Locator: 49820B.
WTI: $56.34.
Active rigs: 26.
Three new permits, #42612 - #42614, inclusive:
One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:
Perhaps this is why journalists are so hung up on pay: the lowest-paying jobs in America right now (religious leader; journalist; teacher; paramedic). Link here.
Let's talk money.
Some people are making a stink that Joe Biden is going to get an annual pension of $500,000.
Are you kidding me?
What is the average MLB pitcher making on an annual basis?
What is the average NFL quarterback making on an annual basis?
What did Warren Buffett get paid on annual basis? $100,000. He owned five homes; lived in two. Speaking of homes, link here.
Larry Ellison (Oracle) is widely known as an avid trophy home buyer. In 2022, he paid about $173 million for an estate in Manalapan, Florida, that had previously been owned by tech entrepreneur Jim Clark.
He also has extensive holdings in Malibu, California, and on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, among other places. In recent years, Ellison was rarely in residence at his San Francisco home, Traina said. “Larry was a perfect neighbor,” he said. “His house is beautifully maintained and rarely used. Even so it’s a loss for the block.”
What will Warren Buffett's successor get paid? $25 million. Annually.
President Biden? $400, 000 after 30+ years in public services. One home and the beach.
Locator: 49818MADURO.
People who for this NPR / PBS bullshit have no clue. It gets tedious.
Locator: 49817GDP.
GDPNow: link here.
Wow, wow, wow. This was discussed on the blog a few weeks ago.
First, the link from x today:
Now, link to the blog:
Locator: 49815EVS.
4Q25:
Locator: 49814BULLETTRAIN.
Biggest under-reported story today: California quietly abandons legal battle to restore $4 billion in federal funding for long-delayed high-speed "bullet train." The first link will probably not get past the censor; but the ABC link should get past the censor.
California will try to find partners instead. LOL. Translation: we're not going to hear about the Bullet Train any more. The project is dead.
From the ABC link:
OAKLAND, Calif. -- California this week dismissed a lawsuit officials filed against the Trump administration over the federal government's withdrawing of $4 billion for the state's long-delayed high-speed rail project.
The U.S. Transportation Department in July slashed funds for the bullet train aimed at connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. The Trump administration has said the California High-Speed Rail Authority had “ no viable plan ” to complete a large segment of project in the state's farm-rich Central Valley.
The authority quickly filed a lawsuit, with Democratic. Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the federal government's decision “a political stunt to punish California.” The authority said this week it would focus on other funding sources to complete the project estimated to cost more than $100 billion.
“This action reflects the State’s assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner in advancing high-speed rail in California,” an authority spokesperson said in a statement.
The Transportation Department did not respond to a request for comment on California dismissing its lawsuit. President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have both previously slammed the project as a “train to nowhere.”
“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in July. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”
Locator: 49813FLU.
There's an incredible amount of news to report today. I'm tied up with family commitments so those stories may have to wait.
I have time to start on seasonal flu.
CDC: link here. Other than providing graphs, is the CDC doing anything else? Based on what we saw with regard to Covid, and then measles, and now "seasonal flu," it certainly does not appear that the CDC is doing much to "control disease."
Covid was a disaster for the CDC.
The CDC essentially let the measles outbreak in Texas burn itself out. If the CDC isn't concerned about measles, should I be concerned about measles.
If the CDC wasn't concerned about measles, why is it concerned about "flu," or it is only interested in publishing graphs. Seriously, what is the CDC doing to contain seasonal flu.
And, now, a flu epidemic (or is it a pandemic, or is it simply an "outbreak") with numbers that the US has never seen before.
So, here we go, with the graphics.
Out-patient visits for "flu-like" symptoms, not o/w identified:
Two weeks ago, this map was almost all "green." It appears the CDC is not doing much in the way of "controlling the disease." Exhibit A demonstrating a need for DOGE.
It's pediatric disease:
Mortality:
Locator: 49812B.
There's an incredible amount of news to report today. I'm tied up with family commitments so those stories may have to wait.
************************************
Back To The Bakken
WTI: $57.66.
New wells being reported:
RBN Energy: producers, midstreamers preparing for rising tide of Permian-sourced NGLs. Link here. Archived.
Even if Permian crude oil production were to stagnate over the next few years — a big if — the region’s output of NGLs would likely increase by half, from the current 3.2 MMcf/d to about 4.8 MMcf/d in 2030. NGL shippers, all too aware of the double-barrel impacts of the Permian’s rising gas-to-oil ratios (GORs) and rising gallons of NGLs per Mcf of gas, have been supporting the development of new pipeline capacity from West Texas to the Gulf Coast, most recently evidenced by the plan to expand the throughput of the Bahia NGL Pipeline to a cool 1 MMb/d. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the ongoing buildout of NGL pipeline capacity out of the nation’s largest NGL production area.
As we said a few months ago in Don’t Worry, Be Happy, the stresses on crude-oil-focused drilling in the Permian — especially the ramp-up in OPEC+ production and the slump in WTI prices — have led at least some NGL folks to wonder what a leveling off (or an outright decline) in Permian crude production would mean for the volumes of mixed NGLs (Y-grade) being piped to fractionation hubs. We noted that while U.S. oil production has increased by more than 160% since 2008 and natural gas output has nearly doubled, the volume of Y-grade produced at gas processing plants has quadrupled, from 1.8 MMb/d 17 years ago to 7.3 MMb/d today.
The Permian accounts for more than 40% of that NGL total because oil-focused drilling in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico generates vast amounts of NGL-saturated associated gas. And this is all-important: Over the past 10-plus years, the Permian’s GOR has increased from about 3.4:1 to 4.2:1, and the gallons of NGLs per Mcf of gas has risen from about 4.5 to 5.2. This trend toward gassier, more NGL-packed production continues, and we’ve calculated that — if you assume the basin’s average GOR continues to increase by 4% annually and that its average GPM rises by 4.5% a year — the Permian’s NGL output is almost sure to keep climbing even under the bleakest crude oil production scenario.
More specifically, continued gradual growth in Permian oil production (to nearly 8 MMb/d in 2030) would lead to 5.8 MMb/d of NGL output in 2030 (up 2.6 MMb/d from current levels), flat oil production (as we said in the intro to today’s blog) would boost NGL production to about 4.8 MMb/d that year, and even a 5%/year decline in oil production would leave the Permian’s NGL output about 500 Mb/d higher than it was in 2025. (In other words, at about 3.7 MMb/d.)
With that near certainty of a significant increase in Permian NGL volumes, Y-grade shippers of all stripes (producers, marketers, fractionators, etc.) have been supporting the development of new NGL pipeline capacity from West Texas to fractionation centers along the Texas coast. This rising tide of NGLs also has been attracting new entrants to this space.
The most recent example is ExxonMobil’s November 20 announcement that it had reached an agreement to acquire a 40% undivided interest in Enterprise Products Partners’ new 550-mile, 600-Mb/d Bahia NGL Pipeline from West Texas’s Ector County to the Mont Belvieu fractionation hub east of Houston (green line in Figure 1 below). The Bahia Pipeline is just beginning commercial service. As part of the ExxonMobil/Enterprise deal, which is expected to close in the next few weeks, Bahia’s capacity will be increased by 400 Mb/d by Q4 2027 and ExxonMobil will build a 92-mile pipeline connection (dashed red-and-black line) — to be known as the Cowboy Connector — between its Cowboy Central Delivery Point (CDP; yellow star) in southeastern Eddy County, NM, and Bahia’s current origination point. Enterprise will serve as operator of the combined Cowboy/Bahia system.
