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Friday, June 21, 2024

America Innovates, China Replicates, Europe Regulates -- The WSJ -- June 21, 2024

Locator: 48018AAPL.

An op-ed from Martin Peers, "The Briefing," The Information

Greetings!

Will Europeans start to regret their governments’ aggressive regulation of U.S. tech? That’s surely going to be a question sparked by Apple’s decision today to withhold a bunch of attractive new technologies—such as its artificial intelligence–powered offerings—from its products in Europe, citing the continental rules on how tech firms operate.

Many of the updates Apple unveiled at its Worldwide Developers Conference a couple of weeks ago won’t show up anytime soon on European iPhones, iPads or Macs. That includes Apple Intelligence, which upgrades what Siri can do, including searching across apps for hard-to-find information, and iPhone Mirroring, which allows you to manipulate what’s on your iPhone screen via your MacBook.

According to Bloomberg, Apple blamed its decision on rules imposed by the Digital Markets Act in Europe. Is that a valid excuse? Who knows? In a way, it doesn’t matter.

What’s significant is that a U.S. tech giant is finally responding to the increasingly demanding European rules. It feels it’s like only a matter of time before a U.S. company decides the European market simply isn’t worth the trouble.

The question now is what impact Apple’s decision will have.

Apple doesn’t have the same market power in Europe that it does in the U.S. Data from research firm Canalys suggests Apple has more than half the U.S. smartphone market but only about a third of the European market.

It’s possible the new features would have helped lift Apple’s share in Europe, of course. They only work on the latest phones, so they’re expected to drive iPhone upgrades, boosting sales of the device, which have been stagnant lately.

But Tim Cook may think taking a stand against European bureaucrat-in-chief Margrethe Vestager is worth the cost of lost iPhone sales.

If that’s what Cook is thinking, he should be applauded. There’s ample evidence Europe’s regulations are hurting the continent.

In this piece in The Wall Street Journal in January, columnist Greg Ip argued Europe was falling behind the U.S. and China in tech sectors such as AI and electric vehicles thanks to its rules. Apple’s decision suggests Europeans may soon have to be content with substandard consumer tech services as well.

Perhaps Europeans are fine with that. But if they’re not, they know how to fix things.

That WSJ op-ed:


From the linked article:

These are humbling times for Europe. The continent barely escaped recession late last year as the U.S. boomed. It is losing out to the U.S. on artificial intelligence, and to China on electric vehicles.

There is one field where the European Union still leads the world: regulation. Having set the standard on regulating mergers, carbon emissions, data privacy, and e-commerce competition, the EU now seeks to do the same on AI. In December it unveiled a sweeping draft law that bans certain types of AI, tightly regulates others, and imposes huge fines for violators. Its executive arm, the European Commission, might investigate Microsoft’s tie-up with OpenAI as potentially anticompetitive. [Microsoft says it won't release its AI to Europe this year -- June 21, 2024.]

Never before has “America innovates, China replicates, Europe regulates” so aptly captured each region’s comparative advantage.

And we haven't even gotten to the energy desert that Europe is becoming. 

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Coco Chanel

Link here.

The MRO Gaugler Pads -- Mega-Pads In The Bailey Oil Field -- Two Pads -- Two Rigs -- June 21, 2024

Locator: 48017MRO.

The maps:


The wells:

Pad to the east:

  • 40609, DRL/CONF, MRO, Selmer 21-14H, Bailey, t--; cum --;
  • 40610, Sneve,
  • 40611, Severson,
  • 40612, Betts,
  • 40613, ROS, MRO, Foss 24-11TFH, Bailey, t--; cum --;
  • 40564, Whitaker,
  • 40614, Elliot,
  • 40615, Zwenke,
  • 40616, Rocky,
  • 40617, Purrier,
  • 40618, DRL/CONF, MRO, Eubanks 44-11TFH, Bailey, t--; cum --;

Pad to the west:

  • 40461, DRL/CONF, MRO, Swenson 24-10H, Bailey, t--; cum --;
  • 40462, Finholt,
  • 40532, Stella,
  • 40533, Durkee,
  • 40534, ROS, MRO, Decorah 44-10TFH, Bailey, t--; cum --;
  • 40535, Prince,
  • 40536, Franklin,
  • 40537, Chandler,
  • 40538, Ellestad,
  • 40539, Framstad,
  • 40540, DRL/CONF, MRO, Rex 11-14H, Bailey, t--; cum --;
  • 17804, IA/581, MRO, Gaugler 31-15H, Killdeer, t6/09; cum 438K 1/24; off line;

Week 25: June 17, 2024 -- June 23, 2024 -- IN PROGRESS

Locator: 48016TOPSTORIES.

Flashback: from January, 2024 --

Top story:

  • NASA / Boeing have indefinitely postponed the return of the Starliner spacecraft from the international space station. The initial extension was for eight days, to return on / about June 26, 2024. That date has been postponed indefinitely. This all began with reports of hydrogen leaks affecting the thrusters, a problem known to exist prior to launch but considered by by NASA / Boeing not to be a concern. In addition to the known leaks, the crew used more hydrogen than planned while docking the capsule to the space station.

Top international non-energy story:

Top international energy story: 

Top national non-energy story

  • Katie Ledecky: dominates at US swim trials.
    • unusual and ridiculously impressive swimming technique: link here.

Top national energy story:

  • WTI closes just above $81.

Focus on fracking: June 16, 2024.

Top North Dakota non-energy story: 

Top North Dakota energy story:

Geoff Simon's quick connectslink here.

Five New Permits -- June 21, 2024

Locator: 47853B.

WTI: $80.73.

Active rigs: 37.

Five new permits, #40862 - #40866, inclusive:

  • Operators: Grayson Mill (4), BR
  • Fields: Rosebud (Williams); Elidah (McKenzie)
  • Comments:
    • Grayson Mill has permits for four Martin wells, NENE 32-154-102, 
      • to be sited 301/302 FEL and between 678 FNL and 768 FNL;
    • BR has a permit for a West Kellogg well, lot e, section 6-151-97; 
      • to be sited 426 FNL and 2115 FWL


TGIF -- June 21, 2024

Locator: 47852ARCHIVES.

Disclaimer: in a long note like this, there will be typographical and content errors. In addition, facts, factoids, and opinions will be interspersed and may not be easily discerned what is what. In the big scheme of things, this is just a bit of rambling and if you skip this entire page you won't be missing anything important.

Speaking of which, what did the market do today? Near the close, essentially flat for the day -- a good day for stock pickers and traders, perhaps not for investors.

Louis Rukeyser: Friday night, one half hour -- that was about all the investing / financial programming we got on live television decades ago. Now, we have 24/7 financial programmig if you include the internet. Does anyone compare with Louis Rukeyser today? Yup. Scott Wapner on CNBC's "Half-Time Report." Wapner is as good as / or better than Rukeyser, day-in, day-out for an hour every business day. And when he has the right panel he is just so much better. 

Pet peeve: when knowledgeable (?) financial analysts refer to "chips" as commodities. 

Tech: wow, things move quickly. 

It was very fortuitous that I did a "deep dive" into CPUs, GPUs, and all that jazz, back on April 29, 2024 -- wow, that was less than two months ago. In less than two months, we have gone from talking about 7-nm chips to talking about 3-nm CPUs, GPUs and NPUs, along with cores, and now we have performance cores and efficiency cores. And "they're" all chips. And anyone who says chips are commodities display a level of ignorance that is mind-boggling. I'm not saying that the success and failure of chip makers won't change over the years, but chip makers aren't in the commodity business.

Phones: is this what it comes down to? This needs to be fact-checked

  • Apple iPhones: in-house chips, currently A-series; ARM-based.
  • Android: Qualcomm Snapdragon; ARM-based;
  • Huawei: Kirin series, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC; a Chinese company), and Chinese-designed chips.

Battery: years (decades?) ago, Steve Jobs said his biggest challenge was batteries. 

To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a lot of advances in battery technology -- at least there are not many headlines.
My hunch, at some point, Apple pivoted. Realizing that solving the battery problem (SUPPLY) was not going to happen any time soon, they turned to DEMAND. And that meant specialized chips, more efficient chips, smaller chips, chips that can be placed together more closely, and chips that work better together (are optimized for each other). All of those factors could reduce DEMAND, and thereby lengthen the intervals between charging. The holy grail? Twenty-four hours of high demand use (gaming and movies) on the smallest iPhones (with a side benefit, less heat). 
Specialized chips: CPUs, GPUs, NPUs. More efficient chips: performance cores and efficiency cores. Smaller chips: 3-nm. Placed on one chip: SoC. Optimized: in-house synergetic software.

Robert Winnett out as editor at The Washington Post. Links everywhere.

  • "Winnett has decided to remain at the Telegraph." -- The WSJ
  • typo in The WSJ headline; "joint" vs "join." Doesn't happen often.

Glut? As predicted? Used car prices dropped like a rock. A recurrent theme on the blog in recent months. Link here. Maybe Carl Q will comment.

North Dakota Natural Gas Output The New Star Of The Bakken? June 21, 2024

Locator: 47851B.

From a reader yesterday, thank you:


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A Musical Interlude

Link here.

Weekly Petroleum Report; Gasoline Demand -- June 21, 2024

Locator: 47850WTI.

Weekly EIA productivity report: for those interested; I'm not.

Gasoline demand: link here. The big story here? Whether gasoline demand over July 4, 2024, will set a record? To do so, would need to trend toward 10 million bpd. I will be thrilled if 2024 simply beats 2023 numbers.

Ledecky Is The Big Story This Week -- June 21, 2024

Locator: 47849LEDECKY.

Welcome to summer -- and a little swimming:

Ledecky: link here. Olympic trials on-going. Many links. Videos and still-shots are amazing at this and other sites. Her only competitor? Herself. YouTube here.

Commentary is awesome, long video:

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $81.16.

Sunday, June 23, 2024: 71 for the month; 135 for the quarter, 334 for the year
40320, conf, Whiting, Sanish Bay W Federal 5293 12-3 2BX,

Saturday, June 22, 2024: 70 for the month; 134 for the quarter, 333 for the year
39896, conf, Hess, EN-Madisyn-LE-154-94-0706H-12,

Friday, June 21, 2024: 69 for the month; 133 for the quarter, 332 for the year
39891, conf, Hess, EN-Madisyn-LE-154-94-07-5H-7,

RBN Energy: with changes on the horizong, Nederland/Beaumont hub increasing focus on NGLs.

The Nederland/Beaumont crude oil hub has been somewhat overshadowed recently by other Gulf Coast crude export hubs despite hosting America’s largest refinery, a handful of export terminals and pipeline links to the prolific Permian Basin. But while plans to build one or more deepwater crude export terminals could mean big changes for the Gulf Coast hubs, the Nederland/Beaumont area isn’t standing still. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss what’s ahead for the region and its emergence as a leader in NGL exports.