Keystone XL Is Dead -- Long Live Keystone XL Lite -- May 1, 2026

Locator: 50680BRIDGER.

Bridger aka Keystone XL Lite: biggest oil pipeline story in Trump's two terms. Doug Burgum is Secretary of Interior. I assume it would have been in his bailiwick to get this done. His reward: one of a handful of cabinet members to be invited to the state/royal dinner for King Charles III of Great Britain.

Link here. Bill signed yesterday, April 30, 2026.

Link here. 

From the blog: the Keystone XL is now the Bridger Expansion. Link here. February 23, 2026.

From the blog: hope springs eternal; Bridger Expansion aka Keystone XL. February 23, 2026. Link here.

From the blog: wow, wow, wow. This goes all the way back to April 23, 2022! Link here. 250,000-bbl crude oil pipeline proposed -- "Bakken oil to national pipeline system in lieu of Keystone XL -- link here. 

• who was president in 2022? Oh, that's right, Joe Biden;
• capacity of proposed pipeline: initial / max -- 105,000 / 250,000 
• vs Keystone XL, 830,000 bbls oil per day 
• 730,000 bopd heavy oil from Canada
• 100,000 bopd light oil from the Bakken
• Baker, MT: where TC Energy proposed an on-ramp for about 100,000 bopd of Bakken crude on its now abandoned Keystone XL pipeline.

From the blog: actually the proposal goes back a lot farther. Link here. Update on proposed "Bridger Expansion." The pipeline will avoid Nebraska. Link here. Will avoid Nebraska, LOL.

From the blog, all the way back to November 10, 2018, link here. New Bakken pipeline announced; meanwhile, a Montana judge kills the Keystone XL (again). The proposed pipeline:
 

• a Berkshire Hathaway Company

• The True companies, based in Casper, WY:
• Bridger Pipeline LLC
• Belle Fourche Pipeline Company
• Butte Pipe Line Company
• see also PSX Liberty Pipeline 

Trump Lake Or Trump Strait? May 1, 2026

Locator: 50679TRUMP.

From April 30, 2026:

From May 1, 2026:

Why not both?

 

 

TGIF -- May 1, 2026

Word for the day: bailiwick: 

A bailiwick is the territorial jurisdiction of a bailiff, originating from medieval. It historically refers to a "bailiff’s village," though today it commonly signifies a person's specific area of expertise, interest, or authority. It still functions as a governing unit in the British Crown Dependencies Guernsey and Jersey.

Locator: 50678B.

AAPL: what to do? But first read the blog's disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

Easiest decision ever -- but two different answers, depending on whether one is a trader or an investor with a long time horizon. The March quarter numbers were somewhere between "Goldilocks" and "awesome." AAPL: up $10 at the open. Actually, now, four minutes into trading, AAPL is up $11.77 / share. It's hard to believe that BRK/Buffett sold so much (actually, any) of its/his AAPL. What were they thinking? Oh, that's right. China was getting ready to aggressively move in on Taiwan. 

Iran: Democrats side with Iran -- "END THE BLOCKADE NOW!" 

AI bubble? Deep pockets fund AI. Pentagon makes deals with Nvidia, MSFT, and AWS to expand us of AI in classified networks. 

Of note, the best AI out there has not yet been invited to the party: Anthropic. But Anthropic's rival ChatGPT (OpenAI) did make the Pentagon list. Who else was left out? According to Barron's, the notable absentee was META. This is a bigger deal that folks realize. 

If you want to know how big a deal this is, read The History of Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris. 

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Back to the Bakken 

Bridger aka Keystone XL Lite: biggest oil pipeline story in Trump's two terms. Doug Burgum is Secretary of Interior. I assume it would have been his bailiwick. 

WTI: $104.20. Down slightly.

New wells reporting:

• Sunday, May 3, 2026: 9 for the month, 109 for the quarter, 266 for the year,  
• 42379, conf, Silver Hill Energy, Nebraska E 158-92-5-29-20MBHX
• 42187, conf, BR, Omlid 8-8-7-TFH-ULW, 
• Saturday, May 2, 2026: 7 for the month, 107 for the quarter, 264 for the year,  
• 42205, conf, Silver Hill Energy, Nebraska E 158-92-5-29-3MBHX, 
• Friday, May 1, 2026: 6 for the month, 106 for the quarter, 263 for the year,  
• 42204, conf, Silver Hill Energy, Texas E 158-92-8-20-3MBHX, 
• 42104, conf, Hunt Oil, Meyer 155-90-31-30H-3,
• 42103, conf, Hunt Oil, Burke 155-90-36-25H-2,
• 41644, conf, Hess, EN-Rohde-157-94-3625H-3,
• 41613, conf, BR, Sivertson 6H, 
• 40960, conf, Hess, EN-Rohde-157-94-3625H-2, 

RBN Energy: the coming battle for gas between LNG exports and southeast generation. Link here.  

Natural gas demand is building fast along the Gulf Coast. New LNG export terminals in Texas and Louisiana. New data centers, new industrial facilities and new power generation as far east as Florida. And new gas pipelines and pipeline expansion projects to help deliver the incremental gas that will be required. That’s all baked in. What’s still far from certain is where all the needed gas will come from, and how intense the battle for gas supply will become by the early 2030s. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, the second in a series, early indications are that it will be a battle royale.

In Part 1, we said that while we’ve blogged about rising demand for gas in the southeastern U.S. and the pipeline projects being planned to deliver more gas to the region, there’s more to the story. That “bigger picture” is that gas consumers in the Southeast — a region that, for our purposes here, includes Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina — increasingly find themselves competing for supply with LNG exporters in Louisiana as well as power generators and other gas consumers north of them in Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.

We noted that gas-demand growth in the southeastern U.S. has been coming on fast and furious over the past few years, constraining the legacy gas pipeline networks there and resulting in the SONAT (Southern Natural Gas), Florida Zone 3 and Transco Zone 4 price trading points being among the very few locations where gas is priced at a premium to Henry Hub for most of the year. And we discussed the pipeline systems that deliver gas to the region (solid lines in Figure 1 below), the new pipelines and expansion projects being planned to increase flows (dashed lines), and the long list of gas-fired power plants being built.

Figure 1. Existing and Planned Natural Gas Pipelines in the Southeast. Source: RBN