Locator: 48379FAMILY.
Awarded / earned February 25, 2025.
Her coach is South Korean. He competes internationally on the South Korean Jiu Jitsu team. Prior to coming to the United States he had been on the "South Korean presidential protection team" -- like our own Secret Service and Special Forces.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $69.77.
Active rigs: 32.
Five new permits, #41740 - #41744, inclusive:
Five permits renewed:
One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:
Locator: 48377ARCHIVES.
Thomas Jefferson and a link to the present.
From my school notes, eighth grade, Central Junior High School ["Junior High"], Williston, ND, my eighth grade teacher, Mr Hoglund (sp?):
A reader is interested in Thomas Jefferson. Of note, from a North Dakota publication:
Additional information:
Maybe more later.
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Word of the Day
Remember the shah (monarch) of Iran (Persia)?
Chess.
Checkmate.
The term checkmate is, according to the Barnhart Etymological Dictionary, an alteration of the Persian phrase "shāh māt" which means "the King is helpless".
Persian "māt" applies to the king but in Sanskrit "māta", also pronounced "māt", applied to his kingdom "traversed, measured across, and meted out" thoroughly by his opponent; "māta" is the past participle of "mā" verbal root. [Lousy sentence.]
Others maintain that it means "the King is dead", as chess reached Europe via the Arab world, and Arabic māta means "died" or "is dead".
Moghadam traced the etymology of the word mate. It comes from a Persian verb mandan, meaning "to remain" which is cognate with the Latin word maneō and the Greek menō, which means "I remain").
It means "remained" in the sense of "abandoned" and the formal translation is "surprised," in the military sense of "ambushed".
"Shāh" is the Persian word for the monarch. Players would announce "Shāh" when the king was in check. "Māt" is a Persian adjective for "at a loss", "helpless", or "defeated."
So the king is in mate when he is ambushed, at a loss, helpless, defeated, or abandoned to his fate.
In modern Persian, the word mate depicts a person who is frozen, open-mouthed, staring, confused and unresponsive. The words "stupefied" or "stunned" bear close correlation. So a possible alternative would be to interpret mate as "unable to respond."A king being in mate (shah-mat) then means a king is unable to respond, which would correspond to there being no response that a player's king can make to the opponent's final move. This interpretation is much closer to the original intent of the game being not to kill a king but to leave him with no viable response other than surrender, which better matches the origin story detailed in the Shahnameh. In modern parlance, the term checkmate is a metaphor for an irrefutable and strategic victory.
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Bernard Lewis
I haven't heard of him lately.
Until the March 25, 2025, edition of Victor Davis Hanson.
See this post. Perhaps one of the best historians ever. A must-read.
Wrestling:
Over at x: link here.
Locator: 48375EGGS.
Politics: After my trip back from Walmart, I quickly turned to "Morning Joe" and MSNBC.
More than ever, I am back on the Hegseth - Waltz - Trump wagon. I flip-flopped big time. LOL. All of a sudden, the Democrats are really, really, really concerned about the US military and the safety of the troops. Wow. The specific a/c involved were not mentioned in the transcript. We have better dates. Journalist was invited to the chat group on March 13, 2025 (?), and operation began on March 15, 2025. Story broke on March 24, 2025. Trump needs to begin calling Jeff Goldberg an embedded reporter. LOL.
Embedded reporters in the past would have reported much, much more. And there was certainly a lot more such reporting by the legacy media during the Vietnam War.
I see Morning Joe's sidekick is using a plastic straw to drink her beverage from a coffee mug. LOL.
The text is actually pretty interesting. The US military is using multiple assets to hit Yemen.
So, we move on.
Eggs: in plentiful supply and less than 33 cents / egg. They are less expensive when bought wholesale. And Waffle House is still charging a 50-cent surcharge for each egg served. What a racket. What a great country.
Santa vacationing in north Texas:
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Finally
I suppose one argument: there's no law against "ghost guns" -- the law is against the "components" that can be used to make "ghost guns" and the "physically making of ghost guns" ..... but ...
For those still confused whether Trump can claim an impressive win in 2024, these folks need to read William Voegeli's essay, "Now What: The Democratic Party After 2024," in the winter, 2024/2025, issue of The Claremont Review of Books. Voegeli is the senior editor of the Review.
Locator: 48374CVX.
Surprise, surprise: energy is 2025's biggest stock market winner. Barron's. Link here. Most surprising, CVX. Favorite?
Year-to-date: CVX up 13.7% and yet the meme since Trump announced tariffs: sell, sell, sell and put everything into cash. CVX appreciation in those three months (YTD): 13.7% while paying a healthy, healthy dividend. Five years ago, CVX was selling for $75. CVX dividend, annual, is $6.84 = 9%. In 2003, CVX shares were trading for $50. 13.68% payout.
Trump has backtracked a bit -- letting CVX continue activities in Venezuela for at least another month, while simultaneously increasing tariffs on Venezuela to/by/whatever 25%. No one has any idea any more about the whole Trump tariff thing. At some point, folks will begin to ignore -- it's becoming a "boy-cried-wolf" story. But I digress.
Today, wow! I'll take it -- outside of AAPL, CVX may be my biggest holding and I've been adding CVX to my portfolio on a regularly consistent basis since the late 1980s. A long story there, but not today.
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Disclaimer
Brief
Reminder
Briefly:
From the CVX link, this was posted yesterday:
In a robust display of market confidence, Chevron Corporation stock has soared to a 52-week high, reaching a price level of $167.17.
This peak comes amidst a broader energy sector rally, with Chevron leading the charge as investors flock to the stability and growth potential of established energy companies. The company’s attractive 4.1% dividend yield and 37-year streak of dividend increases underscore its financial strength.
Over the past year, Chevron has witnessed a 10% increase in its stock value, reflecting the company’s resilience and strategic positioning in a fluctuating economic landscape. The 52-week high milestone underscores Chevron’s strong performance and the positive investor sentiment surrounding the energy giant.
Chevron appears undervalued at current levels.
In other recent news, Chevron Corporation has made significant developments that could impact its operations and market position. Chevron reported purchasing nearly 5% of Hess Corporation common stock, demonstrating confidence in its ongoing merger with Hess. This acquisition aligns with Chevron’s strategic plans and is part of its stock repurchase program.
Additionally, Chevron is advancing its U.S. data center development plans, entering the permitting and engineering stages to meet increasing power demands. These centers are expected to be operational by 2027 or 2028, according to company executive Daniel Droog.
Chevron has also been involved in discussions regarding its operations in Venezuela, where it was allowed to make payments to the Venezuelan government under a sanctions waiver. This arrangement was initially permitted by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control but was later terminated, requiring Chevron to wind down its operations in the country.
EVs: update. It's a six-minute read, so it's a long article. At the end of the day, it looks more and more like it's coming down to Tesla and Waymo (Jaguar i-PACE) for the long term, with niche players all across the board. Rivian-, Tesla-, Lucid-type investors are willing to "trade" (not invest) in EVs, live with quarterly losses; looking at the long term. The question is whether long-term investors are willing to do wait that long (GM, F). EVs are tracked here. Archived.
Rivian Automotive and Lucid Motors racked up billions in losses last year amid modest sales numbers, rising factory incentives and growing uncertainty in the U.S. electric vehicle market following the November election of President Donald Trump.
Rivian, which launched its first model in late 2021, posted a $4.7 billion net loss in 2024, according to the company’s February 20, 2025, earnings report. That was a moderate improvement over its $5.4 billion net loss in 2023.
Lucid, which also sold its first model in late 2021, reported a $2.7 billion net loss last year, the company said February 25, 2025. A year earlier, Lucid posted a net loss of $2.8 billion.
Surprise, surprise: energy is 2025's biggest stock market winner. Barron's. Link here. Most surprising, CVX. Favorite? Enbridge. See disclaimer. Enbridge, for me, is an "emotional" favorite.
Calcasieu: Venture Global ready for official launch of Calcasieu Pass LNG. Link here. The key word is "official."
TSMC: US-made chips might not be that expensive. Link here.
This is the big question: if the US no longer needs "chips" from Taiwan, will the current president or any future president consider it worth the risk to protect Taiwan from a Chinese military incursion? That's the real question.
Right, wrong, indifferent -- Biden's folks appear to have known what they were doing when they passed the CHIPS act. If nothing else, it gave Trump some breathing room in that arena. To what degree can "Taiwan Silicon" move to "Silicon Valley"? Five percent? Ten percent? Fifty percent? Where is the real innovation coming from? Stanford or Taipei?
Israel: with backing of US, Israel takes over UN mission inside Syria. Link here. Tag: Mount Hermon. Etymology: harem.
Around the clock, no let-up: my hunch -- with the "debacle" behind them, Trump's military-intel community will keep the pressure on Yemen -- US Navy pilots logging a lot of combat time. It appears the one thing Yemen doesn't have -- and won't get -- SAMs.
California budget:
Los Angeles: looking at a $1-billion deficit next fiscal year; asking for $2 billion from cash-strapped Newsom.
Moving from DEI to NPSG -- non-profit security grants.
The nation's largest public 4-year university system - enrolling more than 460,000 students -- CAL STATE -- is looking at a 8% cut in state funding. Nothing to suggest Governor Newsom will cut back on funding for the Bullet Train. The other "bullet train" -- Bullet Train Lite -- from LA to Las Vegas is to begin construction any time now.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $69.62.
New wells:
RBN Energy: despite trade frictions, Enbridge forges ahead with pipeline expansion. Archived.
It might seem crazy to talk about expanding crude oil and diluent pipeline systems between Canada and the U.S. amid what could escalate into an all-out trade war between the two nations. However, Enbridge, one of the largest pipeline operators in the world, is doing just that — actively planning and investing in pipeline expansions for its Mainline, Express-Platte and Southern Lights systems that would help move an ever-rising tide of Canada’s oil sands crude to market in the years ahead. We examine Enbridge’s plans in today’s RBN blog.
Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past few months, you are probably all too familiar with trade frictions that have arisen between the U.S. and Canada as a result of the on-again, off-again imposition of tariffs on U.S. imports of goods from Canada, including vital supplies of energy (see Everybody Hurts). With the potential for a tariff rate of 10% on U.S. energy imports from its northern neighbor (and a 25% rate on other imported goods), the war of words and potential counter-tariffs imposed by Canada have served to upend what is the most successful bilateral trading relationship in the world. It has also led to not-so-veiled threats by Canada that its exports of crude oil, natural gas and electricity could be curtailed or cut off in retaliation.
With trade relations frayed and tensions still unresolved, you might wonder why any Canadian company might be considering — let alone actively pursuing — an expansion of pipeline capacity between the two nations for the movement of crude oil south to the U.S. and diluent north from the U.S. for use in Alberta’s oil sands. Nevertheless, one of the largest pipeline companies in the world, Calgary, AB-based Enbridge, is pursuing just such a strategy, betting that the long-term fundamentals of Western Canada’s crude oil supply growth will fully justify additional pipeline capacity across several of its systems that move crude oil and diluent between the two nations.
Let’s first take a quick tour of several Enbridge pipeline systems, which we will explore in this blog. The array of pipelines known collectively as the Enbridge Mainline (orange lines in Figure 1 below) handles about 70% of all the crude oil shipped from Western Canada by pipeline into the U.S. Midwest. The system’s parallel Lines 1, 2, 3, 4 and 67 transport a variety of heavy and light crude oil and NGLs from Edmonton and Hardisty, AB, to Clearbrook, MN, and Superior, WI. From there, other Mainline pipes move crude to the Flanagan hub in north-central Illinois (Line 61), the Chicago area (Lines 6, 14 and 64), Michigan (Lines 5 and 78) and Ontario (Lines 5, 7, 11 and 78). The U.S. side of the Mainline is often referred to as the Lakehead System.
Figure 1: Enbridge Mainline and Other Selected Pipelines. Source: RBN
