The Fill Rate? 87; The West Region Had A Fill Rate Of Only 8 BCF -- October 30, 2014

The magic number is now more than 100 as winter approaches.

More is better if one is worried about preparation for the winter.

The number today: 87. At the link, scroll down to see the graph.

See "NG_Fill_Rate" at bottom of blog for past posts on this subject.

This link probably explains the most.

Wow, wow, wow -- 87. Yes, as we move into autumn, the fill rate will start to decrease, as consumers start to use more natural gas. I understand that. What is fascinating to watch is the delta between current fill rate and historical ranges, and historical average. The EIA's statement:

Stocks were 294 Bcf less than last year at this time and 310 Bcf below the 5-year average of 3,790 Bcf. In the East Region, stocks were 130 Bcf below the 5-year average following net injections of 41 Bcf.

Stocks in the Producing Region were 146 Bcf below the 5-year average of 1,223 Bcf after a net injection of 38 Bcf.

Stocks in the West Region were 34 Bcf below the 5-year average after a net addition of 8 Bcf.

At 3,480 Bcf, total working gas is below the 5-year historical range.

Thursday -- October 30, 2014

Active rigs:

	10/30/2014	10/30/2013	10/30/2012	10/30/2011	10/30/2010
Active Rigs	190	182	185	200	152

RBN Energy: continuation of the series on diluent by pipeline to Canada. A very, very good series.

Canadian production of diluent range light hydrocarbon materials such as natural gasoline and condensate are not currently meeting demand from the oil sands region. Diluent is used to reduce the viscosity of heavy Canadian crude so that it can flow to market in pipelines. Diluent supplies required to supplement Canada’s domestic output are nearly all imported from the U.S. via two pipelines that originate in the Midwest. Those pipelines are mostly supplied with diluent sourced from the Gulf Coast. Today we look at how imported diluent gets to Western Canada.

The first episode in this series provided an overview of current and expected demand for diluent range materials for use by oil producers in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB). The diluent is blended with heavy bitumen and heavy conventional crude to reduce its viscosity enough to flow to market in pipelines. We covered the range of diluent materials used by WCSB producers including natural gasoline and synthetic crude oil. Total Canadian demand for diluent in 2014 is expected to average 380 Mb/d – meaning that with 160 Mb/d of local supply about 220 Mb/d will be imported – mostly from the U.S. By 2019 that import requirement number will more than double to 485 Mb/d (assuming that Canadian domestic production doesn’t increase dramatically – which it might.). This series details the distribution infrastructure being built out to deliver increasing quantities of diluent to production locations in the WCSB. In this episode we recap pipeline diluent routes from the U.S. to Western Canada.

Shale Boom Shines Light On Natural-Gas Liquids -- WSJ, October 30, 2014

This really is quite remarkable.

For newbies, two data points:

• the Bakken is an oil play, not a gas play; 90% - 95% of hydrocarbons coming out of the Bakken is crude oil, not gas
• however, 5% to 10% of a gazillion boe is still a lot of natural gas 
• the second data point: Bakken natural-gas liquid is said to be particularly "rich"

Now the WSJ is reporting:

An unsung byproduct of oil and natural-gas production is getting more attention from hedge funds and investors as they seek new ways to bet on the U.S. shale boom.

Natural-gas liquids, which include ethane, propane, butane, isobutane and natural gasoline, are separated out from crude oil and natural gas. They are known as the fuels in propane grills and butane lighters and as feedstocks to make plastics and chemicals. Until recently, they attracted little investor consideration.

Feedstock.

Remember that word.

Regular readers are aware of the $4 billion significance.

Let's see if the article mentions the Bakken. Nope.

Other comments from the article:

“I don’t think the market really truly appreciates just what [NGLs] can do” for oil-and-gas producers, added Mr. MacDonald, who manages the $1.4 billion Invesco Energy Fund.

“I’m actually beginning to move some of my businesses more into the NGL side because of the demand,” said Steve Reese, chief executive of Reese Energy Consulting and Reese Energy Training in Edmond, Okla., who said he is planning to start a propane business. “The trading activity has definitely increased.”

It helps that unlike oil and natural gas, NGLs can easily be exported overseas, where prices are higher. Connections to the global market make it less likely NGLs will meet the same fate as natural gas, which saw prices crash when production swamped U.S. demand. NGLs fetch an average of $9.94 a million British thermal units, more than double the price of natural gas.

Remember: this is not an investment site. Do not make any financial, investment, relationship decisions or change any travel plans based on anything you read at this site or anything you think you might have read at this site. Perhaps this is a red flag:

The lack of transparency in the market is keeping OppenheimerFunds Inc. from trading NGLs, said George Zivic, portfolio manager for the $420 million Oppenheimer Commodity Strategy Total Return Fund.

“Unless you’re privy to what [producers and manufacturers] are doing on a month-to-month basis, you can really get squeezed,” Mr. Zivic said.

First Time Unemployment Benefits Rise; The Spin Continues -- October 30, 2014

Wow, talk about spin.

This is the headline from Bloomberg: Fewer Americans Filed for Jobless Benefits in Past Month. I fell line, hook, and sinker for that. Wow, you have to read this closely. Look at the first two paragraphs:

Fewer Americans filed applications for unemployment benefits over the past month than at any time in more than 14 years, a sign the strengthening U.S. economy is buoying the labor market.

The four-week average of jobless claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, fell to 281,000 in the period ended Oct. 25, the lowest since May 2000, from 281,250 the week before, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. Compared with the prior week, applications for benefits rose by 3,000 to 287,000. 

I had a devil of a time finding the number for this week because I was reading through this so fast. The number is there, but it's buried (usually it's the first line); and second, in the three years or so of posting jobs data, this is the first time, I recall, that Bloomberg put the four-week average first; that is never, never, ever done. I was wondering why the market was down on seemingly good news; now I know. The jobs picture is not getting better. It's mired in quicksand.

Applications ROSE this week. The reason the four-week average -- the less-volatile measure -- is lower is due to the anomalous report of two weeks ago when the number dropped an incredible (as unbelievable, never explained, impossible, LOL-hilarious) 50,000 or something like that.

But from the headline today, I thought first-time applications THIS WEEK plummeted. In fact they rose.

Is this the last report before the election?

The worse thing: a) it delayed me to getting to what I love most, the Bakken; and, b) put me in the mood to take the day off, enjoy Starbucks coffee (and a donut). So, we'll see.

[Update, two hours later: it appears Reuters read my note. Even they realized their reporting/spin "jumped the shark." Reuters has this headline: "US Jobless Claims Rise, But Underlying Labor Market Trends Firming." Nice to see they fessed up.]

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

And the spin continues.

Yesterday, I posted:

The Fed is so happy with low unemployment, it has ended quantitative easing. After $1.6 trillion.

This is from the source that came up with the $16-trillion figure:

An effort to stimulate economic growth through easier lending and an increased money supply, the Fed’s current round of quantitative easing, as the program is called, has been in place since September 2012, when the jobless rate was 7.8 percent. Since then, the Fed has purchased $1.6 trillion in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities.  

I thought the $1.6 trillion was low, but I don't have time to fact check, and in the big scheme of things, who cares? It turns out, at least one reader cares. It appears that mainstream media US News failed to account for everything.

I hate to say it, but it appears Wiki is a more reliable source than mainstream print media. From Wiki, the total is a tad higher than $1.6 trillion:

On 18 September 2013, the Fed decided to hold off on scaling back its bond-buying protram. Purchases were halted on October 29, 2014, after accumulating $4.5 trillion in assets. 

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

Predictable: ObamaCare
Employers Dropping Health Care Coverage For Their Employees To Save Money

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that "small firms start to drop health plans." These small health firms view ObamaCare as inviting and affordable.

Small companies are starting to turn away from offering health plans as they seek to reduce costs and increasingly view the health law’s marketplaces as an inviting and affordable option for workers.

In the latest sign of a possible shift, WellPoint Inc. said Wednesday its small-business-plan membership is shrinking faster than expected and it has lost about 300,000 people since the start of the year, leaving a total of 1.56 million in small-group coverage.

Some other insurers have flagged a similar trend.

Aetna Inc. Chief Financial Officer Shawn M. Guertin said the company was seeing “some erosion at the bottom of the market” among employers with two to 10 workers.

Kaiser Permanente is seeing “some contraction” in the small-group market, particularly in places where insurers are offering cheap individual plans.

Laura Land, who co-owns cellphone-case-maker Empire Cell Phone Accessories in Riverside, CA, which has 38 full-time employees, said the company plans to discontinue its health plan next year and instead direct workers to the state’s health-insurance exchange.

“It’s getting to be too much paperwork for us to administer the plan, especially if workers are going to decline anyway and go to the exchange,” said Ms. Land, adding that several new hires recently turned down the plan in favor of cheaper exchange options.

It’s not yet clear how widespread the shift will ultimately be. An April survey by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans found that 22.5% of employers with 50 or fewer employees said they “definitely will” still be offering health benefits in five years, while an additional 42% said they “very likely” would. Among large employers with 500 or more employees, about three-quarters fell into those two categories.

The health law doesn’t penalize companies with fewer than 50 workers that don’t offer coverage, and those with fewer than 100 employees won’t face fines until 2016.

So, over time, all things being equal, the number of folks signing up for ObamaCare will start to increase, but not for the reasons the mainstream media will cite. 

Thursday -- October 29, 2014; What Some Of Us Will Be Talking About Later Today

From Rigzone: Mideast gas field up for grabs ... again.

Islamic State militants in Syria killed at least 30 pro-government fighters in an assault on a gas field that has witnessed some of the bloodiest confrontations between the two sides.

Islamic State seized the Sha'ar gas field in July, killing some 350 government troops, allied militiamen, guards and staff.

Government forces recaptured the field, east of the central city of Homs, later that month. In a new round of fighting on Tuesday, Islamic State seized three wells and killed at least 30 government and pro-government fighters.

The Wall Street Journal

The Fed is so happy with low unemployment, it has ended quantitative easing. After $1.6 trillion.  That source failed to mention the total spent. From a more reliable source, I guess, wiki:

On 18 September 2013, the Fed decided to hold off on scaling back its bond-buying protram. Purchases were halted on October 29, 2014, after accumulating $4.5 trillion in assets.

North American energy boom can withstand steeper oil-price drop. It sure seems like there is a lot of angst over the price of oil. One would think we should be celebrating cheap oil. And talk of "Peak Oil" is going the way of talk about "global warming." Or whatever Algore calls it now.

It never quits, does it? The US Air Force says it is running short of jet mechanics because of the war on ISIL. If "we" can't handle Al-Qaeda's "junior varsity" how in the world could we have taken on the USSR, or even Al-Qaeda's varsity team? This is quite mind-boggling. "Officials say campaign against ISIS is exacerbating its shortage of plane-maintenance experts." Really? It's hard to imagine that SecDef Hagel could have cut the USAF personnel that fast, that quickly. That's why he was hired by POTUS, to cut the military, but Air Force jet mechanics? [Update: I posted that October 29, 2014, around midnight. Today, October 30, 2014, about noon, less than 12 hours later, CNN is hinting that Chuck Hagel is about to be thrown under the bus. Timing is everything. It's amazing how much one can learn from this blog. LOL.]

Amnesty rules for people in the US who don't have government-issued photo IDs.

Largest active sunspot in 24 years has launched six major flares toward Earth so far, intermittently disrupting navigation systems and radio communciations. I wonder if this can be blamed on George W. Bush?

This is what happens when POTUS lets others decide: chaos. President Obama, on Wednesday, made a broad appeal for US leadership (who would that be?) to stem an Ebola outbreak in West Africa and expressed frustration with policies that may discourage health-care workers from volunteering on the front lines. Memo to POTUS: your US Army is mandating a 21-day quarantine for all troops who spend any time whatsoever in west Africa.

Meanwhile, that nurse who arrived back from Ebolaland with a fever now in an undisclosed location in Maine says she will "resist" quarantine. The fever, she says, was bogus. She tested negative for Ebola on two occasions.

And there it is, the third in a series of three stories on Ebola: SecDef approves mandatory 21-day quarantine for any and all military personnel returning from Ebolaland.

Sanctions are seen to be hurting Moscow. And Italy. And Germany. And the Ukraine.

ISIS executes at least 40 tribal and Iraqi government fighters.

It appears President Obama has made another executive decision; along with choosing the Capitol Christmas Tree, I now count two executive decisions he's made this week. The second: US to lift sanctions on Fiji.

Sanctions, what sanctions? Apple looks to sell iPhone in Iran.

Small firms drop health plans -- citing ObamaCare. More here.

Regular readers are aware of the "payments system" challenging Apple Pay: CurrentC. It just got hacked: hackers stole e-mail addresses of some people participating in the pilot project.

Arctic shipping volume rises as ice melts: northern sea route primarily carries oil, much of the cargo involving Russia. All that oil over the pristine Arctic. 

The opening up of the Arctic for commercial cargo offers a faster route for some shipments between Europe and Asia, and holds the promise of increased trade for once icebound ports in the High North of Arctic countries such as Russia, Norway and Canada.

However, much of the new traffic through the Northern Sea Route is one-way shipments of fossil fuels from Northern Europe to Asia or is between Russian ports, according to a report to be released Friday by the Arctic Institute, a Washington think tank.

The institute said 71 ships carried 1.35 million tons of goods through the route last year. That was up from 46 vessels with 1.26 million tons of cargo the previous year. The majority of ships originated in Russia and many were from one Russian port to another in the country. Only 41 vessels traveled the full length of the Arctic shipping lane, and of those, 30 ships carried cargo, the report said.

[From elsewhere: video of the Arctic ice pack.]

Samsung in free-fall? But not because of Apple. It's really quite a story with several story lines. Not enough time to discuss. Gotta move along.