From this week's Oil & Gas Journal On-Line twitter, pretty cool, 1951 - 64 years ago, I guess:
Now, back to the other big stories of the past week:
If this project is as far along as the article suggests, this was clearly the biggest North Dakota story posted this past week -- technically it was almost two weeks ago but I didn't get it posted until this past week -- whatever -- as I was saying, if this project is this far along, that they are ready to break ground on a second refinery in North Dakota, this is a huge story, especially considering everything else going on. Remember: a recent RBN Energy story suggests operators are paying $6.50/bbl to ship their oil by railroad to St James, Louisiana -- think of the cost benefits of refining this oil here in the state.
The Oil & Gas Journal has a great twitter post: North Dakota remains in 2nd position among US states in crude oil production.
Hess (5), four SC-Mari permits in Williams County; and, a BW-Spring Creek permit in McKenzie County
WPX, a Lucy Evans permit in McKenize County
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For The Archives -- Putting Things Into Perspective
UND professor plans to call "911" every time she sees ROTC students parading/training.
As the reader who sent me the link said, "Oh, happy day." LOL. To be on
the safe side, she says she will continue to call "911" every time she
see ROTC training. Link here.
She had already turned in her resignation. Starts to explain everything.
She's "fairly pleased how it's turned out."
And those are the problems they face in North Dakota. What a great state.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2016 is 0.1 percent
on April 8, down from 0.4 percent on April 5. After this morning's
wholesale trade report from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the forecast
for the contribution of inventory investment to first-quarter real GDP
growth fell from –0.4 percentage points to –0.7 percentage points.
The roughly 164 miles of track from the Central Valley to Anaheim
will be the most technically complex, environmentally sensitive and
financially taxing part of the $64-billion project to connect San
Francisco to Southern California by 2029.
Among the key disclosures in the reports was a plan to enter Union
Station with surface tracks, abandoning an option to arrive at the rail
hub on a viaduct with an elevated platform. The state also revealed that
it was considering sharing tracks with the Metrolink
commuter rail service on a portion of the 12-mile stretch from Burbank
to Los Angeles — which could affect the bullet train system's capacity
and speed.
The general path for four sections of rail in Southern California has
been well defined — taking the bullet train from Bakersfield up a
4,000-foot incline to Tehachapi and then through the Mojave Desert to a
station in Palmdale. From there it would descend through the San Gabriel
Mountains in long tunnels to a station at the Burbank airport. It would
make its way along an existing railroad right of way to Union Station
and then travel along another rail corridor to Anaheim's new
transportation hub.
But the reports released Friday, known as
supplemental alternatives analyses, laid out the tremendously different
effects associated with the still-to-be-decided route options.
For example, each of the three possible paths from Palmdale to
Burbank through the rugged San Gabriels would require up to 24 miles of
tunnels as deep as 2,000 feet below the surface, one report says. The
tunnels would be about four miles longer than earlier indicated.
One
of the routes would require a single tunnel of nearly 17 miles that
would cut through geologically complex shattered rock and fault zones.
Another would displace as many 918 homes, while yet another alternative
would displace 87 homes. But the vibration and noise, the report said,
would affect many more.
This project is easily a 4-generation endeavor. Children being born today will be the lawyers, engineers, and politicians spearheading this project 40 years from now. Their children will be going to school with plans to follow in their parents' footsteps working on this railroad.
April 9, 2016: a reader has provided a most insightful answer to this question; much appreciated. See first comment; I've brought it up here to make it google-searchable:
I have received some bankruptcy papers from emerald and they have
requested that the bankruptcy court allow them to give payment priority
to mineral owners. They state this is necessary to protect the value of
the assets in bankrupcty as a lack of payment could cause contracts and
leases to lapse. I would expect payment to be made but they maybe
delayed. On the other hand they shut in some of their wells in stark
county in March. No production = no royalty payment needed anyway.
I don't own any minerals, and although I have my thoughts on what it means, I thought it would be best for those with experience in this area provide your thoughts.
Ominous black spots on wind turbines in the Thumb have raised a few eyebrows.
Huron
County Building and Zoning Director Jeff Smith says residents have
questioned what look like grease stains on six or seven turbines between
Sebewaing and Owendale.
“It was disturbing to see that,” Smith said, adding he drove through the area Monday.
Seals on the turbine were coming out of bearing holders, Smith said,
comparing it to a vehicle with a bad wheel bearing. He said he’s not
sure if the bearings on the turbines are faulty or defective.
“GE
knew but did not tell us,” Smith said of turbine manufacturer General
Electric, adding he got an email from NextEra Energy stating a cleaning
crew is coming.
There are 32 turbines in Exelon Wind Generation’s
Harvest 1 project in Oliver and Chandler townships. A 400-foot,
485,000-pound turbine that fell on Feb. 25 spilled 25 gallons of
greases, oil and coolant, according to the DEQ. The spill posed “no imminent drinking water or environmental health threat,” a DEQ official told the Tribune.
Exelon says the fallen turbine held about 400 gallons of oil.
The leaks aren’t limited to just Huron County.
See more at the link.
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The Starbucks Page
For the record, I am back at Starbucks. Regular readers know that I "gave up" on Starbucks some months ago, saying I would never return, after they announced yet another price increase.
But I'm back.
McDonald's coffee still tastes slightly better and the senior cup is only 50 cents vs $2.00 for a "tall" (smallest size) Starbucks coffee.
But I'm back. Lots of reasons. Right now, the biggest reason probably has to do with the location: at 5.0 miles to the one in Southlake, and 5.5 miles to the one in Grapevine, their locations are the perfect distance for a bike ride. I could find a McDonald's about the same distance away, but the ambience at a Starbucks is still better.
I was reminded of that when a couple of articles on Starbucks were posted over the last few days.
Most Tuesday afternoons, in the lazy late hour between the end of
school and the start of Brownies, you can find me ensconced in the café
of the local Marks and Spencer, sipping a hot chocolate with the younger
Miss Harford.
Recently, the café has taken the unusual step of radically
simplifying the drinks menu. All the standards are there, of course:
tea, cappuccino, hot chocolate. But the size options have been covered
over with masking tape. Gone are the “small” and the “large”. Now you
can have any size of hot beverage you like, as long as it’s medium.
Perhaps M&S hopes to save money by rationalising the crockery. Or
perhaps they simply guess that simplicity is attractive. A few years
ago, Debenhams, another British household name with a frumpy image,
tried the slogan “Say goodbye to coffee confusion”. Debenhams rebranded
cappuccino as “frothy coffee” and caffè latte as “really, really milky
coffee”, winning headlines for the most patronising publicity stunt in
living memory.
But simplicity can sell. A famous study by
psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper offered samples of
speciality jam to customers of a high-end supermarket. (Loyal readers
may recall the column I wrote about this in November 2009.)
Offered a choice of six types of jam, a third of customers went on to
make a purchase. Offered a choice of 24, almost nobody did. Iyengar and
Lepper concluded that choice can overwhelm and discourage us.
Yet it is unclear how widespread this “choice demotivates” effect is.
The original Iyengar-Lepper results, like many in psychology, seem to
be fragile. Several follow-up studies have failed to find evidence for
the effect. (There is no shame in this; that’s science at work.)
Many successful businesses, from supermarkets to Starbucks, offer a
vast range without scaring away their customers. A first-time visitor to
Starbucks might be confused, but regulars work it out. And clever
design can prevent choice seeming overwhelming. Starbucks offers about
100,000 drink combinations — millions, once the syrups are taken into
account — but the menu seems much simpler than that.
With its Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle, Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) has created a location that works on multiple levels.
It's partly a retail destination for which consumers may travel much farther than they would for a traditional store. On the top of that, it's also a bit of a museum or temple for coffee and an active production facility that roasts beans for sale throughout the region.
Now, the company has announced plans for a new Roastery in New York City that will open in 2018.
The Roastery locations give consumers a window into where Starbucks coffee comes from. They also position the brand as "elite" and clearly differentiate it from rivals like Dunkin' Donuts. This is coffee as art, coffee-making as theater.
"Our Seattle Roastery experience created something that had never been done before, transforming a retail environment into something far beyond just a coffeeshop and into the single best retail experience of any kind," said CEO Howard Schultz in a press release.
"In New York, we want to take elements from what we originally created and build something even bigger and bolder, celebrating coffee and craft in a completely unique and differentiated way. We want this experience to tell our customers that we're coming to Broadway."
The New York facility, which will be located in "the heart of the Meatpacking District at 61 Ninth Avenue, which is currently under development," according to the company. It will be a 20,000 square-foot store that will "build upon everything Starbucks has learned from integrating coffee roasting, manufacturing, education and retail, while ensuring an experience that is locally relevant to the market."
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Those Who Fail To Study History
JRR Tolkien began writing The Lord of the Rings in December, 1937. It was very slow going at first. Only as WWII was drawing closer did he move the story along. The story really goes nowhere in the first book, but finally there is a sense of urgency shown in the second chapter of the second book with the Council of Elond.
The Council of Elond was convened to discuss the ominous signs of war, of Sauron.
From JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century, by Tom Shippey, c. 2000:
There is a suggestion by the host, Saruman, “that perhaps the members of the Council might be able to persuade, direct, control Sauron — though he does not say Sauron, he says ‘the Power’.
The idea of anyone, however wise, persuading Sauron, would sound simply silly if it were said in so many words. No sillier, though, than the repeated conviction of many British intellectuals before and after this time that they could somehow get along with Stalin, or with Hitler.”
I had read that passage before (based on my notes in the margin) but this time I saw something new. One wonders if twenty years from now, or fifty years from now, historians will write the same thing about American intellectuals in the Obama administration who felt “they could somehow get along with the 21st century Iranians”?
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How Deep Is Your Love -- 1977 -- It Seems Like Only Yesterday
