For the archives. Israel has not temporarily halted military operations over Iran.
On the contrary, Israel launched "wide-ranging strikes" on Tehran on Monday, June 23, 2025. This latest barrage targeted a paramilitary headquarters and a prison, which Israel's military claimed were "command centers" of the Revolutionary Guards.
The new strikes followed US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and are part of an ongoing Israeli campaign that began on June 13, 2025, with the stated aim of destroying Iran's nuclear program. Israeli strikes overnight included hitting access routes to Fordow.
Khomeini under siege and limited bandwidth.
Biggest story in Texas overnight: if I'm reading this correctly Governor Abbott vetoed the "marijuana bill" late last night -- probably minutes before midnight deadline.
Most amazing: calls special session for legislators -- absolutely not predicted. Huge risk when calling special session. Wants regulation, not total ban. I would have lobbied against the veto, but in the big scheme of things, Abbott did the right thing. I don't think folks realize this but there's a huge "connection" between THC and Texas economy.
CNBC talking heads, across the board, seem flummoxed this morning.
Most interesting headline this weekend (yes, maybe even a bigger headline that Iran): link here.
Banks: watching closely
- BNY, Northern Trust
EPIC pipeline -- RBN Energy: link here.
China / Taiwan:
- China closely watched the US response over the weekend.
Political: it's possible we will lose the links eventually --
- Biden: confused; link here.
- Carter: 47 years of Iran's "Death to America" began with this president; link here.
- and not one president acted decisively until Trump
- Netanyahu had had enough
- Barry sent pallets of cash; Trump dropped pallets of bombs
- outside of the obvious losers, the other big losers:
- NATO: lots of talk -- does the US even need NATO any more?
- EU
- Turkey
- France
- Pakistan
Weekend movies:
- Elio has worst-ever opening for a Pixar / Disney movie
- on the other hand, How To Train Your Dragon -- Comcast -- continues blockbuster action
NBA championship series: viewership plummets (we don't have game 6 / game 7 numbers yet) -- link here. Numbers of viewers in most watched games of the series / last game:
- 2019: 18 million+ / 18 million+
- 2020: irrelevant / lockdown
- 2021: irrelevant / lockdown
- 2022: 14 million / 14 million
- 2023: 13 million / 13 million
- 2024: 12 million / 11 million
- 2025: to date, first five games -- 9 million /
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $74.55. Incredibly volatile over the weekend, following US attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.
New wells:
- Tuesday, June 24, 2025: 53 for the month, 206 for the quarter, 420 for the year,
- 41260, conf, CLR, Putnam 3-25H,
- 40659, conf, Enerplus, Rod 149-95-36D-25H,
- Monday, June 23, 2025: 51 for the month, 204 for the quarter, 418 for the year,
- 41049, conf, Hunt, Sioux Trail 160-101-36-24H-2,
- 41048, conf, Hunt, Sioux Trail 160-101-36-24H-1,
- Sunday, June 22, 2025: 49 for the month, 202 for the quarter, 416 for the year,
- 40508, conf, Hess, EN-McKenna-157-93-3328H-5,
- Saturday, June 21, 2025: 48 for the month, 201 for the quarter, 415 for the year,
- 41286, conf, CLR, Peterson 8-29H,
RBN Energy: even in a market rife with uncertainty, producers continue reshaping their portfolios.
Energy-market risks abound. Israeli attacks on Iranian oil and gas infrastructure. The looming possibility of a global trade war. Up-and-down prices for WTI and Brent. Still, in the midst of all this doubt and instability, oil and gas producers continue to buy and sell major upstream assets in the U.S. — and gobble up entire companies — in ongoing efforts to grow their businesses, reshape their portfolios and/or reduce their debt. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look at recent big-dollar deals in the U.S. oil and gas industry.
As we said in Part 1, 2024 was a record year for upstream M&A in the U.S. and may be hard to beat. But while the number and value of the E&P deals so far in 2025 may not match last year’s pace, there’s been a surprising amount of activity, the standout to date being EOG Resources’ planned $5.6 billion acquisition of Encino Acquisition Partners (EAP), the leading condensate producer in the Utica Shale, which we detailed in Might As Well Jump! Others — all discussed in Part 1 — include Viper Energy’s $4.1 billion purchase of Sitio Royalties, EQT Corp.’s $1.8 billion buyout of Olympus Energy, and Elk Range Royalties’ acquisition of Occidental Petroleum’s extensive mineral-rights and royalty-interest holdings in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin for $905 million.
Today, we continue our look at the most interesting and valuable upstream deals of 2025 with a review of a few other major transactions.
Discussed:
- Validus Energy / 89 Energy
- Shell / Selected COP Assets in the Gulf of Mexico (sic)
