The MRO Semerad Pad In Bailey Oil Field -- The Bakken Halo Effect — Posted December 17, 2025

Locator: 49726MRO. 

The Bailey oil field is probably the Bakken oil field best known for the “halo” effect.

The wells:

• 16868, IA/294, MRO Knudsvig 24-7H, Bailey oil field, Dunn County; t3/08; cum 215K 6/25; 

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	10-2025	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	9-2025	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	8-2025	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2025	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2025	25	462	485	157	466	220	129
BAKKEN	5-2025	9	122	287	45	117	34	43
BAKKEN	4-2025	8	150	132	68	136	41	56
BAKKEN	3-2025	15	233	224	209	220	57	89

• 41521, 3,899, MRO, Semerad 11-18H, Bailey oil field, Dunn County; 
• 41520, A/conf, MRO, Clawson 11-18H, Bailey oil field, Dunn County; t--; cum --:  npd;
• 41519, A/drl, MRO, Partridge 41-13H, Bailey oil field, Dunn County; t10/15; cum --: 

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	10-2025	1	1487	1467	3796	112	105	3

• 41518, A/AL, MRO, Patton 44-12H, Bailey oil field, Dunn County; t10/15; cum 21K over nine days extrapolates to 71K over 30 days;

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	10-2025	9	21176	20893	20662	1598	1491	43

Well of interest: 

• 19775, 2,645, BR, Patton 31-1H, Bailey oil field, t7/11; cum 449K 10/25; 

Pool	Date	Days	BBLS Oil	Runs	BBLS Water	MCF Prod	MCF Sold	Vent/Flare
BAKKEN	10-2025	29	4222	4313	3693	2306	1956	238
BAKKEN	9-2025	13	3589	2932	2727	2090	1500	540
BAKKEN	8-2025	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	7-2025	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAKKEN	6-2025	9	400	675	424	331	271	27
BAKKEN	5-2025	27	1553	1361	1894	1395	1175	112
BAKKEN	4-2025	27	1647	1753	1136	1315	1088	118
BAKKEN	3-2025	26	1651	2010	1132	1453	1211	137
BAKKEN	2-2025	22	1202	1137	800	739	570	88

The maps:

 

Eight New Permits, Five Permits Renewed, Two Permits Canceled; Six DUCs Reported As Completed -- December 17, 2025

Locator: 49725B. 

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $56.93.

Active rigs: 32 (recent high).

Eight new permits, #42568 - #42575, inclusive:

• 42568, conf, Spotted Hawk, Bacchus 21-1H, Van Hook, NENW 18-150-91, 388 FNL 1501 FWL;
• 42569, conf, Spotted Hawk, Bacchus 21-18H, Van Hook, NENW 18-150-91, 408 FNL 1479 FWL;
• 42570, conf, Spotted Hawk, Demeter 21-18H, Van Hook, NENW 18-150-91, 427 FNL 1456 FWL; 
• 42571, conf, Spotted Hawk, Epsilon 21-18H, Van Hook, NENW 18-150-91, 447 FNL 1434 FWL;
• 42572, conf, Spotted Hawk, Gamma 21-1H, Van Hook, NENW 18-150-91, 487 FNL 1389 FWL;
• 42573, conf, Spotted Hawk, Omega 21-1H, Van Hook, NENW 18-150-91, 526 FNL 1344 FWL;
• 42574, loc, Phoenix Operating, Ride The Lightning Fed 18-19-30-31 1HF, Moline, lot 1, section 18-149-102, 401 FNL 1237 FWL;
• 42575, loc, Phoenix Operating, Ride The Lightning Fed 18-19-30-31 2HF, Moline, lot 1, section 18-149-102, 401 FNL 1267 FWL;
• 42576, loc, Phoenix Operating, Ride The Lightning 18-19-30-31 3HF, Moline, lot 1, section 18-149-102, 401 FNL 1297 FWL;
• 42577, loc, Phoenix Operating, Ride The Lightning 18-19-30-31 4HF, Moline, lot 1, section 18-149-102, 401 FNL 1337 FWL;
• 42578, loc, Phoenix Operating, Ride The Lightning 18-19-30-31 5HF, Moline, lot 1, section 18-149-102, 401 FNL 1357 FWL.

Five permits renewed:

• Devon Energy, four Pyramid permits and one Hawkeye permit, all NWNW 15-154-101, Todd oil field, Williams County;

Two permits canceled:

• 35911, PNC, Ballard Petroleum, Borstad 30-5, Bottineau County:
• 41184, PNC, KODA Resources, Stout 0622-2BH, Divide County;

Six producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 28514, 1,937, CLR, 1,937, Berlain 5-30H, McKenzie County;
• 38671, 872, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-3A-33 1H, McKenzie County;
• 41348, 853, CLR, Carlton 2-7H, Williams County;
• 41426, 1,306, EOG, Mandaree 149-2008H, McKenzie County;
• 41519, 1,297, MRO, Partridge 41-13H, Dunn County;
• 41521, 3,899, MRO, Semerad 11-18H, Dunn County; see this post. 

Bud -- It's Not Back To Normal And Probably Never Will Be -- December 17, 2025

Locator: 49724BEER.

On another note, in the old days (two years ago), even if I wanted to research this question, it would have taken me hours (days?) and I doubt I would have gotten a definitive answer. Today, the query took ... what .... 30 seconds?

AI prompt: 

Following the Bud Lite scandal in 2023 with regard to an influencer, is everything "back to normal" for Bud Lite? 

Reply:

Wow, what a debacle! 

My favorite beer: "Half-Life," one of a dozen or more different brews by the Dallas-based Manhattan Project, and by far, the most economical beer choice in our local area.

Energy Needs, AI, Humans, Dolphins -- December 17, 2025

Locator: 49723ARCHIVES.

Energy: this came up in discussion with ChatGPT with regard to energy usage, a topic that started with AI. It was a very, very long discussion with ChatGPT with regard to the correlation (direct?) of energy demand by the human brain and that of AI. As tokenization and parameters increase, AI energy needs will only increase, all things being equal. 

That discussion with ChatGPT was carried on some weeks ago and I completely forgot about it until I heard some comments Jim Cramer made yesterday with regard to energy demands of large AI centers (which have much in common with the human brain). Cramer made a statement that I thought was glaringly wrong and his co-anchor thought the same thing. Fact-checking proved Cramer was indeed wrong. In the screen shots below, note the words "significant" and "overwhelmingly." So, although mitigating energy demand driven by cabling will help, that's not, as Willie Sutton would say, where the money is.

Amount of energy the human brain needs as a percentage of total human energy:

Amount of energy the dolphin brain needs as a percentage of total dolphin energy:

Stretching prior to starting jiu-jitsu practice: 

Link here.

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Book Page

It's absolutely surprising how interesting and enjoyable it is to read Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. About half-way through, maybe ten to twenty pages / day. Should finish within the next couple of weeks. 

Trump's Son-In-Law Drops Out -- Won't Support Paramount's Bid -- December 17, 2025

Locator: 49722INVESTING.

WBD: in general, this is one of several stories that interest me not at all. Until now. Without question, most interesting investing story this morning. Nancy Pelosi must be fuming. Just when she had it figured out.

This is a huge development that came out today that was not previously known by many:

AI prompt:

Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD): with a Netflix "win," WBD will be able to spin off assets if it wants. WIth a Paramount "win," WBD is not allowed to spin off any assets before the deal is closed. It that correct?

The reply:

This is an incredible development. 

Reminder: Trump's son-in-law has dropped out; no longer supporting Paramount. The bigger question: now that Trump's son-in-law has dropped out, will the "Saudis" also drop out of their support of Paramount. Right now, the buzz is that Ellison doesn't have the needed cash even at this point, and if he has to come back with a bigger bid, it's all over. 

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Other News

AMZN: partners with Sam Altman. Or vice versa. Links everywhere. One link here. 

Tale of the tape:

• Robinhood (HOOD): up 224% this year.
• Sweetgreen (SG): down 81% this year.
• focus groups persistently, consistently, predictably say they want better / healthier food options, but they go with pizza delivery over take-out salad. 

Families: Trump's, Biden's, Reiner's. Lots of discussion in social media overnight. 

Sports: Spurs. Link to TWSJ. Glowing analysis, but in the end, the Knicks defeat the Spurs for "The Cup" championship.

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Inflation Watch

This is a most unscientific, useless piece of data but it's what I'm seeing in my neighborhood. Price of eggs is generally tracked at Walmart. Romaine lettuce is back to normal.

Percent changes (in bold red) are compared to the base year, 2014, not year-over-year. Most alarming, without question, is the cost of mailing/shipping. The high cost of USPS is offset by a) almost no letter mail any more -- has long been replaced by e-mail; and, b) almost no shipping, replaced almost entirely by Amazon Prime, free shipping.

Rent: in addition, most important to us, I suppose, is our rent. We generally sign for longest lease available if we have no plans to move.

As long as I can remember, we have signed 18-month leases.

We just signed our new 18-month lease, begins next March, 2026. Signing three months is advance gets us a nice monthly discount and a little bit of a one-time incentive at the start of the lease for signing early. Whoo-hoo.

Our lease for the next 18 months did not go up / did not increase. Okay, it did, a little -- $18 / month. The price of two $9-lattes at Starbucks.  

Beef: what are y'all paying for beef in your neck of the woods. Screenshots of our grocers' circulars from yesterday: 

If I can't grill, perhaps this is the second best option. This is an incredible deal, available at Walmart. I don't know what it costs, but it amounts to about what I would pay for the beef alone (at non-discounted prices). Slow-cooking. I will add significantly more carrots, celery, green beans, as well as additional spices. I would add more potatoes but the slow cooker can only hold so much, LOL.