Monday Morning -- August 12, 2024

Locator: 48386B.

Theme for the day: there are two things you can't fight -- a) the Fed; and, b) natural gas.

Monday morning: Sunday night looked ominous. Monday morning, sun is coming up in the east.

Stellar coverage: Peacock and Mike Tirico. 

To do this in real-time, on the fly, speaks volumes about the talent behing and in front of the camera. I found the streaming absolutely incredibly. When I turned on Hulu (every day) there were, it seemed, no less than 24-options on which to click -- and with all those options, no problem finding what one wanted to see. Nice adjunct: YouTube.

It's interesting. Paris will have had a much better "view" for couch potatoes than Los Angeles will have in 2028, but Los Angeles is going to be so much more fun for athletes and those in the stands. The weather, the beaches, the bars.

Follow the money: how much in bonuses national committees paid their medalists, country, amount paid, number of country medals awarded (for the 2024 Paris Olympics)

• by country:
• France: $11 million, 64 team total (16-gold),
• Italy: $10 million, 40 team total (12-gold),
• US: $8 million, 126 team total (40-gold), 78 individual bronze, 72 individual silver, 69 individual gold; Stanford - 22; Harvard - 6; Southern Cal - 6 
• assuming gold = x, silver = 1/2 x, bronze = 1/4x, each gold medal for a US athlete was worth about $60,000
  

Later, August 13, 2024: the medals note above was posted August 13, 2024. Today, August 13, 2024, "Which College Won the Olympics?" -- WSJ link here.

Stanford took home 39 medals, more than double the number of any other U.S. school—and more than the Netherlands, South Korea, Germany and Canada. 

The delegation from Palo Alto would have been 11th on the medal table in Tokyo and 10th in Rio. But in Paris, they managed to overachieve and finished 8th in the overall medal standings.

Nice interview over at Barron's: Jeremy Siegel.

Nice op-ed over at The NYT: presidential politics.  Agree completely. 

Nice graphic on hyperscalers: global data centers. Liz Ann Sonders.

Nice analysis by Peggy Noonan: Harris bets on the future being left-wing. Exhibit A: Walz.

US oil: doing more with less. That's been a constant theme on the blog for years. Exhibit A: rig count. 

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

WTI: $77.74. Whoo-hoo!

Tuesday, August 13, 2024: 27 for the month; 83 for the quarter, 409 for the year
40468, conf, Kraken Operating, Milloy LE 10-3-34 11H,
39799, conf, Enerplus, Diamond 148-95-03A-10H,
39796, conf, Enerplus, Ruby 148-95-03B-10H,
24361, conf, Grayson Mill, Knight 35-26 3TFH,

Monday, August 12, 2024: 23 for the month; 79 for the quarter, 405 for the year
39530, conf, Petro-Hunt, Burian 144-98-15B-22-1H,

Sunday, August 11, 2024: 22 for the month; 78 for the quarter, 404 for the year
None.

Saturday, August 10, 2024: 22 for the month; 78 for the quarter, 404 for the year
None.

RBN Energy: "certified" natural gas with lower methane intensity takes center stage.

Even as many countries and companies around the world continue to ramp up their use of wind and solar power and explore the potential for a variety of renewable, low-carbon and no-carbon fuels, there’s a growing acknowledgment that natural gas — imperfect as it may be from a climate perspective — will remain a significant part of the global energy mix for decades to come. So why not make natural gas as clean as it can be by reducing emissions of methane — gas’s primary component and a particularly potent greenhouse gas? E

First, a definition: Certified natural gas is gas that an independent third party has verified as being produced, gathered, processed, transported and/or distributed in a way that meets higher environmental standards or, more specifically, has a demonstrably lower methane intensity, or MI. For the most part, the certified gas movement has focused on the upstream end, namely where gas is produced, either in gas-focused plays like the Marcellus/Utica and the Haynesville or crude-oil-focused plays like the Permian and the Bakken, where large volumes of associated gas (a mix of methane, NGLs and various impurities) emerge from wells with crude oil.