Friday, October 20, 2023

Week 42: October 16, 2023 -- October 22, 2023

Locator: 45771B.

Top, top story:

  • Biden visits Israel prior to anticipated invasion of Gaza
  • Israel: ready to start ground invasion of northern end of the Gaza Strip

Top North Dakota energy story:

  • federal money still headed to North Dakota: now, to update the electric grid;

Top story:

  • Biden visits Israel prior to anticipated invasion of Gaza
  • Israel: ready to start ground invasion of northern end of the Gaza Strip
  • US House still with no speaker
  • US Senate won't confirm US military leaders; GOP leadership at its finest

Top international non-story story:

  • Greta in the news: needed to raise cash in depleted bank account;
  • Russian-Ukraine war continues; drags on and on and on
    • Russia most recently invaded February 22, 2022
    • the war actually goes back to 2014
  • new world order in the Mideast
    • Saudi Arabia talking with Iran; cuts off talks with Israel

Top international energy story:


Top national non-energy story:

  • inflation; rate increases still frustrate investors
  • retail sales increased 4x expected, Americans still spending 
  • US murder rate drops at record rate;
  • Texas Rangers squander two-game leader; likely to lose ALCS;

    Top national energy story:

    • US domestic oil production hits all-time record: 13 million bopd;
    • FERC approves Pacific Northwest pipeline expansion; no actual digging; no new pipe; environmentalists still go nuts;

    Focus on fracking: most recent edition.

    Top North Dakota non-energy story:


    Top North Dakota energy story:


    Geoff Simon's quick connects:

    Bakken economy:

    • holding in there -- active rigs running about 37;

    Commentary:

    Two New Permits -- October 20, 2023

    Locator: 45844B.

    Active rigs: 40.

    WTI: $88.75.

    Two new permits, #40282 - $40283, inclusive:

    • Operators: Whiting, Eagle Operating
    • Fields: Sanish (Mountrail); Feldner Coulee (Renville)
    • Comments:
      • Eagle Operating has a permit for a Wade well, NESW 5-158-86, 
        • to be sited 1900 FSL and 1700 FWL;
      • Whiting has a permit for a Sanish Bay E Federal well, lot 7, section 6-152-92, 
        • to be sited 904 FFSL and 300 FWL

    CO2 - CCS, 39960, Blue Flint Sequester Company, Mag 2, SESE 7-145-82, McLean County; confidential CO2 storage observation well completed.

    UAW Update -- 4:14 P.M. Friday -- October 20, 2023

    Locator: 45843UAW.

    Updates

    4:12 p.m. CT: this is where it stands:

    Original Post 

    Looks like the auto manufacturers spoke untruths: they didn't have their "best and final" offer on the table, saying they had no more to give ....

    ... now willing to offer more ....

    25% is a long way from 40% which is now 36%.

    By the way, "...25% compounded." 

    Compounded to what?

    Canceled: CO2 Navigator Pipeline Across Five Flyover States -- October 20, 2023

    Locator: 45842ESG.

    "Energy transition is dead, we just don't know it yet" -- Peter Zeihan, link here. 

    Link here -- although this really isn't "only" a CO2-environmental-green-ESG story.

    CO2 has applications in EOR -- enhanced oil recovery. But in this case, no EOR opportunities, so ESG .... green ... woke ...

    Whatever.

     I guess it's more of a NIMBY story than anything.

    From the linked article;

    BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A company on Friday said it would cancel its plans for a 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) pipeline across five Midwestern states that would have gathered carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and buried the gas deep underground.

    Navigator CO2 Ventures’ Heartland Greenway project is among a handful of similar ventures supported by the renewable fuels industry and farming organizations, but many landowners and environmental groups oppose the pipelines and question their safety and effectiveness in reducing climate-warming gases.

    .... “unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa” were key to the decision to cancel the project.

    .... more than 20 plants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota for permanent storage deep underground in Illinois.

    It sounds this was all about keeping corn prices high.

    “It is not an overstatement to say that decisions made over the next few months will likely place agriculture on one of two paths. One would lead to 1990s stagnation as corn production exceeds demand, and the other opens new market opportunities larger than anything we’ve ever seen before,” he said in a statement.

    This should help tame inflation. 

    Pork and chicken prices should plummet. Maybe not beef.


    Inflation: Exhibit A -- October 20, 2023

    Locator: 45841INFLATION.

    The problem with "understanding" inflation. I can't explain inflation. I do know that it comes down to one axiom.

    For the record, Econ 101 was my hardest subject in college. I never understood macro-economics or micro-economics. Those elastic / inelastic price charts never made sense to me because at some point "everything" is "elastic" when it comes to price. Everything.

    Same with calculus. I was amazed (and remain dumbfounded) that the whole discipline was founded on the principle that one could simply ignore "small numbers in limits" when doing the calculations.

    Exhibit A:



    Links:

    Market:

    • why does TSLA have a P/E of 68?
    • and AAPL has a P/E of 28?