Locator: 51730SPORTS.
Gonna spend the morning watching sports talk television. Good luck to everyone.
Get Up!
Next up: Stephen A.
I can't wait to see Stephen A show up in a Stetson smoking a Montecristo or a Cohiba. LOL.
Later: waiting for the Air India 171 mishap June 12, 2025, report. It's been more than a year since this mishap. But then again, the Indian Supreme Court inserted itself into the investigative response.
Locator: 51729DISCLAIMER.
AAPL: up $1.47 in pre-market trading. Futures.
Dell: down 5% in pre-market trading. Futures.
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Disclaimer
Briefly:
I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken. I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM. Longer version here.
Locator: 51728MUSE.
Tag: Facebook Muse
The big story today: one's personal assistant. The personal assistant for the rest of us. Most of us already have it. Maybe we will talk about it later.
Reality: link here or link to Barron's. Why Nvidia stock (NVDA) coud be the best chip bet in an AI slowdown.
Let’s be clear, an AI slowdown led by Anthropic and OpenAI would be bad news for Nvidia. It might eventually reduce demand for its chips from two major customers and reduce or delay the benefit it expects from their IPOs.
Nvidia invested $30 billion in ChatGPT-developer OpenAI at a valuation of $730 billion in February. It agreed to invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic late last year, which CNBC reported at the time put Anthropic’s valuation at around $350 billion. Either of those two not launching an expected-mega IPO as planned would hurt.
But, at the same time, Nvidia has been reducing dependence on a few large customers by backing the wider AI ecosystem, investing in start-ups and supporting open-source AI models—meaning those free for users to download and modify. That contrasts with OpenAI or Anthropic, which generally maintain full control of their models. Nvidia just struck a $12.9 billion deal to acquire open-source AI development platform Hugging Face earlier this month.
Winner: someone consumers can trust. Apple.
See disclaimer.
The real winner: China.
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Disclaimer
Briefly:
I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken. I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM. Longer version here.
Locator: 51727DIESEL.
Locator: 51727PERMIANGAS.
RBN Energy: with US refiners already running hard, relief on diesel remains elusive. Link here. Archived. See also this link -- the chokepoint is not storage facilities (they are empty in many cases) but rather the pipelines, trucks, and rail. The latter (pipelines, trucks, rail) are maxed out and can't handle much more diesel in the areas where they need it most.
A $100/bbl diesel crack spread is an incredibly strong market signal, but it doesn’t translate to higher refinery output because most U.S. refiners already operate at or near their practical limits. As global supply disruptions drain inventories and foreign buyers pull more barrels from the U.S., diesel prices have surged even as domestic refinery runs remain near historic highs. In today’s RBN blog, we look at why high crack spreads don’t necessarily increase a refinery’s output, how market disruptions elsewhere can drain U.S. inventories, and the indicators that will help tell us whether the diesel squeeze is easing (or worsening).
As we noted in Part 1 of this mini-series, 2026 will be remembered by some as the year that diesel cracks topped the century mark ($100/bbl) for the first time. On August 17, the U.S. Gulf Coast diesel crack spread (vs. WTI Cushing) surpassed that sky-high level. On Monday, September 1, 2026, the diesel crack closed at $103.29/bbl, the highest close on record, before reaching a record high intraday price the following day of $108.02/bbl. As of publication, the diesel crack soared even higher, closing at a new record high of $107.72/bbl on September 10. It’s important to note that global crude markets are not terribly short of crude in the traditional sense (despite various geopolitically driven constraints). Instead, the world is struggling to refine enough crude oil into middle distillates to satisfy demand. U.S. distillate stocks in August were on track for their lowest end-of-month level since April 2005 and were the lowest for the month since 1951.
A crack spread measures the difference between the value of refined products and the crude oil used to produce them. A $100/bbl headline diesel crack (the right end of the orange line, measured against the left axis in Figure 1 below) does not mean a refinery earns $100/bbl in net profit.
First and foremost, U.S. refiners and importers currently incur approximately $15 in RVO/RIN compliance costs for every barrel of diesel sold domestically. That cost is passed through 100% into the domestic diesel price. The headline crack therefore includes the full RVO/RIN cost—an amount the refinery must spend on compliance rather than retain as margin. To calculate the effective crack spread, the entire RVO/RIN cost per barrel of diesel must be deducted:
Effective diesel crack = Headline diesel crack − RVO/RIN cost per barrel of diesel.
Thus, a $100/bbl headline crack less than a $15/bbl RVO/RIN cost yields an $85/bbl effective crack (still a historical high value), before operating costs and other expenses. The same distinction explains why, on a comparable basis, U.S. diesel exports to Latin America typically sell at a discount to domestic diesel equal to the RVO/RIN cost: exported barrels do not carry that domestic compliance obligation.
In addition, refiners still have operating expenses, transportation costs, financing costs, hedging effects and the economics of the other products produced by the refinery. Instead, it means that the market value of diesel relative to crude has become extraordinarily high. If crude (blue line and left axis) is expensive because the world is short of barrels, crude prices should be doing most of the work. But when diesel prices (green dashed line and right axis) rise dramatically relative to crude, the problem is further downstream.
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RBN Energy: Summit's Double E expansion. Link here. Archived.
Summit Midstream is moving full speed ahead with the 900-MMcf/d expansion of the Double E Pipeline after it secured about 550 MMcf/d of long-term commitments to move natural gas from the Permian’s Delaware Basin toward the Waha Hub. The company reached a final investment decision (FID) on the project, designed to address growing Permian natural-gas production and rising demand from Gulf Coast LNG export facilities, after a successful open season. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss what the expansion means for Permian producers and regional gas flows.
When it comes to the Permian, there’s a lot to discuss as it pertains to natural gas. Production in the basin has risen substantially over the years and should continue to grow, supported by crude prices, while pipeline capacity constraints have kept spot gas prices low. That higher production is partly because the region’s gas-to-oil ratio (GOR) has steadily moved higher. As we noted in Hold On … I’m Comin’, the Permian’s GOR has increased from about 3.4:1 to 4.2:1 over the past 10 years, a trend that appears likely to continue. In addition, the LNG terminals along the Gulf Coast have become the fastest-growing outlet for Lower 48 natural gas, with export capacity now about 18.3 Bcf/d and on track to approach 30 Bcf/d by 2030, much of it supplied from the Permian Basin.
The Double E expansion is intended to address those issues. The pipeline, which was constructed in 2021 and runs from the Eddy-Lea county line in New Mexico to delivery points in and around the Waha Hub in Pecos County, TX, has been an important route for moving Permian gas since its startup. The 135-mile system is 70% owned by Summit Midstream and 30% by an ExxonMobil subsidiary, with Summit Midstream Permian II LLC serving as operator. It runs near ~30 processing plants with a combined capacity of roughly 10 Bcf/day.
Locator: 51726B.
Page views: 103,355,124. Went up more than a million page views in 23 hours. Current run rate: 1,622,895 page views / 24 hours.
Malls: see Meow Wolf from over the weekend. Now this in The Wall Street Journal. Mall values jumped 13% in a year, more than doubling commercial property price gains as malls adapt with new tenants and entertainment.
Tech stocks fall: except for guys like Jensen Huang, the message CEO techs seem to be telling Americans: AI is too dangerous to proceed. Could kill "all of us" in less than four years.
Americans are listening. AI stocks are down around 7% in pre-market trading in the US, Monday morning, September 14, 2026.
US tech companies will simply go overseas.
You can howl at the wind, but AI is here to stay.
Finland is currently experiencing a historic large data center (LDC) infrastructure boom, establishing itself as the premier "data center capital of Europe." Driven by the global rush for artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity, tech giants are pouring over $30 billion into the country. Finland is an ideal home for massive AI servers because of its naturally cold climate (which lowers cooling costs), plentiful green energy, and highly stable power grid. For sources and more, query, Finland's LDC buildout.
AI scare: if CNBC talking heads can't see through this smokescreen .... LOL Anthropic's CEO's most recent essay was particularly successful in forcing Sam Altman to delay his OpenAI IPO. Sam Altman won't launch an IPO in 2026 -- source? Sam Altman in a Fortune interview September 12, 2026. Let's see if Anthropic delays its own IPO.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $103.00. Price of WTI now back to where it was under President Biden, see below.
For additional information on the Zavanna Rennerfeldt wells mentioned below, see this post.
New wells reporting:
RBN Energy: with US refiners already running hard, relief on diesel remains elusive. Link here. Archived. See also this link -- the chokepoint is not storage facilities (they are empty in many cases) but rather the pipelines, trucks, and rail. The latter (pipelines, trucks, rail) are maxed out and can't handle much more diesel in the areas where they need it most.
A $100/bbl diesel crack spread is an incredibly strong market signal, but it doesn’t translate to higher refinery output because most U.S. refiners already operate at or near their practical limits. As global supply disruptions drain inventories and foreign buyers pull more barrels from the U.S., diesel prices have surged even as domestic refinery runs remain near historic highs. In today’s RBN blog, we look at why high crack spreads don’t necessarily increase a refinery’s output, how market disruptions elsewhere can drain U.S. inventories, and the indicators that will help tell us whether the diesel squeeze is easing (or worsening).
As we noted in Part 1 of this mini-series, 2026 will be remembered by some as the year that diesel cracks topped the century mark ($100/bbl) for the first time. On August 17, the U.S. Gulf Coast diesel crack spread (vs. WTI Cushing) surpassed that sky-high level. On Monday, September 1, 2026, the diesel crack closed at $103.29/bbl, the highest close on record, before reaching a record high intraday price the following day of $108.02/bbl. As of publication, the diesel crack soared even higher, closing at a new record high of $107.72/bbl on September 10. It’s important to note that global crude markets are not terribly short of crude in the traditional sense (despite various geopolitically driven constraints). Instead, the world is struggling to refine enough crude oil into middle distillates to satisfy demand. U.S. distillate stocks in August were on track for their lowest end-of-month level since April 2005 and were the lowest for the month since 1951.
A crack spread measures the difference between the value of refined products and the crude oil used to produce them. A $100/bbl headline diesel crack (the right end of the orange line, measured against the left axis in Figure 1 below) does not mean a refinery earns $100/bbl in net profit.
First and foremost, U.S. refiners and importers currently incur approximately $15 in RVO/RIN compliance costs for every barrel of diesel sold domestically. That cost is passed through 100% into the domestic diesel price. The headline crack therefore includes the full RVO/RIN cost—an amount the refinery must spend on compliance rather than retain as margin. To calculate the effective crack spread, the entire RVO/RIN cost per barrel of diesel must be deducted:
Effective diesel crack = Headline diesel crack − RVO/RIN cost per barrel of diesel.
Thus, a $100/bbl headline crack less than a $15/bbl RVO/RIN cost yields an $85/bbl effective crack (still a historical high value), before operating costs and other expenses. The same distinction explains why, on a comparable basis, U.S. diesel exports to Latin America typically sell at a discount to domestic diesel equal to the RVO/RIN cost: exported barrels do not carry that domestic compliance obligation.
In addition, refiners still have operating expenses, transportation costs, financing costs, hedging effects and the economics of the other products produced by the refinery. Instead, it means that the market value of diesel relative to crude has become extraordinarily high. If crude (blue line and left axis) is expensive because the world is short of barrels, crude prices should be doing most of the work. But when diesel prices (green dashed line and right axis) rise dramatically relative to crude, the problem is further downstream.