Locator: 50955B.
Spurs: what just happened?
The head coach of the San Antonio Spurs is currently vacant, following the dismissal of Mitch Johnson on June 10, 2026. That's yesterday. That's less than 24 hours ago.
Johnson had just concluded his first full season as head coach—after taking over for legendary Hall of Famer Gregg Popovich—but was relieved of his duties following a Game 4 collapse in the NBA Finals.
Mitch Johnson: Stepped in as acting head coach when Popovich stepped away for health reasons in November 2024 and was officially named the 19th head coach in franchise history on May 2, 2025.
He led the team to an NBA Finals appearance in the 2025–2026 season before being dismissed on June 10, 2026.
Summer vacation: this is paradise -- four hours of uninterrupted reading while enjoying very inexpensive cuisine in an air-conditioned McDonald's in DFW area. The book? Malcolm Harris' history of Palo Alto, c. 2024.
The story of semiconductors by John Orton: I've just ordered my third copy. I lost my first copy; can't find my second copy; now ordering a third copy.
Not on my bucket list -- Angels Landing, Zion National Park, Utah: trail closed due to safety issue regarding "chains." What the hike looks like: link here. Wiki, link here.
Delfin Midstream, everything is bigger in Texas/Lousiana:
Delfin Midstream is called Delfin simply because delfin is the Spanish, Italian, and Filipino word for "dolphin." This marine mammal-inspired name is fitting for the company because it specializes in offshore and floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) technology, which operates in the ocean like a dolphin swims.
The company is currently developing the Delfin LNG project located 37 miles off the coast of Cameron Parish, Louisiana in the Gulf of America. The $5 billion project hit a major milestone by passing its Final Investment Decision, making it the first FLNG facility in the United States and the largest of its kind globally.
Delfin FLNG: also see RBN Energy below the asterisks below.
- in the news, because?
- first US FLNG export project; and,
- international heavyweights behind the project.
LNG export terminals:
- FLNG terminals are significantly less expensive to build;
- typical LNG export terminal: $15 billion;
- FLNG (Delfin, for example): $5 billion.
Texas heat! Summer is here.
SpaceX: 4x oversubscribed. "You can howl at the wind, but AI is here to stay." It will take 35+ years for SpaceX to grow into that value.
Nvidia's Feynman: strictly on schedule. To be released in 2028 -- that's two years from now.
Oracle: the other story.
WTI falls overnight. And yet everything points to oil "oil-armageddon by August. Something suggests "we're" not getting the real truth about oil demand.
- US shale (Permian)
- Venezuela
- Alberta
- China
WTI: analysts appear to be completely stymied. To say the least.
WTI - SPR: all those years of tracking the SPR seems now to have been a waste of time. It looks like we're emptying the SPR simply to keep the price of oil down. Seems short-sighted. Political, not strategic.
Iran: response from the IRGC will be telling. Right now, the response from Iran has been underwhelming.
Iran-US war: Trump says US is in total control of the strait. So, why does he need a piece of paper signed by some low-level Iranian bureaucrat. We're being told the Supreme Leader is too incapacitated to sign anything.
Iran-US war: no one really knows.
Samsung: US headquarters to relocate from New Jersey to Texas. I still think this is one of the biggest stories ever for New Jersey / Texas tech. Link here. Think of the income the state of New Jersey stands to lose. Plus everything else.
Philanthropy: T Denny Sanford vs Warren Buffett. Spend some time with Google Gemini asking some tough questions regarding the philanthropy "methods" of these two men.
Trump's gold phone? An HTC dupe, manufactured in Taiwan.
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Back to the Bakken
WTI: $89.51.
New wells reporting:
- Friday, June 12, 2026: 13 for the month, 169 for the quarter, 326 for the year,
- 41411, conf, Enerplus, Zebra 148-94-03A-10H-LL,
- Thursday, June 11, 2026: 12 for the month, 168 for the quarter, 325 for the year,
- 42168, conf, Formentera Operations, Maverick-22-10-BND N611H,
- 36279, conf, Enerplus, Aardwolf 148-94-03A-10H,
RBN Energy: Delfin floating LNG joins the growing list of Gulf Coast projects reaching FID. Link here. Archived.
Three new U.S. LNG projects have reached a positive final investment decision (FID) this year: Venture Global’s CP2 Phase 2, Caturus’s Commonwealth LNG and now, most recently, Delfin Midstream’s Delfin LNG, which will be the U.S.’s first floating LNG (FLNG) project.
These three FIDs are the tail end of the incredible wave of development that began in 2025, when six projects got the green light. Together, the 2025 and 2026 FIDs will add nearly 17 Bcf/d of LNG export capacity to the U.S. Gulf Coast, pushing the total to around 33 Bcf/d.
In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look at this tsunami of development, focusing on Delfin LNG.
In Part 1, we looked at the latest round of sanctioned U.S. LNG project development, which began in April 2025 with a surprising FID on Woodside’s Louisiana LNG. At the time, the project had almost no commercial sales backing it, a divergence from how U.S. projects are typically developed. Following that, there were a number of more traditional FIDs from Cheniere Energy, Venture Global, Sempra and NextDecade. In May of this year, Caturus took FID on Commonwealth LNG, which will be the U.S.’s 14th LNG export terminal. The project will have six liquefaction trains for a total capacity of 9.5 million tons per annum (MMtpa; 1.3 Bcf/d), about 85% of which is secured by long-term offtake agreements.
Today, we turn our attention to Delfin LNG, which was given its official green light on June 3. Delfin LNG will be located about 40 nautical miles off the coast of Cameron Parish, LA, in the U.S. Gulf.
Delfin LNG will include up to three independent FLNG vessels, each of which would be 4.4 MMtpa (0.6 Bcf/d). Only the first vessel, FLNG 1, has taken FID; development of the other two vessels is unlikely to move forward in the near term. The project is backed by long-term offtake agreements with Vitol, Expand Energy (formerly Chesapeake and Southwestern), Centrica and Gunvor Group (see Figure 1 below). The largest offtaker is Vitol, which is also an equity investor in the project. The project previously had an offtake agreement with Hartree Partners, but that was canceled in April, prior to the FID. In total, nearly 90% of FLNG 1’s capacity is secured in binding offtake agreements. In addition to Vitol, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP, part of BlackRock), Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and Diameter Capital Partners have also invested in the project.
Figure 1. Delfin LNG Offtakers. Source: LNG Voyager
