: $80.60. Down 1.6%; down $1.29.

Wednesday, August 9, 2023: 15 for the month; 217 for the quarter, 472 for the year

39456, conf, CLR, Edward 6-23H1,

Tuesday, August 8, 2023: 14 for the month; 216 for the quarter, 471 for the year

38946, conf, Hess, BW-Rolfson-151-98-2116H-13,

RBN Energy: Trans Mountain expansion faces more logistical challenges, part 2. Archived.

The 590-Mb/d Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) project, which is inching closer to its planned early 2024 completion, has been one of the most eagerly anticipated energy infrastructure projects in recent Canadian memory. Preliminary tolls for shipping crude on the expanded pipeline system, submitted to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) in June, are multiples higher than the tolls currently charged on the original 300-Mb/d Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMP), possibly undermining oil producers’ economics for shipping and exporting crude on the combined 890-Mb/d system. However, the higher tolls are not the only concern. Serious logistical challenges remain in the form of restricted tanker sizes, a circuitous route for ships traveling from the open ocean to the Westridge export terminal near Burnaby, BC, and even a very tight passage under two bridges, all of which will add costs and time for each exported barrel. In today’s RBN blog, we provide more details on the complexities surrounding crude oil exports via the Trans Mountain pipeline system.

Not On My Bingo Card Today — Shock: BUD Selling -- August 8, 2023

Locator: 45378BEER.

Not on my bingo card today:

• Russia’s foreign exchange reserves: an increase, latest data, July, 2023. Link here.
• BUD selling eight beer and beverage brands, including Shock Top and Blue Point, to a marijuana company.
• Shock Top
• Blue Point
• Bacardi’s Russian sales are booming. Link here. Great story. Coals to Newcastle.

However, GDPNow is on today’s bingo cards (#56 under G) and an update will be posted later today. Prediction: 3.5.

Speaking of bingo.

I still like to think TMDW blog is the best ad-free, password-free, Bakken-focused blog on the internet. It also uses no AI to generate content. Of course, one can argue whether the blog uses any intelligence to generate any content.