The US Will No Longer Approve Solar Or Wind Power Projects -- President Trump -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48911RENEWABLES.

Link here.

Most powerful man in global energy? Doug Burgum. 

Burgum:

• grounded: North Dakota
• educated: Stanford
• street cred: founded Great Plains Software in Fargo and sold it to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001
• politician: won the gubernatorial election in a landslide

Now? Sole energy decision-maker for President Trump. 

Final say in renewable energy. And he's already made "his final say" clear -- the US government will no longer approve any wind or solar power projects.

These projects destroy farmland, kill birds, and destroy oceanic environments. And that's just a start. We won't even get into their inefficiencies.

Most Important Article To Date — Must Read — August 20, 2025

Locator: 48910AI.

Link here.

At one moment, investors are talking about McDonald’s pricing and completely ignoring Sam Altman! Am I missing something here? 

 

Is "anyone" reading -- really reading -- these articles?

I know these articles are superficial, shallow, simple, but for heaven's sake, wouldn't you pay a thousand bucks to go to lunch with the CFO of OpenAI? Look at what we're being told in this article. I mean this first sentence is all I needed to read: "the company expects to spend trillions on data centers."

Holy mackerel! And yet folks are talking about investing in a company that's struggling with $18 hamburgers. LOL. This is truly bizarre. 

"Our company expects to spend trillions [of dollars] on data centers."

A handful of companies are now trillion-dollar companies -- market cap -- something we've never seen before -- and folks are commiserating over whether to invest in a company struggling with $18 hamburgers and relative value for their customers. Oh, give me a break.

This stuff -- AI -- is not going to go away. 

OpenAI just hit its first $1 billion revenue month in July. Its biggest challenge is insufficient comoputing power to meet the demand of AI.

 

When I was in medicine, pharmaceutical companies sought a "billion-dollar drug." A billion-dollar drug? That's a drug that has sales of one billion dollars in one year. And that's after years of research. OpenAI? One billion dollars in revenue in one month after just a couple of years of developing large language models.

And the CFO's biggest concern: "we can't keep up with demand." And OpenAI is just one of a dozen such companies.

And then look at this:

“It is voracious right now for GPUs and for compute,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday, adding that insufficient compute, or computing power, to meet the demand of AI is the company’s biggest challenge. “That’s why we launched Stargate. That’s why we’re doing the bigger builds.”

 “That’s why we launched Stargate. That’s why we’re doing the bigger builds.”

Stargate is tracked here. 

At wiki one needs to search high and low before finally finding: Stargate LLC, a 2025 American artificial intelligence joint venture of OpenAI, Oracle, MGX, and Softbank.

Oracle.

Here's Stargate LLC. Link here.

Stargate Project, incorporated in Delaware as Stargate LLC, is an American multinational artificial intelligence (AI) joint venture created by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and investment firm MGX.[

The venture plans on investing up to US$500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States by 2029. 

It has been planned since 2022 and was formally announced on January 21, 2025, by United States president Donald Trump.

SoftBank's CEO Masayoshi Son is the venture's chairman.

It is named after the 1994 film Stargate, in which the stargates were portals to other worlds.[

Because of its large scale, the program has been compared to the Manhattan Project. 

As of 7 August 2025, the venture had still not begun and no funds, including the initial $100 billion, were raised.

More:

On January 21, 2025, President Donald Trump announced the venture at a White House press conference, accompanied by Sam Altman from OpenAI, Larry Ellison from Oracle and Masayoshi Son from SoftBank.

Donald Trump called it "the largest AI infrastructure project in history," and he indicated that he would use emergency declarations to expedite the project's development, particularly regarding energy infrastructure.

Larry Ellison contended that Stargate could lead to the AI-facilitated production of mRNA vaccines against cancer, and that such vaccines could be designed "robotically", or by leveraging AI, "in about 48 hours."

Speaking of energy, who is becoming the most important man in the world with regard to energy? North Dakota's own Doug Burgum. Link here.

Burgum was born and raised in Arthur, North Dakota.

After graduating from North Dakota State University in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in university studies and earning an MBA from Stanford University two years later, he mortgaged inherited farmland in 1983 to invest in Great Plains Software in Fargo.

Becoming its president in 1984, he took the company public in 1997. Burgum sold the company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001. While working at Microsoft, he managed Microsoft Business Solutions. He has served as board chairman for Australian software company Atlassian and SuccessFactors. Burgum is the founder of Kilbourne Group, a Fargo-based real-estate development firm, and also is the co-founder of Arthur Ventures, a software venture capital group.

So, why am I calling him the most important man in the world with regard to energy? We'll get to that in a moment. Link here.

Betting Against US Oil? You May Want To Re-Think That -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48909OIL.

In a sidebar discussion with a reader, I ended up asking ChatGPT this question: 

Tonight on "x," RAWenergy noted that Melius Research had initiated coverage on a dozen oil / natural gas E&) companies that arevery, very well know. Noticeably absent was Devon Energy. The list might have been more weight toward natural gas and Devon might be seen as more oil focused. The link: https://x.com/WAR527/status/1958253849879404994. I'm curious ii fyou have any thoughts why Devon Energy did not make this list.

ChatGPT's reply: was a very, very long reply, but the bottom line was this, again from ChatGPT:

Devon Energy likely didn’t make Melius’s initial coverage list—not because it lacks merit, but because it doesn’t align as closely with the current thematic focus of natural gas demand, AI-driven power, and energy infrastructure growth. That said, its efficiency play and strong fundamentals could easily earn it a feature in a future wave of research.

This was the first part of the reply:

Original Post

Link here.

Betting Against Apple? One May Want To Re-Think That -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48908APPLE.

Link here.

Betting Against TSM? One May Want To Re-Think This -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48907TSM.

Link here.

Natural Gas: Fastest Growing Energy Source This Decade - August 20, 2025

Locator: 48906NATURALGAS.

Link here.

Most Remarkable Story This Summer? Bed, Bath And Beyond California -- WSJ -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48905CA.

From The WSJ:

The lede of this op-ed:

Bed Bath & Beyond is reemerging from bankruptcy with new storefronts and an updated business model, but Californians won’t see the retailer return to their local shopping centers.

More:

Bed Bath & Beyond, once a mainstay of American malls, filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and shuttered all stores, including nine in the Bay Area. Later that year, Overstock.com purchased the brand’s assets and rebranded as Beyond Inc. This month, the first revamped Bed Bath & Beyond Home store opened in Nashville, part of a plan to convert roughly 75 former Kirkland’s locations nationwide by 2026.

But then this:

A press release today from Beyond Inc. explains why the expansion will have a particular geographic limit. The release includes the following statement from Bed Bath & Beyond Executive Chairman Marcus Lemonis, who has become a familiar presence on Fox Business Network after earlier star turns on CNBC and ABC: 

We will not open or operate retail stores in California. This decision isn’t about politics — it’s about reality.

California has created one of the most overregulated, expensive, and risky environments for businesses in America.

It’s a system that makes it harder to employ people, harder to keep doors open, and harder to deliver value to customers. The result?

Higher taxes, higher fees, higher wages that many businesses simply cannot sustain, and endless regulations that strangle growth.

Even when the state announces a budget surplus, it’s built on the backs of ordinary citizens who are paying too much and businesses who are squeezed until they break… Californians will continue to get the products they love through BedBathandBeyond.com — but without the inflated costs created by an unsustainable model.

Governor Newsom responded on x, noting that Bed, Bath and Beyond had re-opened its first store and wishing the chain good luck in opening a second store.

That's the governor of California.

Much more at the link.

So far, 128 comments at the article. Most support Newsom. Cognitive dissonance. I'm sure the same enjoy high gasoline prices. I have no dog in either fight.

Speaking of which, I wonder how the In 'N Out family move to Nashville, TN, is going?

Meanwhile, we now have a proverbial circular firing squad. Posted by The Los Angeles Times just two hours ago, it's now being reported that the Democrats in the California House are investigating California's high-speed rail project, investigating whether the California high-speed rail authority knowingly misrepresented ridership projections.

This tells me one thing: the California bullet train will be the mid-term political issue with regard to California state spending.

Four New Permits -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48904B.

Tag: magnificent 7 tech 20 

Texas: State House approves re-districting map -- governor will sign, and then we move on.

GDPNow: for 3Q25 -- 2.3% as of yesterday, August 19, 2025, vs 2.5% just a couple of days earlier. Link here.

AMD vs NVDA: link here.  

Advanced Micro Devices has quietly outperformed Nvidia over the past six weeks.

For much of the year, the two stocks traded in strong correlation, but that relationship started to diverge in mid July as Advanced Micro Devices began to show relative strength. While it is too early to call it a sustained shift in leadership, the change is notable.

On a three-month basis, AMD has surged 42%, compared with Nvidia’s 27% gain. Over the past month, Nvidia has slipped 1%, while AMD has added 3%, a modest but telling divergence.

Whether the outperformance persists remains to be seen, but in a market where investors moving money among leading stocks can signal bigger shifts, this is a relationship worth monitoring closely.

**********************************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: $63.21.

Active rigs: 30.

Four new permits, #42235 - #42239, inclusive:

• Operators: KODA Resources (2); BR, Petro-Hunt;
• Fields: Fertile Valley (Divide County); Elidah (McKenzie County); Little Knife (Dunn County).
• Comments:
• KODA Resources has permits for two Amber wells, EE 21-160-103; 
• to be sited 1049 / 1084 FNL and 1031 FEL;
• BR has a permit for a Sandie well, SESW 21-151-97, 
• to be sited 523 FSL and 2183 FWL;
• Petro-Hunt has a permit for an Edgar Lea Weems well, SWSW 32-144-97; 
• to be sited 365 FSL and 500 FWL.

SWD: permit #42238, KODA Resources, Bock 04-1 SWD, Daneville oil field, Divide County.

Headlines -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48903MCDs.

Link here.

Without question, and without qualification, my favorite and for the most part, my only go-to fast-food restaurant is McDonald's. Full stop.

I have a love-hate relationship with Starbucks and until recently would only order a coffee at Starbucks when traveling by air. But recently, my last two trips, I balked at paying $8 for a  cup of black coffee and a plain butter croissant. 

When traveling, I now buy my coffee at McDonald's and get one or two hash browns (one is usually enough; two is simply one too many) for about $5. From the linked article:

McDoald's is lowering the cost of its combo meals, after consumers were left sticker-shocked by Big Mac meals that climbed to $18 in some places.

The burger giant’s move follows weeks of discussions between McDonald’s and restaurant operators, including the company offering financial support if franchisees agreed to drop prices, according to people involved in the discussions.

After pitching operators on the plan, McDonald’s and its U.S. franchisees agreed to keep the cost of eight popular combo meals 15% below the sum of the individual items’ prices. The chain also will run $5 breakfast and $8 Big Mac and McNugget combo-meal specials later this year, marketing them as Extra Value Meals.

The move is part of the chain’s push to restore its reputation for affordability, which has taken a hit with cash-strapped consumers. McDonald’s has said that its new McValue deal menu is helping, but many consumers still feel the chain’s menu prices overall are too high.

Restaurants, particularly fast-food chains, are struggling to attract customers worn down by inflation and unsure about the U.S. economy. Traffic to U.S. restaurants has fallen 1.7% so far this year, and is down 2.7% for fast-food eateries.

According to ChatGPT the average lunch for one person at a Chili's restaurant in NYC runs $25 to $35 before tip; not sure if that includes tax. That price does not include a "specialty" drink.

*****************************
Amazon Prime: Regularly, About $120 / Year

Link here.

***************************
Pet Peeve

My pet peeve is all those ads for "investing for retirement."

Some folks don't want to retire.

Some folks don't want to "cash in" at 65 years of age; they want to "cash in" decades earlier.

A lot of folks can't even define "retirement" or provide a dollar figure for what they consider "enough" for retirement.

Me? It's easy. This is what I recommend for our children and our grandchildren: link here. This is what I tell our grandchildren:

Nothing about retirement. Their goal should be to follow their passion. And, often, to do that, one needs to be financially independent. And that should be one's goal:

• follow one's passion, no matter how outrageous; and,
• to do that, become financially independent.

Other pieces of advice:

• never quit reading;
• never quit listening to music. Music is energy. Start with Patsy Cline.
  

The "Right Kind" Of Oil -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48902JAPAN.

This is a very, very "crude" analysis, and I may have some of the details wrong and/or greatly simplified, but this is how I understand the Japan situation with regard to US oil.

Folks may remember this issue -- the right kind of oil. In the big scheme of things, there are two major "types" of oil, "heavy"oil and "light oil." [With or without sulfur.]

Refineries are optimized for specific types of oil. 

Most refineries around the world, including the US, are optimized for heavy oil because that's the more common of the two. In fact, that's why the Keystone XL from Canada was promoted by the oil companies: it would have brought heavy oil from Canada to the Gulf coast where US refineries had been converted, at great expense, from "light oil" to "heavy oil" refineries.

The US is one of the major exceptions to having mostly "heavy oil." US shale is "light oil."

The US is now "pushing" American oil on countries like Japan, but those countries, with a long history of importing Mideast oil, have refineries optimized for "heavy oil." So, in fact, due to chokepoints at the refineries, Japan can only "use" / import so much American oil.

Apparently that maximum has now been reached and will continue to max out for the foreseeable future.

Link here. ArgusMedia says the same thing.

By the way, this is why the US oil companies want Venezuelan (heavy) oil, and why Trump has recently allowed Chevron to continue importing Venezuelan oil into this country. Trump's goal is to bring down the price of gasoline in the United States.

US Attorney Will Ramp Up Criminal Charges To Support Trump's Takeover Of Law Enforcement In The Capital --- NY Times -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48901LAWANDORDER.

This is a very, very interesting article. Link here. 

If I understand this correctly, this is how the DA's office historically works:
a crime is committed;
an investigation is conducted;
a grand jury is called and determines if there is sufficient evidence to indict someone;
often there is not, and the case is dropped or put on hold;
if no indictment, those "individuals of interest" are "off the hook"; that's that, and everyone moves on.

Apparently, under the new administration, and again, if I understand this correctly, the US attorney is now taking some of those cases to court regardless of likely outcome -- Trump wants the "individuals of interest" to have their day in court.

From the linked article:

The U.S. attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, has instructed her prosecutors to maximize criminal charges against anyone arrested in the administration’s crackdown on street crime, and charge them with stiffer federal crimes whenever possible.

Ms. Pirro held a staff meeting on Monday, as did her deputy overseeing criminal cases, to emphasize that going forward, there would be far less prosecutorial discretion to allow for charging lesser offenses in any case, according to people familiar with the remarks.

“In line with President Trump’s directive to make D.C. safe, U.S. Attorney Pirro has made it clear that the old way of doing things is unacceptable,” said Tim Lauer, a spokesman for Ms. Pirro. “She directed her staff to charge the highest crime that is supported by the law and the evidence.”

The new directive comes as an influx of hundreds of new federal agents are deployed in Washington, suddenly thrust into street patrol duty. Many federal agents have never done such work before, have little training in the use of force and are inexperienced in what types of suspicious behavior justifies a search of a stranger on the street.

In addition, it's my understanding that Trump wants regular updates of the court's proceedings and wants those updates released to the press.  

Again, I may have this wrong, but that's who I interpret this development.

My Favorite Chart -- Money Market Funds -- Total Assets -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48900MMF.

Tag: MMF, MMFs, money market funds;

Link here.

Subtle, but slight increase. The total value continues to increase.

Tech 20 -- Qualcomm -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48899QCOM.

Tag: magnificent 7 magnificent seven tech 20 tech twenty

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

**************************
Investment Criteria

When deciding to invest (not trade), this is where I start:

• market cap: enerally big cap, or promising mid-cap
  
• P/E: 
• sector comparison
• history of ticker
  
• div: in almost all cases, must pay at least 1%; exceptions allowed, particularly in tech sector
  
• five-year and one-year ticker
  
• ChatGPT assessment: incredibly helpful; and incredibly helpful.
  

 *************************************
QCOM

Data points:

• market cap: $170 billion -- nice
  
• P/E: 15 -- great for tech sector
  
• div: pays 2.3% -- nice, especially considering this is in tech sector
  
• ChatGPT assessment: mixed at best 

Ticker:

I have to check but I think I'm overweight in QCOM having had a position in QCOM for as long as I can remember. But I may have to take another look whether to add more.

From Beth yesterday, link here: 

The video.

ChatGPT: assessment of QCOM as an investment with 2030 horizon -- mixed at best. Can probably do better elsewhere. But it might fit some investment portfolios.

Iran's Crisis Deepens -- PowerLine -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48898IRAN.

Link here.

Running out of water and electricity.

Nightmare For Democrats -- Blue Flight To Red States -- PowerLine -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48897POLITICS.

Link here.

Migration from blue to red states is one of the great stories of the age. …

Start with the raw numbers. Between 2020 and 2024, California (-1,465,116), New York (-966,209) and Illinois (-418,056) lost the population equivalent of Kansas to other states. Texas (747,730) and Florida (872,722) gained the equivalent of West Virginia. Utah, Idaho, Arizona and North Carolina also experienced a rush of newcomers.

This chart tells the story:

The left-leaning Brennan Center estimated in December that Texas and Florida would each gain four House seats while Utah, Idaho, North Carolina and Arizona would each add one. California would lose four, New York two, and Oregon, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island one each.

Hump Day -- August 20, 2025

Locator: 48896B.

CSX: faces mounting pressure to pursue a railroad merger -- Barron's. To compete with the proposed UNP-NSC merger it would only make sense for CSX to merge with Warren Buffett's owned BNSF. I added to my position in CSX on August 20, 2025, when the market had a significant pullback. Note the blog's disclaimer.

Target: sales fall again, but retailer sticks by its outlook.

• shares drop almost 10% after earnings release; pre-market.
  

CoreWeave: for all the "grief" the stock is currently getting, it really hasn't done that bad; my biggest problem with CoreWeave: I don't understand how it differentiates itself from all the other cloud-AI tech companies. And HQ in Livingston, NJ, is not particularly "helpful."

TikTok: no change in status but Trump has continued to keep his account. Link here.

Netflix codes: link here.

CVX / Hess:

• from SeekingAlpha:
• Chevron plans to merge the Hess exploration team with its own to "challenge some of our conventional thinking" and make new discoveries, CEO Mike Wirth
• Chevron is cutting ~650 Hess jobs as a result of its $53B takeover, but exploration is one area likely to be spared,
• Hess  bought a 30% stake in Guyana's Stabroek Block just months before Exxon drilled its first well, leading to the biggest oil discovery in a generation - the block was the main reason Chevron bought Hess in its largest-ever deal.
• Chevron plans to drill an exploration well in Suriname well later this year.
• CVX-Hess merger: analysis. Same thing: this is a big story.
  

************************************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: $63.00.

New wells: 

• Thursday, August 21, 2025: 39 for the month, 87 for the quarter, 517 for the year,
• 40899, conf, Hess, BL-Blanchard-LW-155-96-2215H-1,
• 35237, conf, CLR, Michael State Federal 7-16H,
• Wednesday, August 20, 2025: 37 for the month, 85 for the quarter, 515 for the year, 
• 41211, conf, Slawson, Daredevil Federal 1-2-14H,
• 40855, conf, Oasis, Van Berkom 5793 13-11 2B,
• 40683, conf, Hess, BL-Banchard-155-96-2215H-2,
• 37543, conf, Hess, AN-Lone Tree-152-95-1207H-9,

RBN Energy: Cactus I and Cactus II pipelines remain ke to Corpus Christi's role as crude export hub. Archived.

The original Cactus Pipeline was a pioneer in moving large volumes of crude oil from the Permian and the Eagle Ford to the Corpus Christi area, which quickly became a leader in U.S. crude exports. Cactus II, an even longer and larger pipeline that came online in H2 2019, only added to Corpus Christi’s export prominence. But the competition with Permian-to-Houston pipelines is fiercer than ever and negotiated rates on pipelines to the Texas Gulf Coast are under pressure. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the Cactus I and Cactus II pipelines and their significance.

This is the latest in our series on crude oil pipelines traveling from the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast. Today’s blog focuses on the last of the Corpus-bound pipes. Previously, in Bustin' Out, we looked at the EPIC Crude Pipeline (yellow line in Figure 1 below), which has been operating at full capacity, and then told the story of Gray Oak Pipeline (aqua line) in Movin' On Up. We recently wrapped up our Permian-to-Houston series with a new Drill Down Report, West Texas Highway, where we detailed how Corpus Christi is competing head-to-head with the Houston area to attract Permian barrels. Corpus Christi surpassed Houston as the top dog in Q1 2025, with Permian-to-Corpus flows averaging 2.5 MMb/d compared to Houston’s 2.4 MMb/d, according to RBN’s weekly Crude Oil Permian report. (In 2024, Houston outpaced Corpus for half of the months.) Combined, the two regions receive about three-quarters of the Permian’s output. Corpus Christi is an ideal spot for crude because it’s home to 857 Mb/d of refining capacity and has extensive export options, including Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center (EIEC) and Gibson’s South Texas Gateway (STG), the top two crude export terminals along the Gulf Coast by volume. (More on those in a bit.)

   

Figure 1. Permian Oil Outbound Pipelines to Corpus Christi. Source: RBN

Before diving into the details of Cactus I and Cactus II (light-green and dark-green lines, respectively, in Figures 1 and 2), which account for more than one-third of Permian-to-Corpus volumes, let’s discuss the origin story of Plains All American and how the ownership of the Cactus pipelines, which don’t share the same infrastructure, has morphed over time. Back in the 1980s and early ’90s, Plains Resources, a small E&P, expanded into the midstream sector, and in 1998 the company’s midstream subsidiary was spun off via an initial public offering (IPO) and simultaneously acquired All American Co. Ever since, it’s been Plains All American.