Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Moderna Earnings -- Crushed Forecasts -- Barron's -- May 4, 2022

Moderna: easily beat profit and revenue forecasts. For investors, the past year seemed to be an open-book test. Crushed ...

Moderna reported a profit of $8.58 a share, easily topping analyst estimates for a profit of $5.37, on revenue of $6 billion, trouncing forecasts for $4.204 billion.

Historical earnings, link here: $8.58 / share. Also here.

As Predicted, ISO NE Just Went Yellow -- 6th Decile -- May 4, 2022

Link here. The reason:

  • hydro just became the "marginal fuel";
  • wind not dispatchable, and,
  • natural gas pipelines killed, and,
  • heating oil from Russia banned
  • heavy demand: 13,098 MW
  • spiked to $120 / MWh
  • hydro at 15%, double the 8% that seems reasonable
  • wind "working" earlier this morning is now falling

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Old Age, Poor Eyesight, Fat Fingers, And Investing

I may have to turn over my investing activities to my younger daughter. I am making more and more mistakes doing things on line than I used to. I am incredibly careful when investing on line and/or ordering from Amazon due to mis-typing things.

I generally don't check my trade confirmations, but for some reason I did that yesterday. I'm glad I did. I accidentally bought twice the number of shares of some company than I had planned. 

Turned out to work in my favor, so I'm not complaining, just noting.

Fifteen Inches Of Snow In Nebraska -- Global Warming Wallops Nebraska -- May 4, 2022


Energy, Roe, Moderna -- Potpourri -- A Little Something For Everyone -- May 4, 2022

Uff-da! Equinor pretty much hit a home run! 

  • production drops 3% y/y --
  • company must have been listening to faux environmentalists chanting "leave it in the ground."
  • operating income surges from $5.2 billion to $18.4 billion
  • net income surges from less than $2 billion to almost $5 billion

Moderna: easily beat profit and revenue forecasts. For investors, the past year seemed to be an open-book test.

Roe vs Wade: what went wrong? LA Times: the original decision was built on a shaky foundation. In fact, SCOTUS took a re-look some years later and "amended" it. That's how bad the original decision was. However, it just may be the biggest political money generator ever -- and it keeps on giving.

How disruptive was the shale revolution? Maybe some insight here, but we've been saying that for over ten years now.

East Coast diesel: out of control, link here.

Today, link here:

MPC: posts impressive jump in profits. History here.

WMB: greenlights Transco expansion to more more gas from Texas to Louisiana. Link here.

Enerplus To Report A Huge Well Today; Just Saying -- May 4, 2022

WTI:

  • up 4.05%
  • up $4.15
  • trading at $106.60
  • the SPR release came just in time

Biden audits can audit all they want between wellhead to gasoline pump, but no amount of auditing will explain / slow price of crude oil. 

More and more, killing the Keystone looks worse and worse.

ISO NE: still green but trending toward yellow, $100 / MWh

  • hydro: 12%
  • renewables: 9%

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$104.80
5/4/202205/04/202105/04/202005/04/201905/04/2018
Active Rigs3817276462

Wednesday, May 4, 2022: 13 for the month, 78 for the quarter, 238 for one year

  • 38363, conf, CLR, Springfield FIU 7-8H, Brooklyn, no production data,
  • 38243, conf, Ovintiv, Krameer 150-97-18-19-2H, Siverston, no production data,
  • 37728, conf, Enerplus, Seeal 151-94-33D-28H, Antelope-Sanish, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 110K 3/22;
Tuesday, May 3, 2022: 10 for the month, 75 for the quarter, 235 for one year
  • 37668, conf, Whiting, Lacey 14-3-2XH, Sanish, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 106K 3/22;
  • 30260, conf, Hess, EN-Madisyn-LE-154-94-0705H-2, Alkali Creek, no production data,

RBN Energy: chaotic markets re-emphasize the need for a balanced energy policy. And how to solve world hunger.

The energy market has been in chaos for some time. Even before Russia’s horrific attack on Ukraine, the multinational push to decarbonize the global economy was slow-motion-crashing into reality. Of course, global supply shortages only got worse following the invasion and the widespread response to it. The disruptions highlight the critical need for a balanced energy policy, both in the U.S. and abroad. This became evident in Europe last year, when a heavy, early reliance on renewable energy, largely wind, left much of the continent short on fuel and scrambling for natural gas when the wind didn’t blow enough. The overall supply-demand balance caused prices to rise steadily as the global economy climbed out of its COVID-induced recession. Then the situation became more dire as embargoes on Russian crude oil and gas were planned and implemented. In the U.S., the Biden administration, eager to both “green” the economy and keep gasoline prices in check, has been giving mixed signals to E&Ps and their investors, telling them to both ramp up investments in production and expect to play a smaller and smaller role going forward. It’s a confusing world. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the current energy environment, the policy roller-coaster, challenges to the increased usage of renewables that remain unaddressed, and how the politics of decarbonization are making the ongoing energy transition a very difficult row to hoe.

The hostility toward crude oil and natural gas production and the development of supporting infrastructure seems to permeate much of our society. In popular entertainment, “He’s into fracking” is a major condemnation — more or less a punchline. Many institutional investors have invoked corporate policies against investing in oil and gas. As a candidate, President Biden said that “oil companies will be phased out.” He almost immediately backtracked to indicate that he was simply talking about tax benefits, etc. However, on his first day in office he famously put the kibosh on Keystone XL. His administration then announced a 30-year plan to electrify America and laid out plans to build out renewable energy generation resources to dominate the energy economy. The administration also suspended new drilling leases on federal lands. And government agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — with assists from a few federal appellate court rulings — made it increasingly difficult to build needed energy infrastructure.