Random Note -- March 10, 2026

Locator: 50186ARCHIVES. 

Completely random.

A non sequitur. 

Like the blog's disclaimer. 

Inappropriately excited about the fourth (sixth) industrial revolution.

When you look at the numbers being thrown about, it's simply amazing.

What's a new oil refinery likely to cost? Three to four billion dollars. How many oil refineries will be built in the US next year? One? Two? I have no idea but I'm sure it will be less than five.

How much does an LDC cost? $20 billion. Compare that to the three to four billion dollars for an oil refinery.

How many LDCs will be built over the next few years? It's anybody's guess but it's gonna be 10x the number of new refineries that will be built in the same time period. [Wow, lousy grammar, but you get the point.]

META plans to add an additional 10 LDCs per year for the next three years. Sounds like a lot. Do the math.  30 / 4010 = 0.7% -- that's less than 1% of existing LDCs in the US right now. 

In the past year:

• Texas added: 60
• Ohio added: 16
• Louisiana added 9

These are not empty warehouses waiting to be filled. They are going to be filled with "blades." Very expensive blades. Nvidia and AMD blades requiring a lot of Micron LPPDRAMS.

Much of this stuff fabricated by TSMC whose sales increased 30% y/y in the first two months of this year, if I recall correctly. 

I was reminded of all this with the story that came today about Elon Musk's LDC in Mississippi. 

Look at the number of LDCs -- compare with the number of LDCs one year ago and how many there are now. 

Truly amazing. 

What a great time to be a young investor! 

My Heart Skipped A Beat -- Oracle -- March 10, 2026

Locator: 50185ORACLE. 

See disclaimer: this is not an investing site. 

I just keep buying. Not a problem when one has a 30-year-plus-one-day horion.  

Graphic of the day.  

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Disclaimer 
Briefly

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 am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom.

Two New Permits; Three Permits Renewed; One DUC Reported As Completed -- March 10, 2026

Locator: 50184B. 

Compare the projected prices of the North Dakota and the Texas projects below. 

From today, March 10, 2026, president Trump alerted me to this today -- see below the fold -- archived —

Meanwhile, in North Dakota:

From yesterday, March 9, 2026:

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $83.45.

Active rigs: 25.

Two new permits, #42755 - #42756, inclusive:

• Operator: Oasis
• Field: Alger (Mountrail)
• Comments:
• Oasis has permits for two Teal wells, NWNE 22-156-92, 
• to be sited 231 FNL and 1264 / 1330 FEL.

Three permits renewed:

• Minnkota Power Cooperative, three renewals -- Liberty 1, Unity 1, and McCall 1 -- all SWNW 4-141-83, Oliver County.

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

• 41056, no IP reported, XTO, HBU Shoshoni Federal 11X-15B, Hofflund, Williams County;

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The Fold

Link here. Archived. 

President Trump refers to this as  $300-billion project. I'm not sure where the "$300-billion figure" is coming from!?

Has any refinery anywhere ever cost $300 billion?

Permit Approved -- Elon Musk's Southaven, Mississippi, AI Data Center's Natural Gas Turbines --March 10, 2026

Locator: 50183LDC. 

See also this post: AWS LDCs in Mississippi. Elon Musk.

Tag: Macrohardrr MACROHARDRR AI data center Southaven Mississippi natural gas turbines  

The NCAAP and the Southern Environmental Law Center were against this permit and oppose the data center. It gets tedious.

 More:

From CNBC today:

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US Data Center Map

Link here. 4,069 data centers in the US, as of this date. 

Compare with April 16, 2025, a year ago:

February 17, 2026: 4,010 LDCs in the US. So:

• 4,069 today;
• 4,010 less than a month ago.

Are these going up faster than new Walmarts, Targets, and Amazon fulfillment centers combined? 

The Day The Music Died -- March 10, 2026

Locator: 50182CO2. 

Tag: CO2 injection storage. 

Link here. 

How can drilling a CO2 injection well be unconstitutional?

 So, is this an old story, from December 3, 2025, or is there something new?

TSA Security Checkpoints -- DFW -- Update -- Midday -- Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Locator: 50181TSA. 

Link here. 

Status:

• one red (two minutes ago: two red)
• one yellow
• the rest: green 

Going biking. Off the net. 

Apple Update (Again) -- March 10, 2026

Locator: 50180APPLE. 

It is amazing -- Apple being named the most successful company on earth. I remember vividly the day I first saw an Apple computer -- it was truly amazing. Even more amazing: all the folks that "missed" this. In 1984, my dad was 62 years old. He did not miss it. AAPL was selling for $20 on the day of its IPO, December 12, 1984. Stock splits have significantly reduced the historical IPO price to about ten cents / share. 

$2,500 in 1984. Today, a more powerful, smaller computer is listed at $499 for students; $599 for the rest of us.

I worked with a nurse at Rhein-Main Air Base -- I was the clinic commander -- in 1993 - 1994 -- I'm pretty sure she was using a Macintosh Classic, the first Mac to be sold for under $1,000 -- I was blown away by the computer, absolutely blown away. It might have been my first Apple computer, I can't remember. 

I have had so many different Apple computers. I could have traced my life through the Apple computer I was using at the time. Now, I wish I had.

The Book

Apple: The First 50 Years, David Pogue, c. 2026. Link here. We don't often see these headlines:

The MacBook Neo has taken the internet by storm since Apple announced it last week. One simple Google search of the laptop populates a collection of rave reviews from people who have gotten their hands on the device before it officially becomes available tomorrow, Wednesday, March 11, 2026.

Original Post  

From Barron's. Link here.

See this post from yesterday for update.

Now this, today:

Apple: "holds an edge" in pricing -- 

• non-Apple laptops could see huge "painful price adjustment" this year;
• Apple's Mac lineup will soon span a wider price range than ever:
• from the new $499 MacBook Neo (for students) to the a rumored top-of-the-line MacBook Ultra expected later this year (link here). 

Apple: MacBook Neo availability continues to tighten ahead of launch. Link here. From one week to three weeks.

MacBook Pro reviews: "astonishing" product. Link here. 

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Starbucks vs McDonald's

For my needs, McDonald's way better than Starbucks. Just saying. 

Full meal at McDonald's: $5.41 (the 41 cents is tax).

Starbucks coffee and plain croissant: $10 or thereabouts. Depends on coffee order and location. 

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The Book Page

Today, I continue to read A History of Israel, Third Edition, John Bright, c. 1959, 1972, 1981; notes here.

March 10, 2026

Locator: 50179B. 

Whoo-hoo! Exxon says it may "move" to Texas. Corporate HQ relocations to Texas tracked here. In 2026:

• Devon Energy -- from Oklahoma City, OK
• Expand Energy -- from Oklahoma City, OK
• EagleNXT -- from Wichita, KS
• HoneyBee -- from San Franscisco
• RelaDyne -- from Cincinnati, OH

Saudi Aramco: beats estimates.

• raises dividends, buybacks

iPhones: 25% now made in India 

TSMC: February revenue jumps 30% y/y to $10 billion. 

Chaos at TSA: four-hour waits in TSA lines now the norm. 

War:

• new leader needs to prove he can be as tough as his dad: "Iran" says it is not looking for easing;
• the war is showing no signs of ending any time soon: Turkey gets new Patriot missiles from US 
• both Hegseth and Trump have just said that if Iran does anything to block the strait, the US will hit Iran stronger than ever -- you mean the US has been holding back all this time? 
• Trump says "20x harder." I guess that means at least one more a/c carrier to be sent to the region. 
• Hegseth says the US will hit Iran harder than ever today (Tuesday)

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: sort of steady at $88.69. [Later: $89.17 at opening today.]

New wells reporting:

• Friday, March 13, 2026: 13 for the month, 119 for the quarter, 119 for the year, 
• 42237, conf, BR, Sandie 2C MBH-R,
• 41821, conf, BR, Rolla 6I, 
• 41603, conf, BR, Sivertson 6F, 
• Thursday, March 12, 2026: 10 for the month, 116 for the quarter, 116 for the year, 
• None.
• Wednesday, March 11, 2026: 10 for the month, 116 for the quarter, 116 for the year,
• None.
• Tuesday, March 10, 2026: 10 for the month, 116 for the quarter, 116 for the year,
• 42086, conf, Scout Energy, TNT 1,

RBN Energy: how Canadian crude oil export capacity has struggled to keep upwith production. Link here. Archived.

Canadian crude oil production has nearly doubled over the past decade, with nearly all of those gains coming from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB). With those volumes continuing to grow, producers, pipeline companies and politicians are discussing options to add export capacity out of the region. In today’s RBN blog, the second of a series, we review the major pipeline projects that have expanded markets for WCSB barrels since 2010 and how the timing of those pipeline capacity additions lined up with WCSB supply growth. 

As we said in Part 1, Canadian production recently hit 5.6 MMb/d, and all but 4% of that output comes from the WCSB. The near doubling of production since 2010 is largely attributable to Alberta’s oil sands, as producers invested heavily in both newbuild and expansion projects, especially from the late 2000s through the mid-2010s. So far this decade, Canadian production growth has been driven more by improved capacity utilization at oil-sands projects and growing conventional heavy oil and condensate production than by major oil-sands capacity expansion projects.

Let’s start by looking at the WCSB’s current export pipeline capacity. Figure 1 below shows the six pipeline systems that transport WCSB crude oil to outside markets, along with other key pipeline systems moving Canadian crude within the U.S. The 3.2-MMb/d Enbridge Mainline system (light-pink lines) moves roughly two-thirds of all WCSB export volumes, transporting an average of nearly 3.1 MMb/d across the North Dakota border in H1 2025. The recently expanded, now 890-Mb/d Trans Mountain system (dark-purple line) is the second-largest system; it moved an average of 730 Mb/d to Pacific markets in H1 2025, while South Bow’s 610-Mb/d Keystone Pipeline (medium-blue line) moved 576 Mb/d across the North Dakota border in the same six months. The remaining three pipelines — Enbridge’s 310-Mb/d Express (medium-pink line), Plains Midstream Canada’s 100-Mb/d Rangeland (dark-green line) and Inter Pipeline’s 20-Mb/d Milk River (light-green line) — together moved around 340 Mb/d across the Montana border in H1 2025.