Locator: 51873B.
Headline: Belgian wins second-announced Nobel Prize. In fact, he is affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Francis Halzen won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for ""for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin." This won't exactly grab the attention of the mainstream media.
RFK, Jr + Biden immigration = New York declaration of measles emergency. I wonder what the state does when the state declares a respiratory virus emergency? Masks? LOL. Universal vaccination? Link here. I have no dog in this fight; simply a spectator.
SKYD: it's official. PSKY traded down yesterday, closing at $9.78.
It pays a dividend of a bit over 2%. I know nothing about the new leadership team -- including the two co-CEOs, but something tells me the team is not up to the task of managing this $111-billion media behemonth. Right now, it appears they are simply going to manage this corporation as one big holding company. That won't get me to move from Hulu to Skydance.
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Back to the Bakken
The NDIC Oil Map Is <100%
WTI: $87.74. Falling like a rock.
New wells reporting:
- Wednesday, October 7, 2026: 11 for the month, 11 for the quarter, 510 for the year,
- 42152, conf, Whiting, Toonie 5001 11-18 5B,
- 42151, conf, Whiting, Toonie 5001 11 18 4B,
- Tuesday, October 6, 2026: 9 for the month, 9 for the quarter, 508 for the year,
- 42234, conf, Whiting, Cliffside 5103 41-7 6BX,
- 41912, conf, Devon, Scha 33-34 XN 1H,
RBN Energy: how the Permian, Guyana and LNG are reshaping ExxonMobil's upstream portfolio. Link here. Archived.
Far from resting on its laurels after becoming the largest U.S.-based oil and gas producer through the 1999 merger of Exxon and Mobil, ExxonMobil has weathered multiple industry cycles to drive continual output growth. But the largest burst has been a major strategic transition that drove a 27% increase in output from 2020-25 to the highest level in 40 years. Today’s RBN blog analyzes how that transformation has unfolded since 2020, where ExxonMobil is investing today, and why the Permian, Guyana and LNG are increasingly defining the company’s upstream future.
At the turn of the century, the newly formed ExxonMobil inherited a broadly diverse global portfolio of upstream positions on six continents, including deepwater assets in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa, large conventional fields in the Middle East, extensive Arctic and cold‑weather operations (later exemplified by Sakhalin‑1), and a broad global natural gas footprint that would eventually underpin LNG megaprojects in Qatar and Papua New Guinea.
Now, 27 years after the merger, the company has shifted dramatically to concentrating production and capital around three advantaged platforms: the Permian Basin, Guyana and LNG. In 2025, those assets accounted for about 59% of ExxonMobil’s upstream production (combined blue, yellow and green slices in Figure 1 below), up sharply from just a year earlier, and the company expects that share to rise further by the end of the decade. At the same time, the geographic mix of spending has shifted decisively toward the U.S. and the Americas, while several legacy regions have become less important to growth. The result is an upstream portfolio that remains global in scale, but is becoming much more concentrated in a relatively small number of very large, low-cost assets.