Ticker: RACE -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50497RACE.

Link here. 

Operation EPIC FURY -- Everything Is Playing Out For Trump -- The Mainstream Media Are Missing The Story -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50496EPICFURY. 

Updates

April 25, 2026: we've gotten into something of a truce, ceasefire, a Korean stand-off, in the Middle East. It may not seem to be the best possible outcome right now, but it may be better than what folks expected, including some very smart analysts expected. Right now, what do Americans see? Three US carrier groups in the Mideast. Not noticed by most, the Israelis continue to take out Hezbollah / Lebanese terrorists one-by one. Every day with the strait closed, the more irrelevant Qatar (natural gas) and Saudi Arabia (oil) become. "Rope-a-dope" in Pakistan ends. 

Ask yourself:

• would it be better if Iran had nuclear weapons?
• would it be better if the UN were in control? LOL.
• would it be better if UN inspectors were in control? 

Pax Americana / Pax Shiolam 

Monroe Doctrine

Permian; Canada; Venezuela; Brazil.   

Link here. Most outrageous headline today. Apparently the Europeans are already phoning it in. 

Original Post
April 10, 2026 

We need to go back to basics: making America great again.

The Monroe Doctrine.  

Venezuela.

Burgum and Wright know exactly what's going on. As do the world's oil companies.  

Presidents are change agents. 

Trump has met his objectives. He is eager to end hostilities with no more American deaths, but his hand(s) may be forced to take military action if the Persians do not negotiate in good faith.

The only question is Trump's acceptance of the end-state of the strait.

• the business decision is different than the political decision; but,
• it's not the end state of the strait that is Trump's main concern.  

This is simply fascinating. 

Someone with much better writing than I will have to write the "story." 

I'll flesh it out later at another blog but I don't need the pushback so it won't be posted continuously on the blog. 

I just feel very comfortable with this.  

Hint: to sort this out, you start backwards. Start 30 years out and ask what Trump sees as an end state in 2050. You have to start with the end state in 2050. 

Hint: who will be the US' #1 military and economic competitor?

Hint: where does 90% of crude oil and natural gas that flows through the strait end up? 

I've given up way too much, already. 

I'm going to go watch a splashdown. 

CoreWeave, Anthropic's Claude -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50495COREWEAVE.

Link here. 

CoreWeave: where does Anthropic train Claude?

 Map, LDCs, Indiana, New Carlisle, link here:

Ticker: AMZN --

Alison's Quick Connects -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50494B.

The quick connects:

• Lawsuit contends ND utilities, regulators mishandled powerline case -- North Dakota Monitor

• Regulators seek input for massive Montana-Wyoming pipeline proposal -- Bismarck Tribune

• Several people injured in oil rig incident north of Watford City -- McKenzie County Farmer

• Bakken oil traded at the Clearbrook hub shot up to US$18 premium -- EnergyNow.com

• How North Dakota rewrote the pipeline integrity playbook -- Environmentenergyleader.com

• North Dakota's oil and gas industry makes up more than 30% of state's economy every year -- KFYR-TV

• Chris Olson submits signatures to run in June primary for Public Service Commission -- Bismarck Tribune

• North Dakota sees more contested races for 2026 legislative elections -- North Dakota Monitor

• North Dakota Supreme Court hears arguments in lawsuit which challenges term limits -- Dickinson Press

• As filing deadline passes, some ND candidates for statewide offices already certified -- Dickinson Press

• Incumbents moving forward with campaigns after NDGOP votes to strip party name -- Dickinson Press

• North Dakota Republican Convention to former governor Doug Burgum: Don't run for president -- E&E News

• Senators from North Dakota and Minnesota respond to President Trump's threats against Iran -- InForum

• Much of ND under abnormally dry conditions, has sustained or been threatened with fires -- KFYR-TV

• City of Williston retires nearly $2 million in debt thanks to recent legislation -- KX News

• North Dakota to lead nation in USDA push to improve farm technology and research -- North Dakota Monitor

• Watford City attorney to challenge Tufte's bid for North Dakota Supreme Court seat -- North Dakota Monitor

• North Dakota State Water Commission approves more than $20 million for several projects -- KX News

• Passenger numbers at state's airports have leveled off after record-breaking 2025 -- Bismarck Tribune

• North Dakota lawmaker speaks on decision to call for 25th Amendment, removal of Pres. Trump -- KFYR-TV

• North Dakota Legislative Council seeking feedback about child care in new survey -- Dickinson Press

• Port: The school meals ballot measure has collected an astounding number of signatures -- Williston Herald

• Tioga 6th graders move into new classrooms with completion of construction project -- Minot Daily News

• Armstrong opens applications for Governor's Band/Orchestra and Choral programs -- Office of the Governor

• Seeking more practice space, Divide County School District considers gymnasium addition -- The Journal

• North Dakota's large school districts dealing with budget deficits and reductions -- Dickinson Press

• Montana educator Jason Butcher named new director of Williston CTE Center -- Williston Herald

• 57K signatures for free school meals ballot measure submitted to ND Secretary of State -- KFYR-TV

• Findings show no apparent missing money as investigation into Dickinson State continues -- KFYR-TV

• Bachmeier appeals to North Dakotans to apply for upcoming seats on Board of Higher Ed -- Hazen Star

• The director behind Dickinson's engineering and development efforts, Joshua Skluzacek -- Dickinson Press

• Crews expected to stripe Williston roads this week near Williston Square after unknown delay -- KFYR-TV

• Divide County residents have until April 19 to comment on proposed gas plant north of Alamo -- The Journal

• US Dept of Housing and Urban Development awards $9.4M to North Dakota communities -- Kevin Cramer

• Improvements ahead as Highway 85 four-lane project gets underway this spring -- McKenzie County Farmer

• Legislative Districts 3 and 5 could see contests on Republican ticket in June 9 primary -- Minot Daily News

• Former North Dakota state senator Judy Estenson campaigning outside her district -- North Dakota Monitor

• Two construction projects officially kicked off March 30 south of Watford City -- McKenzie County Farmer

• Buffalo Gap Road Project to improve land access in Billings, Golden Valley -- McKenzie County Farmer

• Variety of incumbents and newcomers file for upcoming city, county, and school elections -- The Journal

• Mayor Jantzer asks Minot community to pledge its commitment in State of City address -- Minot Daily News

• Pro football team eyes Dickinson expansion, but questions and concern follow ownership -- Dickinson Press

• Minot City Council takes action that could help airport secure federal funding to repair runway -- KFYR-TV

• The Williston Chamber of Commerce will be holding candidate forums in the month of May -- KFYR-TV

• A behind-the-scenes peek at the long-awaited Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library -- WDAY/Facebook

• Theodore Roosevelt Nature & History Association begins annual photo contest -- Dickinson Press

• European ministers call for profit caps on energy companies as war drives price surge -- Minot Daily News

• Trump wants the world to buy more US oil but might regret the offer if it raises gasoline prices. -- E&E News

• We have unwound the past year of accumulated oil market oversupply in just a matter of weeks -- MSN

• Bridger's Canada-Wyoming crude line seen costing $2 billion, topping 1 million bpd capacity -- Reuters

• Minnesota Democrats target the oil industry with a "climate superfund" cash grab -- RealClearEnergy

• US oil premiums hit record high as world scramble for crude still trapped in Strait of Hormuz -- Oil Price

• Minnesota and Illinois AGs sue over federal orders to keep coal plants in operation -- The Center Square

• EPA undertakes early step in significant rollback of Biden-era rule restricting methane emissions -- The Hill

• Iraq could restore oil exports to pre-war levels within a week if Strait of Hormuz reopens -- Reuters

• UK convenes 41 countries as world leaders bypass Trump to tackle Strait of Hormuz crisis -- The Hill

• Exxon Mobil signals $2.9B Q1 earnings bump on higher oil prices triggered by conflict in Iran -- Oil Price

• President Trump's Iran peace plan is getting pushback from one key constituency: the oil industry -- Politico

• Trump administration proposes to make regulations on disposal of coal toxic waste more flexible -- The Hill

• Iran reportedly closes Strait of Hormuz again, less than 24 hours after agreeing to ceasefire deal -- Oil Price

• Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" turns 20: How it politicized climate science forever -- The Honest Broker

Eight New Permits -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50493B.

Intel: INTC will be the stock of the decade.

Disclaimer: read the blog's disclaimer. 

The Masters: historic.

 

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

WTI: $96.57. Down $1.30 for the day.

Active rigs: 24.

Eight new permits, #42828 - #42835, inclusive:

• Operators: XTO (7); EOG
• Fields: Grinnell-Bakken Unit (McKenzie County); Parshall (Mountrail County);
• Comments:
• XTO has permits for seven GBU Dionysus Federal wells, SWNE 14-153-96, 
• to be sited 1389 FNL and 1836 / 2016 FEL; 
• bottom holes, NWNW 35-154-96; NENW 35-154-96; NWNE 35-154-96; SWNE 14-153-96; 
• unitized spacing 
• EOG has a permit for a Parshall well, lot 4, section 2-152-90, 
• to be sited 810 FNL and 1295 FWL; 1280-acre spacing. 

My Hunch: INTC Will Be The Stock Of The Decade -- 2026 - 2036 -- Posted April 10, 2026

Locator: 50492INTC.

For the archives.

See the blog's disclaimer. 

***************************
The Book Page

Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI, Anil Ananthaswamy, c. 2024 / 2025.

Notes are kept here. Meager as they may be. 

Holy mackerel! This chapter: 

*****************************
Chapter 9

The Man Who Set Back Deep Learning (Not Really) 

 

And the chapter begins: 

George Cybenko was surprised by the reception he got. 

We met George Cybenko in the last chapter.  

You Thought TSA Had A Problem? Wait Until You See The Problem The USPS Has -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50491USPS.

USPS has quit forwarding cash to the company's pension system -- the pension that pays its retirees -- to save money in order to keep operations going. 

One immediate problem: all that cash that should have been going into the pension system will not be invested -- not even in 2% bonds/Treasuries/whatever -- and will instead be used to pay ongoing operational costs. In other words, the pension system that is projected to "be depleted by 2031" will run out of cash even sooner if nothing happens to keep that from happening. 

Looking at the numbers, the USPS seems to be in worse trouble than PEMX. Even a third-year college football player can understand that problem. Not so sure about a third-year college basketball player, but I digress. 

Their TSP is not affected and, in fact, is doing very, very well. See below.

This is going to be the next headline story after the TSP problem is solved.

Current employees continue to pay into their pension fund. That money is generally "bundled" and then sent to the administrator in Washington who oversees the pension fund that pays retirees. There is enough money in the pension plan for now. Assuming contributions are not used for current operations.

But the writing is on the wall. There are plenty of options:

• cut services;
• discontinue customer-facing activities on Saturdays and Wednesdays;
• maintain all mail movement 24/7;  
• cut benefits for new retirees;
• gradually move 50% of pension benefits to TSP 
• US government bailout;
• significantly increase the price of the postage stamps;
• place a windfall profit tax on UPS and Amazon and move that money directly to the USPS;
• manage junk mail a whole lot better; 
• my hunch: the Newsom solution: raise the USPS' borrowing cap from $15 billion to $100 billion, less than the projected cost of the California bullet train. 

My hunch: Congress will fully fund USPS and they will get that done before they solve DHS/TSA problems.

By the way, TSP:

Apple -- The Most Amazing Company Ever -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50490APPLE.

Tag: AAPL. 

Today: link here. 

Apple simply can't keep up with demand. 

Yesterday: 

And the day before:

Apple has a huge problem. Apple can't keep up with MacBook Neo demand. And they've run out of chips for the current Neo. They are using chips newer, high-end models that have been upgraded with new chips. Ordinarily, the older chips for these newer, high-end models would simply be trashed.

Apple is now using these high-end chips, that would otherwise be trashed for the MacBook Neo. 

The most expensive part of a laptop? The CPU?

And Apple is putting in high-end CPUs into the MaBook Neo and these chips are costing Apple nothing.

The problem: Apple will soon run out of these high-end CPUs to meet MacBook Neo demand.

***************************
Micron

TSMC -- Revenues In 1Q26 -- Best Ever -- And Yet Only One-Fourth Of Apple's Best Record -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50489TSMC. 

Disclaimer: there may be typographical and content errors on this page. I often misread things. Read the blog's disclaimer. 

A p/e of 35? Okay.

And "they" said it was a bubble and "they" said the Phoenix endeavor would be a debacle.

TSMC: best quarter ever -- revenue up 35%. Compared to TSMC, what was AAPL's best quarter:

That $144 billion in revenue in one quarter for Apple -- what was TSMC's revenue in their best quarter ever? $36 billion or one-fourth of Apple's record revenue in one quarter. 

Peter Zeihan On WTO -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50488WTO. 

I first "met" Peter Zeihan back in 2022, or thereabouts, when he published The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning, published June 14, 2022. The big -- almost my only -- takeaway from that book:

• the importance of water for trade; and,
• the US Navy, alone, protected free and safe passage on the water, worldwide.  

My notes, very, very sparse, on that book, are here.

Time to take a look at the current CNO and the former CNO:

• current CNO: advanced degrees in engineering; naval career -- submariner.
• former CNO: undergraduate degree in journalism; naval career -- mostly executive officer, assistant director, acting director positions -- surface warfare; appointed by Biden; sacked by Hegseth

US Secretary of the Navy: 

• John C. Phelan
• businessman (no military experience?)
• huge fundraiser for Trump
• art collector
• married to former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader; date of marriage unknown, but long term romance; he was 36 or 37 years old when he married.  

Of the last ten US secretaries of the navy, how many have had no military experience? Even experience in the defense industry? One. Exactly one has had no military experience. John C. Phelan.

Of the recent U.S. Navy Secretaries, only one of the last ten (John Phelan, confirmed in 2025) has had no prior military experience. While some nominees in recent years faced scrutiny over limited background in national security, most secretaries in the last 15–20 years served in the armed forces or held high-level defense industry/government roles.

And folks are concerned about Hegseth? LOL. 

By the way, the importance of water for trade. For the US -- the Mississippi drainage system led the list on what made America great. The opening of the Panama Canal, which Jimmy Carter gave (away for free) to Panama, was also on that same list, near the top.

Wow, here's a digression: Carter --> Obama --> Biden --> almost Kamala. Scary, huh?

From Peter Zeihan today:

A cornerstone of modern globalization, the World Trade Organization (WTO), is collapsing. Following the Cold War, the post-WWII system needed a legal system to enforce trade rules, so the WTO was born.

But the WTO was slow, and its court-based dispute system couldn't enforce meaningful penalties. And its requirement for unanimous agreement made new trade deals nearly impossible. So, trade liberalization has stalled for decades.

Without the WTO, the world will revert to regional trading blocs. The issue is that this leaves several regions without balanced economies (you need production and consumption, and only a handful of areas have that). 

As the WTO falls apart, expect decades of economic instability and conflict.

The WTO: wiki. 

TGIF -- April 10, 2026

Locator: 50487B. 

NetJets: there were a lot of golfers wearing "NetJets" insignia yesterday at the Masters.  

NetJets is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate led by Warren Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway acquired the company in 1998, and it has since become a cornerstone of their portfolio, offering premier fractional aircraft ownership and private aviation services.

NetJets passengers avoid standard TSA lines by using private Fixed-Base Operators (FBOs) instead of main airport terminals. They bypass crowded security checkpoints and proceed directly to their aircraft, undergoing only minimal identification verification or baggage checks by private security personnel or pilots. 

Memo to self, today:

• tech: the two big stories right now:
• training, AWS, Trainium;
• TSMC -- 
• nothing new, just a reminder 
• Broadcom's TPUs, Google -- 
• nothing new, just a reminder. 
• memory  
• the end of the WTO;

Another headline: Yet another story pointing out how the world is preparing to move away from reliance on Mideast oil. Saudi's worst nightmare.

No tears for Saudi. These were the same guys that tried to destroy fracking years ago. What goes around, comes around. 

Natural gas: fracking and the US -- all of a sudden, fracking isn't so bad. EU says the rules stay in place -- they simply aren't enforcing them. 

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

WTI: $98.88. Next week, back over $100?

New wells reporting:

• Sunday, April 12, 2026: 30 for the month, 30 for the quarter, 187 for the year,
• 42177, conf, BR, Omlid 3-8-7 TFH, 
• 41927, conf, Formentera Operations, Wildcat Hollow-16-33-PGN S512HF, 
• 41159, conf, Hess, BW-Sharen Lynor-149-100-2032H-3, 
• Saturday, April 11, 2026: 27 for the month, 27 for the quarter, 184 for the year,
• 41504, conf, Hess, RS-Piepkorn-155-92-1208H-1, 
• Friday, April 10, 2026: 26 for the month, 26 for the quarter, 183 for the year,
• 42181, conf, BR, Abercrombie 2-12UTFH,
• 40821, conf, Hunt Oil, Oakland 154-89-29-32H 1
• 40820, conf, Hunt Oil, Oakland 154-89-19-18H 3,
• 40635, conf, Hunt Oil, Oakland 154-89-32-5H-1, 

RBN Energy: with production on the rise, several pipelines in the works to move Canadian crude to the US. Link here. Yet another story pointing out how the world is preparing to move away from reliance on Mideast oil. Saudi's worst nightmare. Archived. The first company mentioned: Enbridge?

As crude oil production continues to grow in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), more pipeline capacity will be needed to move it to market. The startup of the 590-Mb/d Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) in May 2024 temporarily created a period of surplus takeaway capacity, but that is shrinking and more will soon be needed, as WCSB crude production typically grows by 100 to 200 Mb/d annually, and there is no shortage of resource to develop. Thankfully, some new capacity is on its way in 2026 and 2027, and much more is being planned. In today’s RBN blog, we go through all the projects in the works.

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the drivers behind WCSB crude oil production nearly doubling from 2010 to 2025, as well as its seasonal trends. In Part 2, we reviewed the major pipeline projects that expanded capacity to move barrels out of the WCSB up to this point, how the timing of those projects matched up with supply growth, and current export pipeline capacity. In Part 3, we examined how WCSB crude oil price discounts are impacted by pipeline scarcity and production seasonality. And in Part 4, we looked at where WCSB crude oil goes, how it gets there, and how its end markets have evolved over time.

Once again, we’ll start this blog off by orienting ourselves with a map that shows the key existing pipelines that move crude oil out of the WCSB, which include:

• Enbridge’s 3.22-MMb/d Mainline system (light-pink lines in Figure 1)
• The Canadian government’s 890-Mb/d Trans Mountain Pipeline System (TMPS; purple line at top left)
• South Bow’s 610-Mb/d Keystone Pipeline System (medium-blue line in middle)
• Enbridge’s Express-Platte Pipeline System (dark-pink line; 310 Mb/d of export capacity)
• Inter Pipeline’s ~98-Mb/d Bow River/Milk River pipeline system (light-green lines near top left)
• Plains’ ~20 Mb/d Rangeland/Aurora pipeline system (dark-green lines near top left)

Figure 1. Major Pipeline Systems Moving WCSB Crude Oil. Source: RBN