Massive Prisoner Swap About To Be Announced; AI, Large Data Centers, Natural Gas -- August 1, 2024

Locator: 48285GEO.

Massive prisoner swap: international --

• US, Russia and other countries
• Evan (WSJ) and Paul Whelan to be released.
• former president Trump's immediate response: 
• unable to be congratulatory
• unable to be gracious
• unable to show any warmth in his remarks 
• Trump is a hater, narcissistic, delusional, insecure, and a small man by any measure
  

Economic figures:

• productivity: significantly stronger
• unit labor costs: significant lower
• initial jobless claims: 249K vs 235K
• US equity markets response: improve slightly
• Steve Liesman comments
  
• hiring is slowing down
• the numbers are "very good"
• others comments
• yesterday, JPow seemed more concerned about slowing jobs than inflation
  

SRE: flat; trading at $80.06; in the old days, prior to the 2 - 1 split, this was a $140-stock;

INTC: worst Dow stock of the year — CNBC. Down again today in pre-market. Still no mention of fried CPUs. Later: down almost 15% for the day. Wow.

Now, on CNBC: segment on "Natural Gas Saving The Grid?"

• US just set an all-time record for the amount of natural gas used to produce electricity
• first four months of the year
• we've never used this much natural gas before in the history of the US
  
• hydroelectric: fell 20%; wind, natural gas couldn't off set loss of hydro
• concern whether nuclear energy will be sufficient going forward
• California changed course: will pivot on planned nuclear plant shutdown

West Virginia: setting natural gas production records with MVP coming on line.

See RBN Energy today.  

COP: beats. Will add the 20-cent VROC to the regular dividend in the fourth quarter.  See website.

HOUSTON—Aug. 1, 2024—ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) today reported second-quarter 2024 earnings and adjusted earnings of $2.3 billion, or $1.98 per share, compared with second-quarter 2023 earnings and adjusted earnings of $2.2 billion, or $1.84 per  share.  

• reported second-quarter 2024 earnings per share and adjusted earnings per share of $1.98.
• generated cash provided by operating activities of $4.9 billion and cash from operations (CFO) of $5.1 billion
• declared ordinary dividend of $0.58 per share and variable return of cash (VROC) of $0.20 per share payable in the third quarter.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $78.34.

Friday, August 2, 2024: 66 for the month; 66 for the quarter, 392 for the year
40449, conf, Empire North Dakota, Eagle 29 1
40410, conf, CLR, Dahle 5-35HSL,
40385, conf, Neptune Operating, Frederick 3-10 5H,
40305, conf, Stephens Williston, Cabot 15591-0112-2H,
39601, conf, Hess, BL-Iverson B-155-95-0807H-7,

Thursday, August 1, 2024: 61 for the month; 61 for the quarter, 387 for the year
40411, conf, CLR, Anheluk 4-26H,
40263, conf, Stephens Williston, Cabot 15591-0112-3H,
40089, conf, Phoenix Operating, Jean Ferari 26-35-2 4H,
40088, conf, Phoenix Operating, Jean Ferrari 26-35-3H,
39604, conf, Hess, BL-Iverson B-LN-155-95-0807H-1,

RBN Energy: AI, data center power demand and the implication for natural gas. Archived.

Data center power demand is soaring as AI — artificial intelligence — rapidly expands across all sorts of applications. That statement is certainly the top buzz factor in today’s energy markets. These facilities need 24x7, super-reliable power, and there’s only one power generation fuel that has any hope of keeping up with the demand surge: natural gas. While most data center developers would prefer green energy to cover their power requirements, the intermittent nature of wind and solar means that for many facilities, it can't happen, at least for the short-to-medium term hyped-up market we are seeing right now. But how much incremental power are we talking about? And how much natural gas will be needed? That’s what we’ll explore in today’s RBN blog. 

“Ever wondered why your smart speaker keeps asking for more power? It’s not just craving a caffeine boost — it’s trying to keep up with the insatiable demand of AI’s appetite for electricity!” Those aren’t our words. Instead, they’re what ChatGPT gave us (exclamation point included!) when we asked it to write a humorous first sentence for an RBN blog about AI and power demand. Not bad, really, but we’ll stick with human bloggers. (Well, for the time being at least!)