Not The Bakken -- December 29, 2025

Locator: 49764RELIGION.  
Locator: 49764CAPITALISM.  

Updates

December 30, 2025: after a fair amount of discussion with ChatGPT, I have decided to order through Amazon Amy-Jill Levin's The Jewish Annotated New Testament. It's relatively expensive; even with a 21% discount, it still trends toward $60. But, wow, it looks good. [The book arrived December 31, 2025: notes will be kept here.]

Original Post 

There are a number of errors in this prompt but AI straightened me out and from there we had an incredible (and incredibly long) discussion. Along the way, I learned about Amy-Jill Levine, Vanderbilt University. Whoo-hoo.

AI prompt: Religion. I know / knew nothing about this. I'm curious what you might know about it. 

First comment / observation:  I think it's pretty well established that the Romans (non-Jewish / secular / pagans) tried, convicted, and executed Jesus. Second observation / comment: the book of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament. About the time that Matthew was writing what would become the first book of the New Testament, there was a new Jewish Rabbinic movement.  Which brings us to the third point: Matthew's writing suggests that he was a rabid anti-Rabbinic Christian and it was he who was most responsible for re-framing the story to not only make the Jews responsible for Jesus' execution, even perhaps to the point of saying it was the Jews who actually had blood on their hands. So, I really don't know. I will do further research on my own but curious where your search may take the two of us. 

It was well worth the discussion. I was led to Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt, of whom I was unaware.  

****************************
The Book Page

Capitalism and Its Critics, A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI, John Cassidy, author of How Markets Fail, c. 2025. Hardback. 33% discount at Amazon. See this post.  

See also this post. 

I don't buy into the meme that Warren Buffett was the greatest of all time (the GOAT).  

I have very strong thoughts and very strong feelings about this: 

 That graph was part of a very long discussion with ChatGPT. That conversation ended like this:

A long, long discussion with ChatGPT ended with this:

In addition to time, the "thing" we bring to the table is our own experience, lessons learned, and the experience of other great investors. Never quit reading. Never quit sharing lessons learned with your grandchildren. 

I was looking for a book that would help me flesh out my thesis of the first golden age of investing. Same link as above.

Two New Permits -- December 29, 2025

Locator: 49763B.  

WTI: $58.08.

Active rigs: 27. 

Two new permits, #42600 and 42601.

• Operator: Enerplus
• Field: Little Knife (Dunn County)
• Comments;
• Enerplus has permits for two Esther Federal wells, SESW 33-146-97, to be sited 539 FSL and 2152 FWL.

Electricity Rates By State -- October, 2025, Data -- Posted December 29, 2025

Locator: 49762ELECTRICITY.  

In a long note like this, there will be content and typographical errors.  

Average price of electricity by state, October, 2025, data.

There are five "sectors": residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and all sources. I generally ignore the fourth column (transportation). 

For the larger energy-using states, the most important sector is the last column, "all sectors." 

For tech-heavy states, most important is the third column, industrial.

For individual Americans, I suppose, the most important column is the first column, residential.

So, let's break it down, least expensive three in each sector:

• residential:
• Louisiana: 12.39
• Idaho: 12.46
• North Dakota: 12.82
• by the way, these are the only states below 13 cents / kWh.

• commercial: 
• North Dakota: 6.96
• Texas; 8:30
• Nebraka: 8.82
• by the way, these are the only states below 9 cents / kWh; and only North Dakota is below 7 cents / kWh.

• industrial (all states below 7 cents / kWh):  
• New Mexico -- winner, winner, chicken dinner -- 5.53 (up from $5.31 last year)
• Louisiana: 5.80 (up from 5.45 last year)
• Oklahoma: 6.23 (about the same from last year, 6.27)
• Iowa: 6.26 (down from 6.36 last year)
• Idaho: 6.46 (up from 6.13 last year)
• Arkansas: 6.48 (down from 6.74 last year)
• Tennessee: 6.50 (up from 6.17 last year)
• Georgia: 6.64 (up from 6.39 last year)
• Texas: 6.66 (way up from 5.86 last year)
• Nevada: 6.81 (way down from 7.55 last year)
• Montana: 6.97 (down from 7.23 last year)
• South Carolina: 6.98 (down from 7.08 last year)

• Interestingly, North Dakota is not on that list -- 7.54 (up from 7.26 last year).

• Now, taking all those sectors together, the "average":
• North Dakota: 8.04
• New Mexico: 8.81
• Iowa: 8.89
• these are the only states below 9 cents / kWh.

Comments: 

• in a state with incredibly "stable" / predictable weather, renewable energy "works": Iowa
• renewable energy does not work in Texas based on the way the state regulates the industry 
• I tend to ignore New Mexico
• Texas has relatively inexpensive electricity rates, but the industrial rate in Texas increased by 14% y/y

The state not listed above that interests me most: California:

• residential: 33.60 cents US, 17.98 
• throw out the outliers and the US average would be lower than 17.98; 
• California: twice the US average
• commercial: 26.96; again, California is twice the US average
• industrial: California's rate is a whopping 23 cents vs US average of 9  -- is that like almost 3x the national average?
• all sectors: California, 28 cents vs 14 cents; again, exactly twice the national average; but get this, California at 28 cents is almost in the same ballpark as Hawaii at 35 cents. throw out New England (a real energy mess) and throw out the outliers, Hawaii and Alaska, and California compared to the rest of the nation is insane. 

At this point, it would be very, very interesting to compare:

• renting vs home ownership, percentage comparison, New York, Texas, California);
• average total cost of electricity for a homeowner vs renters;
• burden of electricity costs for renters vs homeowners;
• other similar data.

I have done that; it's difficult to ask the right question for AI to understand what one is asking.

This was most interesting: 

But again, AI is considering a lot more than just natural gas / electricity in "utilities." AI also includes phone, internet, water, sewer, etc. At the end of the day, I can't make any sense of the numbers. 

A swimming pool in Dallas: annual costs are $1,500 to $6,000 / year. Professional pool maintenance in Dallas, TX: about $150 to $300 / month. 

Another Interrupted Week -- Monday -- December 29, 2025

Locator: 49761B.  

NFL standings: the NFL business model has really, really, really turned out well. Because of the mediocrity of so many teams in the NFL we are going into the last week of the regular season:

• the brackets have not yet been completed; and,
• there seems to be no sure thing. 

This means fans will still stay tuned in to the very end of the season. 

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

WTI: $58.14.

New wells reporting:

• Tuesday, December 30, 2025: 72 for the month, 195 for the quarter, 769 for the year,
• 41551, conf, XTO Energy, HBU Baptiste Federal 34X-11B, 
• 41414, conf, Slawson, Atlas 3-21-16H, 
• Monday, December 29, 2025: 70 for the month, 193 for the quarter, 767 for the year,
• 41552, conf, XTO Energy, HBU Baptiste Federal 34X-11G, 
• 40764, conf, Enerplus, Olson 147-97-34-27-6H, 
• Sunday, December 28, 2025: 68 for the month, 191 for the quarter, 774 for the year,
• 41553, conf, XTO Energy, HBU Baptiste Federal 34X-11C, 
• 40958, conf, Devon Energy, Grand National 34-36F 5H, 
• 40765, conf, Enerplus, Olson 147-97-34-27-7H, 
• Saturday, December 27, 2025: 65 for the month, 188 for the quarter, 771 for the year,
• 41554, conf, XTO Energy, HBU Baptiste Federal 34X-11H, 
• 40784, conf, Enerplus Olson 147-97-34-27-9H-ELL, 
• 40769, conf, Enerplus, Olson 147-97-34-27-8H, 
• 40723, conf, Devon Energy, Costanza 24-13 5TFH,

RBN Energy: oil and gas producers using M&A to double down on primary areas, fine-tune portfolios. Preview. Archived.

It’s not always easy — or sometimes even possible — to discern trends in upstream-sector M&A activity, but at least a couple of things seem clear as we begin the new year. One is that E&Ps continue to zero in on the production basins where they see the most promise, and to divest assets that aren’t core to their real focus. Another is that the ongoing ramp-up in LNG exports is spurring heightened interest among U.S. and overseas companies in acreage and production targeting that market. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss a few of the big-dollar upstream M&A deals that were unveiled in the past couple of months. 

In Stayin’ Alive, our most recent roundup, we looked at the acquisitions that Crescent Energy, California Resources, Chord Energy and others were making to gain scale and expand their holdings in key production areas. More recently, in Take Me Home, Country Roads, we examined Antero Resources’ planned purchase of West Virginia E&P HG Energy (and divestiture of Antero’s Ohio assets), and, in Back in the Saddle, we reviewed U.K.-based Harbour Energy’s newly announced deal to buy LLOG Exploration, a Gulf of Mexico producer.

It’s already time for another roundup — the M&A keeps comin’. We’ll start with Baytex Energy and the $2.3 billion sale of its Eagle Ford assets, which is unusual in that the buyer’s name was not announced and remains under wraps. (That suggests the acquirer is privately held and backed by private equity.) The transaction, which was announced on November 12 and closed on December 19, is also an outlier in that Baytex said that when it releases its full-year 2025 results in early March it expects to record a “loss on disposition” of between $250 million and $350 million related to the sale. (A loss on deposition occurs when an asset is sold for less than its net book value — that is, its original cost minus accumulated depreciation.)