For Those Curious As To What May Happen Next In The Oil Acquisition Story -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45820M&A. 

First of all, this guy is good. I pay attention to what he says.

For those wondering what might happen next:

For me, this is worth the one dollar that Elon Musk is looking to charge me for "using" X.

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Used Car Index

If you don't think for yourself, or if you don't know how to read graphs, or if you are not interested enough to do more than look at the headline ... then, that's what you will see.

I see something completely different. But I had to look up the index, and study the graphic.

Link here. Manheim link here.

So many story lines here.

Screenshots -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45819B. 

Free speech is fine.

Bull market remains intact:

Schwab will do just fine:

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The Fine Arts Page

"Picasso's Transformation," Jed Perl, The New York Review, November 2, 2023, pp. 50+.

50th anniversary of Picasso's death in 1973.

The shift: from Picasso to Warhol.

"The shift -- Picasso out and Warhol in -- began a generation ago in the 1980s at no less an institution than the Museum of Modern Art, where Picasso had by many estimates been the doninant figure since the late 1930s.

In 1980, seven years after his death, MOMA said good-bye with a retrospective that filled the entire museum.

Then, in 1989, two years after Warhol's death, MOMA embraced the new dispensation with a retrospective that filled two floors and was, The New York Times reported, 'the most ambitious solo how at the Modern since the Picasso retrospective in 1980. The scale is not so much a canonization as a recognition that the canonization has alreedy taken place.'"

And, thus, for those of us in flyover country who missed it, Picasso is out, Warhol is in.

[For those keeping score and playing at home: before Picasso, the standard bearer was Cézanne.]

The article is long and I've only just begun ... but the writer deals with the "issue" of transformation. At the core of all artistic activity there is an act of transformation. In a case brought before SCOTUS this year, "Warhol vs Goldsmith" the majority decided against Warhhol and for the plaintiff. The majority in a 7-2 decision felt that Warhol's "touch-up" of Goldsmith's photograph was not transformative. 

One can read about the case here.

After a bit of reflection, I would have agreed with Kagan and the Chief Justice but I do understand the majority's concern that "a minor touch-up" of a photograph that might have taken but a moment or two was not worth the $10,000 Warhol received for his work.

Jed Perl would have sided with the plaintiff, Goldsmith.

Laser-Focused On Dividends -- AEP Raises Its Dividend -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45818INV.

From the company's website:

The EV Has Lost Its Luster -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45817EVS. 

 More and more it appears the appeal for EVs has plateaued -- here's another article in today's WSJ:

I haven't checked recent polls but when I last checked, the vast majority of folks who had bought their first EV, had no plans to ever buy a second EV, and when it came time to replace an EV, the majority were going to go back to ICE vehicles.

Now, those advocating EVs blame the "hesitation" on "infrastructure." Nice excuse. 

This is the real problem: EVs are luxury vehicles, trending toward $100,000. Most Americans can't afford luxury vehicles.

The most successful vehicle for the masses might be the Chevy Bolt -- there's another story out there today that GM has decided to "bring back" the Bolt. 

GM has planned to end production of the Bolt but apparently that's the only EV that Americans can/could afford. And the problem with a Bolt? It's not a family car. Room for the driver and one passenger. Perhaps an extra passenger or two as long as there was no additional sports gear -- in other words, bluntly, Bolts aren't for soccer moms.

Four New Permits; Three Permits Canceled; One DUC Reported As Completed — October 24, 2023

Locator: 45816B.

Cruising for a bruising: California suspends permits for GM’s driverless cars. Link here.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $83.74.

Active rigs: 38.

Four new permits, #40290 - #40293, inclusive:

• Operators: Grayson Mill (3), MRO
• Fields: South Tobacco Garden (McKenzie), Killdeer (Dunn)
• Comments:
• Grayson Mill has permits for three Hovland wells, NWNE 26-150-99; 
• to be sited 352 FFNL and between 2203 FEL and 2293 FEL;
• MRO has another permit in Killdeer oil field, a Grayson well, NENE 13-145-95; 
• to be sited 451 FNL and 1121 FEL

Three permits canceled:

• KODA Resources, three Stout permits, Divide County

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 39339, 519, Petro-Huunt, Arsenal Federal 149-102-17B-20-4H, McKenzie County;

A CO2 storage well completed:

• 37833, Blue flint Sequester Company, MAG 1, Blue Flint Underwood Broom Creek Storage Facility #1, McLean County;

Wow, Wow, Wow — Apple Special Event Announcement — October 24, 2023

Locator: 45815APPLE.

Link here.

Special event just announced!

October 30, 2023!

If the M3 is not introduced there will be a lot of unhappy campers.

If the M3 is introduced, wiki will have to update its “semiconductor chip” page. 

For the archives … let’s see if Ming-Chi Kuo changes his prediction between now and next week.

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The Book Page

The following books are on my short list. I won't buy any from Amazon until after November 6, 2023 -- but then after that, depending on circumstances, these are the books:

• Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, Randy Taraborrelli, 2023
• What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds, Jennifer Ackerman, 2023,
• The Iliad, Amy Wilson, 2023
• The Sisterhood: The Secret Sister of Women in the CIA, Liza Mundy, 2023.

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The Magazine Page

There are moments when I suffer intense memories of my own life. Today driving after a short -- not biking, due to rain and distance and constraint of time -- I thought about was going in the 50's and 60's -- I was born in 1951. We lived in Williston, North Dakota, a distance farther in time than in miles from NYC and Washington, DC, and Vietnam .... and I thought about Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe -- neither of whom I would ever hear about or read about for many, many years. And then Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s connects me with John F. Kennedy in the 1960s and, that, of course, connects me with Vietnam.

All in a flash of an eye, as they say. And I become, not tearful, but that moment just before one becomes tearful and then regains one's composure. It's a most pleasant -- for lack of a better word -- feeling, however fleeting it might be. 

Just prior to my short drive I had been reading an essay on The Crucible in a recent issue of The New York Review -- Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe -- and all those memories of the 1960s came back. The Crucible was a decade earlier but it was all compressed a blink of an eye.  

I had forgotten about the obligatory six-week stay in Reno prior to a California divorce.

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7

Marilyn Monroe

 

Open For Discussion -- Not That It's Gonna Happen On The Blog -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45814OPEN. 

Link here.

Open for discussion: under which president has the US -- for the consumer and the producer -- done better?

Open for discussion: which president is handling the southern surge issue better?

Open for discussion: which president's style of leadership is better suited to thread the needle in the Mideast after Hamas?

Open for discussion but that doesn't mean we're going to discuss them on the blog. I was just curious what's trending right now by doing some googling on some big issues. So, no, we're not going to discuss these issues on the blog.

Apple And TSM Joined At The Hip -- Now? Add Nvidia For A Trifecta -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45813TECH. 

Chips, semiconductor: link here.

• Home page for tech: link here.
• The cloud: link here.  
• Streaming: link here. Streaming wars.
• Spatial computing: link here.
• Generative AI: link here. 
• Apple Silicon: link here.

Apple: could spend "big" on IA servers. Link here.

Quick! Guess from whom Apple might be these servers. You get three guesses and the first don't count.

Answer: Nvidia. If you missed this one, let me know and I will nominate you for the Geico Rock Award.

By the way, how much does a Nvidia GPU cost? Upwards of $250,000. Why do they charge that much?

Because they can.

What No One Will Be Talking About Today -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45812MISC. 

The stories:

Lukoil: you may all recall that the Lukoil chairman died after falling out of a window two years. He was replaced. That new chairman .... drum roll ... has did. Link here.

NATO: wow, perhaps the biggest under-reported global geo-political story so far this year — Sweden and Finland soon to join NATO. Already, Sweden has agreed to send advanced fighters (aircraft) to Ukraine immediately upon admission, probably at the end of November. There are multiple story lines, least of which the European - American fork in the road.

Apple: could spend "big" on IA servers. Link here.

Quick! Guess from whom Apple might be these servers. You get three guesses and the first don't count.

Answer: Nvidia. If you missed this one, let me know and I will nominate you for the Geico Rock Award.

By the way, how much does a Nvidia GPU cost? Upwards of $250,000. Why do they charge that much?

Because they can.

Rates: JPow is killing the housing sector, the domestic automobile industry, and the renewable energy revolution. [And, don't forget local and regional banks.] Look at this, take the money and run:

Li-Cycle Holdings Corp., which is set to receive significant backing from the Biden administration, saw its share price slashed nearly in half after announcing it would pause construction on a first-of-its-kind lithium-ion-battery recycling plant.

The Toronto company said it would halt work on its Rochester Hub pending completion of a strategic review, including scope and budget. Li-Cycle said it is facing escalating construction costs that exceed prior guidance and is working closely with the US Energy Department concerning its offer of a $375 million loan commitment.

Li-Cycle is one of the many companies vying to help the US meet surging demand for battery materials needed in the transition from gas-powered cars. The government is pouring billions of dollars in subsidies and tax incentives to build up a domestic supply chain, intended to help the US compete with China’s dominant industry position.

The setback shows the challenges the US and the West face trying to essentially kick-start an industry from scratch.

Li-Cycle shares fell as much as 49% in New York. The stock closed at $1.23, down 46% for the day, its largest drop on record.

GM: we can't place all the blame on JPow killing the automobile industry. The UAW seems not to care if GM fails. There's a solution to ending this strike today but it's a bridge too far ... and until it either happens or someone else brings it up, I'm not going to mention it:

UAW settles with General Dynamics, yet to be ratified. Wages: up 14% over the four-year life of the contract. Fain asking for 40% from GM, Stellantis, and Ford. Link here.

Tech Update -- Intel, Nvidia, AMD -- Arm-Based PC Chips -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45811TECH.   

CNBC: Nvidia and AMD working on Arm-based PC chips.

Reuters exclusive: same story.

How big is this story? Huge. Here's yet another take on this story. Link to Business Today.

Four Wells Coming Off Confidential List -- October 24, 2023

Locator: 45810B.   

CVX: op-ed in WSJ. "Position 1" on the editorial page. I may post more of the op-ed later. For now:

Hess will increase Chevron’s footprint in the Gulf of Mexico and North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation. Texas’s Permian basin accounts for almost all of the U.S. oil supply growth over the past three years, but its production is expected to start tapering off by the end of this decade. Hess’s Bakken assets could then become more valuable.

But Hess’s most lucrative real estate may be off the coast of Guyana, where it holds a 30% share in an estimated 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas resources, which it is developing with Exxon and China’s Cnooc. That play currently produces 400,000 barrels a day and is expected to “deliver production growth into the next decade,” according to Chevron.

WTI: $85.90.

Wednesday, October 25, 2023: 59 for the month; 59 for the quarter, 629 for the year
None.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023: 59 for the month; 59 for the quarter, 629 for the year
39678, conf, Crescent Point Energy, CPEUSC Getzlaf 3-25-36-158N-101W-MBH, Little Muddy,
38092, conf, Enerplus, Baleen 148-93-05A-06H, McGregory Buttes,
37449, conf, Hess, EN-Abrahamson-LE-155-93-3019H-1, 
34221, conf, BR, Abercrombie 3-8-12 MBH, Elidah,

RBN Energy: midstream companies combining to gain scale, fill in asset gaps.

Ongoing M&A activity in the upstream portion of the oil and gas industry has garnered a lot of attention, most recently regarding ExxonMobil’s planned $64.5 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources. But there’s also been a lot of consolidation in the midstream space as the companies that gather, process, transport, store and export hydrocarbons seek to gain the scale, scope and synergies they think they will need to succeed in an increasingly competitive industry. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from our newly released Drill Down report on the major midstream deals of 2022 and 2023 to date. 

There are many reasons why large midstream companies might want to get bigger, either by acquiring smaller midstreamers or merging with near-equals. For many, buying another company and its set of assets gives the acquiring firm entrée to — or additional scale in — an important and/or growing production area or two. For others, an acquisition or merger enables them to provide the full range of well-to-consumer or well-to-water midstream services — say, gas processing plants, NGL pipelines to Mont Belvieu, fractionators and NGL export capacity.

It will surprise no one to hear that many of the midstream deals announced over the past couple of years involved the acquisition of companies with extensive holdings in the all-important Permian, which is by far the U.S.’s top crude oil production area and also a major supplier of natural gas and NGLs. Of course, the Permian has been a leading hydrocarbon supplier for decades, but constant improvements in horizontal drilling and well-completion techniques — not to mention an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the rock and resources below ground — since the mid-2010s has transformed the West Texas/southeastern New Mexico play into an unrivaled production powerhouse.