Chariots on Fire: First Volts, Now Dreamliners

Updates

January 16, 2013: FAA grounds all Dreamliners; cites lithium batteries as concern; this, by the way, has implications for vehicles with lithium batteries

Original Post

Over a year ago, Don suggested a new name for the phenomenon of Volts catching on fire: chariots on fire. It appears that "chariots on fire" may not be limited to earthbound transportation. Although

• details have not been released;
• the incident is still under investigation; and,
• no one is yet saying the fire was caused by the lithium batteries; 

the video is compelling, and the location of the fire in the Dreamliner was interesting: in a compartment where lithium batteries were located.

When the story first broke yesterday, it was not made immediately clear that the plane had just landed 30 minutes earlier at Boston following a fairly long flight from ... Tokyo.

The fire broke out on an empty Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet in Boston's Logan Airport after a non-stop flight from Tokyo, prompting more safety concerns about the new plane since its 2011 release.

The incident occurred Monday morning when an electrical fire broke out on board the Japan Airlines jet 30 minutes after 173 passengers and 11 crew members exited the plane. The Massachusetts Port Authority's fire chief, Bob Donahue, said the fire began in a battery pack for the plane's auxiliary power unit, which runs the jet's electrical systems when it's not getting power from its engines. 

So, yes, the plane was empty, but thirty minutes earlier, it was not. Wow. 

Lagging Indicator: EU Unemployment Tops 26 Million For The First Time

It looks like the EU has been through the worse ... and now things should start getting better ...

Link here to AP news.

For newbies: a few days ago I suggested that the lousy US jobs numbers were foreshadowing the Great Recession of 2013. "Anonymous" corrected me, pointing out that unemployment was a lagging indicator, and as such did not foreshadow anything.

So, with that in mind, back to the story: EU employment has topped 26 million for the first time and unemployment in Greece has soared to 26 percent. These are lagging indicators.

Greece does not have the highest unemployment rate. That distinction goes to Spain with unemployment at 26.6 percent in November. 

At the linked article:

Unemployment in the 17 EU countries that use the euro rose to 11.8 percent in November, as the number of jobless people in the region rose to 18.8 million, the highest figure since the single currency was founded in 1999.

According to data released Tuesday by the EU's official statistics agency, eurozone unemployment was up 0.1 percentage points over October — but up a full 1.2 percentage points from a year ago. The rate for the 27-member European Union was 10.7 percent, the same as in October, but up from 10.0 percent a year ago. The number of unemployed across the full EU topped 26 million.

The figures illustrate the daunting tasks confronting European Union officials. While the threat of a collapse of the eurozone due to too much government debt may have receded, the economies in many EU countries stubbornly refuse to expand and joblessness continues to rise, creating broad social crises.

At 7.8 percent, it looks like Britain's unemployment rate is the same as ours (the US).

SandRidge and KOG in the News Yesterday

Link here to SeekingAlpha.com.

SandRidge:

a Canadian holding company by the name of Fairfax Financial disclosed that they bought 4.975 million shares over a five day span at the end of December in SandRidge Energy

KOG:

another buyout rumor

And so it goes. 

General Interest Story: Canada's Oil Landlocked Without Those Pipelines

Link here to the Calgary Herald.

Canadian faux environmentalists don't want pipelines in their country either.

This tough talk is part of the billion-dollar problem challenging the federal and provincial dreams of Canada becoming an energy superpower: While the country has massive reserves and an eager marketplace, it has huge hurdles to get product to consumers.

Today, Alberta produces about 2.2 million barrels of oil per day, with around 1.7 million in the form of bitumen.

As billions of dollars of investment pours into the area north of Fort McMurray, oil-sands production is expected to double by 2020, and grow to five million barrels a day a decade after that.

If no new pipelines are built - an unlikely but possible scenario - infrastructure capacity will run out by 2016.

Already, lack of pipeline space and access to a wider range of customers means western Canadian oil is selling at a steep discount compared to the world price.

And so it goes.

Having said that, the article gives a nice overview of Canadian pipeline system.

RBN Energy: Bakken Oil to the St James Rail Yards In Louisiana

Wells coming off the confidential list today have been posted.

RBN Energy: St. James Rail Yards End the North Dakota Crude Oil Blues

This time our focus turns to NuStar Energy LP that owns the largest volume of crude oil storage at St. James, LA. NuStar Energy L.P. is a publicly traded, MLP based in San Antonio, TX with 8,433 miles of pipeline; 84 terminal and storage facilities and a 50 percent share in two asphalt refineries.

NuStar is a spin off from Valero midstream transportation assets. The company’s focus over the past two years has moved away from asphalt, refining and trading activities that are exposed to commodity prices towards fee based transportation and storage. In the process NuStar has built a crude oil infrastructure in the Eagle Ford and a major storage and transportation hub at St. James, LA.