Chevron Executive (Parody) @ChevExec

In early 2010s, oil prices were high and rising. Excitement around shale oil was high and prospects for refining seemed poor. Investors and bankers pressured integrated oil companies to divest their refinery units bc they were capital-intensive, cyclical, lower-return assets. Marathon (2011) and Conoco (2012) did so, spinning out their refinery units into newly publicly traded companies. Here's total shareholder return since the spin outs: Marathon Oil (producer): +40% Marathon Petroleum (refiner): +3,210% ConocoPhillips (producer): +286% Phillips 66 (refiner): +1,272% Interestingly Conoco bought Marathon Oil in 2024. One conclusion might be that the separation worked, as refining no longer competed with upstream for capital and management was wholly focused on the sector. Another conclusion may be that when investors are clamoring for a company to spin off a chronically underperforming division, if often signals the bottom and that division is the better investment going forward.

California vs Texas

John Arnold @johnarnold

5 hours ago

California vs Texas

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Technical moats are mostly over at this point. If you’re building something that is meant to be durable, the only moats now are: • Proprietary data • Network effects • A physical component

After six years in stealth, Atomic Machines is out. Our mission: on-demand, universal command of matter. First beachhead: the Matter Compiler, an AI-native manufacturing system that builds working micro-machines from code alone. No per-product tooling. No process development. Different code, different machine.

It’s now more expensive to hire a tanker from the US to China than to launch a rocket into space, per Bloomberg

My sources are telling me Talarico is in a mental health facility. His campaign has stopped actively planning events in the vital homestretch of the campaign. If this is true, this is actually a time to pray for Talarico. We should, of course, savagely mock his smug, awful campaign advisors, by all means...and while yes, of course, this would be disqualifying for Talarico's aspirations to be a Texas Senator, we must hold empathy for anyone undergoing crisis. Campaigns are brutal, and not everybody is cut out for it. You need very thick skin. As much as I don't want Talarico anywhere near government, I also don't want wish him harm, and no political office is worth having a breakdown. His awful advisors are at fault for this. They pushed him to be something he isn't, and it didn't work. I'm praying that this isn't true, and he's OK. You want to win these fights on the battlefield of ideas, not the minefield of poor health.

Spencer Pratt @spencerpratt

3 days ago

This isn’t a case of the “flu” with Talarico…this is a case of “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest”.

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@JTimHiggy @Aubrey___K @PermianPost @PermianLandman x.com/plm_pimp/statu…

Land, man @PLM_Pimp

4 days ago

Is this the regular Chevron school bus from Houston?

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Has anyone else drilled a well with maps made from your vibe coded geology software?

A very relevant post to read as KKR backed $CRGY adds to the fee stream

Sam Gerstenzang @gerstenzang

5 days ago

Henry Hillman of Pittsburgh was the anchor investor for the first funds of KPCB, KKR, NEA, TA Associates, and more. He co-invested alongside KCPB and was the largest shareholder in Genetech. A lot of great stories in this interview with his associate, including how Henry

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The reason $CRGY does deals is because per the the Dec 2021 arrangement, KKR’s fees grow with equity use So $53.3mm base fee stream + 1.5% MORE on issued equity Why would you buy this vs any other normal C-corp? Outside of the burden the shareholder alignment is just not there

Alright I'm done dude. Today changed the entire AI game again. Throwing my Mac mini in the trash. Deleting all my subs and just maxing out Grok Bot. You don't need anything else anymore. I made this video by opening Grok Bot, and spending about 15 seconds writing the following prompt: "Make me an explainer video on the natural gas supply chain for residential service, from where gas is generated to the delivery line into your home. Talk about how pressure is stepped down at each stop along the way, how lines are run, etc" Grok Bot is just a magic box that you write a little bit of English into and get out gold. I'm done with everything else. I don't care anymore. My goal with these videos is to help people understand that the simplest things they take for granted are actually very complex, and you should be amazed by everything basically.

The way to bring down $Oil prices is to let them run rather than suppress them.

🚨NEW EXPERIMENT 🚨 Playground is an experimental gaming platform that lets you create your own games with zero coding experience. If you can think it, you can play it. Go to labs.google/playground to learn more! Available to users 18+ in the US.

Marco Rubio: “We preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average.”

Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47

5 days ago

.@SecRubio: "Too often, these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure that no one will lose. We preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average."

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$SHEL divested all heavy oil expertise; Canada 2017 (Alberta mines and steamflood sold to CNRL ... after telegraphing intent to sell and accepting 2/3 value), California 2022 (50% of Aera JV sold to IKAV) They can call it 'strategy', but it's a lack of capability also

Francisco J. Monaldi @fmonaldi

6 days ago

Shell CEO sees competitive advantage in Venezuela gas versus heavy oil - reuters.com/business/energ…

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Venezuela's Cardón Oil Refinery, the country's second-largest, exploded and caught fire today. The facility has reportedly halted operations, per Reuters. @Osinttechnical

Iran has a new oil minister. Considering Iran has not loaded a single barrel of crude onto a vessel since August 25th, what is the oil minister managing?

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth on LNG: “It’s not as clean as renewables, and it's not as affordable as coal.”

In 2012, Delta purchased a recently shuttered refinery in Pennsylvania for $150 mil, plus another $100 mil in planned capex to restart it. The investment got off to a rough start but lately has been a windfall. There is a lot of debate about whether/how airlines should hedge their jet fuel exposure. Airlines can add fuel surcharges when prices spikes and pass the added costs to customers. Higher fuel costs are correlated with a stronger economy and higher demand for air travel, providing a natural hedge. And if other airlines choose not to hedge but collectively help set ticket prices, your hedges may not be reducing risk. In addition, corporate finance experts are highly skeptical of upstream vertical integration, particularly of commodity inputs. It adds unnecessary complexity and is often a poor allocation of capital. Companies typically vertically integrate at the moment of maximum frustration with the supply chain, when asset prices are at their peak, and then divest when markets are loose and asset values are low. Originally, the purchase was a mess. Superstorm Sandy disrupted the restart. Refinery margins fell. Prices for renewable credits soared. In these situations, a successor CEO will often unwind the integration. Indeed, the 5 years after the then-CEO left in 2016 were terrible for refineries. Luckily for Delta, they didn't dump it at the bottom. The successor and still CEO had been involved in the decision to buy it and has stuck with the strategy. And since 2022, it's printed money. Refinery margins spiked in 2022-23, generating >$1.1 billion in operating income. In 2Q of 2026 alone, it made $351 million. And 3Q results, when released, will be even better. This case study alone doesn't validate upstream integration. There are still many reasons to be highly skeptical. It is a lesson that if you choose to do so, you have to have long-term commitment to the strategy. Too often, these decisions are made based on the most recent years of performance.

Lot of questions on why WTI isn’t higher. WHAT IF the risk premium for WTI is inverted? Oil prices are threatening the solvency of developed countries through bond yields. Thus: no higher priority than suppressing oil price by everyone. Inverted risk premia of - [$10]/bbl?