Alison's Quick Connects -- Friday, April 17, 2026

Locator: 50567B.

Alison's top quick connect below: 

As of early 2026, the largest power generator in North Dakota is the Coal Creek Station. It is a 1,150-megawatt (MW) lignite coal-fired plant located near Underwood. Let's round the "1,150" to 1,000.

However, the under-construction Bison Generation Station in Williams County is set to become the new largest, projected to produce 1,490 MW of natural gas power by 2030. Let's round the 1,490 to 1,500.

Alison's quick connects:

• Basin Electric to break ground on its largest power plant this spring -- Minot Daily News

• Scott Hennen: Let's celebrate a North Dakota milestone in oil production -- InForum

• Bakken gas capacity set to rise as Bison XPress nears full service -- Pipeline & Gas Journal

• The Bakken is known for its oil, but it also produces coal, helium and potash. -- KFYR-TV

• Tesla sues North Dakota as it seeks to open car dealerships in Bismarck, Fargo -- North Dakota Monitor

• Trump issues several pipeline permits, authorizes Bakken Pipeline Company construction -- Reuters

• Energy takes center stage in Minot as community members gathered to discuss industry's future -- KX News

• Current state of gas prices and why they aren't lower despite North Dakota's oil presence -- KFYR-TV

• Meridian Energy CEO provides update on status of plans to build the Davis Refinery in ND -- The Crude Life

• Bakken boom continues to shape North Dakota, foreshadows future development challenges -- The Journal

• It's all about diversification at Rainbow Energy Center; pipeline completion to open doors -- Minot Daily News

• North Dakota utility regulators advance power project to serve Fargo data center -- North Dakota Monitor

• North Dakota stands at the center of America's nuclear deterrence amid Iran conflict -- Valley News Live

• Questions over River Run Energy Center, hyperscale data center dominate discussion -- The Beacon

• Greenpeace and Energy Transfer face off in Dutch court over Dakota Access Pipeline ruling -- KFYR-TV

• Port: Governor Armstrong, wisely, wants to prepare North Dakota's budget for a new reality -- InForum

• North Dakota voters face a largely uncompetitive statewide primary ballot in June -- Bismarck Tribune

• North Dakotans see lower state income taxes tied to federal policy changes -- North Dakota Monitor

• District 20 Republicans select Larimore farmer Rustebakke to fill vacant House seat -- North Dakota Monitor

• Economic Policy Institute: North Dakota's cost of living lower than most western states -- Dickinson Press

• Legacy Fund website to launch Nov. 1; seeks to improve investment transparency -- North Dakota Monitor

• One uncontested statewide race will be on North Dakota ballot during primary election -- Dickinson Press

• North Dakota Ethics Commission seeking applicants for two available positions through April -- KX News

• Williston announces significant progress in reducing its long-term debt through SB2323 -- Minot Daily News

• Officials announce start of Phase II of CR 27 reconstruction project in McKenzie County -- KX News

• City of Minot's 2027 budget schedule has been approved; neighbors can follow the process -- KX News

• Minot's two mayoral candidates laid out distinct visions for the city during chamber forum -- Minot Daily News

• State of the Region 8, City of Dickinson Town Hall both slated for April 23 in Dickinson -- Dickinson Press

• Williston City Commission proclaims upcoming Clean City Week and Free Landfill Day -- Williston Herald

• National television airing live segment from Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library -- Dickinson Press

• Medora business owners hiring and expanding as construction signals extra busy summer -- Dickinson Press

• MHA Nation, McKenzie County Sheriff's Office announce public safety partnership -- Minot Daily News

• Bank of America pledges $5M sponsorship to Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library -- Dickinson Press

• Badlands Art Assoc. accepting submissions for Lyle Glass Memorial Western Arts Show -- Dickinson Press

• Rural Health Transformation Program meeting scheduled for Hazen April 23 -- The Beacon

• New NDSU, BSC presidents sign contracts with North Dakota University System -- North Dakota Monitor

• Different paths, shared purpose: ND Petroleum Foundation Teens of the Year named -- Bismarck Tribune

• Minot middle schools test scores in the spotlight at school board's regular meeting -- Minot Daily News

• Minot High School officially adopts new secondary logo amid ongoing trademark dispute -- Minot Daily News

• 'Shared vision' comes to fruition as Alexander school celebrates expansion -- McKenzie County Farmer

• Jeremy Brenner resigns from Williston school board; applications for replacement sought -- Williston Herald

• Students compete in North Dakota National History Day; winners will advance to Washington DC -- KFYR-TV

• Commentary: Free school meals drive energized as ND lawmakers choked -- North Dakota Monitor

• Valley City State presidential search suspended after candidates withdrawals -- North Dakota Monitor

• Despite the cease-fire in the Middle East, prices at the pump are still rising. Here's why. -- Wall Street Journal

• Trump acknowledges gasoline prices might remain high through the November midterm election -- Oil Price

• Oil prices fall as signs of potential U.S.-Iran dialogue to end their war reduce supply concerns -- Reuters

• Armada of crude tankers en route to United States to purchase American energy -- The Center Square

• Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that he expects gasoline prices to peak in the next few weeks -- The Hill

• United States stops nine oil tankers attempting to break Trump's blockade on Iranian ports -- Fox News

• Chevron's stepped-up imports of Venezuelan oil are helping ease fuel prices for US consumers -- CBS News

• More evidence that the Trump Administration is serious about a nuclear energy revival -- RealClearEnergy

• Julie Fedorchak joins Axios reporter for conversation on strengthening US electric grid -- Julie Fedorchak

• Officials in the Gulf region bracing for a timeline closer to six months until US-Iran peace deal -- Oil Price

• Investor-owned utilities plan to pour at least $1.4T into new capital expenditures through 2030 -- E&E News

• Wright, Burgum to urge top US oil and gas companies to increase drilling in bid to lower prices -- E&E News

• Youth climate activists challenge Trump's executive orders in 9th Circuit appeal -- Washington Examiner

• Soaring energy prices are the result of bad government policy, time for a course correction. -- City Journal

Apple News -- Friday, April 17, 2026

Locator: 50566APPLE.

Apple leads! Link here.

Counterpoint's Market Monitor Tracker attributed the decline primarily to a high base effect from last year's government subsidy program and rising component costs. Counterpoint noted that February's Lunar New Year promotions provided a slight boost, but said the "magnitude of these discounts was hampered by a sharp increase in memory costs." Rising costs are already driving up retail prices on both new and used devices, and the pressure is expected to continue through the second quarter.

Apple rose to second place in the market with shipments up 20% year over year, driven by strong iPhone 17 series demand, promotional price cuts, and government subsidies. 

Government subsidies for Apple iPhones?

Counterpoint says Apple is best positioned among manufacturers to navigate the ongoing global memory crunch, supported by its premium product portfolio and supply chain management. 

The firm expects Apple to absorb rising costs internally in the near-to-medium term and expand its market share as a result. The first quarter result extends a strong run for Apple in China; the company reclaimed the top spot in the country in the fourth quarter of 2025 with shipments up 28% year over year, and recorded a 23% sales increase in the first nine weeks of 2026.

Other Apple News:

• iPhones to get new satellite features in light of Amazon buying Globalstar; link here. 

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You're so far away from me. This takes me back to Friday evenings in Yorkshire twenty years ago. Wow. 

Link here.

Welcome To The Weekend -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50565B.

Market:

S&P 500 notches first close above 7,100. That's after hitting 7,001, highest intra-day high on record, yesterday. NASDAQ posts longest win streak.

Record-setting day: BRK-B is down again for the day. 

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Back to The Bakken

WTI: $85.10 -- holy mackerel -- It was briefly $105 six days ago. Is that about a 20% drop from the recent high?

Active rigs: 22. 

No new permits, however, this is interesting.

Yesterday, this from the daily activity report -- two older permits with sites modified:

• Operator: Enerplus
• Field: Little Knife (Dunn County)
• Comments:
• Enerplus is modifying the site location: #42674 and #42675, Edward Federal 4B and 5B, 
• to be sited 334 FSL and 2335 / 2368 FEL (previously 335 / 336 FSL and 2585 / 2618 FWL.

In today's daily activity report, Enerplus was permitted to make site modifications -- surface hole relocations. Again, very similar to the above:

• Operator: Enerplus
• Field: Little Knife, Dunn County
• Comments:
• Enerplus is modifying the surface hole location of the following wells:
• #42477, #42672, and #42673, Little Chase Creek 4797 ... 2BHP; Edward Federal 4797 ... 2B; and, Edward Federal 4797 ... 3B, 
• to be sited 334 / 335 FSL and 2437 / 2302 FEL.

Eighteen permits renewed:

• CLR (10):
• seven Plano permits: SENW, NENW section 28-154-101; Baker oil field, Williams County;
• three Frisco permits: SWSE 31-152-102, Glass Bluff oil field; McKenzie County;
• Devon Energy Williston (8): 
• five Explorer permits and three Meriwether permits, NWSE 21-14-92; Wolf Bay, Dunn County;

Chart Of The Day -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50564AAPL.

Chicken Or The Egg -- Or Both Simultaneously? April 7, 2026

Locator: 50563INTERNET.

Wow, just typing that word -- "internet" -- makes me feel so old. How long have we had ChatGPT easily available and Google Gemini now our mobile apps and desktops?

Those not on the graphic: Iran, Cuba, North Korea.

Top Performing ETF Available At Schwab -- HVUE -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50562ETF.

I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same. The Wallflowers, "One Headlight."

Link here.

Micron, Cisco:

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Link here.

Murex Trivia -- November 21, 2010 -- Re-posted April 17, 2026

Locator: 50561AI.

Locator: 10010FEZ.

This past week our two six-year-old twins have been learning to dye fabric. I showed them how they did it in the time of Christ. Scroll to bottom. In 2,000+ years they haven't changed the process. And incredibly complicated. Amazing how "they" figured out how to do it, and then kept improving the process. This is not simple chemistry / simply science.

Original Post

This past week I've been reading an outstanding "history" / "biography" of the Atlantic Ocean by Simon Winchester, cleverly titled, Atlantic.

Coincidentally, the author talks about the royal purple dye used in classical Rome (and seen in all the movie epics set in that era). It turns out that the Phoenicians were the ones who cornered the market on purple dye once they figured out how to extract it from sea snails found in the eastern Mediterranean, and as it turns out, in the eastern Atlantic, along the coast of Morocco.

There are several species, some of which are called murex shells or murex snails. I have no idea if the Murex oil company in the Bakken got its name from that seashell or not, but it would not be the first.

Royal Dutch Shell was named for the sea shell. According to wikipedia (and verified elsewhere),

In 1833, the [Shell] founder's father, also Marcus Samuel, founded an import business to sell seashells to London collectors. When collecting seashell specimens in the Caspian Sea, the younger Samuel realized there was potential in exporting lamp oil and commissioned the world's first purpose-built oil tanker ... to enter this market; by 1907 the company had a fleet. 

And a name, and a logo: the Shell.

I thought that was fascinating.

But then this, which sort of puts icing on the cake, as they say: the name of that first purpose-built oil tanker? Yup, you guessed it: the Murex, Latin for the particular type of snail shell discussed above.

No one can say I don't post trivia on this site.  

By the way, I verified the naming of the Shell story in the book by Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, perhaps the best book ever on the history of oil.

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Dyeing Vats In Fez Morocco 

November, 1984. 

On location. 

I was deployed to "base operations" in northern Morocco. We took a side trip to the old city, Fez, Morocco. 

Vat dyes are water-insoluble colorants (like indigo) that require reduction in an alkaline solution to become soluble for dyeing, after which they are oxidized back to an insoluble, highly wash-fast state on the fabric. They are famously used for cotton, linen, and denim, creating deep, durable colors. Common vats include chemical, fructose, or iron setups.

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Doesn't this song just fit the above?

Link here.

Forbes: AI -- The Top Fifty And The Up-And-Comers -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50560AI.

Top 50 AI companies, global: link here. Forty-four of them are in the US. Almost all of them are in San Francisco or Palo Alto, California.

The 20 AI Brink list, the up-and-comers: link here. Since there only 20, we can take time to take a deeper look.  Mostly "pick-and-shovel." Mostly in Silicon Valley. Nothing jumps out at me.

Company, year founded, HQ, total funding raised, valuation, CEO:

• Accordance, 2024, SF, $13 million,  $80 million, David Yue; spreadsheets;
• Advanced Machine Intelligence, 2026, Paris, $1 billion; $4.5 billion, Alexandre LeBrun, AI video
• Axiom, 2025, Palo Alto, $264 million; $1.6 billion, Carina Hong, complex math problems
• Certune, 2024, Austin, TX, $10 million; $60 million, Martin Vrsavsky, physician aids
• Flapping Airplanes, 2026, SF, $180 million; $1.5 billion; Aidan Smith, tighter
• Giga, 2024, SF, $61 million, $350 million, Varun Vummadi, customer support
• Humans& (no typo), 2025, SF, $500 million; $4.5 billion, Eric Zelikman, human collaboration
• Irregular, 2023, SF, $80 million; $450 million; Dan Lavah, testing risks
• Latent Health, 2022, SF, $80 million, $600 million, Sriram Somasudrarm, Rishabh Jain, insurance paperwork
• Microl, 2022, SF, $41 million, $500 million, Ali Asari, data for AI labs
• Nectar Social, 2023, Palo Alto, $10.6 million, undisclosed, Misbah Uraizee, monitors social media for sales leads 
• OpenRouter, 2023, NYC, $167.7 million; $1.3 billion, Alex Atallah, apps to switch between AI models
• Periodic Labs, SF, $300 million; $1.3 billion, Liam Fedus, Dogus Cubic; to run scientific experiments;
• Resolve AI, 2024, SF, $190 million; $1.5 billion, Spiros Xathos, monitor / fix software issues
• Ricursive Intelligence, 2025, Palo Alto, $335 million, $4 billion, Anna Goldie, AI to design chips
• Rox, 2024, SF, $199 million, $1.2 billion, Isha Mukherjee, business cycle revenue
• Simile, 2025, Palo Alto, $100 million, $700 million, Joon Sung Park, digital humanoid replicas for research (crash test dummies)
• TollBit, 2023, NYC, $31 million, $94 million, Tohit Panigrahi, tracks bots pinging websites
• WisprFlow, 2021, SF, $81 million, $700 million, Tanay Kothari, convert speech to writing
• Worktrace AI, 2025, SF, $10 million, $50 million, Deepak Vasisht, assist companies finding tasks that can be automated

Link here. These kids simply 30 years ahead of their time.

Nutria: The Nature Page -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50559NUTRIA.

Several different posts / blogs have converged to this topic.

Search: the tabasco sauce story (see documentary on YouTube); the US Supreme Court ruling today regarding oil companies and Louisiana coastal erosion and Edward Avery "Ned" McIlhenny.

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I'm still getting a kick out of the "new" Safari browser on my very old M1 MacBook Air laptop.

US Supreme Court Sides With Oil Companies -- Louisiana Coastal Lawsuits -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50558THECOAST.

Tag: oil Louisiana nutria US Supreme Court

Link here.

The case, Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, La., focused on a narrow question: whether the oil companies could remove cases over environmental damage from state to federal court. But the case has been closely watched by litigants in other climate lawsuits because state courts are generally thought to be more receptive to people who sue over damages caused by climate change, including climate activists and state officials.

Justice Thomas explained that the oil company had cleared the bar required to move the case into federal court because the lawsuit dealt with oil production in Louisiana dating back to World War II, when Chevron refined crude oil into aviation gasoline for the U.S. military.

He wrote that Chevron had shown that its wartime production of crude oil related to its wartime aviation-gasoline refining for the military, a federal priority.

Louisiana has lost about 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion since the 1930s — a land mass about the size of Delaware.

Plaquemines Parish, the state’s southernmost parish, juts into the water where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico. The parish, which is crisscrossed with oil and gas canals, has already lost nearly half of its size in the last century as sea levels rise because of climate change. The parish has also become more vulnerable to storms, in part because levees built to shield New Orleans from flooding also deprive the delicate coastal ecosystem of fresh water and sediment. Canals that aid in oil and gas production have also weakened the ecosystem, experts have said.

One may want to explore the relationship between nutria and tabasco sauce, and between those and Louisiana coastal erosion. I posted the video of this story on the blog last night, before this story broke in The New York Times today.

Dow Just Broke Through 606 Points On The Upside -- Breaking: Iran Declares The Strait of Hormuz Completely Open To Commercial Traffic During The Israel-Lebanese Ceasefire -- XI To Congratulate Trump -- France, Britain's Threat To Move Ships In Tipped The Scales -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50557PEACE.

Updates

Later, 8:30 a.m. CT: at the open -- 

Later, 8:19 a.m. CT: will the Dow cruise through 600? It's at 598 now! [Later, 8:20: up 608 points, up 1.23%.]

For context: the greatest percentage jump in the Dow in one day? March 15, 1933, when FDR re-opened the banks. Ten days earlier, FDR "had put boots on the ground" -- shutting down all US banks. Ten days later, March 15 -- the ides of March -- the Dow added 6 points, or 15%:

Speaking of "boots on the ground": FDR put a few boots on the ground in Europe back in the day, in a war that lasted some six years -- depending upon when you date its beginning. 

Headlines, then, I recall, seemed to suggest the Americans supported that Democrat president, who's VP finally dropped a couple of  atomic/hydrogen bombs after he had had enough and wanted folks to come home. The New York Times did not have trouble finding Iwo Jima on the map.

Original Post

First time in decades Israel and Lebanon have had direct talks. 

Trump / Netanyahu will get no credit. Already, Iran, Hezbollah, and The New York Times are taking credit. Journalists on the NYT staff are pulling out maps to see where Lebanon is located. Will have full analysis by noon to learn how Trump screwed this all up. 

Has Trump, Hegseth, Vance, or Rubio been to the beach yet this year? Has Trump even taken time to go golfing? Asking for a friend.

We will never now how may Hezbollah leaders it took to get to this point. But I bet it was more than one.

Holy mackerel! The Dow rallies 550 points, the NASDAQ, 235 points! WTI plummets -- down 10%. 

Just last week, the S&P was struggling to hit a new all-time record (7,000 in round numbers) -- today, premarket, the S&P is standing at 7,132. Okay.

Price of gasoline? 

• takes the elevator up;
• but takes the stairways down.

Breaking: Iran declares the Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial traffic during the Israel-Lebanese ceasefire. 

• the Houthis are beside themselves! No purpose in life!
• Somaliland has offered -- seriously -- permanent basing for US military -- 
• the Brits and the French, later today, will demand the strait be left open over the weekend to give them time to get their two destroyers in place

When will we start referring to the Iranian War as the "six-week war"? Early on they tried to call it Trump's War -- but now ... for the War Powers Act, does the clock re-set after each cessation in hostilities? 

Boots on ground? Right now it looks like the only "boots on ground" will be UN inspectors looking for  uranium buried under tons of rubble. 

Strait: I was going to write something pithy and then the CNBC crawler just crawled out of its cave to announce that Iran declares the strait open to all commercial traffic.

US market: opening in about 45 minutes.

Holy Mackerel! Stop The Presses! Huge! My Favorite Chart -- New Record Set -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50556MMFS.

Tag: MMFs MMF record Whoo-hoo!

By the way, this is the free space on your Bingo Card. This happens like clockwork every April 15th. 

I haven't seen a report like this -- since a year ago -- let's see what Crane Data has to say: 

AI prompt:

Every week ICI releases the Money Market Funds report. Today, April 17, 2026, the figure declined by $175 billion. Is that a record?

Yes, that is a record. The previous record was set a year ago, with a decline of $125 billion. Gee, I wonder what this means?

Reply:

Wow, wow, wow -- look at the reason -- "the massive decline is attributed to significant outflows following the April 15 tax day deadline. This speaks volumes and I have much to say about that but it will have to wait. 

To put that $175 billion in perspective -- that's all cash, not gold -- the following countries have this amount of cash on hand in their foreign exchange reserves (not total amount held by central banks), feel free to fact check -- it all depends how you measure and when you measure:

• France: $30 billion, mostly US cash
• Britain: $32 billion
• Germany: $38 billion
• Saudi Arabia: $475 billion, mostly US cash
• Switzerland: $924 billion (no typo)
• most of that cash, of course, comes from the making of cuckoo clocks 

Oh, here's the ICI: 

Link here.

Look at that decline! Wow, I wonder where the money is going.

Oh, that's right. The S&P 500 hit an all-time record this past week. 

And folks tell me the MMF doesn't mean a thing. Okay.

The decline reported today is notable -- it does not set a record on the flip side -- compared to records for inflows. The largest inflows in history occurred around March, 2020, with other large spikes in 2025 / 2026 reaching around $100 - $200 billion on rare occasions. 

I consider both of those inflows irrelevant and immaterial anomalies (to paraphrase Perry Mason) due to Covid and the Iran War, respectively.

Interestingly, those jumps / inflows have never receded. MMFs are still at record highs. 

Archives -- Friday, April 17, 2027

Locator: 50555ARCHIVES.

Pre-market: Dow surging pre-market. 

• AMD: up $20 yesterday; down a bit this morning.
• AVGO: up a bit more today, but now trading above $400 / share.
• LNG: was up $6 yesterday; a bit flat this morning. 
• MU: might it surge today; up 1.3% in pre-market trading up $5.38; trading at $463. Whoo-hoo.
• CVX: up $3.24 yesterday; flat this a.m. still paying almost 4%.
• BRK-B: might actually have to "up" days in a row.

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Netflix 

Netflix: look at these profit margins! 42% Link here. AppEconomy. Operating margins: 32%. Revenue up 14% y/y. Warner $2.8 billion break-up fee recognized. Shares drop 9%. 

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Other -- Pending

Friday -- April 17, 2026

Locator: 50554B.

Safari: I still can't believe how fast Safari is! It's like having a brand new computer. My laptop is going on six years old and has never seemed so fast. Amazing.

Britain, France: to host a European conference, without the US, to plan for a post-war Persian Gulf -- specifically to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. LOL. 

The best part of this, the Persians are going to see even most western ships. LOL. The Brits don't have "any ships"; will stay defensive. The Brits say they can remove mines. I would suggest putting the Brits between the IRGC "fast boats" and the US Navy, to give the Iranians a fighting chance. To make the skirmish between the US Navy and the IRGC "fast boats" a fair fight.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $91.35. Wow, talk about volatility. Down almost 4% overnight.

New wells reporting:

• Sunday, April 19, 2026: 53 for the month, 53 for the quarter, 210 for the year,
• 41787, conf, XTO, GBU Apollo Federal 14X-12C-N,
• 41732, conf, Hess, EN-Binger-157-94-1201H-5, 
• 41441, conf, Hess, GO-Seaton-156-98-0607H-4, 
• Saturday, April 18, 2026: 50 for the month, 50 for the quarter, 207 for the year,
• 41442, conf, Hess, GO-Seato-156-98-0607H-5, 
• Friday, April 17, 2026: 49 for the month, 49 for the quarter, 206 for the year,
• 40953, conf, Hunt Oil, Shell 153-89-6-31H 1,

RBN Energy: can Permian gas processing capacity keep pace with production gains? Link here. Archived. 

A combination of new natural gas takeaway capacity out of the Permian, rising feedgas demand from LNG export terminals and stronger gas prices at the Waha Hub will support a steady increase in associated gas production in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico through the rest of the 2020s. But while several gas processing plants are being planned in the Delaware and Midland basins, a critically important question looms: Will there be enough capacity to process the coming tsunami of incremental gas? In today’s RBN blog, we continue our examination of the fast-changing Permian gas market with a look at production growth vs. processing capacity.

In Part 1 of this blog series, we said that while the Permian is now producing more than 22 Bcf/d of residue natural gas — one-fifth of total U.S. production — producers have had to deal with a persistent shortfall in gas takeaway capacity and negative (sometimes very negative) prompt-month and cash prices at Waha. We added, however, that there’s good reason to believe the situation will soon be improving. A massive tranche of new takeaway capacity will be coming online over the next few months, ending the shortfall for many years to come, and gas demand from LNG exporters and power generators will ramp up fast.

RBN’s monthly Arrow Model report, which tracks and forecasts shifting gas pipeline flows in Texas and Louisiana, expects that Waha basis — the difference between gas prices at Henry Hub and Waha — will shift from an average discount of $3.52/MMBtu this year to $1.28/MMBtu in 2027 and $0.70/MMBtu in 2028. Even if the Henry Hub price averages around $3.50/MMBtu over the next few years, as the forward curve indicates, Permian producers (even those without locked-in takeaway capacity) will get an uplift for their gas sales. 

With worries about gas takeaway and weak Waha prices fading away, producers are more likely to expand their drilling-and-completion activity in “gassier” parts of the Permian, many of which offer some of the most oil-saturated rock in the entire shale play. That impending shift creates an infrastructure challenge of its own, namely the need to develop new capacity to process the increasing volumes of associated gas from Permian wells.