The Political Page, T+222 -- August 30, 2017

Quick! Without looking, "who is on" the US $2 bill?

The presidential pardon. I didn't read much of the op-ed in today's WSJ on the presidential pardon of the Arizona sheriff, but what little I read reinforced my positive thoughts about the Founding Fathers and the US Constitution. From the op-ed:

Alexander Hamilton devoted a substantial portion of Federalist No. 74 to defending the provision. “Humanity and good policy,” he argued, “conspire to dictate that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered.” And a single decision maker, he continued, would be more likely to be guided by the right kinds of considerations as well as a strong sense of responsibility in exercising this power.

Hamilton did not see the pardon as a challenge to the rule of law, but the reverse—a correction of law’s inherent imperfection. “The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity,” he wrote “that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.” The pardon was created as a way of tempering justice with mercy. It is, wrote the great Chief Justice John Marshall in U.S. v. Wilson (1833), “an act of grace.”

There is a picture of President Gerald Ford accompanying the story. I assume that was related to the "Nixon pardon." 

The Market And Energy Page, T+222 -- August 30, 2017 -- Wow: Look At Jobs Report! Look At Revised 2Q17 GDP -- Making America Great!

Holy cow! Making American great. Jobs report today. ADP employment report to be reported later. Forecast: US added 185,000 jobs in August. Actual: holy cow! 237,000 jobs added in August. Steve Liesman, CNBC seems awestruck, blown away. Doesn't understand where jobs are coming from. Talking head: "can't last forever." [I believe I  heard that same quote last month.] In addition, the July number was revised higher, up 23,000 to 201,000. And now they are saying the initial August figures tend to be on the light side and are generally revised upward. Wow. And in a very long CNBC segment, Trump administration not mentioned. In fact, Steve Liesman specifically said he did not want to talk politics.

GDP. Making America great. Latest forecast: 3.4 percent — August 25, 2017.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2017 is 3.4 percent on August 25, down from 3.8 percent on August 16.

The forecast of third-quarter real GDP growth fell 0.3 percentage points to 3.5 percent after the Federal Reserve Board's industrial production report on August 17 and the forecast of third-quarter real residential investment growth fell from 3.4 percent to –0.4 percent following the housing market data releases on August 23 and 24. The forecast of third-quarter real nonresidential equipment investment growth increased from 6.4 percent to 8.1 percent after this morning's durable manufacturing report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Harvey effect on GDP: talking head on CNBC says Harvey will not affect national data.

GDP: revised 2Q17 estimate -- was 2.6; estimate of 2.7 or 2.8 percent. Actual -- 3%!. Wow. Steve Liesman admits that positive business attitude from Trump administration "could account" for some of this. Did CNBC say that 3% in the 2Q is the best for that quarter in two years? I thought I heard that but I was making waffles and might have misheard.

10-year Treasuries: 2.1149

Oh-oh: Norway's Arctic oil ambitions suffer as most promising well is a dud. From Reuters:

Norway's hope of discovering a large oilfield in the Barents Sea has suffered a major setback after the far north Arctic's most promising reservoir turned out to contain only small amounts of natural gas.

Statoil, the country's top oil and gas producer, has stepped up drilling in the Barents Sea this year as the government seeks to attract more explorers to its Arctic waters to make up for declining North Sea output.

But Statoil said on Tuesday that after drilling the northernmost exploration well in the highly anticipated Korpfjell prospect it had found only non-commercial quantities of gas and no oil.

Korpfjell was the first exploration well drilled in the Norwegian section of a formerly disputed area between Norway and Russia, where Statoil and its partners had hoped to make a major discovery.

On the ropes: Russia's Gazprom 2Q17 net income drops 80% y-o-y; misses forecast. From Reuters.

CLR's Candee Wells In Chimney Butte

See this post for more in-depth data.

The Candee wells, those in red, were added September 22, 2021:

• 38249, drl/A, CLR, Candee 9-9HSL, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 163K 6/22;
  
• 38250, drl/A, CLR, Candee 10-9H1, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 120K 6/22;
• 38154, drl/A, CLR, Candee 12-9HSL1, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 127K 6/22;
• 38153, drl/A, CLR, Candee 13-9HSL, Chimney Butte, first production, 11/21; t--; cum 161K 6/22;
• 32095, AB/68 (no typo), CLR, Candee 7-9H, Chimney Butte, 27 stages; 12 million lbs, t6/18; cum 44K 9/19; cum 69K 10/20; off line 11/20; remains off line 6/22;
  
• 32093, 1,409, CLR, Candee 8-9H1, Chimney Butte, 46 stages, 11.7 million lbs; t9/17; cum 373K 9/19; nice well; too early to tell how it will turn out; cum 429K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line; cum 433K 6/22;
  
• 29475, 941, CLR, Candee 6-9H, Chimney Butte, t5/15; cum 282K 9/19; cum 321K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line; cum 325K 6/22;
  
• 29474, 1,088, CLR, Candee 5-9H1, Chimney Butte, t5/15; cum 256K 9/19; cum 289K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line, cum 301K 6/22;
  
• 29473, 1,001, CLR, Candee 4-9H, Chimney Butte, 30 stages, 3.3 million lbs, large sand, small ceramic, t5/15; cum 330K 9/19; cum 367K 6/21; off line 7/21; back on line; cum 370K 6/22;
  
• 20548, 356, CLR, Candee 2-9H, Chimney Butte, t3/12; cum 291K 9/19; cum 308K 2/21; cum 320K 6/22;
  
• 20546, 813, CLR, Candee 3-9H, Chimney Butte, 27 stages, 2.7 million lbs, t4/12; cum 304K 9/19; cum 312K 7/21; remains on line; 10x jump in production, 11/21; cum 373K 6/22; 10x jump in production;
  
• 16509, AB/IA/484, CLR, Candee 11-9H, Chimney Butte, dual lateral, 1 stage, 1 million lbs, t6/07; cum 206K 9/19; not much production since 2017; cum 206K 8/20; off line 9/20; remains off line 7/21;
  

WTI Coninues To Fall -- August 30, 2017

WTI continues to fall: prolonged shutdowns from Harvey could strand shale output.  Harvey stories are tracked here.

Active rigs:

$46.16↓↓	8/30/2017	08/30/2016	08/30/2015	08/30/2014	08/30/2013
Active Rigs	54	33	76	194	185

RBN Energy: investing in pipes, treatment and injection wells to trim produced-water costs.

The largest single expense associated with operating wells in a number of U.S. shale plays — including the Permian — is the cost of dealing with the large volume of produced water that emerges from wells along with crude oil, natural gas and NGLs.

In many cases, produced-water disposal costs account for more than half of total well-operating costs, and every dime or dollar per barrel that an exploration and production company (E&P) needs to spend on produced water increases its break-even cost and saps its bottom line.

To rein in trucking and other produced water-related expenses, more E&Ps and midstream companies are (1) developing produced-water treatment plants that allow the water to be reused in hydraulic fracturing and (2) building centralized systems that efficiently transport untreated produced water from multiple wells to treatment plants or to regional disposal wells. Today we continue our surfing-themed series on the effect of sand and water costs on producer economics with a look at how the old ways of dealing with produced water are being replaced by the new.

In the past couple of years, there has been increasing interest among E&Ps, midstream companies and others in the hotter plays — the Permian in particular, but also the SCOOP/STACK, the Niobrara and elsewhere –– in developing extensive, interconnected produced-water infrastructure that in many ways resembles the processing and pipeline networks built (and being built) to efficiently deal with the crude oil, natural gas and NGLs being produced there. The thinking of these companies is that by investing in pipelines to transport produced water from groups of wells to centralized treatment facilities or to disposal wells, they can significantly reduce their produced-water costs — especially the cost (and hassle) of trucking.

Take the example we used above, namely, a group of eight wells in the southern Delaware Basin. Say each of the wells generates 800 boe/d and (as we said) 2.5 barrels of produced water are generated with each boe. For the eight wells, that’s 672,000 gallons of produced water a day (8 times 800 barrels of crude times 2.5 barrels of produced water times 42 gallons in a barrel). A large tanker truck can carry about 10,000 gallons, so more than 60 truck trips a day would be needed to transport the produced water from the eight wells to disposal wells. And it’s not unusual for trucks to drive 15 or 25 miles (or longer) to these disposal sites — and they need to drive back empty to the production well to pick up another load!

Jobs report today. ADP employment report to be reported later. Forecast: US added 185,000 jobs in August. Actual: holy cow! 237,000 jobs added in August.

Typically British: John Kemp, Reuters London-based energy analyst, tweet on August 17, 2017, that he would be on vacation through September 4:

ON HOLIDAY until September 4. No email. No internet. No Twitter. No news. No oil prices. Total digital disconnection. Paradise!

And true to his word: not one tweet since August 17. 

Forecast: Three More Days Of Rain; Trump Shows Up; New Forecast: Rain Threat Over -- August 29, 2017

From the AP:

With its flood defenses strained, the crippled city of Houston anxiously watched dams and levees Tuesday to see if they would hold until the rain stops, and meteorologists offered the first reason for hope — a forecast with less than an inch of rain and even a chance for sunshine.

The human toll continued to mount, both in deaths and in the ever-swelling number of scared people made homeless by the catastrophic storm that is now the heaviest tropical downpour in U.S. history.

Five million people in the metropolitan area. Five deaths directly related to the flood?

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The Apple Page

Parallel Universes

And I'm living in one, a parallel universe. Apple wants to sell 4K movies for $20 in iTunes, while film studios want $25 to $30.

See the comments at the linked article.

My comments:

• 4K has been around for about a decade
• wait a week or two and one can buy the Blu-Ray for $19.99 on Amazon with all the extras, and better quality than streaming off iTunes
• wait two weeks and the movie will be on cable
• wait a month and it will be free almost everywhere 
• there is so much content now, I can't even begin to keep up; several seasons of the following yet to watch (and re-watch)
• Boyle's War
• Sherlock (Kumberbatch)
• VEEP
• Miami Vice
•  Columbo
• $7.50 for a movie is $3 too much

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Hauntingly Haunting

I did not really care for most of this video until the top three and the honorable mention. My wife would agree about #1 -- very, very interesting back story.