The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Thursday, October 23, 2025

The Big Story Today: WTI -- October 23, 2025

Locator: 49484WTI.

Sanctions: my hunch -- last one to speak to President Trump on this was .... Doug Burgum.

Tickers:

XOM: up 0.9%
PSX: up 2%
COP: up 3%
CVX: up 0.6%
VNOM: up 1%
ENB: down 0.2%
EPD: down 0.2%
WMB: down 3%
OKE: up 0.1%
LNG: down 0.7%

The Day The Music Died -- Rivian Cuts 4% Of It Workforce -- October 23, 2025

Locator: 49483EVS.

Link here.

A month ago, the company did a smaller round of layoffs, affecting 1.5% of its workforce. It said the move was to reduce costs ahead of the launch of a more affordable sport-utility vehicle next year.

Rivian and other EV manufacturers are being hit hard by the pullback in policies that supported the adoption of electric vehicles. The end of a $7,500 federal tax credit for consumers buying EVs is expected to tank sales.

The policy changes have derailed the sales of compliance credits that have been an important source of profitability for Rivian and others. Rivian has said that the changes could result in an estimated $100 million in revenue being held up.

Rivian’s vehicle sales grew 32% to 13,201 vehicles in the third quarter, but the company narrowed its delivery guidance for the full year to 41,500 to 43,500 vehicles after previously forecasting as many as 46,000 deliveries. Rivian reports its full quarterly earnings on November 4, 2025.

Producers Ramp Up Simultaneous Fracking, Triple Fracking to Increase Efficiency -- RBN Energy -- October 23, 2025

Locator: 49482FRACKING.

Tag: fracking

Early access at the link.

Operators in the Bakken have been doing this for years:

Simultaneous fracturing, often dubbed in the industry as SimulFrac, means fracturing two wells at the same time using the same pumps and crews. Each stage is treated in tandem, which cuts the time required at each site and maximizes equipment use.2 days ago.

Link here.

E&Ps and oilfield service companies are constantly chasing the latest techniques to extract oil and gas faster and easier. Hydraulic fracturing was, of course, a game-changer, but now producers are using simultaneous fracking and even triple fracking, relatively newer approaches that use more resources but boost efficiency. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll break down these strategies, explore when they make sense for operators, and highlight the biggest challenges.

In Part 1 of this blog series, we discussed how the Shale Era was made possible by unprecedented advancements in drilling-and-completion technology, especially in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The combination of the two, along with other basin-specific techniques, has significantly increased the efficiency of oil and gas recovery, as evidenced by the higher initial production (IP) rates within the first 60 days, as shown in Figure 1 below for the Permian Basin. We also detailed how the industry has increasingly utilized much longer laterals and how the choice of well tubing — coiled or stick pipe — plays an important role.