WTI Slips Below $80; Monty Roberts Has Died — Horse Listener And Trainer — Age 91 — Sunday, August 2, 2026

Locator: 51309ARCHIVES.
Pageviews: 73,152,151. 2:15 a.m. CT, August 3, 2026.

Horse-whisperer: most famous was Monty Roberts, alongside notable figures like Buck Brannaman. Buck: quiet, vaquero-style ranch refinement. Monty: structured, global showmanship. Buck is 64 years old, still active. Film made on Buck's life. Monty, died over the weekend at age of 100. 

Futures:

• CVX: down about $3.00
• AAPL: down about $1.00

Market:  

MMF, my favorite chart. Down slightly last week.  

WTI: $79.34. 

TTE: acquires Shell's European onshore renewables portfolio.

Autos: US gas guzzlers do well in Europe; European EV rivals are downbeat.

Hormuz Strait: very clear that Iran has not opened the strait. US and allies got snookered.

Zuckerbueg's (Priscilla Chan's) Primary School has closed. Ten-year, $125-million, East Palo Alto, CA, private, tuition-free school aimed to support the "whole child" through wraparound services, free dental checkps, early intervention screenings and wellness coaching for parents, has closed. Link here. 

We live in a new world of "counterhistory." Link to WSJ. Opinion.

 

Sunday Evening -- August 2, 2026

Locator: 51307B.

WTI: $80.63.

Wells coming off confidential list:

• Tuesday, August 4, 2026: 8 for the month, 49 for the quarter, 402 for the year, 
• 42108, conf, Formentera Operations, Bull Mountain-31-18-DIV S617HF,
• 42020, conf, Murfin Drilling, LC Rambousek 1-10H,
• 41435, conf, Whiting, Jefferson Federal 5003 42-14 5B,
• Monday, August 3, 2026: 5 for the month, 46 for the quarter, 399 for the year, 
• 42107, conf, Formentera Operations, Bull Mountain-31-18-DIV S515HF,
• Sunday, August 2, 2026: 4 for the month, 45 for the quarter, 398 for the year, 
• 42106, conf, Formentera Operations, Bull Mountain-31-18-DIV S513HF,
• 41698, conf, Hess, SC-Bingeman-154-98-0904H-8, 
• 41440, conf, Whiting, Jefferson Federal 5003 42-14 10BX,
• Saturday, August 1, 2026: 1 for the month, 42 for the quarter, 395 for the year,
• 42105, conf, Formentera Operations, Bull Mountain-31-18-DIV S611HF, 

RBN Energy: a drill down report on Louisiana's crude oil pipelines and refineries. Link here. Archived.

Louisiana’s refineries process vast amounts of domestic crude oil — much of it from the offshore U.S. Gulf — along with barrels imported from Canada, Venezuela and other countries. The refineries also play a critically important role in supplying gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to the Southeastern U.S. and the Mid-Atlantic states, as well as lubricants and other specialty products nationwide. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from our new Drill Down Report on the 14 refineries in Louisiana (and two more just across the state line in Southern Arkansas), the pipelines that deliver crude oil to them, and crude oil balances in the Bayou State’s three refining regions.

When it comes to crude oil and refining, Texas gets most of the attention, and for good reason. It’s #1 in oil production, refining capacity, and exports of both crude and refined products. But don’t forget about Louisiana. While it’s not a Texas-sized oil producer, ranking only #10 if you count onshore and near-shore production (and #3 if you add production from the federally controlled deepwater Gulf), Louisiana’s #2 in refining, crude oil exports and refined products exports. The state is also home to some of the world’s largest and most technologically complex refineries, with the ability to break down vast amounts of heavy and medium oils into highly valuable gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

And, as we said in the introduction, refined product end users from Mississippi to Florida to New York City get a substantial share of their gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from refiners in Louisiana, many of which are tied into either the 2.5-MMb/d Colonial Pipeline, which runs to Northern New Jersey, or the 660-Mb/d Products (SE) Pipeline — formerly known as the Plantation Pipeline — which runs to Northern Virginia.

Given Louisiana’s outsized role, it’s important to understand where the state’s refineries — and a couple of smaller refineries in Southern Arkansas — source their crude oil, how that crude is delivered to the refineries, and how capital investments in oil pipelines and the refineries themselves have been impacting crude oil flows into, across and out of the state. That’s the aim of RBN’s newly released Drill Down Report, which discusses in some detail the pipelines that transport crude oil to Louisiana refineries from the offshore Gulf; from Houston and Nederland, TX; and from the hub in Longview, TX, the last of which feeds oil to refineries in Northwestern Louisiana and Southern Arkansas.

The report also groups the 16 refineries in our study area into three refining regions — see the three black ovals and pink-, blue- and green-shaded tables in Figure 1 below — explains how oil reaches them, and provides detailed crude oil balances for each.

Anticipation -- It Will Be A Manic Monday -- August 2, 2026

Locator: 51306MARKET.

Market futures right now:

But: Apple continues to report / receive bad news with headlines like this -- "MacBook Air laptops will be delayed until September due to memory shortages." Not good.

But: WTI down as much as $5 / barrel, trading at $80 / barrel. Watch stocks in CVX / XOM / Big Oil drop significantly at the market open. We should see the price of gasoline plummet on Monday. LOL.

Personal Electricity Usage -- One Bedroom Apartment -- North Texas -- July, 2026

Locator: 51305ELECTRICITY.

Our only energy source: electricity; no natural gas.  One bedroom / one den apartment, north Texas, one month. No attempt to conserve energy except we do watch our heat and a/c closely. This is our total utility (electricity) bill. 

Hottest summer since we've lived here. We moved to the DFW area in 2013 or thereabouts. Need to confirm. 

The company says our average price paid for electricity this month was 18.80 cents / kWh.  

This summer has been very, very hot compared to previous months. I don't know what our "average" is over the past year, but I expect to pay less than $100 / month, so to some extent I was surprised when I opened this statement but it made sense. A very, very hot summer. We were home the full month; no strict usage "rules."

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Flashback

PGA -- Rocket Classic -- Put A Fork In It -- August 2, 2026

Locator: 51304PGA.
Pageviews: 72,825,439. 3:30 p.m. CT, August 2, 2026. 

Query: why is Rocket no longer sponsoring a golf tournament after this year?

Reply:

1. Schedule changes: LOL -- if Rocket can't handle schedule changes ...

2. No one wants to go to Detroit.

3. Too expensive for their return.

4. Met their goal. Set the bar too low?