Wiki Has Updated Its "Transistor Count" Page -- July 8, 2025

Locator: 48696CHIPS.

Link here.

Chips are tracked here.

Five New Permits -- July 8, 2025

Locator: 48695B.

WTI: $68.33.

Active rigs: 31.

Five new permits, #42097 - #42101, inclusive:

• Operators: Devon Energy (4); BR
• Fields: Camp (McKenzie); Elidah (McKenzie)
• Comments:
• BR has a permit for a Rollakellogg well, SWNW 9-151-97; 
• to be sited 1815 FNL and 499 FWL;
• Devon Energy has permits for three Forest permits and one William permit, NENW 26-152-101, 
• to be sited 375 FNL and 2182 / 2272 FWL.

Color Me Stunned -- July 8, 2025

Locator: 48694TRUMP.

Shoes: TSA ends shoe removal policy for all US airports. I'm stunned. President Trump has been president for about six months.  

Mass firings: Musk should be happy. President Trump has been president for about six months. I'm stunned.

Link here.

From the link:

The Trump administration can move forward with plans to slash the federal work force and dismantle federal agencies, the Supreme Court announced on Tuesday. The decision could result in job losses for tens of thousands of employees at agencies including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, State and Treasury.

The order, which lifted a lower court’s ruling that had blocked mass layoffs, was unsigned and did not include a vote count, which is typical in such emergency applications. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a public dissent.

The case represents a key test of the extent of President Trump’s power to reorganize the government without input from Congress. The justices’ order is technically only temporary, guiding how the administration can proceed while the challenge to Mr. Trump’s plans continues. But in practice, it means he is free to pursue his restructuring plans, even if judges later determine that they exceed presidential power.

It was the latest in a series of recent victories for the Trump administration before the Supreme Court on emergency requests related to the president’s efforts to rapidly reshape government.

Color me stunned. I think most folks would agree that Chief Justice Roberts is no "friend" of Trump, but it certainly appears with the US Supreme Court, Trump has had more wins than losses. 

Having said that, I don't know how the effects of a "temporary order" can be reversed down the road. But I assume the folks who voted "for" the ruling will not change their vote unless there are clear reasons to change their decision. This is very much like a challenge to a ref's call on the athletic court or field. For a ref's call on the field / court to be reversed there needs to be clear evidence of an error. 

Trump has been in office for about six months. Unlike Congress, he works 18 hours / day; seven days a week; and takes no vacations of substance. Congress couldn't wait to get out of Washington on July Fourth weekend; Trump kept working.

Those days on the golf course? Conversations with movers and shakers in America, usually business leaders. Which, by the way, should be some concern: there not a lot of non-pro women golfers seen in his foursomes, at least as far as I can tell. These are some of the women who have golfed with Trump in his foursomes:

• Annika Sörenstam, World Golf Hall of Famer and one of the most celebrated LGPA players ever;
• Lexi Thompson: LPGA star who has played multiple rounds with Trump;
• Natalie Gulbis: former LPGA pro and Trump appointee to his council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition.

Charts For The Day -- One-Day Tickers For HES, CVX, XOM -- July 8, 2025

Locator: 48693OIL.

Ticker: HES.

Ticker: CVX.

Ticker: XOM. 

EOG is also surging. EOG.

WTI: trading just above $68.

Something Is Afoot At Apple -- Connecting The Dots -- Apple -- META -- This Is Fascinating -- July 8, 2025

Locator: 48692APPLE.

Updates

July 9, 2025: Sun Valley 2025 kicks off.

Later, 7:05 p.m. CT: link here. Another change. COO will step down from that role this month, and then retire from Apple at the end of the month. Something is afoot. See original post, below. Apparently, Tim Cook couldn't afford to wait to name new COO at the end of the year. Doing it now. Something is afoot. Oh, I already said that.

Original Post

Tea leaves. 

Fascinating.

META grabs top AI personality from Apple. Link here.

All the talk on CNBC this a.m. focused on META / Mark Zuckerberg grabbing AI top dog from Apple.

CNBC finds Mark Zuckerberg fascinating. Apple? Not so much.

Was CNBC focusing on the wrong personality?

Another angle to consider.

So, you're the top dog in AI over at Apple.

What would make you leave Apple to go work for Mark Zuckerberg.

Tim Cook: "Hi, Ruoming [Pang]. Come on in, don't sit down. You've been here a long time. Yeah, I guess that Siri AI thing didn't work out so well. That's fine. We've moved on. You should probably think about spending more time with your family."

Now, go back a few more days / weeks: headlines that Apple is looking to partner with OpenAI and/or Perplexity. In fact, Apple has already partnered with OpenAI and is reportedly in discussions with Perplexity.

Now, go back a month or so: Apple buys $500 million worth of new office space in the San Francisco Bay area, enough to "house" upwards of another 2,000 employees. 

Now, go back six months to a year: Apple AI (aka Siri) laid an egg. Absolutely crapped out. Analysts agree: Apple has a problem with AI.

I think the dots continue to connect.

Hunch.

Tea leaves.

***************************
Office Space

Re-posting from the blog. 

The story:

• Apple: new office space could bring in another 2,000 people 
  
• Apple: this past week, it is being reported that Apple spent more than $500 million buying more office space in the Bay Area. Link here. I can think of only one reason Apple would need that much more office space. This is going to be incredibly interesting. Link here.

Much more at the link.

Taco Tuesday -- July 8, 2025

Locator: 48691B.

WTI: $67.77.

New wells:

• Wednesday, July 9, 2025: 16 for the month, 16 for the quarter, 446 for the year,
• None.
• Tuesday, July 8, 2025: 16 for the month, 16 for the quarter, 446 for the year,
• 40888, conf, Grayson Mill, Bice 18-17F XS 2H,

RBN Energy: delay to Dow's Alberta cracker expansion creates uncertainty for energy suppliers. 

Alberta’s petrochemical industry received bad news in late April when Dow, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, announced that it was delaying construction on an immense expansion of its ethane cracker in Fort Saskatchewan, AB, only a little more than a year after sanctioning the project. Although the length of the delay remains uncertain, the slowdown has created unwanted ripples across other projects that were tied to the expansion, especially for companies working to provide a substantial increase in ethane and natural gas supplies that will be required by the project. In today’s RBN blog, we take a closer look at the delay and what it might mean for Alberta’s energy industry. 

It was all smiles and sunshine for Alberta’s petrochemical and energy industry in late November 2023 when Dow announced that it was greenlighting a major expansion of its ethane cracker in Fort Saskatchewan. Dubbed the Path₂Zero Project (Figure 1 rendition below) because of its focus on creating net-zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in the production of polyethylene, the C$8.9 billion (US$6.5 billion) expansion and retrofit of Dow’s existing Fort Saskatchewan complex was touted as a watershed moment for Alberta’s decades-old petrochemical industry. It was also seen as a major step forward in terms of creating a much larger demand outlet for ethane, the most abundant of the NGLs processed from natural gas in a region — Western Canada — where natural gas production and NGLs output has been steadily rising in recent years. After factoring in additional carbon capture and other emissions-abating technologies as part of the expansion, the all-in cost was estimated to be north of C$11 billion (US$8.1 billion) — not a trifle sum for Alberta’s petrochemical industry, already one of the world’s largest in terms of the production of polyethylene and its consumption of ethane.

Figure 1. Dow Chemical Fort Saskatchewan Path₂Zero Ethylene Complex. Source: Dow