Idle Rambling -- Intel, AMD, Inflation -- February 12, 2025

Locator: 48542ARCHIVES.

Inflation: I sure hope this "inflation thing" lasts another two months. Stocks are on sale and February and March, every year, are my best two dividend months for the year. And all dividends are re-invested. 

INTC: Intel is up 4% today. Whoo-hoo!

AMD:

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The Book Page

I read this book -- or at least parts of it, can't remember how much I read -- it was one of several Brontë biographies. I've been to the Brontë Museum in Haworth. Time to get it back out and look at it again. Purely serendipity that I stumbled across this book again. 

From an earlier post: 1994 biography, The Brontës by Juliet Barker.  Great reference book; should be the last biography of the Brontës – unless something new in the Brontë archives turns up.  The author suggests that Wuthering Heights follows Rob Roy too closely to be a coincidence. (April 21, 2007).

Emily Brontë: 1818 - 1848. Dies well before the US Civil War.

Elizabeth Gaskell: 1810 - 1865. Died during the last year of the US Civil War. Was eight years older than Emily Brontë.

Jane Austen: 1775 - 1817. Was alive during the global war of 1812.

Fifteen famous women writers in history, link here. In order, listed:

• Jane Austen: 1775 - 1817. Brilliant, the trailblazer.
  
• Mary Shelley: 1797 - 1851. Right place at right time.
  
• Emily Brontë: 1818 - 1848. One of three contemporaries.
  
• Charlotte Brontë: 1816 - 1855. One of three contemporaries.
• Louisa May Alcott: 1832 - 1888. One of three contemporaries. Good but not great. 
• Gertrude Stein: 1874 - 1946. Famous for being famous. Brilliant.
  
• Virginia Woolf: 1882 - 1941. Most famous for being famous.
  
• Agatha Christie: 1890 - 1976. Does not interest me.
  
• Harper Lee: 1926 - 2016. Does not interest me.
  

Of note:

• six more authors listed; none of which interest me yet; all from the 20th century.
  
• interestingly, Harriet Beecher Stowe not listed (but with just one influential book, probably appropriate not to be on that list)
• but most interesting, George Elliott was not on the list, 1819 - 1880. A contemporary of the Brontës.
  

Brontës (the first of the 19th century Yorkshire women authors:  Brontës, Austen, George Eliot)
        a.  Much preparation [prepared myself well before reading the Brontës]
        b.  Re-read Wuthering Heights, Cliff’s Notes, Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Brontë; Jane Eyre, Cliff Notes
        c.  The 19th Century Female Authors:  represents the “renaissance in female writing, see The Madwoman in the Attic by SM Gilbert and SM Gubar
        d.  1994 biography, The Brontës by Juliet Barker.  Great reference book; should be the last biography of the Brontës – unless something new in the Brontë archives turns up.  The author suggests that Wuthering Heights follows Rob Roy too closely to be a coincidence. (April 21, 2007)

From The Brontës:

Hump Day -- Day Four For The Trump-Musk Week -- February 12, 2025

Locator: 48541B.

Gabbard confirmation! Wow, that was fast. Reported at 12:18 p.m. CT, February 12, 2025. Yesterday, it was reported the vote would be held this evening. The RFK, Jr., nomination moves forward. Only Mitch McConnell broke ranks with the GOP.  JD Vance not even in town to provide the tie-breaking vote if needed. That's how sure John Thune was about the vote.

Cbevron to slash employee count! Wow. 

Doing less with less. Link here. I don't think I've heard of a 20%-cut -- ever. Something tells me the Hess deal isn't going to close. Could be wrong. Chevron has 45,600 employees. Does this give Chevron an opening to leave California completely?  Maybe the Hess deal is working out perfectly and Chevron no longer needs California. LOL!

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $72.03.

New wells:

• Thursday, February 13, 2025: 22 for the month, 67 for the quarter, 67 for the year,
• 40843, conf, CLR, Catron 3-26H,
• 40398, conf, Grayson Mill, Alfred North 17-15 3H,
• 39842, conf, CLR, Harms West Federal 7-32H1,
• Wednesday, February 12, 2025: 19 for the month, 65 for the quarter, 65 for the year, 
• 40852, conf, CLR, Taney 3-23H,
• 39956, conf, Hess, EN-Heinle-LE-156-94-2536H-1,
• 39952, conf, Hess, EN-Heinle-156-94-2536H-5,
• 39843, conf, CLR, Harms West Federal 8-32H,

RBN Energy: Guyana may have a head start, but Suriname making strides with its offshore blocks. Archived.

Suriname has been a very minor crude oil producer over the past few decades, with minimal output from its onshore reserves. But with more than a dozen offshore blocks already awarded for development and production set to spike in the coming years, the small South American nation looks primed to follow in the footsteps of its next-door neighbor, Guyana, which is amid an oil-production boom. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at the status of Suriname’s offshore developments, the major players involved, and what we know about the crude grades to be produced there. 

In the first blog in this mini-series, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, we highlighted how Guyana has been a rising star (see Break My Stride and My Guy) in the global crude market, even if it’s only a recent entrant. The offshore Stabroek block (gold-shaded area in Figure 1 below) is churning out more than 650 Mb/d of oil from three projects in the reserve-rich Guyana-Suriname Basin (area within dashed-green line), with the possibility that production in Guyana’s territorial waters (area within dashed-purple line) could double by the end of 2027. But Guyana isn’t the only country planning to develop the basin’s reserves.

Figure 1. The Guyana-Suriname Basin and the Stabroek Block. Source: RBN

Note: Map does not reflect disputed onshore border areas

The Guyana-Suriname Basin stretches across three countries on the Atlantic coast of South America: Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Suriname has been extracting crude oil from the onshore portion of the basin since the 1980s but the former Dutch colony wants to raise its profile as a petroleum supplier, mirroring its neighbor’s success. According to Suriname’s state-owned Staatsolie, authorities struck oil in 1965 but commercial oil production only began 17 years later, in 1982. Flows of the country’s Saramacca grade started at 200 b/d and now stand at about 20 Mb/d.

Offshore E&P activity in Suriname perked up after ExxonMobil made a significant find in 2015 in Guyana’s portion of the Guyana-Suriname Basin. Five years later, joint-venture partners TotalEnergies and APA Corp. (owner of Apache Corp.) made an extensive deepwater discovery in Suriname’s territorial waters (area within dashed-pink line of Figure 1). That same year (2020), Staatsolie created a subsidiary, Staatsolie Hydrocarbon Institute (SHI), to steer coastal E&P activities like setting up policies and procedures for acreage development, negotiating with oil and gas companies to unearth deposits, evaluating resource potential, and getting independent evaluations of hydrocarbon potential. 

CLR With Two New Permits; Three DUCs Reported As Completed -- February 11, 2025

Locator: 48540MOTIVA.

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The Book And Arts Page

Wow, what a great evening last night, catching up with some reading.

Three articles, all from the February 10, 2025, issue of The New Yorker.

True Blood, Nicola Twilley: on "artificial blood." 

Artificial blood was a huge research endeavor in the US military many years ago. I had a colleague whom I had known for decades who was leading the research project for artificial blood for the USAF. After years of research he finally retired, and went into real estate in the San Francisco area. I lost track (and interest) in the whole subject. And, what do you know! There's an eleven-page essay on making artificial blood. So, there's that. I'm still not much interested in the subject, but at least I've been brought up to date.

Rape kits: this three-and-a-half page essay by Jessica Winter talks about "rape kits." 

This, too, brought back USAF memories. I believe I was first acquainted with a "rape kit" in 1977 or thereabouts, while working as the only Emergency Room physician one night at David Grant Medical Center, Travis AFB, CA. I had never seen a "rape kit" before and I certainly did not know its history. It was amazing. Everything Jessica Winter says about the "rape kit" and the examination was accurate -- relating my exact experience. Jessica Winter reviews / relates the journalist Pagan Kennedy who has just published her new book, The Secret History of the Rape Kit. More later. It sounds like "we've" not learned much.

But when I read this, and many other articles with regard to US medicine, I can say, without hesitation or qualification, US military medicine was as good as anything in US civilian medicine and better than 99% of what I've seen in the civilian world. All "all free." For the price of being active duty.

Morandi: Italian still-life artist. New word (phrase): Bel Paese. Not just a cheese. Connected me with the Phillips Collection, again, in Washington, DC.

Modern art begins with the post-impressionist painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

These artists were essential to modern art's development.

At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild," multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism.

Matisse's two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and the development of modern painting.

It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism.

At the start of 20th-century Western painting, and initially influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and other late-19th-century innovators, Pablo Picasso made his first Cubist paintings.

One book: Two Lives, by Janet Malcolm, Alice B Toklas and Gertrude Stein.  

A delightful book. Picked this book up years ago at a discount bookstore, finally getting around to reading it. This should not be the book of Gertrude Stein one reads, but it is, very, very delightful. Highly recommend. Can be read in one short sitting. Jewish women living in France during WWII.

From wiki: winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography: the story of the mystifying relationship between the brilliant and affable Gertrude Stein and her brooding companion, Alice B. Toklas "Janet Malcolm deftly captures Alice B. Toklas's legendary 40-year partnership with the brilliant modernist Gertrude Stein in Two Lives, clearing up a few mysteries along the way—including how two Jewish women were able to survive World War II in their provincial French château with the help of a Vichy collaborator."—Vogue

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Natural Gas

Is anyone paying attention? Link here.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $73.32.

Active rigs: 35.

Two new permits, #41605 - #41606, just the two:

• Operator: CLR
• Field: West Capa (Williams)
• Comments:
• CLR has permits for two Klepp wells, lot 3, section 1-154-97; 
• to be sited 341 FNL and 2208 / 2272 FWL.

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 38940, 1,070, CLR, Harms West Federal 4-32H, McKenzie,
• 40522, 725, Slawson, Fisherman 5-21-28TFH, Mountrail,
• 40554 980, Slawson, Fisherman 5-21-28H, Mountrail,

Saudi Arabia's Motiva Update -- The Book Page -- "In Defense Of Partnership" -- Julian E. Zelizer -- February 11, 2025

Locator: 48540MOTIVA.

Refining: link here.

From the linked article (I'm kind of surprised Charles Kennedy didn't write this article):

While some U.S. refiners are scaling back, Saudi Arabia’s Motiva Enterprises just made a power move. The Saudi Aramco-owned refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, has quietly expanded its capacity, now processing a record 654,000 barrels per day—officially making it the largest refinery in the United States above Exxon’s Beaumont and Marathon’s Galveston Bay.

Motiva pulled this off without a flashy billion-dollar project—just good old-fashioned optimization, removing bottlenecks in the system to squeeze out more production. And they did it at a time when smaller, less efficient refineries are dropping like flies. LyondellBasell’s Houston plant is closing. Phillips 66’s Los Angeles refinery is shutting down.

Unlike its smaller refining peers, Port Arthur is doubling down, proving that size absolutely matters in refining.

Motiva’s expansion fits into a bigger industry shift, where mega-refineries are getting even bigger while smaller plants either shut down or pivot to biofuels. The rationale? If you can’t be nimble, be massive. And while U.S. refiners whine about demand uncertainties and ESG pressures, Aramco isn’t here to play defense—it’s here to dominate.

The real question now is whether Motiva will finally pull the trigger on its long-rumored petrochemical expansion.

Back in 2021, Aramco was considering pouring $6.6 billion into turning Port Arthur into a full-fledged petrochem hub—a move that would’ve put the plant even further ahead of its competition. That plan seemed to fizzle out, but given this latest expansion, it might just be back on the table.

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The Book Page

Rivian: despite all the spin by talking heads about how great Rivian is doing especially now that Rivian has been given the go-ahead to sell its vehicles to all comers, the ticker is not reflecting that great news --

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The Book Page

Link here. 

From Amazon:

Partisanship is a dirty word in American politics.

If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it’s the belief that the intense loyalty within the electorate toward Democrats and Republicans is the source of our democratic ills—division, dysfunction, distrust, and disinformation.

The possibilities that responsible partisanship can offer were at the heart of an important intellectual tradition that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, one which was institutionalized through a sweeping set of congressional reforms in the 1970s and 1980s.

In Defense of Partisanship reimagines what partisanship might look like going forward from today. A new era of party-oriented reforms has the potential to pay respect to the deep differences that divide us—simultaneously creating a more functional path on which two responsible political parties compete to shape policy while still being able to govern.

The author: 

Julian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, a CNN political analyst and a contributor to NPR’s "Here & Now." He is the author and editor of numerous books, most recently Myth America and Burning Down the House. He lives in New York City.

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SpaceX Launches

February 11, 2025

SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral: successful.

 

Vati-can't -- Can't Give Up Its Walls, Either -- February 11, 2025

Locator: 48539POCAHONTAS.

Link here.

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Elizabeth Warren's Net Worth

Link here.

Net worth somewhere between $10 million and $12 million. 

Most interesting factoid from the linked article:

This article was updated January 5, 2025.

Note the most recent tax filing upon which this story was based. Yeah, 2022. Actually, that's only two filings ago -- 2023 was just due a few months ago. And 2024 isn't due for another eight months or so. 

If her net worth is between $10 million and $12 million and her two properties (a house in Cambridge, MA -- near Harvard -- and a town house in DC) less than a million dollars -- where is the other $5 to $7 million? On which she reports savings interest of about $1,500 and dividends of $1,000.

The savings rate at our local federal credit unit is a paltry 0.25% -- x  time 0.25% = $1,500. X = $600,000 in savings? Okay.

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Speaking of X

Time to google Harry Bôlz if you already haven't. 

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What Goes Around, Comes Around

Wasn't it one of the others -- one of these groups -- that ended references to American Indians in college and professional sports?