Monday, October 5, 2026

Six New Permits; One Permit Renewed; Two Permits Canceled -- October 5, 2026

Locator: 51870B.

From AI today: GDP does not calculate "driving services" for cars you already own. Therefore, comparing new vehicle production (3% to 5%) to new housing construction (3% to 5%) provides a highly accurate, apples-to-apples comparison of America's two largest physical consumer goods manufacturing sectors. Of course, I assume that means somewhere between 90% and 90% of the GDP is represented by something other than new housing construction and new vehicle production.  

NASDAQ hit a new record today. The NASDAQ traded at 31,385.25.

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Back to the Bakken  

WTI: $89.43.

Active rigs: 35.

Six new permits, #43369 - #43374, inclusive --

  • Operator: Oasis
  • Field: Murphy Creek (Dunn County)
  • Comments:
    • Oasis has four Potter permits, and two Weasley permits; NESE 29-145-95, 
      • to be sited 1606 / 1798 FSL and 1033 / 1170 FEL.

One permit renewed:

  • 34097, Formentera Operations, Ranger 3328-3TFH, Divide County, Blooming Prairie oil field.

Two permits canceled:

  • 42621 - 42622, KODA Resources, two Ale permits, Divide County. 

Note: in the daily activity report -- there is a typographical error -- as printed:

I think #43374 should be:

  • 43374, loc, Oasis, Weasley 4595 33-29 3B, Murphy Creek.

Sunday, October 4, 2026

Tech Notes -- October 4, 2026

Locator: 51870TECH.

TSMC: reportedly exploring owning and operating a Texas fab for Elon Musk's Terafab with SpaceX anchoring the capacity through purchase commitments. 

  • that would put TSMC directly behind the manufacturing buildout needed to scale Musk's AI, robotics, and space ambitions -- source -- Shay Boloor.

Query: AVGO in the news over the weekend.

Reply: huge news over the weekend -- link here. Link: https://share.google/aimode/WZ4xlnEkjRMXRfWSQ. 


See disclaimer: this is not an investment site.

For Monday Morning -- Posted Sunday Evening, October 4, 2026

Locator: 51869B.

Breaking: US hastily withdraws all B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford, England, over terrorist threats. 

Anticipation: 

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Back to the Bakken 

WTI: $91.02.

New wells being reported:

  • Tuesday, October 6, 2026: 9 for the month, 9 for the quarter, 508 for the year, 
    • 42234, conf, Whiting, Cliffside 5103 41-7 6BX,
    • 41912, conf, Devon, Scha 33-34 XN 1H, 
  • Monday, October 5, 2026: 7 for the month, 7 for the quarter, 506 for the year, 
    • None 
  • Sunday, October 4, 2026: 7 for the month, 7 for the quarter, 506 for the year, 
    • 41536, conf, Devon, Cherrey (sic) 34-27 6H,
  • Saturday, October 3, 2026: 6 for the month, 6 for the quarter, 505 for the year, 
    • 42025, conf, Oasis, Milkweed 5302 14-36 2B, 
    • 41923, conf, Hess, GO-Lemire-157-97-3613H-3,  

RBN Energy: the infrastructure that keeps Permian NGLs flowing. Link here. Archived.

The Permian is the country’s largest NGL-producing region, a trend that figures to continue over the next several years. By 2035, the basin is forecast to account for 53% of U.S. NGL production, up from about 44% today. Handling that growth will require a complex network of pipelines, fractionators, and other infrastructure, plus a handful of players adding capacity to ease congestion and provide more routes to market. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at the future of NGL infrastructure in the Permian and where all that additional production will ultimately end up.

This is the fourth blog in our series on the outlook for major U.S. producing basins, starting with the largest: the Permian. In our first blog, we discussed the major Permian gas pipeline projects scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027, how much new capacity they will provide, and what the shift means for Waha prices, Gulf Coast balances and the U.S. natural gas market. In Part 2, we discussed the basin’s long-term gas pipeline projects and the challenges that could arise as that new infrastructure comes online. In our third piece, we discussed the Permian’s biggest natural gas producers and how they might respond to the new gas pipelines planned for the basin.

All of that sets the stage for today's blog on NGLs, but let’s add a little background. In the Permian, associated gas and NGLs have long been byproducts of crude oil production. So as oil output rises, the basin’s infrastructure needs to keep up with the gas and NGLs that come along for the ride. Significantly for our topic today, that means a lot of new gas processing plants need to be built, moved or expanded in the areas seeing high gas production growth. 

Gas processing plants separate NGLs from the gas stream. New additions to the fleet tend to be 275- or 300-MMcf/d cryogenic facilities that can extract a very high percentage of the liquids entrained in the gas stream. From the tailgate of the processing plant, pipelines take the NGLs as a mixed stream called “Y-grade” to fractionation centers where the mixed product is separated into “purity” form — ethane, propane, butanes and other NGL products — before heading to downstream markets, like petrochemical plants and export terminals (purity is a bit of a misnomer since some impurities still exist in the fracked NGLs). Today, we’ll begin by looking at processing and pipeline capacity and we’ll follow up with downstream fractionation and export facilities. 

From the Permian, recovered NGL production is currently about 3.6 MMb/d and is forecast to reach 4.8 MMb/d by 2030 and 5.4 MMb/d by 2035 (light-green bars in Figure 1 below). These recovered volumes account for the economics of ethane recovery, including ethane rejection, which is when ethane is left in the natural gas stream because recovery is uneconomic. They also reflect contractual agreements, such as minimum volume commitments (MVCs), that can incentivize recovery even when rejection would otherwise be economic. 

Saturday, October 3, 2026

Movie Jargon: Uncanny Valley -- October 3, 2026

Locator: 51868MOVIES.

Movie jargon: uncanny valley. I first came across this term in Suddenly Something Clicked, Walter Murch, 2025.

 

Petro-Hunt USA Wells In SESE 3-153-95 -- October 3, 2026

Locator: 51867B.

The Bakken never ceases to amaze me.  Some great Charlson Petro-Hunt wells, including one drilled in 2009 and trending toward 1 million oils of oil cumulative. 

The wells:

  • 17668, 1,163, Petro-Hunt, USA 3D-4-4H, Charlson, t9/09; cum 901K 8/26;
  • 34653, 651, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-3D-10-5H, Charlson, t6/21; cum 564K 8/26;
  • 34654,
  • 38667, drl/A, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-3A-33-5H, Charlson, t9/25; cum 412K 8/26;
PoolDateDaysBBLS OilRunsBBLS WaterMCF ProdMCF SoldVent/Flare
BAKKEN8-20263131499314638685000
BAKKEN7-2026293314933310894896596918764519
BAKKEN6-2026303741237343903488304869101185
BAKKEN5-2026304315843174790182486742758008
BAKKEN4-202630480334791195928677686101466
BAKKEN3-20263150596507631127287424872071
BAKKEN2-20262845693455701142578421782260
BAKKEN1-20263153610536771302692727925110
  • 38668,
  • 38669, 
  • 38670,
  • 38671, drl/A, Petro-Hunt, USA 153-95-3A-33-1H, Charlson, t10/25; cum 231K 8/26;

The maps: pending