Iconic -- Some Nights I Just Feel So Lucky -- April 10, 2025

Locator: 48456ARCHIVES.

Iconic.

Some nights I just feel so lucky to have been alive to see all these iconic movies.

Link here.

A Musical Interlude -- April 10, 2025

Locator: 48455ARCHIVES.

A musical interlude. Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline. 

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Sophia -- Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Update

Because I was traveling I did not get to the Dallas jiu-jitsu tournament this past weekend. Teams from around the entire DFW metropolis are invited. Sophia is a member of the Grapevine (Texas) Jinho Jiu-Jitsu Competitive Team. Competitions are held every six months. She's been part of the team for three years and has only missed one tournament in all that time. 

Before this weekend, she had three medals, a gold, a silver, and a bronze. This weekend she won her second silver medal.

She won her first match by submission which is huge. But then she lost her second match, 14 - 0.

On our drive out to her soccer practice tonight, I started our conversation by stating that I was very impressed that she won her first match by submission. She was thrilled. She said she took second in the tournament and got a silver medal.

I then told her that I was thrilled that she had "real" competition in her second match, the one in which she lost 14 - 0. She doesn't get that kind of competition in her own club. I said it might be disappointing to lose but I thought it was wonderful that she had such great competition. She was very, very animated, and totally agreed with me. She was very, very happy to wrestle someone from whom she could learn something. 

She was not disappointed at all.

Earlier in the week she weighed 90.4 pounds and so she had to register for the 90 - 99 pound weight class. 

At weigh-in on Saturday, at the tournament, she was 89.6 so she could have wrestled in the 80 - 89 pound  weight class but once registered in a particular class it can't be changed. So she was going against competitors that could have weighed significantly more than she did. It did not bother her. She was just thrilled to get the chance to wrestle and learn.

She said that her very close friends often sneak up on her at school and grab her, just to tease her, all in good fun, but she instantly, instinctively reacts as if someone is attacking her and she immediately starts to take them down in a jiu-jitsu move before she remembers that she's on the playground at school and not on a jiu-jitus mat. She says it's now instinct to react with jiu-jitsu moves if someone "attacks" her. She says that in a very positive way. She clearly understands what jiu-jitsu is all about.

We didn't talk about it in this conversation, but without a doubt, she has an incredible coach. He and his wife emigrated from South Korea some years ago. His wife teaches taekwondo and is an accomplished taekwondo competitor. He continues to compete on the South Korea national jiu-jitsu team. 

Through high school, boys/men and girls/women compete together. It seems to be the one sport in which that is very, very possible. However, in competition, its boys/men vs boys/men and girls/women vs girls/women at all age levels.

Posted elsewhere earlier:

Sophia -- Her Newest Stripe On Her Grey Belt
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu -- February 25, 2025 

She is advancing at the expected rate, perhaps a bit faster than some of the others. I'm anticipating that the coach will ask her to assist him next year with the younger wrestlers coming up.

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.

CLR With Five New Permits -- April 10, 2025

Locator: 48454B.

Mileage for our 2007 Chrysler Town and Country minivan:

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $60.10.

Active rigs: 35.

Five new permits, #41793 - #41797, inclusive:

• Operator: CLR
• Field: West Capa (Williams)
• Comments:
• CLR has permits for three Wallace wells and two Star Federal wells, NESE 11-154-97, 
• to be sited 1665 FSL and 920 / 1048 FEL;

One permit renewal:

• 26963, Foundation, McDonald 14-32-3PH.

Book Page -- Tech Notes -- April 10, 2025

Locator: 48453ARCHIVES.

The Great Gatsy, the 100th Anniversary Edition, Annotated: published March 4, 2025! I assume this would be in the $50-range. In fact, $26 -- at Amazon, 25% off. Barnes and Noble, as members, the best we could get, a standard 10% discount. Ordered. Will arrive in two days. Not affected by tariffs!

Breaking: helicopter crashed in Hudson River. Likely a tourist helicopter. One pilot, two adult passengers and three children. Apparently, based on eye-witness account, the blades broke apart in mid-air. We will know the results of the investigation one year from now.

Back home: had a great trip to Portland. It's surprisingly nice. If any US metropolis survives volatility, it will be Portland (and has been Portland). They are a feisty bunch. In the big scheme of things, I might prefer a pied-à-terre on the far east side or the far west side of downtown Portland if I had all the money in the world. Seriously. I liked the tolerance, the feistiness. 

Trump: the news cycle never, never, never quits. Now he' suggesting the US government "install" federal oversight of Columbia University. Of course, it isn't going to happen, but ... link here. Clearly, federal funding of US universities at risk. Hopefully, Trump will use a surgical scalpel this time, and not a sledgehammer.

Budget: US House moves forward. Congrats to Mike Johnson. Let's see what "the invisible man" can do. Link to The New Yorker.

Trade wars: if one wants a bit of insight -- read 1177: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Eric H. Cline, 2021. Notes here. 

Clearly Trump misread this one. He needed to use a surgical scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Sledgehammers are so yesterday. My hunch: he pivots, makes the right changes.

Having said that, I part company with Eric H. Cline's thoughts on the future.

Biggest story not being reported: US Navy chief "regrets" over-spending to fight asymmetric wars. Links hard to find. This is one link.

First time I've heard such a regret. I wonder what his thoughts are on algae-based jet fuel?

Tech notes today:

Intel's CEO with China: not good news for the company. Puts Trump in a difficult spot.

The grid: PJM, Google, and Tapestry. The sixth industrial revolution has started.

Polestar: can sell a lot of cars; can it make a profit?  

A Chinese car company. Another plaything for the elite. Polestar uses two different charging systems, neither of which is owned or developed by Elon Musk. One system, AC system, is designed for Europe; the other charging system, a DC rapid charging system, is for US EV consumers.

Apple: airlifted six hundred tons of iPhones out of India ahead of tariffs to beat the tariffs. 

• 600 * 2000 = 12 * 10^5 = 1200000 = 1.2 million phones
• the shipping weight of an iPhone, including packaging, generally ranges from 10 to 12 ounces, or approximately 1 lb. The iPhone itself typically weighs between 5.78 and 8.46 ounces depending on the model.
• this is really cool: how I help Sophia do the math
• 6 x 2 = 12
• so, Sophia, remember, the US has a population of about 350 million people:
• did Apple ship
• 10 phones?
  
• 100 phones?
• one hundred thousand phones: sounds like a big number but way too small
• a million phones?
• a billion phones?
• so, then 12 becomes 1.2 million or 1.2 billion 

Apple sold approximately 234.6 million iPhones in 2023, surpassing Samsung to become the world's top smartphone seller. In the previous year, 2022, Apple sold about 225.3 million iPhones. If all the above is accurate, that 1.2 million phones shipped out of India is trivial.

250 million / 12 months = 20 million iPhones being sold per month (global, of course, but America would be the biggest market, I assume).

Idle rambling: all of the above could be wrong but it gives me an idea where to begin. And regardless, it's a good exercise for Sophia for critical thinking

 Later: value here.

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The Book Page

Having completed these four books over the past couple of weeks, I was led to this book which arrived from Amazon yesterday:

• Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire, Eckart Frahm, c. 2023.

The author: a professor of Assyriology in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University.

I bought the book specifically to track the interaction and progression of hieroglyphics, cuneiform, the alphabet, and written language. I have no idea how this will play out; I've not seen reviews of the book, but my first impression: it's gonna be a great book. Comes in at 509 pages including notes to chapters and the index. 

WTI Volatility Continues; Drops Below $60 -- Thursday, April 10, 2025

Locator: 48452B.

Reagan Airport: two American Airlines a/c clip wings on taxiway. 

I guess it could have been worse; it could have been mid-air. The NBC reporter said it wouldn't have been a big deal had it not been at a Washington, DC-area airport. That may be true for NBC News but absolutely not true for Amerian Airlines. All pilots involved will be drug-tested, examined, debriefed and taken off flight status pending an in-depth investigation. At least that's what one would expect. Their jobs could be in jeopardy.  

Tariffs: NBC News echoing the Chinese party line. So far, I've not heard anything from Chinese billionaires. If Trump holds tariffs at current level, China could move Christmas toys through the EU and then on to the US. My hunch: it won't work based on the way Trump will frame the tariffs.

Manipulating the market: mentioned on the blog yesterday; now The NYT reports the story for the first time.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $59.98.

New wells:

• Friday, April 11, 2025: 39 for the month, 39 for the quarter, 246 for the year,
• 41166, conf, CLR, Arley 5-18H,
• 40699, conf, Hess, EN-Kiesel-155-94-1918H-9,

• Thursday, April 10, 2025: 37 for the month, 37 for the quarter, 244 for the year,
• 40761, conf, Hunt Oil, Kandiyohi 159-90-6-18H-3,
• 40698, conf, Hess, EN-Kiesel-153-94-918H-8,

RBN Energy:  E&Ps maintain stable investment, shareholder returns ahead of uncertain 2025.

As the clock approached midnight on December 31, E&P managements and shareholders likely clinked champagne flutes to celebrate a remarkable four years of prosperity for an industry that had been nearly shattered by two decades of periodic financial crisis. Soaring post-pandemic commodity prices and gold-plated balance sheets provided generous cash flows, enabling substantial shareholder payouts that restored investor support, but after a period of relative stability the outlook for the E&Ps we follow is uncertain. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll review the cash-allocation strategies used by U.S. oil and gas producers in 2024 and examine the factors that could dramatically impact the sector’s performance in 2025. 

Let’s take a brief look at recent history. WTI oil prices cratered to under $20/bbl in early 2020 and averaged just $39.16/bbl for the year. That nearly doubled to $68/bbl in 2021 and rose another 50% to $95/bbl in 2023. Cash flow from operations (CFOA or cash flow) for the publicly traded E&Ps we cover rose from $36 billion in 2020 to $76 billion in 2021 and a record $127 billion in 2022. That allowed producers to institute unprecedented dividends and share buybacks, which rose from a combined $15 billion in 2021 to $45 billion in 2022. The average oil price retreated to $77.58/bbl in 2023 but cash flows of $101 billion supported a still historically strong $31 billion in share buybacks and dividends. The average dividend yield for the E&P sector in 2023 was 3.8%, just above the 3.7% paid by the utility sector, which was second highest, and nearly three times the average 1.3% yield for the S&P 500.

The average WTI oil price remained steady at $76.55/bbl in 2024. But the 37 E&Ps in our universe generated $105 billion in cash flow in 2024, 3% higher than in 2023, mainly due to acquisitions completed during the year. Total investment (including non-upstream capex) was $66.4 billion, 5% higher than 2023. This yielded a re-investment rate of 63% of CFOA in 2024 (blue bar in Capex grouping in Figure 1 below), just ahead of the 62% plowed back in 2023 (yellow bar). These two most recent years stand in stark contrast to 2021-22, when the reinvestment rate fell to circa 40% (orange and gray bars), and 2020, when 82% of CFOA (blue bar) was put back into oil and gas assets.

Figure 1. E&P Cash Allocation, 2020-24. Source: Oil & Gas Financial Analytics, LLC 

This Year's Seasonal Flu Vaccine: Absolutely Of No Benefit -- Vaccinated Much More Likely To Acquire Seasonal Flu Than Non-Vaccinated -- Sure Glad I Got My Seasonal Flu Vaccination For This Season -- Comparative Mortality Rates Are Stunning -- April 9, 2025

Locator: 48451SEASONALFLU.

Link here.

Seasonal flu vaccine, 2024 - 2025 season:

• 43,857 employees, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio
• 82.1% vaccinated by the end of the study
• 1,079 (2.02%): came down with influenza
• cumulative incidence of influenza was similar to vaccinated and unvaccinated states early but over the course of the study the cumulative incidence of influenza increased more rapidly among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated
• bottom line: the risk of influenza was significantly higher for the vaccinated group compared to the unvaccinated group
• calcuated vaccine effectiveness: - 26.9%
• conclusion:
• This study found that influenza vaccination of working-aged adults was associated with a higher risk of influenza during the 2024-2025 respiratory viral season, suggesting that the vaccine has not been effective in preventing influenza this season.

Not only is this absolutely amazing, but for all the effort, good, bad, or indifferent, only 2% of all individuals came down with influenza, and most cases would have been very, very minor-- close to asymptomatic and not picked up at all had they not been part of the study.

For laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalizations, this has been the worse year since 2009 -- first year data collected for this graphic. Link here.

Mortality rates. Did the vaccine actually make things worse?

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Measles

Meanwhile, the measles outbreak in Texas shows no signs of slowing. In fact, the most recent data suggests cases may be increasing at a faster rate than the previous week.

Total number of cases in the "outbreak area" now total 505, an increase of 24 since the last report one week ago.