Happy Fourth Of July -- The Market Closes Early Today; I'm Wrapping It Up Early For Now

From Yahoo!In-Play:

• Enterprise Products Partners and Enbridge announced that the 512-mile loop of the Seaway Pipeline system from Cushing, Oklahoma, to the Jones Creek storage and terminal facility near Freeport, Texas, is mechanically complete. The new 30-inch Seaway Loop Pipeline is expected to more than double the capacity of the Seaway system to 850,000 bopd.

I assume this is the "Seaway Reversal." If folks recall: the Keystone XL was to have capacity of about 850,000 bopd.  There is a "Seaway" tag that will take you other Seaway stories on the blog.

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A Good News Story ... For Some

North Dakota At The Top For Jobs -- 32 States Lagging

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting:

Five years after the Great Recession officially ended, most states still haven't regained all the jobs they lost, even though the nation as a whole has.

North Dakota is an exception.

In May, the overall economy finally recovered all 9 million jobs that vanished in the worst downturn since the 1930s. Another month of solid hiring is expected in the U.S. jobs report for June that will be released today.

Yet 32 states still have fewer jobs than when the recession began in December 2007 — evidence of the unevenness and persistently slow pace of the recovery.

Other data points at the linked article:

• North Dakota has added 100,000 jobs since December 2007 — a stunning 28 percent increase, by far the nation’s highest numbers in job creation -- I assume it's all the wind farms; the article did not mention the Bakken, BNSF, ethanol, or agriculture
• Illinois is down 184,000 jobs from pre-recession levels; factory layoffs
• New Jersey is down 147,000, factory layoffs
• Florida is down 170,000 in the aftermath of its real estate market collapse
• Washington D.C., where lobbying is an all but recession-proof occupation, are up 49,000, or 7 percent
• Wall Street’s recovery from the financial crisis has helped New York gain 237,000 jobs since the recession ended, an increase of nearly 3 percent

That's really quite phenomenal: the population of North Dakota was around 650,000 people (before the boom) -- that includes everyone: men, women, and children; workers and non-workers. To add 100,000 new jobs in the past seven years is ... well, stunning, as The Bismarck Tribune writes. And even more jobs are opening every day. Absolutely stunning.

When you get right down to it, 32 states lagging is not a good commentary on the economy overall. People coming to work in North Dakota are not coming here for the weather. Five years into the recovery and a trillion dollars in stimulus, and here we are. Thirty-two states still struggling.

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Odd Bit Of Trivia For This Weekend's Cocktail Parties

Quick: name the country that accounts for 67% (2 out of 3) of Europe's deliveries for Tesla.

Answer: Norway.

The country is oil-rich, and the people are environmentally conscious.

But the numbers are in for the most recent quarter: deliveries to Norway dropped almost 50% in the latest data. Apparently Tesla sales in Norway are not on fire. One wonders if word-of-mouth about battery reliability in cold weather has anything to do with this?

Tesla may have to depend on China to fill the gap.

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Will She Be Driving A Tesla 18 Years From Now

 Our third granddaughter at two days of age or thereabouts.

Two Montana Completions

Two Bakken completions in Montana, both in Roosevelt County (west of Williams County in North Dakota), reported by Fairfield Sun Times:

Two Bakken Formation well completions were reported in Roosevelt County.

• CLR, 583, Jar 1-28H, TD = 19,781 feet.
• Oasis, 1,115, Susie 3 2758 42-10B, TD = 20,830 feet. 

July 3, 2014 -- More Americans Hired -- Just In Time -- The Extra Cash Needed For Record Gasoline Prices

Active rigs:

	7/3/2014	07/03/2013	07/03/2012	07/03/2011	07/03/2010
Active Rigs	189	190	215	172	133

RBN Energy: anyone interested in NGL fractionation in Louisiana, and EPD, needs to read this article.

Ever-increasing production of natural gas liquids is driving another round of fractionation capacity expansions in Mont Belvieu, TX, which is—and will remain—the hub of US fractionation activity.  But Mont Belvieu fractionators are not without competition. Huge increases in fractionator capacity are also coming on-line in Appalachia to handle the rising volumes of natural gas liquids (NGLs) coming out of the Marcellus and Utica.  Mont Belvieu may be king of fractionation, but others want a share of the kingdom.  Today we update the ongoing NGL production boom and plans to add fractionation capacity in Mont Belvieu and NGL-related export capability nearby.

Production of mixed NGLs has risen sharply in the past five years, and the pace of growth is only increasing.  Almost all of these mixed NGLs are the product of natural gas processing plants, which have increased in number by about 125 or 25 percent over the five year period.  Fractionation facilities separate mixed NGL streams (sometimes known as “y-grade”) into so called “purity” products - ethane, propane, normal butane, isobutane and natural gasoline (also known as C5+) that are used in a wide variety of petrochemical, heating, gasoline blending and other markets. Mont Belvieu (about 30 miles east of Houston) has traditionally been the center of the fractionation world because of geography and geology. It is located near several oil and gas production regions; it is in the heart of petrochemical production; it is along the coast (necessary for both importing and exporting); and it sits atop one of the world’s largest salt dome formations (which provide ideal storage capacity for all kinds of volatile hydrocarbon products that must be stored under pressure). Given the US’s new leadership in the availability of low-cost NGLs, another key reason for Mont Belvieu’s importance is its proximity to existing and planned olefin cracking capacity and to existing and planned export facilities for propane, butane and other NGLs. As we have said in many other RBN Energy posts, the US shale revolution is spurring a major revival of petrochemical production, particularly along the Gulf Coast, that will result not only in increased olefin production (petrochemicals such as ethylene, propylene, etc.),  but in increased exports of olefins and their derivative products.  Because of its leader status, Mont Belvieu prices for NGLs and purity products also serve as the benchmarks, or prices against which NGL prices in other parts of the US are referenced.

The Wall Street Journal

I guess Hamas was upset it had been pushed off the front page of Mideast newspapers by events in Syria and Iraq, so they execute three Israeli teenagers (I think one had US citizenship) and now Israel retaliates -- and that's the headline: violence escalates in Israel. John Kerry, I assume, will be in Tel Aviv this weekend to commemorate a new global warming museum. Of course, that begs the question where we will find POTUS this weekend. And no, the White House chef is not adding crack cocaine to the pies. At least according to Michelle.

Shiites are in training in holy city.

Ukraine presses ahead with offensive.

Retail chain Target to customers: no guns, please.

Gas prices wallop wallets. And, in other news, the Keystone XL is still dead. I think I read somewhere the company is starting to sell that all that pipe that has been sitting in staging areas for five years. Don't quote me on that; I could be wrong. So the recovery is working, at least for those invested in oil and gas companies: Americans will be paying more for gas than on any Independence Day weekend since the record highs during President Bush's presidency in 2008. 

Same ol', same ol': US stocks hit record. That was yesterday. Today the market closes at noon EDT and indications are we will hit yet another record.

The Los Angeles Times

Top story -- US economy adds 288,000 jobs in June.* Dow breaks 17,000 following strong US jobs gains.

If you thought the VA was a shambles, remember: the same folks running the VA are running ObamaCare. From today's LA Times: ObamaCare: legal aid groups demand -- yes, demand -- answers on Medi-Cal backlog. Sound familiar? Backlog? Opening paragraph: with low-income Californians continuing to face months-long delays in getting healthcare coverage, health advocates are calling on the state to explain within ten (10) days how it will address lingering Obamacare application delays. (Hint: California will look to the VA for answers.) [Update, later, 10:01 p.m. CDT: I wrote that tongue-in-cheek about California turning to the VA to help with ObamaCare application delays. It turns out that's exactly what was going on: while veterans were dying waiting for healthcare appointments at the VA, the government directed that VA employees switch from processing VA applications to processing ObamaCare applications. I can't make this stuff up.

Let the fights begin: abortion foes get up close and personal after court erases buffer zones. What were they thinking?

*About that jobs report:

• record number of Americans not in labor force; not looking; record high = 92 million
• black unemployment more than double white unemployment number; 10.7% blacks unemployed
• all levels of government must be doing better financially; back to hiring

Happy Days Are Here Again: Long-Term Unemployed At Lowest Level Since 2009; July 3, 2014

This is huge: it should be an end to the discussion of extending benefits for the long-term unemployed. Bloomberg is reporting:

The number of people out of work for 27 weeks or longer -- the so-called long-term unemployed -- decreased as a percentage of all jobless to 32.8 percent, the lowest since June 2009.

Elsewhere Reuters connected the dots: the decrease in long-term unemployed coincided with the end of benefits for the long-term unemployed. Imagine that.
These are the other numbers:

Job creation surged beyond expectations in June and the unemployment rate fell to an almost six-year low, underscoring the strength of a U.S. labor market that will help spur a rebound in growth.

The addition of 288,000 jobs followed a 224,000 gain the prior month that was bigger than previously estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 215,000 advance. The number of long-term unemployed Americans fell to 3.1 million, showing they're having greater success finding work.

That's huge.

I think Reuters mentioned some time ago that more people working means there are more paychecks being cashed. 

I see Bloomberg has continued to call the 1Q14 collapse (their word, not mine)is now nothing but a slump in the rear-view mirror. It's all hunky-dory from here on out. I think there was a lot of concern on Wall Street that the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court ruling was going to kill the job market. Maybe that's next month.

Let's see. The last data point: the four-week average -- it was probably in the article, but I couldn't find it and I have to move on.

Why Businesses Are Ditching California And Heading For Texas -- Yahoo!Finance

Updates

March 14, 2015: nothing to do with California, but Seattle restaurants shutting down due to minimum wage of $15/hour. Los Angeles Times "editorial" says it is not the minimum wage that it shutting down these restaurants; the restaurants are shutting down for other reasons. LOL.

July 7, 2014: this graph is worth a thousand words vs the original post below. From Carpe Diem, since 2007, Texas has added a million jobs; California has added 24,900 jobs.

Original Post

This is really cool. I first blogged about this almost exactly one year ago: Carl's Jr. sees a trainwreck; won't expand in California.

Right now it's one of the five top stories at Yahoo!Finance: why business is ditching California and heading for Texas. CKE is the parent company of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. CKE says it has pretty much stopped growing/expanding in California, but plans to open 300 new restaurants in Texas. Here's why:

Part of the appeal of the Lone Star state [Texas], in addition to lower taxes, says Puzder, the CEO of CKE, is that “you don’t have the very burdensome wage and hour laws that you have in California.”

Even permitting procedures become a factor in growth prospects for certain states.

Puzder gave the example that, “in Texas it takes 60-63 days to get permits. In Los Angeles it takes 280 days and in San Francisco we’re not sure how many days it takes because it has been so long since anyone could open a restaurant there.”

These factors are crucial for new businesses because the property sits idle until permitting allows construction to begin, creating losses for every day there’s a delay, according to Puzder.

Puzder's company has announced plans to open hundreds of new restaurants in Texas, thanks in large part to the state's speedy permitting process. “Our intent is to built 300 (stores) in Texas in this decade, whereas in California we’ll build very few restaurants."

Did y'all see that "statistic" regarding San Francisco? Not just CKE (Hardee's / Carl's Jr) but apparently no new restaurants are opening in San Francisco -- and thus no one knows how long it takes to get a permit.

Say what you want about Governor Perry, he's been good for business in Texas. The California icon of hamburger restaurants is In 'N Out. One is located just up the street from where we live. I expect to see more of them over the next few years. Actually, I think, except for White Castle, I've seen every national hamburger chain here in Texas, and I don't see Whataburger in California. Is White Castle still in business? [Update, later, 10:12 p.m. CDT -- a reader wrote in to tell me that there are about six (6) White Castle restaurants still in the Minneapolis area. Awesome.]

Most interesting, the 800-pound gorilla is not mentioned in this story, though it was THE story in the earlier linked Carl's Jr story. It looks like business writers have gotten the memo from their editors: don't mention ObamaCare in any of your business stories. It's too depressing.