Newell, South Dakota -- June 23, 2025

Locator: 48572NEWELL.

About four miles south of Newell, South Dakota. My paternal grandparents' homestead.

Isn't this simply the most beautiful farm?

 

Five New Permits; Five Permits Renewed; Three DUCs Reported As Completed -- June 23, 2025

Locator: 48571B.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $68.51.

Active rigs: 32.

Five new permits, #42045 - #42049, inclusive:

• Operators: Phoenix Operating (3); Hunt Oil (2);
• Fields: Skabo (Divide County); Parshall ( Mountrail County)
• Comments:
• Hunt has permits for two Oakland wells, SESE 6-154-89, 
• to be sited 610 FSL and 504 / 534 FEL;
• Phoenix Operating has permits for three Woods wells, SESW 35-160-98, 
• to be sited 410 FSL and 1917 / 2007 FWL.
  

Five permits renewed:

• Lime Rock Resources (4): three Jore Fed wells and one Sten Rav well, all in North Fork, McKenzie County;
• Formentera Operations, Lincoln State, Skjermo oil field, Divide County;

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 41166, 1,500, CLR, Arley 5-18H,
• 41171, 1,022, CLR, Kenneth 2-17H1,
• 41173, 1,674, CLR, Kenneth 3-17H,

Supreme Court Sides With Trump On Deportations; Trump-Khomeini Engage In Kubuki Dancing -- June 23, 2025

Locator: 48570B.

Supreme Court sides with Trump on deportations. Three liberal justices, of course, dissented. Amazing that Chief Justice Roberts supported Trump on this one.

The court lifted an injunction issued in April by a federal District Court judge in Massachusetts that blocked the practice, which was put into place after an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in January.

The market: considering what happened this weekend, the US market was incredible today. 

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $68.51. The following is not ready for prime time.

Oil prices plunge after the opening when analysts see what's going on! The Iranian response to US-Israel attack on nuclear facilities is incredibly bizarre. It's incredibly "oriental." Kubuki.

The Iranians telegraph that they want an end to hostilities, as does Trump. Trump has also asked Israel to "step back." Khomeini just wants his clerics to stay in power. The regime sees how futile this whole nuclear arms race will be. He knows that the US and Israel will strike again, after Iran invests another $500 billion in a program that will go nowhere.

Even Khomeini doesn't want to become another North Korea.

My hunch: China told Khomeini the same thing.

China needs Iran's oil. We might be seeing a Casablanca ending.

Rick: Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I think Khomeini "believes" Trump is sincere when Trump says he wants Iran to be great again.

Regardless, Trump and Netanyahu are "re-shaping" the Mideast with their own worldview in sight. Hamas is gone. Hezbollah is gone. Russia is unable to provide support. Russia has no money and no manufacturing base. China doesn't want oil flow interrupted. That leaves Syria. Israel won't let Syria re-arm. The question: will Israel let Iran re-build its air defense system? Israel learned a lot in this go-around. Israel will buy the right type of fighter-bombers-tankers to counter whatever Iran may try next.

Active rigs: 32.

Five new permits, #42045 - #42049, inclusive:

• Operators: Phoenix Operating (3); Hunt Oil (2);
• Fields: Skabo (Divide County); Parshall ( Mountrail County)
• Comments:
• Hunt has permits for two Oakland wells, SESE 6-154-89, 
• to be sited 610 FSL and 504 / 534 FEL;
• Phoenix Operating has permits for three Woods wells, SESW 35-160-98, 
• to be sited 410 FSL and 1917 / 2007 FWL.
  

Five permits renewed:

• Lime Rock Resources (4): three Jore Fed wells and one Sten Rav well, all in North Fork, McKenzie County;
• Formentera Operations, Lincoln State, Skjermo oil field, Divide County;

Three producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 41166, 1,500, CLR, Arley 5-18H,
• 41171, 1,022, CLR, Kenneth 2-17H1,
• 41173, 1,674, CLR, Kenneth 3-17H,

Manic Monday -- June 23, 2025

Locator: 48569B.

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)