Why?

A writer over at SeekingAlpha suggests LNG's future as the preferred fuel for high-mileage long-haul trucks appears doubtful.

Why?

Oh.

Based on the summary above it seems reasonable to conclude that a Class 8 truck running an assumed 100,000 miles in a year saves $10,000 - $20,000 by running on CNG instead of LNG. In addition carriers that have tested both CNG and LNG trucks report that drivers prefer CNG's simplicity and increased safety. When also taking into account that CNG stations are being rolled out at a much greater pace than LNG stations, it becomes hard to agree with CLNE and WPRT that LNG is going to be the dominant fuel for high-mileage heavy duty natural gas vehicles going forward.

That helps. I can never keep track of the pros and cons of LNG vs CNG. This article compares and contrasts the two. For me, it is splitting hairs. Both are natural gas variants. 

But after reading the article twice, I'm not sure the writer has made his case. I'm more sold on LNG than CNG after reading his pros and cons. Maybe I'm in a cynical mood this morning. I usually am.

Oh, that statement that CNG stations are being rolled out at a much greater pace than LNG stations? The writer admits that most CNG stations cannot handle the big rigs. But it wouldn't be the first time Boone bet on the wrong horse.

A New Father At Age 66 Says ObamaCare Is "Not Insurance"; Cher Was Correct -- "60 Is The New 30"

I've been blogging the $12,000 annual deductible since "the beginning." Now Bloomberg spells it out in language that is hard to miss. 

Headline story at Yahoo!Finance today: Obamacare deductibles 26% higher make cheap rates a risk. Bloomberg is reporting:

Americans seeking cheap insurance on the Obamacare health exchanges may be in for sticker shock if they get sick next year, as consumers trade lower premiums for out-of-pocket costs that can top $6,000 a person.

That's as far as most people will read. Of the people that even see the article. 

Expenses for some policies can reach $6,350 for a single person and $12,700 per family, the most allowed by the health-care law, according to a survey by HealthPocket Inc. of seven states, including California and Ohio. That’s 26 percent higher than the average deductible in the seven states, and a scenario likely repeated across the country, said Kev Coleman, head of research and data at Sunnyvale, California-based HealthPocket. 

Private employers have been raising deductibles and co-pays for years to help control costs on health coverage for their workers. Now insurers are using the tactic to lower premiums on the government-run exchanges. While that has allowed President Barack Obama to tout the affordability of plans, it poses a choice: Do consumers gamble they won’t face a major medical bill, or boost monthly premiums just in case?

“If you have to pay $5,000 upfront” when illness hits, “you might as well not have any insurance at all,” said Larry Saphire, 82, of West Orange, New Jersey, who shopped for coverage for his wife and two children, ages 16 and 21. “That’s not insurance.”

On California’s state-run exchange site, the standard low-premium “bronze” plan carries a $5,000 deductible per person, a $60 co-pay to see a doctor and a 30 percent fee, known as coinsurance, on hospital care. In Rhode Island, Blue Cross Blue Shield’s bronze plan has a $5,800 deductible while Missouri’s U.S.-run exchange offers plans by Anthem Blue Cross with the maximum-allowable $6,350 in out-of-pocket costs.

He is 82 years old. His youngest child, 16, means he was a new father at age ... 66.  And a first-time father (in this marriage) at age ... 61. One can start taking social security at age 62; full social security benefits at around 66. Cher was correct: 60 is the new 30.

GMXR Renewed A Permit In Stark County, Yesterday

A reader asks if anyone knows "what this might mean," GMXR renewing:

• 21893, loc, GMXR, Frank 31-3-1H, New Hradec, Stark County

In fact, there are four "Frank" wells/permits in this area. Two 2-well pads in adjoining sections, about a mile apart from each other.

• 21213, 240, GMXR, Frank 31-4-1H, New Hradec, a Three Forks well, 15 stages; 2 million lbs;, t12/11; cum 29K 9/13;
• 21214, conf, GMXR, Frank 31-4-2H, New Hradec,
• 21892, loc,  GMXR, Frank 31-3-2H, New Hradec,

That's as much as I know about the Frank wells; maybe someone knows something more. 

For newbies: NDIC issues permits that expire after one year if drilling has not begun; permits can be renewed with a $100 filing fee.

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

Another reason I love to blog: folks have asked why companies don't renew "all" expiring permits; it only costs $100. Apparently, based on comments of another reader, NDIC prorates the number of permits an operator may have in North Dakota based on a formula. Thus, an operator may choose to "give up" a permit if the max has been reached and there are better opportunities out there.

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

Weather Report

Wow, after that recent cold spell that lasted about 36 hours, I thought winter was here. But the warm front is moving in. Temperatures will continually "improve" over the next three days, hitting a high in the low 70's today; around 77 tomorrow, and then almost 80 degrees on Sunday. Dallas-Ft Worth metroplex area.

Coen Brothers To Release Holiday Film

This should be very, very good: inside Llywen Davis.

The Coen Brothers' latest film, set amid the acoustic folk movement in Greenwich Village in 1961, is about a musical era perched on a precipice. 

The movie takes place right before Bob Dylan emerged on the scene and completely transformed it. During that fleeting musical moment, "there's this apocalyptic feeling, a sense that this thing is coming, and it is almost like the end of days," says Oscar Isaac, 33, who plays Llewyn Davis. "The rapture is Bob Dylan." In the context of the film, the notion isn't as overblown as it sounds. 

The tragicomic film's plot centers on Llewyn, a sad-sack folk musician struggling to make it following the suicide of his singing partner. As the movie starts, he gets punched in the face, discovers that his debut solo album—called "Inside Llewyn Davis"—is selling abysmally, and realizes that he may have impregnated his best friend's wife ( Carey Mulligan ). Mr. Isaac says he believes his character is ordinarily "a gregarious, joyful, humorous, happy-go-lucky guy, but you are catching him during a very bad month."

This should be very, very, very good:

T Bone Burnett, who collaborated with the Coens on their other folk-infused film, 2000's "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" oversaw the music. Mr. Burnett, Mr. Timberlake and the Coens rewrote a humorous ditty about the space race called "Please Mr. Kennedy"—originally penned as a satirical song about Vietnam—which is performed in the film in one of its lighter moments. (Sample lyric: "I'm 6-foot-2, so perhaps you'll/tell me how to fit into a 5-foot capsule.")

It's on the soundtrack, along with 13 other songs, including two versions of the folk classic, "Green, Green Rocky Road." One of them is performed by Mr. Isaac, and the other by the raspy-voiced Mr. Van Ronk.

Friday; TVA To Close Eight (8) Coal-Fired Plants; Heinz To Lay Off 1,350; Calumet To Refine In San Antonio; Individual Mandate Delayed One Year -- Dems Asking For More

Active rigs: 185 (steady; higher than usual)

RBN Energy: Calumet is someone to watch; first a new refinery in Dickinson (North Dakota), now one in San Antonio. 

Owning a refinery in the middle of the fastest growing shale crude basin sounds like a good idea. Calumet Specialty Products LP thinks so – they purchased the 14.5 Mb/d San Antonio refinery in December 2012 located at the heart of the Eagle Ford. Since then Calumet has set about expanding production and organizing more efficient crude transportation. But owning such a small refinery near the largest refining region in the world has its risks. Today we describe how location and crude supply advantages help keep this refinery competitive.

 The Wall Street Journal

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. 

I think the biggest investment news story yesterday was the report that Warren Buffett bought 1% of ExxonMobil. There may be more to follow. In pre-market trading, XOM is already up by almost 2%. Motley Fool weighs in on why Warren bought XOM: cheap, second largest company in the world (market cap), and longevity. Those are hardly reasons, except "cheap." These "reasons" only explain Buffett's strategies and constraints; it provides no insight for the average retail investor. And, if anything, he's late. XOM was probably trading in the high 80's when he bought it; in July, 2010, he could have gotten it for less than $55/share (which many did). That was only a couple of years ago, so we're not talking about a decade-old story.

Was the word "speculators" used in this article? I guess it's not "speculation" when Goldman Sachs does it. Of if they lose money. It's just a "wrong-way bet."

A wrong-way bet on global oil prices has hit some of the crude market's most high-profile investment firms, including hedge funds run by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. traders, worsening what has been a dismal year for commodity-fund returns. Wagers that the gap between Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude-oil prices would narrow were upended when the "spread" between these two prices instead diverged during September and October. 

In blow to coal, TVA to shut eight (8) coal-burning units in Alabama and Kentucky. 

Yesterday it was announced that Lockheed Martin would cut 4,000 jobs; today the new owners of Heinz (which includes Warren Buffett) announces layoffs of 1,350.

Of course, the big story is President Obama delaying the individual mandate for a year.

Democratic lawmakers running for cover.

Insurers expressed a range of worries over "shift."

Insurers expressed a range of worries after President Barack Obama moved to placate millions of consumers by allowing insurers to offer plans next year that they were canceling under the health-care law.

Huge: West Virginia preps for shale-gas play.

A Brazilian conglomerate unveiled a proposal Thursday to build a multibillion-dollar natural-gas refining complex in West Virginia—the biggest such development in the state as it tries to profit from the region's drilling boom.

The proposed project by Odebrecht Group, a privately held São Paolo-based engineering, construction and petrochemical company, would include a plant known as an ethane cracker, where natural gas is turned into ethylene, a chemical-industry feedstock. It would also include three plants to produce polyethylene, which is used to make numerous products, from plastic bags to pipes.

This is an interesting story: boys more at risk than girls in womb. "We" talked about that all the time back "in the day." Although we didn't know why, and we didn't have the studies to back up our hunches, we always felt better when we learned that the baby was a girl if the baby was going to come early.

Humor For The Day

This was a front page headline in today's New York Times: "Health Law Rollout's Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush's Hurricane Response"

President Obama is now threatened by a similar toxic mix. The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency.

But unlike Mr. Bush, who faced confrontational but occasionally cooperative Democrats, Mr. Obama is battling a Republican opposition that has refused to open the door to any legislative fixes to the health care law and has blocked him at virtually every turn. A contrite-sounding Mr. Obama repeatedly blamed himself on Thursday for the failed health care rollout, which he acknowledged had thrust difficult burdens on his political allies and hurt Americans’ trust in him.