Ignore Climate Change Issues At Your Peril

Stars and Stripes:

The temperature in Mitribah, Kuwait, surged Thursday to a blistering 129.2 degrees. And on Friday in Basra, Iraq, the mercury soared to 129.0 degrees. If confirmed, these incredible measurements would represent the two hottest temperatures ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere, according to Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters and weather historian Christopher Burt, who broke the news.
It's also possible that Mitribah's 129.2-degree reading matches the hottest ever reliably measured anywhere in the world. Both Mitribah and Basra's readings are likely the highest ever recorded outside of Death Valley, Calif.
Death Valley currently holds the record for the world's hottest temperature of 134.1 degrees, set July 10, 1913. But Weather Underground's Burt does not believe it is a credible measurement....
If you discard the Death Valley record from 1913, the 129.2-degree reading from Mitribah Thursday would tie the world's highest known temperature, also observed in Death Valley on June 30, 2013, and in Tirat Tsvi, Israel, on June 22, 1942. But Masters says the Israeli measurement is controversial....
 While the Middle East's highest temperatures have occurred in arid, land-locked locations, locations along the much more sultry Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman have faced the most oppressive combination of heat and humidity. Air temperatures of about 100 degrees combined with astronomical humidity levels have pushed heat index values, which reflect how hot the air feels, literally off the charts.
In Fujairah, on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, the dew point — a measure of humidity — reached 90 degrees  at 4 p.m. local time Thursday. The 90-degree dew point, combined with the air temperature of 97 degrees, computes to a heat index of over 140 degrees.

Why on earth would we spend trillions of dollars to fight over a region that is literally becoming uninhabitable?  Oh, that's right, so we can make sure the oil flows and makes it even more unlivable.  We are idiots and will be the cause of our own near-extinction.

Running Out of Oil Storage Places

Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. is so awash in crude oil that traders are experimenting with new places to store it: empty railcars.
Thousands of railcars ordered up to transport oil are now sitting idle because current ultralow crude prices have made shipping by train unprofitable. Meanwhile, traditional storage tanks are running out of room as U.S. oil inventories swell to their highest level since the 1930s.
Some industry participants are calling the new practice “rolling storage”—a landlocked spin on the “floating storage” producers use to hold crude on giant oil tankers when inventories run high.
The combination of cheap oil and surplus railcars has created a budding new side business for traders. J.P. Fjeld-Hansen, a managing director for trading company Musket Corp., tested using railcars for storage last year and found he could profit by putting the oil aside while locking in a higher price to deliver it in a later month.
The company built a rail terminal in Windsor, Colo., in 2012 to load oil shipments during a boom in U.S. oil production. Now, Mr. Fjeld-Hansen says, “The focus has shifted from a loading terminal to an oil-storage and railcar-storage business.”
Energy Midstream, a trading company based in The Woodlands, Texas, stored an ultralight oil known as condensate on Ohio railcars last month for about 15 days before shipping it to a buyer in Canada.
Dennis Hoskins, a managing partner at Energy Midstream, says there are so many unused tank cars that he is constantly hearing from railcar owners hoping to put them to use. “We get offers everyday for railcars,” he said.

It looks like it might be a while before oil prices rise.  That doesn't do any favors for the price of ethanol, and thus corn.  That condensate is replaced by ethanol due to the RFS.

First Fish Fry Weekend Links

I survived the first of the three fish fries I work annually.  Since I doubt that anybody that reads this got to enjoy the deep-fried fish, fries, pickles, cheese, Oreos and cookie dough balls I prepared last night, I'll leave you with a few stories to read:

The Making of "Homer At The Bat,"The Episode That Conquered Prime Time 20 Years Ago Tonight - Deadspin

Canada Still Can't Win The Stanley Cup - FiveThirtyEight

Myles Jones Is the Future of Lacrosse - VICE Sports

Equine Herpes Outbreaks are Bad News for Horse Racing - Modern Farmer.  Wow, that is pretty sad.

A South Florida Boxing Rivalry Leads To Cold-Blooded Murder - Miami New Times

For Russian Farmers, Climate Change Is Nyet So Good - The Salt

When Beef Is Off Limits, Beaver And Muskrat Make It To Lenten Menu - The Salt.  Well, if you can't make it to one of our fish fries...

The Passion of the Bureaucrats - London Review of Books

U.S. Shale Drillers are Finally Buckling - Bloomberg and Built Up by Oil Boom, North Dakota Now Has an Emptier Feeling - New York Times.  The bust didn't happen the way I expected, but I'm not surprised it happened.

At Yosemite, a Waterfall Turns Into a Firefall - New York Times.  Gorgeous photos.

How the Panama Canal Got Its Groove Back - Priceonomics

The Economic Recovery's Geographic Disparities - The Atlantic.  Heavily agricultural areas were among the leaders.  Do not expect that to continue in the foreseeable future.

The Great Pennsylvania Government Porn Caper - Esquire

Bernie Sanders is the Worst Presidential Candidate in History, and You and All Your Friends are Idiots - Paste.  The results out of South Carolina may make this moot, but I loved this piece:

Literally none of his so-called “democratic socialist” programs have ever been successfully implemented in any government in world history, except for all the other major nations in the modern world, and also America during our most prosperous period.

Can a Christian Party Survive? - The American Conservative

Reddit Poll Names Most Hated College Football Team In Every State - Bleacher Report.  Ohio State even finished second in Ohio.

Oil States Struggle With Low Prices

Bloomberg:

As the price of crude falls for a second year, marking the steepest decline since the recession, the impact is cascading through the finances of states, cities and counties, in ways big and small. Once flush when production boomed, some governments in major energy producing regions are facing a new era of unwelcome austerity as wells are shut -- along with the tax-revenue gushers they spouted.
Alaska, Louisiana and Oklahoma have seen tax collections diminished by the rout, which has put pressure on credit ratings and led investors to demand higher yields on some securities. In Texas, the largest producer, the state’s sales-tax revenue dropped 3 percent in November from a year earlier as the energy industry exerted a drag on the economy.
Further west, Colorado’s legislative forecasters on Dec. 21 estimated that the state’s current year budget will have a shortfall of $208 million, in part because of the impact of lower commodity prices. In North Dakota, tax collections have trailed forecasts by 9 percent so far for the 2015-2017 budget...
On Dec. 23, Moody’s Investors Service said Oklahoma may be downgraded from Aa2, the third highest rank, because of the prospect for a “prolonged, muted recovery in prices and production.” In February, S&P and Moody’s cut their outlooks on Louisiana’s rating -- which is now the third highest from both -- because of oil’s impact, which left the state with a $487 million mid-year deficit. Alaska is at risk of loosing its AAA rating from S&P, which cut its outlook on the state in August after the government’s revenue was cut by more than half.
The outlook has led investors to demand higher yields relative to other debt. A 10-year Louisiana bond traded last month for a yield of 2.64 percent, or 0.56 percentage point over top-rated debt, more than triple the gap when they were first sold a year ago. That difference on a 10-year Alaska bond has nearly doubled since August to 0.31 percentage point.

These states have been getting a free ride for a hell of a long time.  I'm not losing sleep over whether Alaska, Oklahoma or Louisiana might have to raise taxes or slash spending.  I was tired of hearing about Texas and North Dakota anyway.

Boxing Day Weekend Links

Hopefully everyone had a very fine Christmas.  Here are some entertaining stories for your enjoyment this holiday weekend:

The Last Wrestler - SB Nation.  Looking at the decline of college wrestling and the Tea Party's concept of the decline of America through the athletic biography of Jim Jordan, who is my concept of the do-nothing government employee.  The article is very interesting, though.  I may have to revisit it in depth, if I get a chance.

Jerry Tarkanian and Walter Byers: Adversaries Who Left Mark On N.C.A.A. - New York Times

The Best Eleven Minutes In Sports in 2015 - The New Yorker

U.S. Bread Basket Shifts Thanks to Climate Change - Scientific American.  This is why farmers ought to be concerned about global warming.

Boxing Day, explained - Vox.  I could handle the drinking part.

America's Top Shale Gas Basin In Decline - OilPrice

The Siege of Miami  - The New Yorker

When  the KKK Was a Pyramid Scheme - Priceonomics.  One of many in the history of politics for conservative bigots.

The last time an American tycoon exploited terrorism - Pando

Manifest Injustice - St. Louis Magazine

The Koch-like Family You've Never Heard of Influencing State Legislatures - Political Research
Associates

Hey, Hipsters: Please Save Us From Ted Cruz - P.J. O'Rourke

Republican Poverty: 93 of the Poorest 100 Counties in America Are In Red States - Addicting Info

The State of Rural America in 2015 - Modern Farmer.  Remember, this is at the end of the biggest boom in agriculture in almost 40 years.

Oil Glut Crimps Activity in Shale Plays

Wall Street Journal:

More than 250,000 people world-wide have lost their jobs in the industry over the past year, according to Graves & Co., a Houston consulting firm. Many companies that were hoping to weather low energy prices without new rounds of layoffs and salary cuts may be forced to slash those costs yet again, said Eric Lee, an energy analyst with Citigroup.
“Who’s going to take the brunt of this? Shale has already cut back a lot,” Mr. Lee said, adding that new oil projects are being deferred around the world.
In a way, he added, oil companies are responsible for the current situation. During brief price rallies, they raced back into fields to drill new wells—adding to the global glut of crude and cutting off the price rebounds. Even as the number of rigs operating in the U.S. fell 60% so far this year, American oil production through August dipped just 3% from its April peak, federal data show.
What happened was a combination of declining costs for oil-field services and equipment and impressive feats of engineering. Companies doubled the amount of sand they pumped into wells, figuring out how to better prop open rock layers to draw out more oil and natural gas. Operators moved rigs into areas where crude flowed the most freely, cut the number of days it took to drill by nearly half and extended the length of horizontal oil wells to reach nearly 2 miles.
Costs for such big wells fell by as much as a third as oil explorers put extreme pressure on the suppliers that help them coax more fuel from the ground, including Halliburton Co. And producers became far more efficient. In the seven most prolific U.S. shale fields, they boosted oil production per rig by as much as 60% this year, according to federal estimates....
Earlier this month, EOG Resources Inc., a Houston-based shale driller, said some of its most prolific wells would yield a rate of return above 40%, even with U.S. oil prices at $50 a barrel.
But break-even prices don’t always give the whole picture of how much money a shale company must spend to pump oil and move it to market. They can exclude land costs, which for some companies amount to billions of dollars, and they don’t include the cost of using pipelines to transport crude, according to company financial statements and analyst reports.
In nearly all of its investor presentations this year, EOG has said it can turn a profit at prices at or below the prevailing oil price at the time of the presentation. Yet more than $6 billion in capital spending this year has produced nearly $4 billion in net losses over the past year for the company, which is an industry bellwether.
The company, which has said $40 oil is unsustainable, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

My understanding was that oil was cheaper to produce in the Permian, but that chart indicates that the Eagle Ford has a lower breakeven price.  So why is production increasing in the Permian and falling off precipitously in the Eagle Ford?  I love the line that in nearly all of its investor presentations EOG claims they can turn a profit at whatever the price of oil is at that time, all while losing their ass.  Nice.  I guess it is good Obama held back the shale oil boom, or oil companies would really be in trouble.  Thanks, Obama.  

The Boom is Over in the Bakken

OilPrice:

The performance of Blood & Oil, a soap opera based on the North Dakota oil boom, is not going well. The show saw its episodes trimmed by ABC amid tepid viewer interest. But the real life Bakken is also suffering from a lack of interest, a development that doesn’t bode well for the oil-producing region.
The Bakken had been a key part of the U.S. shale boom over the past half-decade. But production peaked at 1.22 million barrels per day in December 2014. Since then production has bounced around, with month-to-month fluctuations, but is slightly down from that high point reached almost a year ago.
The EIA expects the Bakken’s production to drop by 23,000 barrels in November, a decline second only to the Eagle Ford in terms of size....
But falling production is contributing to another problem for the region. Several East Coast refiners are losing interest in Bakken crude, instead preferring to import oil from abroad to use in their refineries. According to Reuters, it is now cheaper for East Coast refiners to import oil from South America, Africa, or the Middle East, than it is to buy oil from North Dakota. The transit costs of moving crude by rail from North Dakota across the country tips the balance in favor of foreign oil.
The U.S. had managed to significantly cut its dependence on imported oil over the past decade, but the share of imports has stopped declining as foreign oil is cheap again.

If that isn't bad enough, there's also this:

In addition, Occidental Petroleum, the fourth-largest U.S. oil producer, reported a third-quarter loss of $2.61 billion, after reporting a profit of $1.21 billion in the 3rd quarter of last year.  Simultaneous with their earnings statement, they announced they'd be shutting down and pulling out of their operations in the North Dakota oil patch, to concentrate their capital outlays on their core Texas shale holdings.  Meanwhile, Marathon Oil, with a large presence in the Eagle Ford, became the first major shale producer to cut their dividend, slashing it from 21 cents to a token 5 cents per share, after they reported 3rd quarter profits of $948 million, compared with $672 million in the same period a year ago, largely from the profitable results of their Speedway retail gas station chain...
Others reporting this week included Hess Corporation, who reported a third-quarter loss of $279 million, compared to earnings of nearly $1 billion a year earlier; Anadarko Petroleum, who reported a third-quarter net loss of $2.24 billion, compared to a profit of $1.09 billion a year earlier; Murphy Oil, who reported a third quarter loss of $1,595 million on revenue of $714.9 million in the period; Whiting Petroleum, the largest oil producer operating in North Dakota, who reported a net loss of $1.87 billion, compared with a net income of $158 million last year; Pennsylvania based Range Resources, who lost $301 million in the quarter vs profits of $146 million in the same period a year ago; Cabot Oil & Gas, who reported a third-quarter loss of $2.2 million, after reporting net income of $85 million in the same period a year earlier, and Pittsburgh based EQT Corp, who reported third quarter net income of $40.8 million, mostly from hedging operations, compared to third quarter 2014 earnings of $98.6 million. Excluding the profits from derivatives trading, EQT reported an adjusted net loss of $50.2 million for the quarter...
There were two companies that didn't report earnings this week.  Denver based American Eagle Energy and Tulsa based Samson Resources, both working shale plays in the Bakken of North Dakota, both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, both announcing plans to sell off their North Dakota assets in an attempt to pay off some of their debts.  Samson Resources apparently hopes to reorganize and emerge as a viable operator; American Eagle "could not be reached" for comment.  Between June and September, 10 oil and gas companies working in North Dakota's Bakken oil patch have filed for bankruptcy; a total of 19 have filed in the last year.  As of Tuesday, North Dakota sweet crude was selling for about $36 a barrel, more than $7 a barrel below the US benchmark price.  With few pipelines in place, most Bakken crude must be shipped by rail, adding to its costs...

I just can't imagine what things are like out there after all the crazy development of the last few years.  Is there a bunch of half-built projects and empty apartments?  I know there was gobs of money to be made there the last few years, but personally, I'd have probably been happy to miss the boom and the bust.  I seriously doubt that all of the damage to roadways has been or ever will be repaired.  I can only imagine that environmental issues that were looked at as a small cost of the boom will look much worse during the bust.  Hopefully, things will work out for the folks of western North Dakota, but I wouldn't expect the boom to return.

Breeders' Cup Weekend Links

American Pharaoh closed out his racing career by winning the Classic.  I've got the World Series and Notre Dame football on TV, and a fridge-load of Pumpkin and Oktoberfest beers to finish before November comes.  Here are some stories for your reading pleasure:

Goodnight and Thank You, Grantland - The Atlantic.  I'll miss that site.

Blades of Glory - Grantland.  One last story from them.

The State v. Robertson - SBNation

Kentucky's Horse Country Opens Barn Doors to Fans Before Breeders' Cup - Wall Street Journal

Early 2016 to bring 'wave' of crop selling, says Bunge CEO - Agrimoney. Not surprisingly, I'm also a bear.

Young Farmers Don't Need Taxpayers' Help - Bloomberg

Why Is It So Hard To Save Gulf Of Maine Cod? They're In Hot Water - The Salt

The Most Haunted Road in America - Longreads

Mary Fields: Former Slave, Pioneer Woman, Certified Badass - Priceonomics

The astronomer and the witch - how Kepler saved his mother from the stake - The Conversation

Utopias, past and present: why Thomas More remains astonishingly radical - The Guardian

Ask Citylab: What's the Deal with Steam Rising from NYC streets? - Citylab.  What a massive system.

The 'Electronification' of Everything - Bloomberg.  Gallium?

Oil Producers Curb Megaproject Ambitions to Focus on U.S. Shale - Bloomberg

Hopes for 'Golden Age of Gas' Evaporate - Wall Street Journal

Clinton Foundation Faces Revisions - and Possible Reckoning - 100 Reporters.  Damn, they are crooks.  Between Hillary and the Republican shit show, that socialist is looking pretty good.

Inside the Secretive World of Tax-Avoidance Experts - The Atlantic

We Mapped the Uninsured. You'll Notice a Pattern - The Upshot

Oil Producers Push For Export of Crude

Wall Street Journal:

Big voices in the oil industry and Congress now support a move that would have been unthinkable not long ago: opening the U.S. oil industry to exports.
The U.S. has long pushed for liberalized trade, with U.S.-produced crude being the biggest exception since the shock of the 1973 Arab oil embargo led Congress to ban oil exports under nearly all circumstances. The only other U.S. products banned under the same regulations are a type of tree found in Western North Americacalled Western red cedar and live horses for slaughter shipped by sea.
The House now looks likely to vote as early as September to lift the oil-export ban, with Senate action anticipated early next year, which would mark a milestone few saw coming...
Thanks to the fracking revolution, the U.S. is no longer the energy-dependent nation it was for most of the past 50 years. Oil production since 2007 has shot up more than 80% to 9.5 million barrels a day. The U.S. still imports a lot of oil, but the share of petroleumfrom foreign sources, 27%, is at its lowest level since 1985, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The U.S. is already exporting more than a half-million barrels of crude a day to Canada, the biggest exemption under the ban. That is 14 times as much as in 2007, but still just 5.2% of U.S. oil produced a day.
More than a dozen oil companies, including Continental Resources Inc., ConocoPhillips Co. and Marathon Oil Corp. , and several top lawmakers, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), contend that allowing unfettered domestic oil exports would eliminate market distortions and streamline U.S. petroleum production. The Obama administration hasn’t taken a public position on the issue.

I expect consumers will raise holy hell about this, and it may get kicked to the side, with Congress targeting the ethanol mandate instead.  That would really kick Corn Belt farmers while they are down, but outside of the grain farmers, there just isn't a fuel ethanol constituency.  Keep an eye out for this the next couple of months.  Tea Party darlings like Jim Jordan have no love for the ethanol mandate, and they may just screw the farmers who vote them in.  But you get what you vote for.

Ghawar vs. Bakken

Bloomberg:

Ghawar is the world’s oil spigot. It’s the biggest conventional field in the world’s biggest-producing country, Saudi Arabia. Statistics about Ghawar—a narrow, deep deposit in porous limestone—are a state secret. The best guess, according to Rasoul Sorkhabi, a geology professor at the University of Utah, is that the field accounts for about 60 percent of Saudi oil.
As such, Ghawar is the country’s lever on oil prices. Too high, and the Saudis open the nozzle; too low, and they close it a bit. They’ve been pumping a lot of oil of late—the nation produced a record 10.6 million barrels a day in June, according to data the country provided to OPEC—in part to drive U.S. shale drillers out of business.
Wildcatters tapping the Bakken in North Dakota, after all, face a much different deposit. Picture a shallow lake of oil sprawling under the Great Plains for hundreds of miles, trapped in dolomite. That requires fracking, and fracking costs money. New wells in the best part of the Bakken break even at $29, according to the North Dakota state government.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, can produce oil from existing wells for $5 a barrel, Ali al-Naimi, Saudi minister of petroleum and mineral resources, said in December.

Tough numbers for the wildcatters.

Shale Oil Production Declines

Bloomberg:

Crude output from the prolific tight-rock formations such as North Dakota’s Bakken and Texas’s Eagle Ford shale will shrink 1.3 percent to 5.58 million barrels a day this month, based on Energy Information Administration estimates. It’ll drop further in July to 5.49 million, the lowest level since January, the agency said Monday.
With the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries maintaining its own oil production, U.S. shale is coming under pressure to rebalance a global supply glut. EOG Resources Inc., the country’s biggest shale-oil producer, hedge fund manager Andrew J. Hall and banks including Standard Chartered Plc have forecast declines in U.S. output following last year’s plunge in crude prices. The nation was still pumping the most in four decades in March.
“Production has to come down because rigs drilling for oil are down 57 percent this year,” James Williams, president of energy consultancy WTRG Economics, said by phone Monday from London, Arkansas. “Countering that is the fact that the rigs we’re still using are more efficient and drilling in areas where you get higher production. So that has delayed the decline.”

The next few months will be very interesting.

Death By Frack Oil?

Wall Street Journal:

The deaths of Trent Vigus and at least nine other oil-field workers over the past five years had haunting similarities. Each worker was doing a job that involved climbing on top of a catwalk strung between rows of storage tanks and opening a hatch.
There were no known witnesses to any of the men’s deaths. Their bodies were all found lying on top of or near the tanks. Medical examiners generally attributed the workers’ deaths primarily or entirely to natural causes, often heart failure.
But in the past few months, there has been a shift. Though still unsure of the exact cause of the deaths, government agencies and some industry-safety executives are now acknowledging a pattern and are focusing on the possible role played in the deaths by hydrocarbon chemicals, which can lead to quick asphyxiation or heart failure when inhaled in large quantities....
According to some industry-safety and government officials. The industry has been ignoring warning signs for years and has been resistant to implementing some steps that would reduce or eliminate the risk to workers.
“I was trying to get workers into respirators and all kinds of things and running an uphill battle,” said a former industrial hygienist for a large oil company who said he had noticed dangerously high hydrocarbon levels in some of his testing as far back as 2009. “They say, ‘Everyone does it this way.’ But that doesn’t make it any less right or wrong.”
The documented deaths date back to 2010, with six last year. Three were in North Dakota, three in Colorado, one in Texas, one in Oklahoma and one in Montana, according to the Centers for Disease Control, which first highlighted the pattern in May 2014. This year there was at least one death, in North Dakota. It’s still under investigation and may fit the pattern, federal officials said....
It’s unclear why these types of deaths were noticed only recently, and the cause is still under study. Unlike many previous oilfield deaths involving toxic fumes, the culprit doesn’t appear to be hydrogen sulfide, which has long been well-known in the industry as a hazard. Some experts have focused on the unusually high levels of certain hydrocarbons, including benzene, in the type of crude that is now common in the U.S....
Some industry and government experts say they believe the danger may be exacerbated in part by a recent environmental rule designed to protect public health.
In 2012 the Environmental Protection Agency enacted a rule that new oil-field tanks would have to capture hydrocarbons coming out of well sites rather than vent them into the atmosphere. As a result of the requirement, the same dangerous chemicals that had been emitted regularly were now more likely to build up pressure inside the newer tanks, industry and government scientists say....
Some industry experts say the industry knew the plumes could unleash potentially dangerous vapors and should have been monitoring the chemical levels all along. And, they say, companies could implement safety fixes that would reduce or remove hazards. One option is to use automated or remote methods to read tank levels. That is done regularly elsewhere, including in Canada.
“There’s no question in my mind it was absolutely known” that there were dangerously noxious fumes coming from the tanks, said Dennis Schmitz, a safety consultant for oil companies in North Dakota. “You are absolutely required to evaluate that hazard before you put that employee up there.”

I would wager that the main issue is that a lot of the fracked oil is actually condensate and natural gas liquids, which are much more volatile than traditional crude oil.  That is the reason why many refineries in the U.S. are not set up to handle the fracked crude, and it is also the reason why so many train derailments have led to massive explosions.  I bet it's why these workers have been dying.

Bad News in the Bakken

Ron Patterson at OilPrice:

Production in the Bakken’s most productive county, McKenzie, has fallen 45,784 bpd since December and is currently about 1,000 bpd below September production level.

Mountrail peaked in September and has since dropped over 25,000 bpd from that peak and is currently almost 2,000 bpd below its July production level. It appears that Mountrail had reached its peak, or nearly so, before the price collapse began. WTI prices averaged $93.21 in September and $84.40 in October when Mountrail had its biggest hit in production.
Mountrail peaked in September and has since dropped over 25,000 bpd from that peak and is currently almost 2,000 bpd below its July production level. It appears that Mountrail had reached its peak, or nearly so, before the price collapse began. WTI prices averaged $93.21 in September and $84.40 in October when Mountrail had its biggest hit in production.

A 10% decrease in production in two months in the largest production county in the Bakken formation?  That is not good at all.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months in the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Permian.  I think the Permian will peak further down the road, but the Bakken and Eagle Ford have probably already maxed out.  We may be seeing higher oil prices not too many months out.

Mid-April Weekend Links

Well, I'm planning on planting a little corn (maybe), but here are some stories to keep your attention for a little while this weekend:

Jason Rabedeaux Was Here - ESPN Magazine

The Ghosts I Run With - SBNation

Who Cares About "Irish" Andy Lee?  Or the Search for Brooklyn's Irish Boxing Fans - Vice Sports

Is Someone Stealing Water From California's Delta? - Modern Farmer

Feds Cancel Commercial Sardine Fishing After Stocks Crash - NPR.  Not a good sign.

West, Texas Blues - Texas Observer. The near miss stories are terrifying.  I know it's more expensive, but how about using urea or ammonium sulfate in place of ammonium nitrate.  They have much, much less likelihood of going boom.    

Low Prices Cool Boom in U.S. Oil Production - Wall Street Journal.  The article matches what I predicted here, that the Bakken and Eagle Ford are declining, but the Permian may keep increasing production for a little while.

Out of the Ashes - Aeon

Volcanoes Are (Still) Not The Cause of Global Warming - Wired. See also, Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Sources of Carbon Dioxide: An Addendum - Wired.  The significant point is that we know emissions from volcanoes can affect global weather (with sodium dioxide in cooling, for instance), so considering how small carbon emissions from volcanoes are compared to fossil fuel emissions, I would think most people could see that we are almost certainly impacting the climate.

How Car-Reliance Squeezes the Middle Class - Citylab

The Nun's Story - Lapham's Quarterly
 
Inside the Dyson dynasty - Financial Times

How a Malaysian Playboy Controlled the Most Powerful Naval Force on the Planet - Medium

The Mystery of the Missing Evangelicals - Wall Street Journal.  Once again, Ted Cruz is full of shit.

How Corporate America Invented Christian America - Politico

Supply-Side Doom In Kansas - Barry Ritholtz.  I don't think the true believers will learn a damn thing.

Moore's Law Shows Its Age - Wall Street Journal

And The (Red Queen's) Race Is On

From the North Dakota Division of Oil and Gas:

 4/14/2015
Director’s Cut

Jan Oil 36,927,131 barrels = 1,191,198 barrels/day
Feb Oil 32,958,640 barrels = 1,177,094 barrels/day (preliminary)(all time high was Dec 2014 1,227,483 barrels/day)
1,116,325 barrels per day or 95% from Bakken and Three Forks
60,769 barrels per day or 5% from legacy conventional pools

Jan Gas 45,678,995 MCF = 1,473,516 MCF/day
Feb Gas 41,267,123 MCF = 1,473,826 MCF/day (preliminary)(all time high was Dec 2014 1,570,858 MCF/day)

Jan Producing Wells = 12,197
Feb Producing Wells = 12,198 (preliminary)(NEW all time high)
9,208 wells or 75% are now unconventional Bakken Three forks wells
2,990 wells or 24% produce from legacy conventional pools

Jan Permitting: 24
6 drilling and 0 seismic
Feb Permitting: 197 drilling and 0 seismic
Mar Permitting: 190 drilling and 0 seismic (all time high was 370 in 10/2012)

Jan Sweet Crude Price = $31.41/barrel
Feb Sweet Crude Price = $34.11/barrel
Mar Sweet Crude Price = $31.47/barrel
Today Sweet Crude Price = $36.25/barrel (lowest since Feb 2009) (all time high was $136.29 7/3/2008)

Jan rig count 160
Feb rig count 133
Mar rig count 108
Today’s rig count is 91 (lowest since January 2010)(all time high was 218 on 5/29/2012)

Going back to December, 1.163,352 barrels per day were produced from 8,826 wells in the Bakken formation.  That is 131.8 barrels per day per well.  In February, 1,116,325 barrels per day were produced from 9,208 wells in the Bakken.  That's 121.2 barrels per day per well.  With creditors realizing that they won't get paid back on all the money they dumped into production over the last 5 years, and with the rig count cut in half, there aren't enough new wells coming on line to make up for the depletion rate of the existing wells. 

The strange part is, the news is full of stories about a continuing surge in U.S. shale production.  I believe the Permian basin may still be increasing production (and the Marcellus in natural gas), but I anticipate that the Eagle Ford and the Bakken have peaked, at least until oil prices spike again.  However, with the lull in drilling and well completion, and the drying up of credit, I think you'll find that Alice isn't able to stay in the same place in the Red Queen's race.  I think the EIA and other bullish forecasters are way too optimistic.

Pre-St. Patrick's Day Weekend Links

 Here are some stories to check out this weekend:

The Rocket Richard Riot - SBNation

Michigan's Jim Harbaugh: Wolverine on the Loose - Wall Street Journal.  Awesome.  OSU fans could hate Santa Claus if he was coaching at Michigan.  Harbaugh is a totally different animal.

Porntopia: A trip to the Adult Video News Awards - Grantland

A Cattle Heist of Epic Proportions - Texas Monthly.  Wow.

The secretive Cargill family has 14 billionaires, more than any other clan on earth - Business Insider

A Craft Beer Tax Battle Is Brewing On Capitol Hill - The Salt.  Also, see Cranley: Halt brewery crackdown - Cincinnati Enquirer.  Well, apparently, the craft brew industry has some decent pull.  Big Little Beer?

Whiskey Can't Hide It's Age Either - Nautilus

Pilots Duck Birds, Dodge Towers to Gauge New England Flood Risk - Bloomberg

A map of all the underwater cables that connect the internet - Vox

The Twisted History of Your Favorite Board Game - Longreads

Crude-Oil Price Collapse Takes Toll on Williston - Wall Street Journal

U.S. Producers Ready Next Oil Wave -Wall Street Journal.  Did these guys flunk Econ 101?  Or are they just trying to make debt payments?

Texas: From Shale Boom To Water Revolution - OilPrice.  Sounds like bullshit to me.  However, I can understand why people would like to believe it.  Read this.

Best State for Business/  Yes, California - Bloomberg View.  Yeah, fuck you, Texas.

Marco Rubio's Puppies-and-Rainbows Tax Plan - The Upshot.  This is why Republicans hate math and science.

Look at what our obsession with white meat has done to chickens - Wonkblog.  I think I may have already posted this image, but it's a good one:

Valentine's/Presidents Day Weekend Links

 Some interesting stories for the weekend, which is shaping up to be fairly cold here:

GGG Genesis: The History of Kazakh boxing part one, part two and part three - Bad Left Hook.  Gennady Golovkin fights Martin Murray next Saturday with Golovkin's middleweight title on the line.

A Life on the Line - ESPN.  On sports gambler Billy Walters (seen here).

In Kremchek They Trust - Cincinnati Magazine

Snow Removal In Montreal Is Cool As Heck - Deadspin

Should We Continue To Feed Antibiotics To Livestock? - National Geographic

USDA Just Approved Apples That Don't Turn Brown - Bloomberg

US harvest threatened by water-intensive oil and gas boom - The Guardian

NDIC Oil and Gas Division Director's Cut 2/13/15 - nd.gov.  As of the end of the year, production is still growing, up to almost 1.25 million barrels a day.

Homeward - California Sunday Magazine

Why Europe's Experimental Spaceship is Shaped So Weirdly - Wired

The man who invented the lithium-ion battery at the age of 57 has an idea for a new one at 92 - Quartz

Love in the Time of Science - Scientific American.  A run-down of stories involving love and attraction. I definitely believe this one works, at least for a while.

The hatred and the courage - Philadelphia Inquirer.  Just a reminder that it wasn't only the south where blacks were terrorized in this country.  Also, a backgrounder on white flight and suburbanization.

 Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I wasn't "100% sober" at the State of the Union - Vox.  No one attending should be 100% sober.

An Open Letter to Governor Walker - The Marquette Educator.  At least, since Walker never graduated college, he would be ineligible to teach in Wisconsin schools based on his proposed reform to allow anyone with a college degree to take an exam to get a teaching license.

Should the Victor Share the Spoils - The Atlantic.  On proportional representation. In larger states, this would give third-parties a pretty good chance of getting somebody elected.

Monarch Population Status - MonarchWatch.  See also, The monarch massacre: Nearly a billion butterflies have vanished - Washington Post

Early February Weekend Links

Some stories for your weekend enjoyment:

The General Who Never Was - SBNation.  Back in my conservative days, I was a huge Bobby Knight fan.  I thought those kids who couldn't play under him showed the weakness of modern America.  It's amazing how things change.

In Pond Hockey, No Reason to Have One Big Fish - New York Times

Pinball Wizards - Cincinnati Magazine.  "Ride the ferris wheel."

In Northern Minnesota 176,000 Acres Have Been Deforested for Cropland Since 2006 - Big Picture Agriculture.  That sounds like a really bad idea.  Then again, maybe this is just good preparation for global warming.

Feds Seize $2 Million Worth of Illegal Chinese Honey - Modern Farmer (It's still churning along).  More on Chinese honey imports here.

Report urges grass buffer requirements between crops and streams - Cedar Rapids Gazette.  Hat tip HillBilly.  Also, Advocacy group touts buffer zones to reduce pollution - Des Moines Register.  A little different wording in that headline.  Finally, Here's How To End Iowa's Great Nitrate Fight - The Salt

The Birth of the Philly Cheesesteak - Priceonomics

Canadian Whisky Is Way Better Than You Think - Bloomberg.  I'll stick to beer.

Growers Are Making Bank on This Green, Fragrant Bud.  No, Not That One - Mother Jones.  On hops.

Alcohol Prohibition in America Is Not Over Yet - Pacific Standard
 
You Have No Idea What Happened - The New Yorker.  Timely, what with Brian Williams in the news.  Eyewitness testimony is given way too much credibility.

Plush Life: Why did people lose their minds over Beanie Babies - Slate.  I mocked that bubble way before it popped.  It still pisses me off that the guy who came up with those is a fucking billionaire.

Walker proposes changing Wisconsin Idea - then backs away - Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.  Drafting error, my ass (Meet the state's workforce needs?  Seriously? That's it?).  The fucker just got caught trying to sneak through a massive change to a major part of the state of Wisconsin's DNA (just like how cancer works).  I just don't understand how he convinced a majority of Wisconsinites to elect him three times.  It is terrifying thinking of him as President working with a wing-nut Republican Congress.  I want to see him politically curb-stomped. 

How Nebraska Took Its Energy Out of Corporate Hands And Made It Affordable For Everyone: Publicly owned utilities provide electricity to all 1.8 million residents in this red state - Alternet.  Didn't know that.  What the hell happened to the plains states between the Great Depression and today?

Risky Pension-Bond Strategy Considered in Kansas - Wall Street Journal.  This is what happens when your state is run by idiots who put cult beliefs ahead of basic arithmetic.  What the hell happened to the plains states between the Great Depression and today?

The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response to Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech - Ta-Nehisi Coates.  I'm pretty sure the terrorists who blew up the 16th Street Baptist Church thought they were doing God's work.  William Baxley disagreed.

Texas Swagger Fades as Oil Town Finds Itself in OPEC Squeeze - Bloomberg.  Also, U.S. Supply Growth To Halt This Summer - OilPrice.com

This Map Shows Why The Midwest Is Screwed - Mother Jones.  This reflects my biggest concern about the potential impacts of global warming on agriculture.  Hopefully, we will be able to adapt, but it isn't the kind of risk I like taking.

Late January Weekend Links

A few cool reads for a mild, mid-winter weekend:

The Carver Mobb - SB Nation

Blood, Sweat and Teeth: Wild Nights with an NHL Dentist - Bleacher Report

Imagining an America Without Sports - Pacific Standard.  It's easier to imagine America without air.

New Zealand Farmers Have a New Beef: Drought Threat - Wall Street Journal

Deere to lay off more than 1,000 workers in Iowa, Illinois - Omaha World-Herald.  Fallout from the end of the ag boom.

Why the Great American Oil Bust Will Be Long & Painful - Wolf Street.  Fallout from the end of the oil boom.  Also, see This Time It'll Be Different - Texas Monthly

With million dollar investment, Dakota City farm dives into aquaculture - Omaha World-Herald.  Raising barramundi.  For more about that fish, see this article.  And see, Investment Fund Pours Cash into Cleaner, Greener Fish Farming - The Salt

Reinventing the Potato - Modern Farmer.  That could be my last link from Modern Farmer.  See below.

Modern Farmer Owner Says It Will Live On, Despite Staff Exit - NPR

REVEALED: The 14 Ingredients in McDonalds FRIES - including a petrol-based chemical and form of silicon found in Silly Putty - Daily Mail.  I don't really care, I love those fries.

Happy Birthday, Beer Can! 80 Beers for 80 Years - Bloomberg

These Priests' Invention Could Help Us Drill Into Icy Alien Worlds Someday - Wired

Google's Atlas robot severs its power cord - BBC.  That thing looks bad ass.  If the Professor is reading, maybe he could ballpark the cost of that thing for us.

A fault in our design - Aeon.  Complexity and fragility.

Wolflandia: The Fight Over The Most Polarizing Animal in the West - Outdoors

The Rise and Fall of the U.S. Government - Washington Monthly

Watch the rapid decline of "white America" over three decades - Wonkblog.  Meh.  It shows the number of counties that are at least 98% white decreasing significantly.  But all of west central Ohio is 94% white or higher.  Much ado about nothing.

Caught between greed and religion: the battle for Kansas public education - The Guardian.  Plenty of British haughtiness, but a very good analysis of the motivation for charter schools and vouchers.  Looking at the straits parochial schools are in, I'm sure that state money looks really enticing.

The People Most at Risk of Losing Insurance in the Supreme Court's Health Ruling - The Upshot.  You can't make this shit up.

Martin Luther King Day Weekend Links

Well, at least some folks have a three day weekend.  I hope you weren't shorting the Swiss Franc.  Here are some interesting stories for your weekend entertainment:

The Fighting Indians Earn It - SBNation

The Night A Heartbroken George Foreman Boxed Five Men In One Hour - Deadspin

A Breeder Apart: Farmers Say Goodbye to the Bull Who Sired 500,000 Offspring - Wall Street Journal

Agriculture: State-of-the-art soil - Nature.  On biochar.

Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics - The Atlantic.  It's worth a look, but I doubt that it'll work.

 When Americans Ate Horse Meat - Priceonomics

Iowa's Largest City Sues Over Farm Fertilizer Runoff In Rivers - The Salt.  It's significant news because it's Iowa.

The Belfast Connection - Down East.  The story of a 1980s cocaine ring in rural Maine.

Parachuting Beavers Into Idaho's Wilderness? Yes, It Really Happened - Boise State Public Radio

How well-intentioned Americans trying to save Monarch butterflies may actually be destroying them - Washington Post

6 Things I Learned From the Book "Since Yesterday: The 1930s in America" - Motley Fool.  Mainly, that the Depression was damn ugly, especially in rural America.  When it came down to it, farmers engaged in mob rule to overcome bankers.

Yep, Gasoline Lead Explains the Crime Decline in Canada Too - Kevin Drum.  I don't necessarily buy the causation, but it is at least as plausible as broken-windows policing causing the decline.

The Republican Party's war with Pope Francis has finally started - The Week.  Go Papa Frank.

Detroit in the 1940s - The Atlantic.  Note the housing issue in 1942 and the race riot in 1943. Detroit is in its present straits because of racism, pure and simple.

The Percentage of Workers in Government is at a 54-Year Low - Business Insider.  Also see, Public and Private Sector Payroll Jobs: Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama - Calculated Risk.  Republicans are welcome to try to explain how Obama expanded government and hurt the private sector economy compared to Bush.  I'll stick with reality, though.

Back to the Future? Oil Replays 1980s Bust - Wall Street Journal.  Also, see Money Dries Up for Oil & Gas, Layoffs Spread, Write-offs Start - Wolf Street

2014 Global Temperature Recap - NOAA.  2014 was the hottest year on record, just not in the eastern United States.  I'm pretty sure future generations are fucked.  Also, see 9 of the 10 hottest years on record occurred since 2000 - Wall Street Journal