The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Monday, April 8, 2024

WTI Recovers Overnight; Back Up -- Over $86; IDF Head Fake; A Re-Eval Of Robust Jobs Report And Fed Late To Game; Downturn In Economy Back On Table? April 8, 2024

Locator: 46949B.

Breaking, link here. CHRD up slightly at the opening.

Beautiful, beautiful day in north Texas right now: sun has no idea it's about to be eclipsed later this morning / early this afternoon. Can you imagine the clout Celtic priests / druids had when solar eclipses occurred?

Head fake? IDF, Rafah?

Spirit? I've always maintained that when two companies announce a merger, it's very likely one or both are in financial trouble. March 4, 2024:

One month later:

Chesapeake - Southwest Energy merger on hold: regulators.

Boeing: another botched flight. Southwest Airlines. Likely to impact announcement. Southwest Airlines is expected to announce the launch of Dallas – Fort Worth airport service at the end of April though this could be pushed back by availability of aircraft (Boeing delays).

Boeing CEO:

Student loan bailout: back on the table. I have no problem with student loan forgiveness.

TSMC: interesting offer from Biden administration. From Yahoo!Finance:

INTC: link here. Soon to see some interesting headlines from Intel.

Yellen / China -- back to tariffs, link here:

Personal investing:

add to VZ position -- by rule
debating whether to add more tech with recent TSM announcement
sell all MCD -- by rule
no recommendation
see disclaimers

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $86.23.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024: 12 for the month; 12 for the quarter, 211 for the year
39782, conf, CLR, Thorvald 6-6H,
37471, conf, SOGC, Saetz Federal 4-36H,

Monday, April 8, 2024:10 for the month; 10 for the quarter, 209 for the year
39783, conf, CLR, Thorvald 7-6H1,
38012, conf, BR, CCU Plymouth 44-29 TFH,

Sunday, April 7, 2024: 8 for the month; 8 for the quarter, 207 for the year
39784, conf, CLR, Thorvald 8-6HSL,

Saturday, April 6, 2024: 7 for the month; 7 for the quarter, 206 for the year
38973, conf, SOGC, Harris Federal 3-31H,

RBN Energy: short-side portfolio players seek to turn the tables on LNG trade.

LNG commerce is composed of two primary models. One is the traditional point-to-point model, on which the industry was founded and still accounts for more than 60% of LNG trade. More recently, the portfolio model has emerged, pursued by upstream oil and gas majors, that would allow them to monetize their gas reserves by converting them to LNG and shipping the product worldwide in vessels under their control — an attractive strategy that also would allow them to increase their exposure in the LNG market to take advantage of international arbitrage opportunities. As such, they are always long in LNG and in the ships required to move it.

However, the portfolio model is being infiltrated by a buyer community looking to become short-side portfolio players and increasingly committing to long-term offtake agreements or FOB sales, then shipping LNG not only to meet their domestic market needs but to take advantage of regional pricing differentials. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the rise of the short-side portfolio player model and ask who might prevail in a potential clash of titans over market share and dominance.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

For The Archives -- Solberg Obituaries -- April 7, 2024

Locator: 46948ARCHIVES.

For the archives.

My alma mater: Augustana College (now Augustana University), Sioux Falls, SD. [Not to be confused with college of same name in Rock Island, Illinois.]

Augustana alumnus David Soul, Starsky and Hutch, died January, 2024.

His father's obituary here.

I lived in Solberg Hall my freshman year. I assume the Hall was named after David Soul's father.

David Soul obituary.

David Soul's father's obituary.

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Southwest Airlines

To the best of my knowledge I have never flown SWA and my wife refuses to fly SWA due to its unique boarding process.

I know the basics -- first come, first to board -- but never understood the nuances. To say the least, the whole process is very, very strange.

It takes a whole page of relatively small print to explain all the permutations of the process. And, of course, every passenger is looking for a loophole.

Now, that I've read the SWA guidelines and several other social media sources, I'm almost tempted to fly SWA just to see how smoothly it all goes. LOL.

I must be missing something but the SWA boarding process seems incredible bizarre, something the hippy-dippy crowd came up with during the 60s / 70s and simply never changed the process. Like I said, I must be missing something.

Whole-Life Insurance Policy -- April 7, 2024

Locator: 46947INSURANCE.

I'll come back to this some day, maybe. I'm just too tired to get into tonight but I wanted to post this screenshot so I can clear it off my desktop.

For now, just posting some numbers.

Maybe some folks will be able to connect the dots.

The Southern Surge -- Now A "Thing" In The Business / Investing News -- April 7, 2024

Locator: 46946ECONOMY.

Re-Posting

Locator: 46917ECONOMY.

Updates

April 11, 2024: Carl Q:

April 7, 2024: Exhibit A -- Japan.

April 7, 2024, link here:

The daily march of migrants across the Southern border has been a political curse for President Joe Biden. But for the economy, it may have turned out to be a blessing.

By adding millions of new workers to the labor market, the immigration surge has lifted payrolls and growth, and potentially helped keep a lid on consumer prices, according to recent research. Capitol Hill’s budgeteers also think it stands to reduce the deficit in the coming years.

In an analysis published earlier this week, Ernie Tedeschi, a former Biden White House economist, found that the post-pandemic pickup in immigration accounted for at least one-fifth of the increase in U.S. gross domestic product since the end of 2019. Though it wasn’t the only factor, the boost from migrants helped explain why the American economy has bounced back much more strongly than those of other developed countries, he argued.

This is so incredible. I first talked about this in a post on July 23, 2022, almost two years ago.

In the [2024 - 2009 = ] fifteen years since I've been blogging, I've done four deep-dives of which I'm most proud:

Netflix: "the next big thing"
Devon: best operator in the Permian
Nvidia: I pivoted from energy to semiconductor chips early
the Southern Surge, as part of a bigger story, jobs: the $7 trillion gift

I'm looking for the fifth "deep dive."

Original Post

That southern surge. The $7 trillion gift. Link here.

The linked Barron's story.

The U.S. fertility rate peaked in 2007 at 2.12 children per woman.

It is expected to level out this year at 1.70 births per woman, and remain there through 2054.

Demographics and aging trends could create significant headwinds for economic growth, as aging populations historically have experienced declines in work, productivity, and spending. But the news isn’t all bad, says Matthias Doepke, an economics professor ... with a title so long it won't fit on two lines.....

The future isn’t written in stone, he notes, while the experience of other countries in similar straits should offer the U.S. a road map to maximizing opportunities and avoiding pitfalls.

Doepke has spent much of his career studying how political and cultural changes affect economic development, with a focus on how macroeconomic conditions influence fertility choices. He recently spoke with Barron’s about the impact of demographic changes on the labor market, and the so-called demographic dividend.

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Reposting From Last Month

It started here.

Locator: 46813IMMIGRATION.

From a while ago, link here. Note how far Biden moved the unemployment rate to a better number over the last three years (his first year numbers were "Trump's numbers").