Locator: 51403B.
Anticipation:
ICYMI:
IPOs pending:
- again, the amount of money that is being thrown around is incredible --
- compare
- GM: $75 billion
- Anthropic: $2 trillion (or 2000 billion / 75 billion = 27, let's call it = 30 GMs)
- can you imagine waking up one day and learning that 75 manufacturing facilities the size of GM were going public -- on one day -- and the 75 "new GMs" were all headed by one founder and CEO -- oh my goodness
- each are valued about $900 billion; about $100 billion separates them
- each may value their company with an IPO for $2 trillion
- OpenAI: a little messy right now
- Anthropic: hitting on all eight cylinders
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $81.43.
New wells reporting in the Bakken:
- Sunday, August 16, 2026: 33 for the month, 74 for the quarter, 418 for the year,
- 42141, conf, Slawson, Shad Rap Federal 5-2 3H,
- 41356, conf, Whiting, Gullikson Federal 5203 42-31 2B,
- 41134, conf, Zavanna, Rennerfeldt 13-31 6H XE,
- 21005, conf, Devon, Borsheim Trust 33-28 1H,
- Saturday, August 15, 2026: 29 for the month, 70 for the quarter, 414 for the year,
- 42140, conf, Slawson, Shad Rap Federal 2-2-3H,
- Friday, August 14, 2026: 28 for the month, 69 for the quarter, 413 for the year,
- None.
RBN Energy: with new Permian takeaway capacity coming online, gas production could soar. Link here. Archived.
For the first time in years, the Permian Basin’s chronic natural gas takeaway constraint is beginning to ease — and in a big way. Major pipeline projects entering service this year and next will add roughly 5.3 Bcf/d of new egress capacity from the Waha area, led by the Gulf Coast Express (GCX) expansion, Hugh Brinson Pipeline and Blackcomb Pipeline. That buildout should materially improve Waha pricing and reduce the risk of severe in-basin discounts, but it also raises a new set of questions. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the major Permian gas pipeline projects scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027, how much new capacity they will provide, and consider what the shift means for Waha prices, Gulf Coast balances and the U.S. natural gas market.
This is the first blog in a series examining the outlook for the major U.S. producing basins. The Permian, a major topic of discussion at our upcoming School of Energy: Fundamentals, is the country’s largest oil-producing basin and one of the biggest drivers of U.S. gas growth, which makes it the natural place to begin. Its crude-oil-focused wells produce large and growing volumes of associated gas, but getting that gas out of West Texas has become one of the market’s biggest challenges and a major constraint on oil production. In the series ahead, we will look at the Permian’s major producers and the basin’s next set of challenges, including what increased production will mean for the NGL market. For today’s blog, let’s start with the big gas pipeline projects that have come online or are set to begin operations this year or next.
In June, Kinder Morgan brought its Gulf Coast Express expansion (pink line in Figure 1 below) online. The project added 570 MMcf/d, or about 0.6 Bcf/d, of capacity from the Waha hub (blue circle to left) to the Agua Dulce hub (blue circle at bottom) in South Texas. It is fully subscribed and can move about 2.6 Bcf/d in total. The new capacity helped Waha prices recover sharply from their lows (more on this below) but didn’t solve the Permian’s takeaway problem on its own.
