Whiting: 50-stage, 15.3-Million-Lb-Sand Frack; High-IP -- April 13, 2017

http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2017/04/whiting-to-report-nice-chameleon-well.html

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Notes From The Library

Wow, wow, wow -- I've hit the mother lode: five back issues of The New Yorker, going back to March 13, 2017. One issue is missing, the April 10, 2017, issue. It's been that long since I've been to the Southlake library. I've been going to the Grapevine library for the past several weeks where I read books and not magazines.

I canceled my subscription to The New Yorker about a year ago when it was clear that the magazine had become a Hillary mouthpiece.

I won't re-subscribe, but I am really enjoying the magazine now. Almost every article is anti-Trump, mostly overtly, but often times the anti-Trump message is very, very subtle. That's what makes it fun: trying to find the anti-Trump message in every article.

Actually, that's only part of the fun. The real fun is reading what the anti-Trump folks still believe. This is my favorite, from the April 3, 2017, issue, page 45:

President Trump was not democratically elected President of the United States. 

This is April 3, 2017, four months after the election and these folks still can't get over it.

I can only imagine all the glowing articles about Hillary and her globalism and her war on carbon and open borders had she been democratically elected President of the United States. As it was, she was trounced in the Electoral College where it counts. 

I'm not going to be able to get through all the issues today, but my favorite will probably be the March 20, 2017, issue. With a bright red "title," I can't wait to read this article, "Trolling the Press Corps: The Trump Administration disrupts the daily briefing."

From my college days I remember The New Yorker as a really, really good magazine with articles about many, many subjects. The article that I first recall reading was the one on Michael Murphy and Big Sur. It was published in the January 5, 1976, issue, but no longer accessible without a subscription. Maybe I will re-subscribe someday.

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Notes From The Library

I won't get into the background but I've come across a most interesting observation. Oxygen is an incredibly toxic molecule and was a huge obstacle for the evolution of life one billion years ago, or whenever it was, plus or minus a few hundred-million years.

It is very likely that precursors to hemoglobin evolved to grab oxygen and dispose of it so it would not kill the anaerobic organisms. Likewise, it is very likely the respiratory chain found in all aerobic organisms today originally "evolved" to capture oxygen / slow / eliminate its toxicity to anaerobic organisms. This is not the only example of how proteins have changed to be used in ways not originally "intended." I apologize for not being more articulate to say it better, but you get the idea.

I find it incredibly interesting about hemoglobin and the respiratory chain -- it explains much.

I got this from Krauss' Oxygen, previously posted.

On another note, Gino Segre, in Ordinary Geniuses, explains why the it was so difficult for physicists to figure out why hydrogen and helium did not lead directly to certain heavier atoms/molecules. I get a kick out of the fact that the period table jumps from a one-nucleon atom (hydrogen) to a four-nucleon atom (helium) with no intermediaries. It was with discussions with our 13-year-old granddaughter (she was eleven at the time) that we understood why. Those discussions helped me understand/remember that U-238 is stable, U-235 is not, and that 99%+ of natural uranium is 238. Uranium-235 is the only naturally occurring fissile isotope.

Mindless meandering. 

Jobs, Making America Great Again; Huge Consensus Miss, T+82 -- April 13, 2017

First time....from Kiplinger:

• the number of newly unemployed continued to drop: 234,000
• a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's revised level
• the previous week was revised up by 1,000 from 234,000 to 235,000
• 4-week moving average: 247,250 -- a decrease of 3,000
• weekly initial jobless claims are tracking at levels last seen in 1973

Huge consensus miss, Econoday:

• consensus: 243,000
• actual: 234,000

Jobs claims: post-recession low. Trump making America great again. Trump approval jumps to 48%.

I'm continue to think the March jobs report was an anomaly; a huge error of some sort that may never be explained.

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The Jane Austen Page

This summer: the bicentenary of Jane Austen's death.

From "Last Laugh: Jane Austen's final, surprising, unfinished novel," Anthony Lane, in the March 13, 2017, issue of The New Yorker:

Austen was the seventh child of a country rector. The family was well connected but not wealthy. Of her six mature novels, four were published in her lifetime, and none bore her name on the title page. The one she left dangling (unfinished) is known as "Sandition," although she assigned no title. Nor did her beloved sister Cassandra, when she copied the manuscript, long after Jane's demise.

The Energy And Market Page, T+82 -- April 13, 2017

Four Pinocchios: IEA says global oil market nears balance even as stock rise -- Reuters. When you look at the following graph (posted yesterday, Bloomberg), note:

• does one really believe the US was the only country stockpiling crude when the price plunged?
• compare the nearly stable level of crude inventories between 2011 and 2014, and where we are now
• OPEC/NOPEC cuts agreed upon: less than 2 million bopd
• US crude oil production in 2012: 6.5 million bbls
• US crude oil production in 2017: 9.0 million bbls
• US crude oil production in 2018, forecast: 9.9 million bbls
• unless the drawdown yesterday was the beginning of a trend, and the upcoming drawdowns are "huge," it will be fascinating to see US crude oil inventories get back to 2015 levels, and at 450 million bbls that's still 100 million bbls more than what it was in 2012

Meanwhile the price of gasoline continues to rise.

OPEC balancing: it's important to look at the x-axis in the graphic below. If you can see signs of re-balancing in the graph you are doing better than I:

COP: to sell San Juan Basin interests; $3 billion; buyer - Hilcorp Energy; COP on track to divest more than $16 billion of assets in 2017. I track the San Juan here. Bloomberg's feature story on Hilcorp Energy.

The Trump Presidency Begins, T+82 -- April 13, 2017

Daniel Henninger: the Trump presidency begins.

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Keeping Score

From "Trolling The Press Corps," Andrew Marantz, in the March 20, 2017, issue of The New Yorker:

... One America News Network, which was founded in 2013 as a right-wing alternative to Fox News; LifeZette, a Web tabloid founded in 2015 by Laura Ingraham, the radio commentator and Trump ally; Townhall, a conservative blog started by the Heritage Foundation; the Daily Caller, co-founded in 2010 by Tucker Carlson, now a Fox News host; and the enormously popular and openly pro-Trump Breitbart News Network.

Free market capitalism will have a huge effect on mainstream media and non-mainstream media. The ad dollars will flow to where the viewers are.

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Motivations: Gen Xers -- "the Sandwich Generation" -- what motivates the "Sandwich Generation?
born: 1965 - 1982

• 2014: 32 - 49 years old; early-to-mid-age; mid-career; near peak-earning years; getting serious about life; getting serious about saving for retirement 
• have just lived through the Bush and Obama years; worst US recession in modern history; no draft; military experience not the norm
• sandwiched between older parents (baby boomers who will leave trillions of dollars to younger generation) and millennials (born 1977 - 1995: 19 to 37 years of age -- most of whom making noise are in college; Bernie Sanders supporters
• baby boomers living longer than FDR expected; inheritance will pass to children (or grandchildren) of the "Sandwich Generation"
• from my perspective: the baby boomers will watch the Gen Xers (the "Sandwich Generation") knock heads with the Bernie Sanders millennials; baby boomers now spectators except they vote in droves and make up the Trump administration; the Deep State; and, the alt-left

The experience of the Gen Xers (at the linked article):

Economic challenges often translated into upheavals on a personal level for Gen Xers, Yorges added. "This generation witnessed high unemployment, layoffs/downsizing and family relocations caused by economic instability as they were growing up," she explained. "As a result, Gen Xers tend to be independent and individualistic, placing more value on their own careers over loyalty to organizations. Gen Xers, many of whom grew up as 'latchkey' kids, are independent, resilient and adaptable."

Kelly added that Gen Xers often exhibit resourcefulness and self-sufficiency but may be reluctant to highlight those attributes. They "are less likely to say that they are unique, compared to Millennials and Baby Boomers," he said.

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Active Rigs At 51 -- April 13, 2017

Active rigs:

	4/13/2017	04/13/2016	04/13/2015	04/13/2014	04/13/2013
Active Rigs	51	30	91	189	186

RBN Energy: the numbers behind US crude oil balances and inventories.

Scott Adams: the North Korea reframe.

Daniel Henninger: the Trump presidency begins.