How "It” Works -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50258HAL.

See this page. 

The AI prompt: 

Machine language, AI. It's all based on patterns. When replying to something, does a chatbot keep re-checking the patterns in its response as it replies?

The AI reply: 

Based on this reply, I've re-named the "AI" page linked above to "HAL." 

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New Subscription

The Free Press.  

$100 / year. 

Once the subscription begins / check clears, I will be linking the site. 

This is the story / link that sold me on the new subscription. Link here. 

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The Atlantic May Have Gotten One Story Right

LOL.

Link here. 

Micron Earnings -- Includes A 30% Increase In Its Quarterly Dividend -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50257MICRON.

Expectations: Investopedia.  

Results: key words in headlines -- "blowout"; "obliterates"; "almost triples"; "demand soars"; "surging AI demand."

Tell us again that this is a bubble.

From MarketWatch: link here.

Key results vs expectations:

With a 30-year horizon, a buying opportunity? The stock drops 4% after hours.

 

P/E = 43.  

Three New Permits; One Permit Renewed: One DUC Reported As Completed -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50256B.

EPIC FURY: it's easy to see who / which countries are getting a "free ride." Canada leads the list.  

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $96.32.

Active rigs: 26.

Three new permits, #42774 - #42776, inclusive:

• Operator: Silver Hill Energy
• Field: Stoneview, Burke County
• Comments:
• Stoneview has permits for three Hol Te E permits, SWSE 31-161-94, 
• to be sited 557 FSL and 2030 / 2100 FEL. 

One permit renewed:

• 41154, conf, Ragnar Exploration, Akston 1-35H, Norwegian Creek, Billings.

One producing well (a DUC) was reported as completed:

• 41314, 814, Whiting, Dobias 5203 44-32 4B, Glass Bluff, McKenzie County,

EPIC FURY -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50255EPICFURY.

Two international organizations that have lost all / most of their value:

• UN
• NATO 

NATO: Trump says he can "withdraw" from the UN. Some say he can't. It depends on the definition of "withdraw." Bill Clinton would see the double entendre even if Hillary missed it.

• Consider this prompt: US legal NATO requirements. Does Congress spell out how many troops the US must assign in each NATO country? In other words, a lot of latitude. 

Excursion EPIC FURY is tracked here.  

This is day 19.

If you've lost the bubble of Excursion EPIC FURY this might be a good day to catch up.

In the past nineteen days there have been three epic 24-hour periods.

Day 1.

Day 8. 

Day 18. Yesterday/overnight. 

Ras Laffan: major developments. Although early reports are just coming in, this is likely going to be a tipping point in the war. See Ras Laffan below.

Widening offensive: first-ever strikes in new area of Iran -- northern Iran. 

Two under-reported stories:

• US sourcing more sophisticated drones from Ukraine to use in Operation EPIC FURY.
• Israel pushing farther into southern Lebanon to take on Hezbollah. 

Coming: the four-week anniversary -- day 28 -- March 27, 2026. March 27, 2026 will be a Saturday. 

• Israel sees this as a most important date. 

Of note: we've not heard from / seen "the Supreme Leader." Until proven wrong, I am certain he is in Moscow.  

Behind the scenes, Trump's coalition is building, not diminishing. Mainstream media is missing this story. There are three coalitions:

• the US-Israeli coalition;
• the GCC - US coalition; and,
• the traditional US - British / European coalition. 

Qatar: has just expelled Iranian diplomats with 24-hour deadline as tensions mount. Qatar is not going to be safe haven for Iranian refugees. 

Everyone has their sources to follow the war. Mine:

• The WSJ. 
• Fox News.  
• CENTCOM.  

Ras (cape) Laffan: think of Ras (cape) Laffan as Houston / Baytown / Galveston on steroids, but emphasis on natural gas -- 93% of its output is natural gas vs less than 7% oil. Accounts for 20% of global natural gas consumption. 

Travel Day -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50254TEXAS.

Destination:

Reading material: Why Machines Learn? The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI,  Anil Ananthaswamy, c. 2024 / 2025. Link here.

Sophia, Port Aransas, Texas, spring break. 

Spaceholder.

Micron Earnings Released — March 18, 2026

 Locator: 50253MICRON.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/18/micron-mu-q2-earnings-report-2026.html

After the close, after announcement: MU up another $5/share; up 1%. Trading at $465 / share, at the high end of analysts’ expectations.

Travel Day -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50252PDX.

Of the airports of which I'm familiar, and I'm familiar with many, but I'm very, very familiar with very few. Of the very few airports of which I'm most familiar, PDX (Portland, OR) remains my favorite by far. 

In the big scheme of things, PDX -- a single terminal with one "supergate,"  five concourses and two TSA security check points. There is a single security checkpoint for concourses A, B, and C; and, one security checkpoint for concourses D and E.

PDX was one of the first to eliminate most of the “customary” / original TSA screening requirements. Today:

• nothing is removed from one's carry-on items; not one thing needs to be removed;
• no shoes or boots or footwear of any kind needs to be removed;
• X-ray scanning is often bypassed (this I did not understand).
• you pretty much throw your backpack into a bin and walk through. 

Today the PDX TSA checkpoints were said to be 10 minutes (general boarding), 3 minutes (TSA pre-check). In fact, I walked right through, no waiting. It was almost eerie. 

In many ways, PDX terminal is the Apple iPhone of the global airline terminals:

• "it just works"; 
• the terminal "supergate" is a destination, not an eyesore;
• past security, one has entered one of the biggest and best food courts in the nation;
• but you don't get to those "biggest and best" food courts without first passing the brand new Powell's Books bookstore -- a satellite bookstore for the biggest and best bookstore in the US -- Powell's Books bookstore downtown, more on this later, perhaps.
• once things get back to "normal" -- pre-1970s "normal" -- PDX has a very real possibility of becoming a nightclub destination -- light rail to the airport makes that even more likely
• neither the huge "supergate" nor the various concourses would be big enough to host a Taylor Swift, but I could see any number of indie Portland garage bands playing the venue after 9:00 p.m.

Powell's Books at the airport:

Powell's At The Airport has just re-opened after being absent for the past five years (?). It is so "new" that one of the "back walls" is still unfinished. Wow, what a pleasure.

The key to a successful bookstore:

• location, location, location; and,
• a curator who knows his/her customer.

Within minutes I had five or six books selected, but due to common sense, I returned four to the shelf, and kept two. I will list all five or six books on my literature site, assuming I can remember the ones I left behind.

Update On Google's Personal Intelligence Now Rolling Out -- Very, Very Personal

Locator: 50251GOOGLE.

Link here. 

Apple Wins Decisive Lawsuit -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50250APPLE.

Link here. 

US Petroleum Reserves -- Forecast: A Drop Of 600K -- Actual: An Increase Of 6MM -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50249WTI.

All that talk about US running out of oil in storage? See this post.

Analysts:

• forecast: a loss of 600,000 bbls week over week; inconsequential, one-half day of Bakken production;
• actual: up 6.556 million bbls -- and mainstream media did not even mention it (?) 
• off by a factor of 10x -- say what? Unless I'm missing something. 
• what would happen if Trump banned US oil exports for 60 days instead of waiving the Jones Act for 60 days? 

Link here. 

From Iran: Khatib Killed -- March 18, 2026

Locator: 50248EPICFURY.

Israel: link here. 

Iran's neighbors want regime's leadership crippled, link here: 

Khatib killed. 

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From The Wall Street Journal

Link here. 

Apple Wins Decisive Lawsuit -- Jones Act Waiver -- Wednesday, March 18, 2026

Locator: 50247B.

Apple: wins decisive lawsuit.

Jones Act: suspended for 60 days.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $98.58. Israel going for the jugular. Strikes Iran's natural gas fields (largest such gas field in the world; shared with Qatar). 

• probably not a good thing, and probably was bound to happen anyway, but Europe sitting this war out, probably did not help
• usually the only ones at the diplomatic table are those who were involved militarily; 
• France and Britain have been very clear they will not get into this war 

New wells reporting:

• Thursday, March 19, 2026: 26 for the month, 132 for the quarter, 132 for the year,
• 41846, conf, BR, Rolla 6G, 
• 41192, conf, Devon Energy, Eide 6-7 7H, 
• Wednesday, March 18, 2026: 24 for the month, 130 for the quarter, 130 for the year,
• 41029, conf, Devon Energy, Eide 6-7 6H, 
• 40056, conf, CLR, Brakken FIU 2-6H, 

RBN Energy: a Jones Act waiver's impact on US crude and refined products markets. Link here. Archived.

The White House is considering a 30-day waiver of the Jones Act that would allow foreign-flagged tankers to move crude oil and refined products between U.S. ports in a bid to cool gasoline prices. It’s a technical move, which will certainly impact how crude and products flow, but the influence on prices might not be enough to notice through the significant noise of overall market swings. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll dive into what a Jones Act waiver could mean for U.S. refiners, consumers and other market participants.

The Jones Act — formally Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — requires that cargo moving between U.S. ports travel on vessels that are U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, U.S.-flagged and primarily U.S.-crewed. The post-World War I law was designed to protect the domestic shipbuilding industry and to ensure a reliable U.S. merchant fleet for national defense and emergency response.

In the energy sector, the Jones Act fleet breaks down into five main vessel types: smaller inland barges that typically carry about 10 Mbbl or 30 Mbbl of crude or refined products on rivers and coastal canals; regional offshore tank barges (such as those in New York Harbor) with capacities of 50 Mbbl to 135 Mbbl; coastal barges, including larger articulated tug barges (ATBs) with capacities of roughly 142 Mbbl to more than 320 Mbbl; product and crude tankers that run in coastal and international trades and generally carry around 330 Mbbl; and large crude tankers dedicated to the Alaskan trade.

Back in 2013-14, a runup in demand for Jones Act tankers and ATBs –– and a spike in time-charter rates — spurred orders for new vessels. By the time the new tankers were built and launched, however, demand for them had fallen off. That decline was mostly due to the mid-decade slump in U.S. crude oil production and, with the lifting of the ban on most U.S. crude exports in late 2015, the drop in crude shipments from one U.S. port to another. Term charter rates plummeted and shipowners stopped ordering new tankers and large ATBs. According to Bloomberg and RBN data, there are currently about 101 Jones Act-eligible ships in the market today. That number was as high as 400 ships in 1950, with the count largely flat but edging lower over the past decade.

The requirements the Jones Act imposes on ships operating between U.S. ports add costs, including less-favorable economies of scale at U.S. shipyards and reduced competition among U.S. shipbuilders (resulting in higher construction costs), and higher wages and insurance costs for Jones Act workers. Those higher costs have reduced the number of ships built for “coastwise” and inland movement of crude oil. The relatively small size of the U.S.-flagged fleet, along with increased competition for Jones Act vessels, has resulted in higher charter costs and shipping fees. Charter costs and shipping fees, of course, are key factors in determining whether transporting crude on a Jones Act vessel makes economic sense in a particular situation. 

Because of the added costs, the Jones Act shapes the movement of crude and products between U.S. coasts and refineries (green-shaded areas in Figure 1 below). The dark- and light-blue dashed lines on the map show the routes Jones Act-qualified barges and tankers take to move barrels between ports such as Corpus Christi, Houston, New York Harbor and the West Coast. The pink dashed line illustrates foreign-flagged tankers that transport barrels of Gulf Coast crude through international waters to destinations like Eastern Canada, as this route is less costly than complying with Jones Act restrictions (these barrels could be refined and re-exported to the U.S.). Moving from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast on a direct Jones Act path is typically a shorter trip, for example, but often more expensive per barrel than longer foreign-flagged routes via Canada or the Panama Canal. We’ll note that by far the largest Jones Act refined product movements occur between various Gulf Coast ports and destinations on both coasts of Florida (>700 Mb/d), which aren’t served by pipelines (see our recent Fuel blog).