Friday Open Thread

15 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. S&P this morning downgrading multiple ratings for O&G producers including $XOM and $CVX (lowered to AA-) and $COP (lowered to A-). Follows agency’s decision to put ceiling on industry’s risk profiles due to climate risks to biz, moving it from ‘intermediate’ to ‘moderately high’

   — Casey Merriman (@cm_energyintel) February 12, 2021

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   1. Obviously, the sky is falling!!   There won’t be jobs in Colorado’s O&G industry!!

      Or, in this world, the S&P500, Dow Jones Industrials, and NASDAQ are all drifting upwards, and Colorado will continue to have a stable but declining number of employers and employees in the industry. 

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      1. out of curiosity, how can the numbers be both stable and declining?

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         1. V — Well, there is the example of the Stable Genius…. the stink may wax and wane, but remains stable.

            But stable does not necessarily mean unchanging:

            2 : not likely to change suddenly or greatly a stable income

            3 : lasting a stable peace

            A radioactive element can have a stable & steady decay

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      2. (as new employment in the renewable sector grows at a faster pace than the decline in O&G)

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         1. Funny…it was O&G that hastened the demise of the once prosperous buggy whip industry.

            😏

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            1. Family history says one of my grandfathers and his brothers made money cutting and delivering firewood (late 1870s-early 1880s) until more people shifted to coal.  The coal delivery business dropped off precipitously when oil and natural gas could be delivered to most houses and buildings.

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               1. There is a branch of my family that were coal miners in eastern Kentucky. The economic devastation of the companies leaving is matched only by the environmental devastation of their arrival.

                  The song "16 Tons" made popular by Tennessee Ernie Ford was anthemic to the area where I have a lot of family history.

                  The companies that created the "company store" didn't do much for those towns when business moved out, except bury some of them by moving to "mountain top removal" mining.

                   

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                  1. …and with friends like the Orange Turd and Wilbur, who needed enemies? 

                     12 Coal Miners Died on This Man’s Watch in 2006. Now Trump Wants to Make Him Commerce Secretary.

                     Ross made his money collecting “distressed assets”—failing steel and textile mills in the Midwest and South, and coal mines in Appalachia. Dubbed the “the King of Bankruptcy,” Ross cut jobs, wages, pensions, and health benefits at the companies he acquired, and reaped the profits. In the early 2000s, Ross’s foray into the steel industry netted him a $267 million personal windfall, but stripped health-care benefits from more than 150,000 retired steelworkers. Then he moved on to the coal industry, at one point controlling as much as $1.2 billion in coal assets through his company, the International Coal Group.

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                     1. There’s a place for Wilbur Ross shoveling coal in Hell. Terrible compensation, great job security.

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      3. Oil companies don’t want to be known for oil anymore

         In a speech to his board of directors on Monday, Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of French oil giant Total, announced that the company planned to change its name to TotalEnergies. He said the new name would anchor the company’s transformation into a “broad energy company,” and went on to describe the renewable energy assets Total added to its portfolio over the last year, including a stake in the largest solar developer in the world.

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   2. Shell Hits Its Own Peak Oil, Plans to Reduce Output

      Energy giant joins peers it pledging to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels while tapping the growing electricity market

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/shell-hits-its-own-peak-oil-plans-to-reduce-output-11613042962

      "Shell confirmed that from now it would allocate around 25% of its spending, or $5 billion to $6 billion, to renewable energy and marketing—which includes its gas stations and lubricants business—up from 11% previously."

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      1. That's a lot better than Big Tobacco's efforts to diversify:

         Tobacco companies claim to be developing and selling merchandise to help cigarette smokers quit, but health researchers accuse the industry of trying to hook consumers on different – still dangerous – nicotine products.

         Writing in Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) call the industry’s push into the smoking-cessation market “the pharmaceuticalization of the tobacco industry.”

         “The same hand that’s creating the problem is attempting to create the solution,” lead author Yogi Hendlin said in a phone interview. “But their solution is long-term nicotine maintenance, rather than total tobacco cessation.”

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   3. "Shell said Thursday its oil production had already peaked…"

      WSJ, 11 Feb 2021

      The news is everywhere. 

       

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2. Today is National Lost Penny Day

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