Arctic Blast? What Arctic Blast? Rigs Increasing In Number; MRO Reports A Huge DUC -- January 2, 2018

Active rigs:

$60.37→	1/2/2018	01/02/2017	01/02/2016	01/02/2015	01/02/2014
Active Rigs	52	39	60	171	183

Ten new permits:

• Operators: ERF (9); CLR
• Fields: McGregory Buttes (Dunn); Willow Creek (Williams)
• Comments: Enerplus permits for a 9-well pad in NENW 20-148-93 -- Widgeon, Scaup, Pintail, Canvasback, Muscovy, Mallard, Scrooge, Dewey, and Daffy. See graphic below.

One permit canceled:

• 31601, CLR, Anderson 7-4H,

Six producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 27988, 1,059, CLR, Jersey 8-6H1, Alkali Creek, 4 sections, t12/17; cum --
• 30376, 576, Statoil, Folvag 5-8 2TFH, Stony Creek, t11/17; cum --
• 30565, 450, Statoil, Folvag 5-8 1H, Stony Creek, t11/17; cum --
• 32889, 3,707, MRO, Lockwood USA 44-22TFH, Antelope, Sanish pool, t12/17; cum -- (see also #32888 at this link, which may be a record Bakken well; #19144 was re-fracked at same time as these other DUCs);
  
• 33295, N/D, Whiting, Scanlan 11-5TFH, Truax, no data, listed as "A";
• 33296, N/D, Whiting, Scanlan 11-5-2H, Truax, no data, listed as "A";

The graphic:

Anticipating Wednesday -- New Car Sales -- January 3, 2018

Link here for EV sales:

December 2017 CAR SALES will be reported on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018 beginning with the Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt sales at (9:30-10:30 AM ET), and finishes with Ford and BMW’s plug-in data in the afternoon of Thursday, January 4th, 2017.

If Tesla's Model 3 hits 3,000 vehicles delivered, TSLA shares will soar.

From a google search:

Tesla Model 3 Production Is 84% Lower Than What Elon Musk Promised. Tesla reported Monday, October 2, 2017, that it produced 260 of its new Model 3 electric cars in the third quarter, of which it has delivered 220, dramatically missing CEO Elon Musk's prediction that it would produce more than 1,600 cars by September. -- October 2, 2017

Time for a poll: will Tesla deliver more than 3,000 Model 3 vehicles for the month of December, 2017? 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. I do not own a Tesla and have no plans to ever buy one.

GDP now: also the next 4Q17 GDP forecast will be posted tomorrow (Wednesday, January 2, 2018). The most recent one, December 22, 2017, had the estimate falling significantly, to 2.8 percent. 

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The Market Is Getting "Too Rich" For Me

I am getting out of the stock market and getting into art. My first "Warhol" collection.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Disclosure: I am "long" on art and craft works done by the three granddaughters.

The Market And Energy Page, T+345 -- January 2, 2018 -- Nasdaq Surges; Other Markets Doing Nicely; EU PMI Hits Record: The End Of 2017 -- Coldest In 132 Years -- Minnesota DNR

But first things first: has Al Franken resigned yet? A google search reveals no new updates. He is supposed to resign today. I will remove the poll. Meaningless. [Update, early morning, January 3, 2018, yup, no big speech, just a simple letter of resignation. His swan song has already been forgotten.]

Road to New England. And what's going on over at ISO New England? Same ol', same ol': spot electricity surged to over $200 this morning; coal and nuclear are maxed out; renewables not helping when most needed

Tesla survived the "death cross" and surges over $6 $9 in early trading today. And here.

Football.Two huge NCAA football upsets yesterday; loved both games. I have never cared for Alabama but I have to admit, they were impressive last night. I loved Georgia's comeback and that one incredible catch that stunned Oklahoma. I had no preferences going into the games.

First trillion-dollar market cap: Apple, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, TenCent, Alibaba. Talking head on CNBC mis-pronounces the name of Apple's newest iPhone. Andrew Ross Sorkin did, too, the other day and remained confused. Speaks volumes.

Market volume. I can easily reach every one of my on-line brokerage sites except one. For some reason, one of the most well-known on-line discount brokerage is difficult to reach. Maybe it's just my internet connection, but all other sites come up immediately. This particular site is not loading, or when it does, very, very slow.

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Poll

The Williston Herald releases its list of the top 10 stories in the Bakken for 2017. Do you agree with their pick for #1?

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Global Warming

From Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources:

The last week of 2017 will be one of the coldest final weeks of a year for many decades in Minnesota.

The period from Christmas Day to New Year's Eve was the second coldest end of the year in the Twin Cities.Twin Cities had an average temperature of -3.0 degrees F.

This made the end of 2017 the coldest in at 132 years.

The coldest final week of a year for the Twin Cities record (1872-2017) was in 1886 with a seven day average temperature of -4.7 degrees F. 1924 was knocked out of the second place spot with an average temperature of -1.8 degrees F. The coldest temperature in the state in December, 2017 was -42 at Cotton on December 28. There was also a record low at International Falls for December 27 of -37 degrees, breaking the old record of 32 for the date.

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Back To The Bakken

$60.25→	1/2/2018	01/02/2017	01/02/2016	01/02/2015	01/02/2014
Active Rigs	51	39	60	171	183

RBN Energy: top 10 RBN energy prognostication for 2018.

• in the regional gas-on-gas wars, the winner is Henry Hub
• in the regional crude market wars, the loser is Cushing
• in the NGL market, the winner is ethane
• Mariner East 2 will turn Marcellus/Utica NGL markets inside out
• Permian gas could be facing unprecedented adverse market conditions
• Permian gas could light up the West Texas night sky
• neat condensate is getting nearer
• the Haynesville natural gas rebound will continue, but ...
• crude prices will continue to trade in the zone, as long as the OPEC deal holds up
• crude oil exports will remain robust, but growth will slow

North Dakota Recorded The Coldest Temperature On Earth Today -- January 1, 2018

The coldest place on earth today was in Hettinger, ND.

- 45 degrees.

Temperatures at all official global sites were checked -- including the North Pole, the South Pole, Siberia, Russia, the rest of the US, etc., and the coldest temperature recorded at an official weather monitoring/recording station was in Hettinger, ND.

Hettinger is in southwest North Dakota, near the South Dakota state line.

Note where the all-time lowest temperature for North Dakota for this date was recorded -- Parshall, ND -- the center of the Bakken.

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Other Records

From Twitter:

Confirmed: not a single passenger death on a commercial JET aircraft anywhere on earth in 2017. First time in sixty years and a first since such aircraft became the dominant form of travel.

Tough Love -- Prince Salman Lowers The Boom On Indolence, Sloth, And Fraud -- January 1, 2018

Saudi, UAE introduce VAT in first for Gulf -- France24 -- Don sent me the story. I had seen it earlier; had not yet linked it. From the lede:

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates introduced value-added tax from Monday, a first for the Gulf which has long prided itself on its tax-free, cradle-to-grave welfare system.

Saudi Arabia compounded the New Year blow for motorists with an unannounced hike of up to 127 percent in petrol prices with immediate effect from midnight.

They are the latest in series of measures introduced by Gulf oil producers over the past two years to boost revenues and cut spending as a persistent slump in world prices has led to ballooning budget deficits.

The five percent sales tax applies to most goods and services and analysts project that the two governments could raise as much as $21 billion in 2018, equivalent to 2.0 percent of GDP.

My not-ready-for-prime-time reply:

On September 2, 2017, the rate at which Saudi's foreign reserves could deplete to ZERO was five years. The kingdom was losing anywhere from $3 billion to $8 billion a month.

Most recently, their cash reserves increased slightly but that came just as Prince Salman held 100's of princes for ransom. I think the media was suggesting that Prince Salman hoped to get $100 billion from the princes. That would cover $5 billion / month for twenty months.

Losing market share and price of oil struggling to stay above $65 (Brent) suggests that Saudi is not out of the woods yet, especially considering all the challenges facing them: a) war with Yemen; b) war with Iran (but I repeat myself); c) Prince Salman's grand Vision 2030 plan; and, d) the IPO.

We've seen this movie before but the prequel was Iran; the sequel is Saudi Arabia. And yes, there will be many sequels.

This from page 366, The Oil Kings, Andrew Scott Cooper, c. 2011.

On January 1, 1977, Mohammad Reza Shah held a long audience with Court Minister Alam and accused the Saudis of betrayal. "We must give them the thrashing they deserve." The next day was worse. Court Minister Alam was greeted with the shattering news that Iran faced financial ruin. "We're broke," admitted the Shah.

"Everything seems doomed to grind to a standstill, and meanwhile many of the programs we had planned must be postponed."

He expected oil exports to fall by as much as 30 percent. When Alam tried to offer reassurance, the Shah railed against Yamani and the Saudis. "It's going to be tough," the Shah admitted. A few days earlier, during an interview with the newspaper Kayban, the Shah had foolishly lashed out at his own people, blaming them for Iran's financial crisis and implying they needed to tighten their belts. Iran had become "a paradise of indolence and sloth." It was time for everyone to roll up their sleeves.

"If we do not revise our policies we shall not survive."

".... if Saudi floods the market with oil, ... it may force us to decrease our production. And if this happens, it will affect our economic plans, our military buildup, and especially our foreign aid program ... I am worried about our internal developments," the Shah said in an interview with BusinessWeek."

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A Math Lesson

From Goodreads.com:

“If you've got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've got 71 cents left; But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand. There's a math lesson for you.” ― Steve Martin