Notes From All Over, Late Morning Edition -- April 30, 2020

My office today:

Chorizo and eggs for breakfast, the copper pan was a gift from Dad some years ago:

Crawfish, Tuesday night, I keep the mudbugs in the oven ("warm/hold") when serving at home:

Tonic water with quinine to ward off malaria. So far, it's been highly successful.

Global CO2 Emissions To Fall Significantly This Year -- NYT -- April 30, 2020

Holy mackerel. We only have to close down the global economy for a month or so each year, and we save the earth. Amazing. That's a small price to pay.

The NYT is reporting that global CO2 will likely drop 8% this year. Truly amazing. Link not provided. I'm sure it's easy to find.

The drop in atmospheric CO2 is already working: for the first time in recorded history Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow) saw a low of minus 20°F (-28.9°C) this late in the season. Link here. Barrow is Alaska's northernmost town. I once spent a summer working in Barrow, Alaska. What great memories; what a great country.

The dumbest thing Alaska ever did was rename Barrow: Utqiagvik.

At best, the "global warming" story is a wash: the "flat earthers" (like me) can point to any number of articles that suggest not only is the earth not getting warmer, but there are indications it is getting cooler. Meanwhile, the Algoreans, like Joe Biden, can find just as many articles suggesting the earth is getting warmer. So it's a wash. However, the former, the "flat earthers" actually use real data; while the latter, the Algoreans, use adjusted data and corona-virus-derived models.

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What A Great Country

A reader sent me these photos overnight. I've posted a number of times how much I love lamb. The reader used a marinade of rosemary, thyme, Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper; seared the rack of lamb and then grilled it over indirect heat. Internal meat temperature: 125°. The final result looks spectacular.

Whereas I will marinade overnight, the reader says he marinades for about five hours. 

He says his wife and two daughters enjoy lamb. The daughters were introduced to lamb years ago as "Australian steak."

He also does the same thing I do: look for bargains in the "manager's special" in the meat department. 

What impresses me most is how really simple and easy this is. I see a lot of very expensive and very fancy outdoor kitchens on sale, but this, again, was done on an old-fashioned, simple Weber grill.

By the way, my favorite grilling book: Weber's Big Book of Grilling, which can be found for under $2.00, about the spot price of a bbl of Saudi heavy oil.

First Day Of Fishing For Sophia -- April 30, 2020

I believe yesterday, April 29, 2020, was the first day ever for Sophia to go fishing.

We tried the creek near our home, but the fish were not biting.

We then went to a pond in Bob Jones Park north of Southlake, TX, and the fish were really biting.

This was the very first fish Sophia caught. She reeled it in herself. I pulled it up onto the deck. I called it a bullhead / her dad called it a catfish. Whatever. It was huge -- probably about 12 inches, and about three pounds. Had we not taken the photo, I would have estimated about three feet long, and maybe 30 pounds.

After that, more than a dozen more bites in less than 30 minutes but Sophia caught only two perch /  sunfish.

 

 

Update: see first comment. Now I'm curious. What is the difference between a catfish and a bullhead? An internet google search reveals:

Bullheads differ from other catfish in that bullheads have straight or rounded tails, whereas other species of catfish have forked tails. ... When these fish reach full size, catfish are longer than bullheads.

This was definitely a bullhead.

Two Wells Coming Off Confidential List Today -- April 30, 2020

OPEC basket: $14.36, which, I assume, Saudi Arabia is "very comfortable" with.

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$17.43	4/30/2020	04/30/2019	04/30/2018	04/30/2017	04/30/2016
Active Rigs	31	64	61	49	29

Two wells coming off the confidential list today --

Thursday, April 30, 2020: 50 for the month; 50 for the quarter, 286 for the year:

• 35671, SI/NC, Zavanna, Stranger 28-21 7TFHXE,  Poe, t--; cum 59K 2/20;
• 35535, 749, Oasis, Merritt 5693 13-24 5T, Alger, t11/19; cum 54K 2/20;

RBN Energy: how long until crude oil and refined products storage maxes out? Archived.

The global economic shut-down caused by COVID continues to wreak havoc on U.S. markets. Last week, the dynamics that resulted in negative prices for NYMEX WTI thrust crude oil, and, more specifically, storage at Cushing, OK, into the national spotlight. The extraordinary imbalance in U.S. crude oil supply and demand has been pushing record volumes of oil into storage at the Cushing crude hub and tankage along the Gulf Coast. The same fundamental factors have also driven a surge in stocks of refined products like gasoline and diesel. Now the questions on everybody’s mind are, how long until storage tanks are completely full and what will that mean? Today, we’ll discuss recent trends and consider what record storage builds mean for the oil patch.

Notes From All Over, Morning Edition -- April 30, 2020

Jobless claims, link here:

• prior: 4.427K (4.4 million)
• revised: 4.442K (4.4 million)
  consensus: 3.500K (3.5 million)
• actual: 3.839K (3.9 million)
• Comment: I think this puts us well over 30 million in past four weeks or so; well-past definition for "depression" (20 million)

Gasoline demand, link here, in two graphs and much, much worse than previously posted: