And The Number Is ... -- August 30, 2017 -- Down To 27 Weeks To Re-Balance

US crude oil inventories (excluding the SPR) decreased by a whopping 5.4 million bbls, down to 457.8 million bbls. Wow.

Weeks to re-balance:

Week	Date	Drawdown	Storage	Weeks to RB
Week 0	Apr 26, 2017		529.0	180
Week 1	May 3, 2017	0.9	528.0	198
Week 2	May 10, 2017	6	522.0	50
Week 3	May 17, 2017	1.8	520.2	59
Week 4	May 24, 2017	4.4	515.8	51
Week 5	May 31, 2017	6.4	509.9	41
Week 6	June 7, 2017	-3.3	513.2	60
Week 7	June 14, 2017	1.7	511.5	57
Week 8	June 21, 2017	2.5	509.0	62
Week 9	June 28, 2017	-0.2	509.2	71
Week 10	July 6, 2017	6.3	502.9	58
Week 11	July 12, 2017	7.6	495.3	47
Week 12	July 19, 2017	4.7	490.6	43
Week 13	July 26, 2017	7.2	483.4	38
Week 14	August 2, 2017	1.5	481.9	33
Week 15	August 9, 2017	6.5	475.4	35
Week 16	August 16, 2017	8.9	466.5	30
Week 17	August 23, 2017	3.3	463.2	29
Week 18	August 30, 2017	5.4	457.8	27

Notes: on the weeekly re-balancing report. US crude oil reserves declined by 5.4 million bbls this past week. My estimate for re-balancing, if the decline stays on pace (average over past 18 weeks): 27 weeks.

From my perspective, this is much more quickly than I would have predicted just a few months ago. This takes us to the end of the year. I had expected the re-balancing to take us well into 2018, if ever.

Again, for newbies: I define re-balancing as having 350 million bbls of US crude oil in storage (does not include the SPR), or about 22 days of storage.

Comments: some pundits have said that due to Hurricane Harvey, there is simply no more room for oil in the pipelines; they are all backed up because the Gulf coast refiners can't take any more.

Some data points:

• for the past 18 weeks, US crude oil inventories have decreased
• the largest US storage area: Cushing, OK -- last time I checked, not impacted by Hurricane Harvey
• pipelines from Eagle Ford, closed
• pipelines from the Permian, status?
• ships off-shore have not been able to download for the past several days (to the best of my knowledge, floating oil is not included in weekly US crude oil inventory numbers)
• California oil is not affected
• there are refineries in the northwest, midcontinent, and northeast that were not directly affected by Hurricane Harvey 
• US gasoline demand near record highs

***********************************

Margaret Sanger: A Life Of Passion

Jean H. Baker

c. 2011

DDS: 363.9BAK

Chapter 1: Maggie Higgins: Daughter of Corning

• US Civil War
• Corning glassworks
• Erie Canal
• Maggie Higgins: born 1879
• family's relationship with their Catholic church
• poor upbringing
• Erie Railroad bridge that spanned the Chemung River
• 1895, 16 years old, boarding school
• failed to complete 8 grades by school, by two weeks
• enrolled at the Claverack College and Hudson River Institute in 1895/96?
• a coeducational boarding school near Hudson, NY
• originally a girls' school; then coeducational; good regional reputation
• family unable to finance her through graduation; she completed only three years; did not graduate

Chapter 2: Mrs William Sanger of Hastings-on-Hudson

• 1899, mother dies; Maggie brought home to tend to her dying mother
• 1900: enters nursing school at the White Plains Hospital outside NYC
• her goal: medical school; Cornell University in nearby Ithaca, NY 
• only 5% of US doctors female at that time
• many male suitors, despite being poor and uneducated
• new opportunity, coincidentally: nurses needed for the Spanish-American War, in the Philippines
• nursing schools increased in the US
• White Plains Hospital was one of the beneficiaries of this new phenomenon
• tuberculosis scare
• meets William Sanger, a handsome, freelance draftsman, an aspiring architect and artist; at a dance
• six months later, abruptly married
• no longer "Higgins"
• nurses forbidden to marry and she was expelled from nursing school
• again, did not graduate
• five months later, pregnant
• tuberculosis, national epidemic
• in a TB sanatorium while pregnant
• shortly after baby Stuart's birth, Maggie relapsed (TB)
• second son, born 1908; defiantly pregnant again 13 months later; Margaret (Peggy - born 1910)
• never pregnant again
• obviously the couple employed some form of birth control
• US declining birth rates: by 1900, typical American woman had 3.2 children compared to 7.4 one century earlier
• doctors saw birth control not as an opportunity to improve women's health, but rather as a hazard threatening their professional practices
• overwhelmingly, physicians opposed any form of artificial contraception
• Harvard graduate, president Teddy Roosevelt spoke of "race suicide"
• in 1910, tranquil life
• she joined a literary club, reading papers on George Eliot and Robert Browning

Chapter 3: Comrade Sanger
 
The rest of the notes are posted here.

The Peculiarities Of The Bakken -- Random Update Of A CLR Miles Well -- August 30, 2017

The Miles-Kennedy are tracked here. 

Updating this well:

• 19121, 567, CLR, Miles 4-6H1, t3/15; cum 138K 6/17; (the strange production profile continues -- file report receive November 22, 2016: a pad fire -- well shut in and fire allowed to burn itself out; location evacuated; Keene FD on-scene); the fire took place February 13, 2015; well back on status; API: 33-053-06174. FracFocus has no data that this well was re-fracked after the original frack in 2015.

Recent monthly production data:

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	6-2017	24	3893	3618	5237	4211	4211	0
BAKKEN	5-2017	23	4365	4478	5503	9106	9106	0
BAKKEN	4-2017	30	7227	7377	8192	11427	11427	0
BAKKEN	3-2017	31	9150	9316	10348	23596	22483	1113
BAKKEN	2-2017	28	11409	11228	11120	23858	21378	2480
BAKKEN	1-2017	28	11377	11026	10156	14741	8078	6663
BAKKEN	12-2016	5	45	459	82	496	490	6
BAKKEN	11-2016	28	9454	9423	8748	11813	8480	3333
BAKKEN	10-2016	22	11221	10994	9976	13105	11649	1456
BAKKEN	9-2016	9	2995	2724	2723	4392	2713	1679
BAKKEN	8-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2016	5	1130	1556	1199	2666	2666	0
BAKKEN	6-2016	30	14346	14215	13011	26616	25530	1086
BAKKEN	5-2016	28	13992	13609	11666	24907	23169	1738
BAKKEN	4-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	3-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	2-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	1-2016	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	12-2015	19	10650	11375	9099	20382	20282	100
BAKKEN	11-2015	28	16673	16744	13937	28966	28966	0
BAKKEN	10-2015	4	1404	723	907	1346	1146	200
BAKKEN	9-2015	10	3574	3635	2735	6564	2440	4124
BAKKEN	8-2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

The Political Page, T+222 -- August 30, 2017

Quick! Without looking, "who is on" the US $2 bill?

The presidential pardon. I didn't read much of the op-ed in today's WSJ on the presidential pardon of the Arizona sheriff, but what little I read reinforced my positive thoughts about the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. From the op-ed:

Alexander Hamilton devoted a substantial portion of Federalist No. 74 to defending the provision. “Humanity and good policy,” he argued, “conspire to dictate that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered.” And a single decision maker, he continued, would be more likely to be guided by the right kinds of considerations as well as a strong sense of responsibility in exercising this power.

Hamilton did not see the pardon as a challenge to the rule of law, but the reverse—a correction of law’s inherent imperfection. “The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity,” he wrote “that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.” The pardon was created as a way of tempering justice with mercy. It is, wrote the great Chief Justice John Marshall in U.S. v. Wilson (1833), “an act of grace.”

There is a picture of President Gerald Ford accompanying the story. I assume that was related to the "Nixon pardon." 

The Market And Energy Page, T+222 -- August 30, 2017 -- Wow: Look At Jobs Report! Look At Revised 2Q17 GDP -- Making America Great!

Holy cow! Making American great. Jobs report today. ADP employment report to be reported later. Forecast: US added 185,000 jobs in August. Actual: holy cow! 237,000 jobs added in August. Steve Liesman, CNBC seems awestruck, blown away. Doesn't understand where jobs are coming from. Talking head: "can't last forever." [I believe I  heard that same quote last month.] In addition, the July number was revised higher, up 23,000 to 201,000. And now they are saying the initial August figures tend to be on the light side and are generally revised upward. Wow. And in a very long CNBC segment, Trump administration not mentioned. In fact, Steve Liesman specifically said he did not want to talk politics.

GDP. Making America great. Latest forecast: 3.4 percent — August 25, 2017.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2017 is 3.4 percent on August 25, down from 3.8 percent on August 16.

The forecast of third-quarter real GDP growth fell 0.3 percentage points to 3.5 percent after the Federal Reserve Board's industrial production report on August 17 and the forecast of third-quarter real residential investment growth fell from 3.4 percent to –0.4 percent following the housing market data releases on August 23 and 24. The forecast of third-quarter real nonresidential equipment investment growth increased from 6.4 percent to 8.1 percent after this morning's durable manufacturing report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Harvey effect on GDP: talking head on CNBC says Harvey will not affect national data.

GDP: revised 2Q17 estimate -- was 2.6; estimate of 2.7 or 2.8 percent. Actual -- 3%!. Wow. Steve Liesman admits that positive business attitude from Trump administration "could account" for some of this. Did CNBC say that 3% in the 2Q is the best for that quarter in two years? I thought I heard that but I was making waffles and might have misheard.

10-year Treasuries: 2.1149

Oh-oh: Norway's Arctic oil ambitions suffer as most promising well is a dud. From Reuters:

Norway's hope of discovering a large oilfield in the Barents Sea has suffered a major setback after the far north Arctic's most promising reservoir turned out to contain only small amounts of natural gas.

Statoil, the country's top oil and gas producer, has stepped up drilling in the Barents Sea this year as the government seeks to attract more explorers to its Arctic waters to make up for declining North Sea output.

But Statoil said on Tuesday that after drilling the northernmost exploration well in the highly anticipated Korpfjell prospect it had found only non-commercial quantities of gas and no oil.

Korpfjell was the first exploration well drilled in the Norwegian section of a formerly disputed area between Norway and Russia, where Statoil and its partners had hoped to make a major discovery.

On the ropes: Russia's Gazprom 2Q17 net income drops 80% y-o-y; misses forecast. From Reuters.

CLR's Candee Wells In Chimney Butte

See this post for more in-depth data.

The Candee wells, those in red, were added September 22, 2021:

• 38249, drl/A, CLR, Candee 9-9HSL, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 163K 6/22;
  
• 38250, drl/A, CLR, Candee 10-9H1, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 120K 6/22;
• 38154, drl/A, CLR, Candee 12-9HSL1, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 127K 6/22;
• 38153, drl/A, CLR, Candee 13-9HSL, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 161K 6/22;
• 32095, AB/68 (no typo), CLR, Candee 7-9H, Chimney Butte, 27 stages; 12 million lbs, t6/18; cum 44K 9/19; cum 69K 10/20; off line 11/20; remains off line 6/22;
  
• 32093, 1,409, CLR, Candee 8-9H1, Chimney Butte, 46 stages, 11.7 million lbs; t9/17; cum 373K 9/19; nice well; too early to tell how it will turn out; cum 429K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line; cum 433K 6/22;
  
• 29475, 941, CLR, Candee 6-9H, Chimney Butte, t5/15; cum 282K 9/19; cum 321K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line; cum 325K 6/22;
  
• 29474, 1,088, CLR, Candee 5-9H1, Chimney Butte, t5/15; cum 256K 9/19; cum 289K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line, cum 301K 6/22;
  
• 29473, 1,001, CLR, Candee 4-9H, Chimney Butte, 30 stages, 3.3 million lbs, large sand, small ceramic, t5/15; cum 330K 9/19; cum 367K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line; cum 370K 6/22;
  
• 20548, 356, CLR, Candee 2-9H, Chimney Butte, t3/12; cum 291K 9/19; cum 308K 2/21; cum 320K 6/22;
  
• 20546, 813, CLR, Candee 3-9H, Chimney Butte, 27 stages, 2.7 million lbs, t4/12; cum 304K 9/19; cum 312K 7/21; remains on line; 10x jump in production, 11/21; cum 373K 6/22; 10x jump in production;
  
• 16509, AB/IA/484, CLR, Candee 11-9H, Chimney Butte, dual lateral, 1 stage, 1 million lbs, t6/07; cum 206K 9/19; not much production since 2017; cum 206K 8/20; off line 9/20; remains off line 7/21;