Portugal Claims Its First European Championship; Stuns France -- July 10, 2016

Portugal stuns France in soccer: 1 - 0. Portugal claims its first European Championship.

The US Is On The Road To "The British National Health Care Model" -- July 10, 2016

This is really cool. Great Britain has a two-tier medical system: a national health service to which everyone belongs, and  private insurance (in addition to NHS) for those who can afford it. I don't know if folks have caught it, but Hillary Clinton has proposed the very same thing. Whether "we" want it or not, or whether it's "good or bad" for the US, we are moving toward the British system. There will be a lot of resistance, but it will happen ... the only question is how long will it take.

It's really cool, not because I necessarily support it, but the way "it" developed.

I'm not going to provide any links. I mentioned it in passing in an earlier post.

I think it's a big, big deal. Again, I'm not saying I'm "for" or "against" it; I'm just saying it's going to happen. At least the tea leaves told me that earlier this morning.

[For the record, I don't drink tea. But while brewing my daily cup of coffee, I also brew a cup of tea to read the "tea leaves." It's easier (and less messier) han reading the entrails of some gopher.]

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How Bad Is It?

Link here.

Health Alliance Plan, Priority Health and Federated Insurance have decided to continue offering small-business customers with two to 50 employees the option of continuing through 2017 health plans that do not conform to new benefit and rate-setting rules mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

After President Barack Obama was criticized for his campaign promise that individuals and businesses could "keep their policy if they wanted," he deferred to state insurance commissioners in November 2013 whether to allow health insurers to extend plans that were not Obamacare-compliant through 2017.

Under Obamacare, health insurance policies must include a minimum of 10 essential health benefits — including wellness, mental health, ambulatory and maternity coverage — set prices using an age rating system, and comply with other affordability requirements.

Michigan's health insurers were allowed to choose whether they wanted to extend existing plans for three years starting in 2015. Only a few allowed small businesses to continue their existing plans with price increases that reflect historical trends.

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Four Wells Coming Off Confidential List To Be Reported Monday -- July 10, 2016

Monday, July 11, 2016
32336, SI/NC, SM Energy, Nystuen 14B-35HS, Skabo, no production data, 

Sunday, July 10, 2016
26906, 1,492, HRC, Fort Berthold 152-93-19D-18-7H, Four Bears, Three Forks, 33 stages, 4.9 million lbs, t1/16; cum 76K 5/16; only 13 days in 5/16;

Saturday, July 9, 2016
31979, drl, Statoil, Lougheed 2-11 5H, Todd, no production data,
32335, SI/NC, SM Energy, Nystuen 14-35HN, Moraine, no production data,

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26906, see above, HRC, Fort Berthold 152-93-19D-18-7H, Four Bears:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
5-2016	4640	2541
4-2016	17271	12647
3-2016	23307	29078
2-2016	23995	31771
1-2016	6411	7619

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US PADD 3 Exports To West Coast Of South America

Previously posted. This time the graphic:

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Green Bay Now Imports Refined Oil Products, Used To Be An Exporter

Pipeline Shut Down

This is a trivial story in the big scheme of things, I suppose, but a pipeline that use to export refined products from Green Bay to the East Coast has been shut down. Now, instead of exporting refined products, Green Bay is importing refined products. The story is linked here.

Shut down the pipeline and we now have two barges/week -- emitting all that CO2 -- delivering diesel fuel to Green Bay.

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Crying Wolf

From Forbes:

Nearly all U.S. coal plants have come into compliance with the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standard—which the Supreme Court last year ruled is illegal—and only a small percentage have closed.

It may be another sign that U.S. pollution goals may be more easily achievable than opponents claim. [Again, this is a Forbes article.]

Last June, the Supreme Court ruled in Michigan vs. EPA that the EPA had not conducted a sufficient cost-benefit analysis of the 2012 rule, which prohibits the emission of mercury, arsenic and other airborne toxins. But the court left the rule in place while the EPA conducted that analysis, and nearly all vulnerable coal plants have borne the costs and stayed in business.

About 1,400 coal and oil plants are affected by the rule, but EIA measures the industry in terms of gigawatts, a unit of the energy produced. From December 2014 to April 2016, U.S. coal capacity dropped from 299 GigaWatts to 276. Of that vanished capacity, about 20 GW retired. About 6 GW converted to natural gas.

But a much larger number—87.4 GW—adapted to the new regulation by installing pollution control equipment.

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In A Nutshell

Hillary now supports:

• a new government agency to provide health care to Americans -- the "public health insurance option" -- which would compete directly with private insurers (by the way, this is the British NHS -- a two tier system: government NHS alongside private insurers)
• expanding Medicare, allowing folks to sign up at age 55, rather than age 65
• tax-payer-financed college tuition

A little bit for everyone.

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ObamaCare Enrollment Not "As Good" As Originally Advertised
So, What Else Is New?
Must Have Been A Slow News Day

From Madison.com:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released the latest report on the state of enrollment for the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and it contained quite a surprise.

As a refresher, the CMS reported Obamacare enrollment as of the end of the 2016 enrollment period to be about 12.7 million. This included more than 9.6 million enrollees via HealthCare.gov, the federally run marketplace exchange covering 38 states, and roughly 3.1 million enrollees coming from the one dozen states, such as California, New York, and Washington, that operate their own exchanges. Seeing as how Obamacare ended 2015 with 9.1 million enrollees, this jump of 3.6 million people, equal to about 40%, was viewed as a big win for the program.

But looks can be deceiving. Last week's CMS report, which used insurer and marketplace data through March 31, 2016, just two months following the 2016 enrollment deadline, found that only 11.1 million consumers were still enrolled and paying. In just two months, 1.6 million people had stopped paying their premiums or lost coverage.

This is not news; this has been the norm since the program went live. We've talked about it at length. There are a number of reasons people would quit paying premiums, but we've talked about them before.

Time to move on.

Random Update On Austin Chalk, East Texas -- July 10, 2016

Pantheon Resources announced it has permission to frack VOS #1, Tyler County, onshore East Texas. This will provide valuable data regarding the "independent" Austin Chalk zone, above the discovered Eagleford sandstone section.

I track the Austin Chalk here.

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Cuba Impacted By Venezuela's Woes

From Reuters, data points:

• Cuba-Venezuela: a 15-year oil assistance program
• Venezuela will cut exports to Cuba
• signals an unraveling of that 15-year assistance program
• Cuba: reliant on Venezuela -- its top energy supplier
• this year: 53,500 bopd from Venezuela, a 40% cut since 1H15
• Cuba receives 4% of Venezuela's total oil exports
• Cuba was the last to feel the impact; earlier: Uruguay, Jamaica, Dominican Republic
• on top of everything else, it's the type of oil that makes the problem worse
• Cuba has been getting Mesa 30 oil, a medium weight oil 
• Venezuela needs Mesa 30 oil as a diluent for his heavy oil refining
• Venezuela needs to cut exports of Mesa 30, the very oil Cuba nees
• forecast: Venezuela production will fall to lowest level since a devastating strike at PDVSA in 2002/2003

Reason #89 Why I Love To Blog -- Update On Lake Mead -- July 10, 2016

Three days ago, July 7, 2016, just on a whim, nothing else to do, I checked the level of Lake Mead -- and noted the lake had reached "historic lows."

Today, three days later, a headline story in today's Los Angeles Times: facing historically low levels, Lake Mead officials are fending off a water war.

This may be what the start of a water war looks like.

Drought is draining the West’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, to historic low levels.

Forecasts say climate change will make things worse. Headlines warn of water shortages and cutbacks. Members of Congress are moving to protect their states’ supplies.

Yet if war is really imminent, why is one of the region’s most experienced water managers doing the same thing he has done for years: tinkering?

“I like to describe this as another incremental step,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

Buschatzke was talking about a plan he is helping develop, along with water managers in California, Nevada and Mexico, that would voluntarily reduce water allocations from the Colorado River to those three states and Mexico. They hope to have it in place in time to avoid steeper, mandatory cuts that could begin as soon as 2018.

And much, much more at the link.

And if you have nothing else to do, google: the 'Holy Grail' for earthquake scientists has been accidentally destroyed, or if you have a subscription: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-earthquake-curb-destroyed-20160705-snap-htmlstory.html.

What are the odds?