A couple of news nuggets are piquing our interest this Wednesday that beg for further exploration and commentary, so we’ll get right to it.

In our latest episode of “Honk if You Want to Sell Your Permian Assets,” Reese Energy Consulting today is following news from Texas-based Diamondback Energy, which announced in March that it had doubled its non-core asset sales target in the Permian from $500 million last November to $1 billion. The target increase followed two Midland acquisitions in 2022 for a combined 83,000 net acres in a deal valued at $3.1 billion, and a Delaware sale of 3,250 net acres for $155 million. We now learn there’s more of that Delaware goodness up for grabs around Pecos County with a sticker price of $1 billion. An anonymous Diamondback source was rumored to say, “Ya’ll come.”

Further downstream, Kevin O’Leary, venture capitalist and reality TV host of Shark Tank, is hell bent for leather to build an oil refinery at a cost of $14 billion. If he can find a state willing to play ball. The surprise announcement comes on the heels of the OPEC+ supply cut and O’Leary’s general malaise over U.S. energy independence and rising gas prices. His eponymous investment firm, O’Leary Ventures, already has ties to N.D., where it manages the $45 million Wonder Fund to attract new business.