Tuesday, May 21, 2019

When Rick Perry Morphed Into Occasional-Cortex -- When The Ridiculous Becomes The Ludicrous -- May 21, 2019

From twitter today:


Isn't 49 MW like one giant Xcel Energy wind turbine in a farm field outside Tioga, ND?

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Polling

Update

Later, 4:28 p.m. CT: apparently after I looked at the polling data earlier this morning, another set of numbers came out.

Biden is at 37.6 and Bernie is at 18.2.

Most interesting: Pocahontas creeps slowly toward 10%. I guess she's hoping she's on the dream ticket: Plugs / Pocahontas.

Meanwhile, both Buttigieg and Beto are flailing. Buttigieg's recent burst of excitement appears to have tempered, down to 6.6%, which is really pretty awful for someone who thought he was doing so well. But look at Beto, down to 3.2. None of this is statistically significant, of course, but the downward trend for Beto and the flailing of Buttigieg are noteworthy.

Most recently Buttigieg was unable to say he was against late, third-trimester abortions and even unable to come out against post-birth "abortions." A lot of Catholics vote Democratic and one wonders if he mis-stepped on this one.  It should be noted he is an anti-vaxxer -- although now he says he made a "huge mistake" with how he answered that question. Doesn't matter; we know where he stands. I wonder if he will come out and say he made a "really huge mistake" when he was unable to disavow post-birth "abortions."

Original Post

Means absolutely nothing but fun to watch.

Most recent polling.

Biden's lead over Bernie right at 20 points.

Bernie pulling below 20%. Biden polling just under 40%.

Beto drops a bit, from 3.8 to 3.5. Not statistically significant but the trend must be significant. I don't know. This is the first poll after Beto re-set, re-launched.

Hard to believe that Pocahontas is pulling just under 9%. Amy Klobucher is also fading. 

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The Fashion Page

Sophia sporting her new Kentucky Derby hat? Or maybe her Preakness hat?

Western Natural Resources, KKR Team To Buy Williston Assets -- Rigzone -- May 21, 2019

Link here.

The article said absolutely almost nothing -- this was the only data point:
Western Natural Resources, LLC and global investment firm KKR have teamed up to acquire producing and undeveloped oil and gas assets in the Williston Basin.
Location within the Bakken? Net acres? Number of producing wells? Seller? Price? Yada, yada, yada. 

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The Physics Page

A fun chapter on quantum physics to read is chapter 12, "A Quantum Quintet," in Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry, Ian Stewart, c. 2007, DDS 539.725 STE.


Stewart is also the author of Nature's Numbers and Does God Play Dice?

The quintet:
  • Max Planck
  • Erwin Schrödinger
  • Werner Heisenberg
  • Paul Dirac
  • Jenõ Pál Wigner
In one chapter, the author present five vignettes, or five short biographies, of those physicists and how quantum physics / quantum mechanics developed.

It is always interesting to see how different authors trace the history of that development. 

Minor Notes -- May 21, 2019

Tedious: wow, I think I see a similar headline every day -- "global crude oil supplies will tighten" due to some issue somewhere .... today it's the North Sea ... link here --
Crude and lease condensate production in the North Sea is set for lower levels in the summer months, further tightening the global oil market which is already grappling with production declines in Iran and Venezuela, OPEC’s cuts, and a contamination issue that shut some Russian pipeline supplies to Europe, according to Rystad Energy.
Current unplanned outages at Oseberg and Flotta in the North Sea restrict a total of 160,000 bpd of North Sea production, the energy research firm said on Friday.
Rystad has estimated that outages in the North Sea in May will be 185,000 bpd. Yet, the biggest disruption is expected next month, when North Sea oil production is seen down to its lowest level since August 2014 because of scheduled maintenance at Ekofisk.
185,000 bbls -- really -- that's the concern?

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Venezuela

Venezuela's military will oversee gasoline rationing. Link here.

Global Warming? Say What? Winter Lingers -- May 21, 2019

From twitter and google today:



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... And The Journalist's Educational Background?

From a news story today:


Yes, as my daughter say, Oprah has ESPN.

Four Wells Coming Off The Confidential List Today -- May 21, 2019

Export terminal, Texas: firm asks for fast-track approval for a new US crude export facility that could fully load supertankers. Link at Reuters.  Data points:
  • Lone Star Ports, LLC
  • backed by the Carlyle Group LP
  • $400 million project to dredge a portion of the Corpus Christi, TX, ship channel to 75 feet 
  • $625 million for the entire project
  • VLCC: 2 million bbls of crude oil
  • will file paperwork with the administration’s Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council to join a list of infrastructure projects that U.S. officials hope to ease through federal, state and local reviews 
  • looking to file an environmental assessment in lieu of an environmental impact statement, the "assessment" can take as little as a few months vs years for an EIS
WTI: pre-market trading, $63.70.

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Back to the Bakken

Wells coming off the confidential list today -- Tuesday, May 21, 2019:
35582, conf,  XTO, Halverson 13X-33H, Capa,
35269, conf, Petroshale, Bear Chase 1MBH, Spotted Horn,
35150, conf, XTO, Bullberry Federal 24X-2H2, Lost Bridge,
31562, conf, Slawson, Submariner Federal 3-23-20H, Big Bend,
Active rigs:

$63.705/21/201905/21/201805/21/201705/21/201605/21/2015
Active Rigs6661512582

RBN Energy: is the next crude oil bottleneck at the Gulf coast? Archived.
When it comes to getting crude oil to market, bottlenecks have always existed. Back in 2013-15, producers and shippers in the Rockies faced a serious lack of takeaway options. Midstreamers saw the problem and the money to be made, and quickly built more crude-by-rail capacity — and, over time, pipeline capacity — to fix things. Recently, major takeaway constraints emerged in the Permian, much to the detriment of netbacks at the wellhead. There was real concern for a few months that some producers might need to shut in production as there wasn’t any way to get incremental barrels out of the basin. Again, traders and midstream operators got savvy, restarted some dormant crude-by-rail options, initiated long-haul trucking out of Midland, and added more pipe capacity. But what if the next big bottleneck isn’t between two land-based trading hubs? What if there’s not enough export capacity at terminals along the Gulf Coast, the gateway to international markets? In today’s blog, we examine recent export and production trends, and discuss what those could mean for export infrastructure and logistics over the next five years.
See related analysis at this post from yesterday.