Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Six New Permits; Four Permits Renewed; One DUC Reported As Completed -- Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Locator: 50907B. 

SpaceX: IPO target-- $1.75 trillion market cap. $135 / share, offering 555.6 million shares; would be the largest IPO ever in the US; 3x previous record IPO.

Tea leaves 

  • Mideast: will have a tough 2027
    Mideast: earliest date the  strait will "open": not before Labor Day, 2026;
    • earliest date the strait will be "somewhat back to normal: not before Labor Day, 2027;
  • Investing:
    • NVDA: a trading stock; not an investment stock;
    • SpaceX: a trading stock; not an investment; for investors, one can buy shares for the next twenty years;
    • on a very negative day for the US markets, WMT was a standout, gaining almost $5 / share; 
  • Europe in deep doo-doo;
  • Canada looking a bit stronger, but only a bit;
  • US -- political
    • lots of talk, 
    • but at the end of the day, Trump will have an All-Democratic (both houses of) Congress with which to deal;  
  • LDC build-out will slow
  • the gap between "red" and "blue" states will widen: if you like paying state income taxes, move to "blue" states now;
  • seniors will do well in 2027: significant military pay raise; significant raise in military pensions; significant social security COLA increase in 2027;

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

WTI: $94.96.

Active rigs: 31.

Six new permits, #42995 - #43000, inclusive --

  • Operator: XTO
  • Field: Bear Den (Dunn County)
  • Comments:
    • XTO has permits for six Ghostrider Federal wells, SWSE 6-148-96, to be sited 841 / 855  FSL and 2325 / 2474 FEL; 

Four permits renewed:

  • Lime Rock (3), three Harlan Rebsom permits, Murphy Creek Dunn County; and
  • MRO: one Sophia USA permit, wildcat, Dunn County.

One producing well (a DUC) reported as completed:

  • 41036, 702, BR, Phantom Ship 7B, McKenzie County.

Cramer's First Hour -- Bull Market -- June 3, 2026

Locator: 50906INVESTING.

South Korea: will "lock in" oil and LNG from Canada. Link here. The Middle East is clearly not dependable. 

MtwhGA: from the Arctic to Venezuela, this is from where oil and natural gas will come for the foreseeable future. Link here. Making the western hemisphere great again (MtwhGA). 

"Fake News" vs x

  • "face news" suggests the world is coming to an end;
  • suggests everything is fine.

Morning ("mourning?) of confusion

  • the president says everything is okay and yet "the Iranians" hit the Kuwait civilian airport with missiles -- 
    • the president seems not to mind;
    • for all we know, the folks in Tehran do not know of the missile attack on Kuwait; 
    • sounds like the president is dealing with some low-grade official in Tehran from three days ago (no electronic communication; communication with Tehran is all done with "runners") and the IRGC is operating independently. Dual track:
      • fake negotiations; and,
      • the Persian Gulf is now an American lake with access controlled by US / IGRC
  • CAT is actually up from the opening; see below for the opening; not trading at $125. 
  • WTI now at $96.01. It opened at $95.66 earlier this morning.
  • the longer the strait remains "closed," the more irrelevant it becomes
    • Iraq will increase oil exports through Turkish pipeline from 220,000 to 770,000 bopd
    • within two months or inshallah 

Buying opportunity: the confusion offers a buying opportunity.  

Chart of the day

AI: it's going to be another huge day on the market. Intel and Marvell are both up huge in pre-market.

*********************************
Market 

Query:

CNBC said this morning: Bull run: now, nine weeks long -- since March, 1950, this bull run of 9 weeks ranks #16. If that's true with bull run since March, 1950, has been better?

Reply:


Yes, I was wrong. CNBC said "consecutive up weeks," not "bull run." The current "bull run" has been in place for years.

At nine weeks, if we go to ten weeks, it appears this "run" will be tied for #3.  

As an aside: highly recommend continuing the discussion at ChatGPT. 

The Mideast Becoming More Volatile -- Kuwait Civilian Airport Hit -- Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Locator: 50905B.

Bull run: now, nine weeks long -- since March, 1950, this bull run of 9 weeks ranks #16 -- CNBC. Only #16? 

NBA: game 1 tonight.

Elizabeth Warren: missed the AI revolution. 

15 minutes of fame: Scott Pelley fired by CBS. I don't think I've watched 60 Minutes in the last decade but apparently Scott Pelley is the Big Man on Campus over at CBS News

Pageviews: since the beginning -- June 3, 2026, 7:36 a.m.: 59,949,501. By the end of the month, we should have 60 million pageviews total since the blog began. Now, June 5, 2026, 5:00 a.m.: 60, 073,897:

  • delta: 124,306 over almost exactly two days
  • per day: 62,153 
  • this seems somewhat impossible; I will have to check some additional calculations later. 

Later, 4:23 a.m. Saturday, June 6, not quite 24 hours later, pageviews:

  • right now: 60,132,667
  • not quite 24 hours ago, June 5, 2026, 5:00 a.m., yesterday: 60,073,897
  • in that 24-hour period: 58,770 page views. 

This site is not monetized -- none of my blog sites are monetize. 

With regard to page views (pageviews), google gemini has incorrect information. I provided google gemini with the correct information and gemini confirmed it with data from mineralrightsforum.com. Thank you. I didn't check that link; I have no idea if it works from this end. I do believe this site is the only site dedicated to the Bakken that requires no password, no subscription, no e-mail requirement, and is not monetized. 

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

 

WTI: $95.66. Up $1.90; up 2%.

New wells reporting:

Thursday, June 4, 2026: 2 for the month, 158 for the quarter, 315 for the year,  
42003, conf, Slawson, Cannonball Federal 6-27-34H,

Wednesday, June 3, 2026: 1 for the month, 157 for the quarter, 314 for the year, 
None.

RBN Energy: Permian's rising NGL output spurs another round of "wellhead-to-water projects. Link here. Archived.

The rapid buildout of Permian gas processing plants and other NGL-related infrastructure in Texas and southeastern New Mexico isn’t just continuing, it’s accelerating. Not just processing, but also new and expanded NGL pipelines, new fractionators in Mont Belvieu (and near Corpus Christi), and new ethane and LPG export capacity. Funny thing is, all that growth and investment is happening as crude oil-focused production in the Permian has remained flat as a pancake. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the latest project announcements and why associated gas and NGL production in the Permian are still rising.

Crude oil prices have been elevated for three months now thanks to the Iran war, but Permian producers have resisted the temptation to ratchet up their drilling-and-completion activity. In fact, the Permian rig count is virtually unchanged from the end of last year (247 then vs. 246 as of mid-May) and so is basin oil production, at 6.6 MMb/d, according to our weekly Crude Oil Permian report. That extraordinary discipline during an extended period of WTI prices north of $90/bbl raises an important, two-part question for folks who focus on the NGL side of things: If Permian crude oil production isn’t rising in this price environment, has oil output there pretty much peaked and, if so, what does that mean for the basin’s production of associated gas and NGLs?

Spoiler alert: Even if Permian crude oil production stays flat — heck, even if it were to sag by a few hundred thousand barrels a day — the basin’s output of associated gas and NGLs will continue to increase, and at a pretty good clip. (And that’s impacting the market for NGL purity products like propane — see our recent Wind of Change blog.) As we explained a few months ago in Hold On ... I’m Coming, the mix of crude, natural gas and NGLs emerging from Permian wells has been evolving for many years now, with the general trends being (1) more gas per barrel of oil (that is, a higher gas-to-oil ratio, or GOR) and (2) more NGLs per thousand cubic feet of gas (that is, a higher gallons-per-Mcf, or GPM).

The shift toward gassier, more-NGL-packed production in the Permian has been significant. By our estimate, the overall basin’s GOR has increased from 3.4:1 in 2014 to 4.4:1 in 2025, a gain of almost 30%, and the Permian’s GPM has risen from about 4.5 to 5.2. And from everything we’ve seen and heard about where producers are drilling and what’s emerging from their newer wells, this ramp-up in GORs and GPMs has been accelerating — and that’s what we’ve got in our models. 

This suggests that, even under a flat oil production scenario, the Permian’s associated gas and NGL output will keep climbing into the 2030s. RBN’s mid-case scenario for the basin, which envisions a gradual rise in crude oil production into the 2030s and sees dry gas output increasing to 28 Bcf/d in 2030 and NGL output climbing to 4.8 MMb/d. The same analysis predicts that by 2035, Permian dry gas production will rise to 32 Bcf/d and NGL output will top 5.5 MMb/d, or about 50% of the U.S. total for NGLs.

We have blogged extensively about the new and expanded natural gas pipelines out of the Permian (mostly toward the Gulf Coast but also to the Desert Southwest and maybe the Midcon). But it’s been a while since we did a roundup on planned additions to the interconnected set of “wellhead-to-water” assets that process, transport, fractionate, store and export NGLs. There’s a lot going on, so to keep things simple, we’ll tackle this company by company, starting with Targa Resources and Enterprise Products Partners.

Targa Resources is one of a select few midstream companies with a complete range of NGL-related assets, everything from gas gathering pipelines and processing plants in the Permian to NGL takeaway pipelines, fractionators and NGL storage at Mont Belvieu and NGL export facilities. Targa has 8.7 Bcf/d of gas processing capacity in the Permian, split about evenly between the Midland Basin (4.4 Bcf/d) and the Delaware Basin (4.3 Bcf/d). (Eighteen of its 21 Midland plants are actually owned by a Targa/ExxonMobil joint venture in which Targa holds a 72.8% stake.)

During its Q1 2026 earnings call on May 7, Targa said that it recently started operation of its two newest processing plants: the 275-MMcf/d Falcon II facility in the Delaware (in February) and the 275-MMcf/d East Pembrook plant in the Midland (in late March). Four additional plants, each with a capacity of 275 MMcf/d, are scheduled to come online by the end of 2027, including the East Driver plant in the Midland in Q3 2026 and — all in the Delaware — Copperhead (Q1 2027), Yeti (Q3 2027) and Yeti II (Q4 2027). The midstreamer also announced two more Delaware processing plants during its recent call. The 265-MMcf/d Roadrunner II facility and the 275-MMcf/d Copperhead II plant will both start operating in Q1 2028.

Figure 1. Targa Resources’ Permian Gas Processing Plants and NGL Pipelines. Source: Novi Labs