Seven New Permits; Five Permits Renewed; One DUC Reported As Completed -- August 18, 2026

Locator: 51448B.  

Briefly:

• Harold Hamm, merged his Domestic Energy Producers Alliance this summer with the much larger independent Petroleum Association of America.  

The move puts one of Trump’s biggest oil industry allies atop a trade group that employs 12 people to keep an adversarial eye on environmental regulations and promote a more parochial view of oil and gas production than Exxon Mobil, Chevron and other companies with a more international presence. It calls itself the oil industry’s “strongest presence in the nation’s capital.” Link here. The source states that Hamm is a "regular" at Mar-A-Lago when Trump is there.

• Diesel: margins are soaring. Valero and MPC stocks are winning. Link to Barron's. Americans are preoccupied with gasoline, but worldwide, diesel is a much bigger story.

• Five energy stocks cashing in on the new energy crunch: link to Alex Kimani -- you can almost guess them -- this is not rocket science --
  

• MPC: YTD returns -- 122%
• PSX: YTD returns -- 85%
• CVX: YTD returns -- 33% -- but it's just getting started ...
• VLO: YTD returns -- 113%
• BE (Bloom Energy): YTD returns -- 166%but the list could go on. The question is ... will this continue .. if it continues, how long will it continue ...

• Competing interest, for the investing dollar, of course -- the hyperscalers; the LCD infrastructure; the chips up and down the racks -- CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, NPUs, HBM. 

• Amazon: announced today it is increasing its Louisiana data center investment by 50% of $18 billion as it adds a third campus in Shreveport.

• The Mideast is unsettled ... really unsettled ...

• US bonds -- which I understand not at all -- are trending higher and higher... putting pressure on the AI story -- and more and more state governors are temporarily halting AI development (at least until the midterms are over) ... 

• The business stories are contradictory ... things seem more concerning, more unsettled than the business media is letting on ... 

• The META story is just beginning, will take a long time to play out, but META could be in very, very deep trouble ... 

• And, then on top of all of this, Apple announced some good news and its stock was one bright spot today for the tech stocks (AAPL is in consumer electronics, not tech) ...  but still way off its recent high -- but did get a new price target by a lone analyst ($400 vs $260 and a buy recommendation) ... 
  

• As the Chinese wag once said, may you live in interesting times. 

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

WTI: $85.84. 

Active rigs in the Bakken: 34. Again, a new recent high.

Seven new permits, #43220 - #43226, inclusive --

• Operators: XTO (6); Wesco Operating
• Fields: Lost Bridge (Dunn County); Bicentennial (McKenzie County)
• Comments:
• Wesco Operating has a permit for a Federal well, NESE 20-145-103, 
• to be sited 1642 FSL and 1129 FEL;
• XTO has permits for six Hull Federal wells, SWNE 26-148-97, 
• to be sited 1821 / 1824 FNL and 1959 / 2134 FEL. 

Five permits renewed:

• Enerplus: five Fort Berthold permits in Eagle Nest, Dunn County.

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 42423, 1,165, Kraken, Bregman Le 6-7-18 1H, Briar Creek, Williams County. 
• a sister well on that two well pad is listed as active and the map shows that it has been drilled to depth, but no production data provided. The file report shows that it was stimulated / tested July 28, 2026, and had production of 1,389 bbls for the 24-hour test date; 431,435 bbls of fluid; 96 stages; 16,565,219 lbs proppant. Bregman 6-7-18 2H. 

  *********************************
  Disclaimer

  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. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.

  Longer version here.