The Buzz And The Bakken -- February 20, 2025

Locator: 48590B.

The buzz -- headline without links. It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.  Links, additional details, and updates are provided here.

Must-watch TV tonight: NHL. USA vs Canada.

WMT: tumbles. How worried is Walmart about this? Not at all. We'll explain.

C1: incredible.

Buffett: cuts holdings in bank. Holds AAPL position.

Medicare vs Medicare Advantage. DOGE.

DOA: EPA, California waiver.

Ukraine: British troops on ground? Can't even get there without US air.

Europe: dire straits.

Mexico: cars. More than any American even knows.

LA ports: surge. But it's not what it seems.

Boeing: it's worse than any American even knows. 

Politics:

 

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $72.52.

New wells:

• Friday, February 21, 2025: 39 for the month, 84 for the quarter, 84 for the year,
• 40437, conf, Enerplus, Icon 150-94-06B-18H,
• 39941, conf, Koda Resources, Stout 2032-5BH,
• 38671, conf, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-3A-33 1H,
• Thursday, February 20 2025: 36 for the month, 81 for the quarter, 81 for the year,
• None.

RBN Energy: a big propane wholealer's exit raises questions for its peers.

The decision by the U.S.’s largest independent propane wholesaler to exit the business serves as a reminder of the challenges and risks that companies like it face. The move also highlights the fact that some other independent wholesalers believe that by increasing their scale and scope they can compete more effectively with their two classes of competitors: affiliates of big midstream companies and affiliates of propane retailers. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss what the latest M&A activity in the propane space reveals. 

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Encore

 Reminder: this RBN story is now fully available -- 

RBN Energy:  the Permian-focused E%P expands again through M&A. Archived.

We defy you to name an oil and gas producer that’s been on the buying side of more $1-billion-plus M&A than Permian pure play Diamondback Energy, which announced February 18, 2025, that it had agreed to purchase a chunk of Midland Basin assets from Double Eagle IV, one of the Permian’s largest privately held producers, for just under $4.1 billion.

You’d be equally hard-pressed to find a team that’s assembled and flipped more Permian acreage and production than the folks at Double Eagle. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the newly announced Diamondback/Double Eagle IV deal and what it gives Diamondback, the fourth-largest producer in the Permian after ExxonMobil, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum.

Travis Stice, who has served as the company’s CEO for the past 13 years and chairman for the past three, has said that “M&A is as fundamental to Diamondback Energy as the air we breathe.”

No argument there, as evidenced by the E&P’s seemingly insatiable appetite for top-tier Permian acreage and oil-focused production. Midland-based Diamondback started a long string of multibillion-dollar deals in 2017 when it bought assets from Brigham Resources for $2.55 billion. The E&P followed that up in 2018 with agreements to acquire Ajax Resources for $1.25 billion and Energen for a whopping $9.2 billion, thereby increasing Diamondback’s Permian production by 75% and more than doubling its proved reserves. In the months after COVID hit in early 2020, the company bought QEP Resources and Guidon Energy for a total of $3 billion, and in 2022 it shelled out $1.6 billion for FireBird Energy and $1.5 billion for Lario Petroleum.

You’d think that after seven deals totaling more than $19 billion that Diamondback might have finally had its fill. After all, over just a few years it had rocketed to #5 on the list of publicly held Permian producers — and one of the biggest E&Ps in the U.S. for that matter.