ISO New England Talking About Summetime Blues (Again) -- April 29, 2017; It's Not An Energy Problem; It's A Political Problem

One will need a password or "library access" to reach this article, but it's the second article I've seen in the past week or so suggesting that ISO New England may face tight "margins" this summer.

Another update is here, from masslive.

Even if there is enough electricity, it's going to be costly.

Until I started the blog I had really not watched New England, but it turns out that tight electricity is not something particularly new for that region.

A quick search reveals:

• June 2, 2006: summer heat may lead to blackouts -- Lowell Sun Online
• February 28, 2014: capacity shortfall spells trouble in New England -- Energy Professionals
• June 22, 2014: rolling blackouts are on the table to address electricity shortfall -- Boston Bizjournal
• If there are energy shortfalls in New England this summer, it does not mean we have an energy problem; we have a political problem

Let's see, this has been going on at least for the past ten years. It looks like ISO New England has no cure for the summertime blues. 

Summertime Blues, Eddie Cochran

********************** 

Meanwhile, Another Foot Of Snow In Late April 

For Denver, CO

All that global warming. 

Has The Red Queen Fallen Off Treadmill In The Marcellus? -- April 29, 2017

Updates

Later, 12:45 p.m. Central Time: by the way, did anyone spot this paragraph at the very end of the linked article in the original post:

After drilling 27 gas wells in North Louisiana in the first quarter, Range Resourcdes Corp shut in some production to avoid “frac hits,” or damage that can occur to an older shale well located next to a newer one. [See tag: fracking_halo_effect]

Later, 11:33 a.m. Central Time: see first comment from a reader who really follows the Marcellus closely --

Bizarre article on so many accounts.

The productivity of Marcellus wells this past 12 months has been astonishing.

Range just completed 4 wells on a pad and could only turn 2 of them online as their output - 31 MMcfd - was so high that there was no capacity on the pipeline for the remaining 2. (31 MMcf of high Btu gas is equivalent to about 6,000 barrels of oil).

Cabot's CEO spent a lot of time on the conference call the other day discussing plans for the anticipated quarter billion dollar a year free cash flow which has already begun.
Enno Peters' great site, shaleprofile.com, enables one to observe the incredible productivity of Marcellus wells.

Two big pipelines which are being built, the Rover and Leach Xpress, will be in service in a few months.

The combined capacity of almost 5 Bcf - slightly below Haynesville's TOTAL daily output - will allow Appalachian Basin output to skyrocket by year's end.

This area has not even begun to show its potential.

Original Post

A most interesting article.

Producers have to drill at a breakneck pace just to keep output stable -- a phenomenon known as the Red Queen, after the character in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass” who tells Alice, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” While the number of gas rigs has climbed 90 percent over the past year, output of the fuel in the lower-48 states is down 1.1 percent, data from Bloomberg and Baker Hughes Inc. show.

Rigzone Has An Update On US Gasoline Demand -- US Refiners At Seasonal High Right; Imports Higher Than Normal; Damand Down -- April 29, 2017

Link here.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Reserves Dropped Another $5.4 Billion In March -- April 29, 2017

Link here.

Saudi Arabia's foreign cash reserves are now at their lowest since mid-2011 (pre-US shale boom). 

Weekend In Portland, Oregon -- Nothing About The Bakken -- Saturday, April 29, 2017

Robert M  Pirsig

1928 - 2017

From The Wall Street Journal:

Robert M. Pirsig, whose novel “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” came out in 1974, for a time declined to be more specific about his address than “somewhere in New England.” Yet he surfaced now and then long enough to lament the world’s failure to take his philosophy more seriously.  His second and final novel, “Lila,” published in 1991, was an elaboration of the ideas presented more breezily in the first.

Mr. Pirsig’s philosophy, which he called the Metaphysics of Quality, offered “shortcuts to living right” and sought to topple barriers between art and science. Academic philosophers, he complained in a 2006 interview with the Times of London, reacted with “zero support and great hostility.” He added, “I think this philosophy could address a lot of the problems we have in the world today. Just so long as people know about it.”

Mr. Pirsig died April 24 at his home in South Berwick, Maine. He was 88.

 ******************************

Portland, OR

How coincidental. I just got back from a week in Portland, Oregon. I see The WSJ has an article on a four-day weekend in Portland. At this link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-freewheeling-long-weekend-in-portland-ore-1493303897.

I assume a subscription is needed. Try googling something from the lede:

BEFORE PORTLAND, ORE., established itself as a hipster utopia and beleaguered punch line—a land of vegan tattoos, fastidious food-truck chefs and all things crafty and pickled—visitors were already taken with its abundant natural attributes. The Willamette River divides the city, forest trails wind throughout it, and Mount Hood and the coast each sit just over an hour’s drive away. A cleverly planned long weekend in Portland will tap both aspects: sampling urban obsessiveness and the abundant verdure of the Pacific Northwest. 

It is interesting. During my week to one of the craft brewery capitals in the US, I had two beers. One of them was an Ecliptic. That craft brewery was mentioned prominently in The WSJ article. If I had to recommend one place in Portland to eat where one had 90+ craft brews to choose from it would be Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom. I assume there are two or three in the city.

I told my brother-in-law that I would return next summer and stay until I had tasted one craft beer/day at Old Chicago. With 90+ beers I would be in Portland for the entire summer. He said that was fine.