The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Thursday, July 9, 2026

Thursday -- Cramer's First Hour — July 9, 2026

Bonnie Tyler dead at age 75.

Info tech stocks:

more than 2/3rds of all stocks are down 20% from high.
AVGO, QCOM, MU, TSM, AMD, GLW.
SNDK. Currently 1,800. New: 2,000. This is a catch-up play.

Jobless claims in-line.

Ohio. CNBC's best state for business. Link here.

At the top --

Ohio -- #1
North Carolina, #2; was first last year;
Virginia, #3.
Texas, #4.
Minnesota, #5. Okay. Bogus story.

Bottom five:

#46: West Virginia.
#47: Louisiana.
#48. Rhode Island.
#49.Alaska.
#50. Hawaii.

Crack spread: at record highs. Trending toward $60. Valero. MPC.

profit margin for refiners: 3:2:1 --> three barrels of oil for two barrels of gasoline and one barrel of diesel
formula: [(2xprice of gasoline, bbls) + (price of diesel, bbls)] - 3xprice of oil, bbls] = crack spread.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $73.94.

New wells reporting:

Friday, July 10, 2026: 15 for the month, 15 for the quarter, 368 for the year,

None.

Thursday, July 9, 2026: 15 for the month, 15 for the quarter, 368 for the year,

41917, conf, Murfin Drilling, MH Hecker 1-14H,

RBN Energy: spike in the D4 renewable identification number price about more than a higher mandate. Link here.

The price of the D4 Renewable Identification Number (RIN) has increased 130% so far in 2026. The jump in the price was a response to both a 70% increase in the minimum bio-based diesel volume mandate set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for 2026 and a higher price premium for soybean oil relative to ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel). In today’s RBN blog, we analyze the additional factors at play in the increase, from both theoretical and practical standpoints.
Let’s start with a bit of background about how the mandates for renewable fuels work. As we noted in Something’s Gotta Give, the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requires certain minimum volumes of biofuels to be blended into fuel sold in the U.S. The required minimum, known as the Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO), is determined each year by the EPA. A RIN is the regulatory mechanism for tracking the production and blending of renewable fuels and also allows refiners and importers to prove they’ve met their RVO mandates.
To see the importance of the RIN system, let’s consider a bio-based diesel producer who buys used cooking oil — a common feedstock for bio-based diesel production — for $6/gal, processes it into bio-based diesel, then sells it for $3/gal to be blended with refined petroleum diesel for eventual sale as diesel fuel to truckers. With a $6/gal feedstock cost and $3/gal product value, the producer’s profit margin is negative $3/gal. Without a subsidy, production and sales would be zero. The RIN credit is the primary instrument that provides that subsidy.

Midnight, CT -- July 8/9, 2026

Locator: 51135AAPL.

Tag: Baltra.

Futures, midnight, July 8/9, 2026, "little changed," but all indices are green. Certainly better than losing 600 points earlier today.

Apple, Query:

Gemini: Apple had a good day today -- $30-billion deal with Broadcom; continuing with Qualcom chip; says it will develop server chip in-house. May get HBM chips from China. Is that correct? Anything else?

Reply:

Query: what is Apple's server chip roadmap?

Query: how does SMC's advanced packaging tech (SoIC) fit into the Baltra architecture?

Reply:

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

End-Of-Day Report -- July 8, 2026

Locator: 51134B.

Mideast; Trump -- "the ceasefire is over." Yesterday CENTCOM hit 80 targets against IRGC and Iran; today, CENTCOM to hit 100 targets. Both sides said it can get much worse.

Markets: "a red day" for the US markets. Interestingly, the Chinese market was green and looked pretty good. The US Dow Jones was down almost 600 points; S&P down 21 points (way off its lows); and, NASDAQ, up 50 points; NASDAQ-100, up 80 points. Kharg Island in play.

Costco: June sales -- up almost 11% y/y.

Apple (AAPL): making huge moves with Broadcom (AVGO), and, of course, Qualcomm.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $74.89; up 6.32%; up $4.45. It's been awhile since I've seen a 6% jump in WTI.

Active rigs: 26.

Four new permits, #43095 - #43098, inclusive --

Operator: Hunt Oil
Field: Parshall oil field, Mountrail County;
Comments:

Hunt has three McAlmond permits and one Oakland permit, lots 3 and 4, section 5-154-89,

to be sited 319 FNL and 1293 / 1383 FWL.

Seven permits renewed:

Enerplus (4): Ridley (Antelope, McKenzie); Spoiler (Moccasin Creek, Dunn); Spoiler (South Fork, Dunn); and, Fort Berthold (Eagle Nest, Dunn);
XTO (3): Prairie Federal (3); (Haystack Butte, McKenzie);

Two permits canceled:

Enerplus: Loggerhead, McKenzie County;
KODA Resources: Ale, Divide County.

Tech Notes -- July 8, 2026

Locator: 51133TECH.

Schwab: I'm not sure if this is accurate.

It's 12:21 p.m. CT, July 8, 2026. Holy mackerel -- my Schwab portfolio is having an incredible day: a) it's overweight in oil; and, b) it's way overweight in AAPL, currently up very nicely on some incredible Apple news, including: a) a new server chip in-house; b) AVGO; and, c) QCOM. See disclaimer.

Apple: only ASUS, at 0.2%, and Apple, at 10.1% this quarter and 9.9% the quarter before, reported positive growth, y/y.

Apple: announcing some interesting (continuing) partnerships with Broadcom and Qualcomm.

And then there's TSM:

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The Book Page

The Story of Semiconductors, John Orton, c. 2009.

Probably the best book ever on this subject. Hard to find. Available for $150.00 at Amazon but one can find it for resale for as little as $4.99. I just checked: Amazon now has it for around $80 for hardcover; $75 for paperback.

Notes at two sites:

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Disclaimer
Brief Reminder

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 and Oracle to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom and Oracle.
Longer version here.