Seven New Permits, Four Permits Renewed -- August 20, 2026

Locator: 51511B. 

WTI: $86.37.

Active rigs: 34. New recent high. 

Seven new permits, #43232 - #43238, inclusive --

• Operators: Phoenix Operating (4); Murex (3)
• Fields: Charlie Bob, McKenzie County; Beaver Lodge, Williams County;
• Comments: 
• Phoenix Operating has permits for four Brenda wells, NENE 32-146-98, 
• to be sited 355 / 445 FNL and 999 FEL; 
• Murex has permits for three MD wells (MD-Rae Lynn, MD-Sadie Skye, and MD-Sarah Christine), SESW 8-156-95, 
• to be sited 565 FSL and 2419 / 2458 FEL.

Four permits renewed:

• Enerplus (3): Cadence, Tempo, Octave, McGregory Buttes, Dunn County;
• Whiting: Link 5001, Foreman Butte, McKenzie County.

Copper -- SCCO -- August 20, 2026

Locator: 51511COPPER. 

Copper: this was posted yesterday over at Oilprice:

Didn't seem to affect SCCO too much: 

Meanwhile, BRKB is down again today, albeit not much.

*********************************
Disclaimer

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.

Longer version here.

Harold Hamm Expands CLR's Footprint In The Permian -- August 20, 2026

Locator: 51510CLR.   

Query: Based on price per acre and price per flowing bbl of oil in the Permian, I'm calculating maybe $1 billion at the lower end for this deal, maybe as high as $1.5 billion. 

Chatbot: 

*************************************
The Article 

Link here. 

From the link:

Continental Resources is getting substantially bigger in the Permian Basin.

The privately held oil producer has agreed to acquire FireBird Energy II, adding roughly 54,000 net acres in the Midland Basin along with 32,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) of production, Continental said Thursday.

About 69% of that is oil.

The FireBird assets include approximately 147,000 net resource acres across more than six stacked-pay reservoirs and 307 gross operated development locations. Continental will operate about 95% of the acquired acreage.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. [At $20,000 / net acre and/or $30,000 / flowing bbl of oil brings us to about $1 billion.] [Prior to going private in 2022, CLR had a market cap of about $27 billion.] [This suggests to me Hamm is getting plenty of bullish-on-oil from all his visits to Mar-A-Lago.] 

The acquisition caps an aggressive expansion in a basin that was once secondary to Continental’s better-known Bakken position. Including FireBird, Continental says it has increased its Permian acreage by more than 40% over the past 14 months.

*********************************
Disclaimer

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.

Longer version here.

A Graphic Worth A Thousand Words --- August 20, 2026

Locator: 51509TECH.   

Family Photo -- Bragging Page -- Not Intended For General Readership -- For Extended Family Members Only -- August 20, 2026

Locator: 51508FAMILY.   

Director's Cut, August with April, 2026, data: link here. 

Meanwhile, elsewhile: 

Granddaughter, USAF ROTC, field training, in an elite group ... three weeks --- comes home today ...

Cramer's First Hour -- August 20, 2026

Locator: 51507CRAMER.   

Query: how did Samsung get the screen to bend on its foldable phones?

Cramer at one of the world's largest construction sites right now? Where? Micron. Idaho. 

Cramer mentions the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Micron: futures. Could drop $7 at the open. That's about 0.7% from yesterday's close. 

SCHG:

Apple (AAPL):

*********************************
Disclaimer

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.

Longer version here.

MPC: with a P/E of 13 and a dividend, MPC is now trending toward it's 52-week high: 

New Natural Gas Pipeline To Overwhelm The Permian Basin With Outbound Capacity -- RBN Energy __ Augus 20, 2026

Locator: 51506ARCHIVES.  

Wealth tax in California: Coinbase CEO considering all options. Very disappointed with asset seizures in California.  

Irony: Europeans have been on the forefront of the dangers / risks of climate change / global warming for decades, did nothing, and now the Europeans seem least prepared.  

Initial jobless claims: pretty much in line. White noise. Really, really good numbers. Economy doing really, really good. 

Trump: South Korea or Israel. Trump favoring Israel?  

WTI: CNBC now has WTI at $89.  CVX up 1.5%; up over $3; trading at $208.80, trending toward 52-week high, $214.71. 

Iran: another unresolved "Korean War"? 

DOW futures: down 402 points right now (90 minutes before open). Probably much to do with WMT and Trump / Bessent policies. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's decision to double long-term debt buybacks is an action of fiscal policy (managed by the Treasury Department), though critics note it actively interferes with and complicates the Federal Reserve's monetary policy goals. Why didn't Trump think of this when Jay Powell was in charge?

MPC: it appears MPC will gain back today all its losses from yesterday and then some.   

AVGO to gain back a bit today from what they lost yesterday.  

WMT misses. By a lot. Shares drop 6%.  

BRK-B and INTC: it looks like both will be down again today.  

NASA's latest mission fails. Link here. One wonders if NASA should have contracted with Elon Musk / SpaceX on this one, instead of giving it to ..... 

LDC: some argue the biggest headwind is adequate land to build these LDCs ... the Carlyle Group says, "not so fast." The federal government has a lot of federal land ... and a lot of it is very, very secure. 

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Back to the Bakken 

WTI: $87.12. CNBC reporting WTI has gone over $88.

New wells reporting:

• Friday, August 21, 2026: 42 for the month, 83 for the quarter, 427 for the year,
• 41991, conf, Hess, EN-Edwards-157-94-2203H-1, 
• 41358, conf, Whiting, Gullikson Federal 5203 42-31 5BX, 
• 41129, conf, Whiting, Gullikson 5203 42-31 4B, 
• Thursday, August 20, 2026: 39 for the month, 80 for the quarter, 424 for the year,
• 42209, conf, Murfin Drilling, CD Steffan 1-17H, 
• 42208, conf, Murfin Drilling, CD Steffan 1-18H, 
• 41357, conf, Whiting, Gullikson Federal 5203 42-31 3B
• 41158, conf, Whiting, Dobias 5203 44-32 2B, 

RBN Energy: new natural gas pipeline to overwhelm the Permian Basin with outbound capacity. Link here. Archived.

The Permian Basin is the nation’s second-largest natural gas-producing region, and over the past couple of years it has been dominated by one overarching story: pipeline takeaway constraints and periods of negative prices at the Waha Hub. That has changed recently, however, as more pipelines out of the region have entered service. Now, a consortium led by WhiteWater Midstream has reached a final investment decision (FID) on the Solitude Pipeline System, which will have the capacity to take an astonishing 4.5 Bcf/d of gas from the Permian by the early 2030s. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explain why Solitude has the potential to upend the Permian gas story, bringing us a market where takeaway capacity is so great that production cannot keep up and multiple lines out of the Permian run largely empty.

Before we look at the potential effects of Solitude, let’s look at what the project aims to do. Despite the lonely sounding name, Solitude (dashed orange line in Figure 1 below) will consist of two 48-inch pipelines, each capable of transporting 2.25 Bcf/d (for a total of 4.5 Bcf/d). Solitude is the name of a ski resort in Utah, which is probably the source of the name, as many WhiteWater-affiliated pipelines in Texas are named after mountains (Whistler, Blackcomb, Matterhorn, Eiger). Solitude will run from the Permian to Katy, just west of Houston. This is a familiar route for WhiteWater, which has been operating the Matterhorn Express pipeline (yellow line) since late 2024 and is building Eiger Express (dashed red line), which is planned to enter service in 2028. While the route is similar, Solitude has a different ownership group than other WhiteWater-led pipelines. WhiteWater will own 50% of Solitude, followed by Devon Energy (25%), MPLX (10%), Diamondback Energy (7.5%) and Western Midstream Partners (7.5%). The current plan is to have the first Solitude pipeline flowing gas in late 2029, with the second to follow in 2030.

  

WTI? Looking For $88 Today -- IPOs: September, 2026, For Anthropic -- Early 2027 For OpenAI --August 20, 2026

Locator: 51505ARCHIVES.  

Trump: I remain amazed at the vigor and vitality of President Trump. Amazing how quickly the media has forgotten the former president. 

Belfer Center (Harvard) raising threat of AI and the new age of bioweapons (think China, Covid). Now we have American governors and even the US politicos at the delaying the US AI sector. China doing a good job influencing Americans to stop / delay AI/LDC development. RFK, Jr., doing even a better job at stopping vaccine development that would be useful in biowarfare. 

My least favorite commercial: Tom Lehman on Yrefy. 

Speaking of Tom Lehman, who did not join the LIV, there were early stories on the changes of LIV this year and whether golfers like Bryson DeChambeau will return to the PGA and/or whether the PGA will welcome them back (not likely).  From chatbot: that is correct. Tom Lehman did not join LIV Golf. Instead, he has been vocal in criticizing LIV and strongly opposed allowing defectors an easy path back to the PGA Tour, stating that returning players should start over from the bottom. For what it's worth, I agree completely. 

Bessent's move on rates yesterday began with Yellen years ago. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is utilizing a debt-management strategy of heavy short-term T-bill issuance and long-term debt buybacks to suppress bond yields, mirroring a playbook previously used by former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. 

Despite previously criticizing this approach, Bessent has adopted these methods to curb long-term yields, placing pressure on the Federal Reserve. Read full story at CNBC. Steve Liesman trying to downplay Yellen's role in all of this. I was impressed that Gemini was able to find this story based on limited information from. Link here. According to CNBC, "debt-management strategy" was a phrase coined by Douglas H Keare and William L Silber (in 1965) (at the link). Bessent criticized Yellen's actions at the time. This is an AI-generated report and there may be confirmation required.

Samsung: up almost 10% after initiates huge cash return to shareholders. 

Device-free push? Anyone who thinks "device-free" push could have unintended consequences is at the far end of the "crazy" continuum. Link here. Texas middle schools in our area are taking "measured" and sensible approach. 

Major heat warnings today: we'll be up to 105°F later today. Link here for more on Fahrenheit temps and how we got here.

WTI: up $2.28; up 2.7%; trading at $86.67. Large integrated oil companies up today but not as much as expected based on what is being reported out of the Mideast; out of the White House; etc.  Will we see WTI at $90 by end of next week. Looking for $87 today. Is Oilprice behind or CNBC wrong -- CNBC showing WTI having crossed the $88 mark. CNBC now showing WTI at $88.40. Integrated oils will be up at least 1% today.

CNBC: early morning -- Becky Quick not on. Replacement looks like she got unexpected early morning call to fill in for Becky. 

DFW update:  

The Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Board approved construction projects on Terminals A, C, D, E and F and road work near the Rental Car Center during the Aug. 6 meeting. The projects are part of the DFW Forward capital plan.

The $66.8 million has a five-year term and is set to start in October.

AI: lots of talk around OpenAI and Anthropic right now on CNBC. Anthropic looking better than OpenAI right now. Anthropic really focused, but long term OpenAI might offer customers / clients more opportunities. Conversation switches to the issue of "safety." Expert suggests confusion on this subject. "Researchers are generally freaking out what they're seeing. They can't control these machines." 

Harry and Meagan moving back to England.  My hunch: Hollywood will say "good riddance." 

Breaking! First Blog To Report -- DEERE Soars -- The Shorts Will Be Covering Today -- Never Underestimate The American Farmer -- Whoo-Hoo! Could DE Move The Market Today? August 20, 2026

Locator: 51504DEERE. 

Note: chatbots really doing a good job in "breaking" news.  

Note: quarterly profit increase -- the first year-over-year rise in quarterly profit in nearly three years.

Current: 

 

 

 

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From Barron's Yesterday

Now, back to Deere. 

Link here.