Oil Near $100: The 100-Dollar Barrel Is Back

# Daily Barrel | July 24, 2026 ## The $100 Barrel. Do Not Put It in the Deck. Welcome to this edition of the **Daily Barrel** on **Wildcatters Intelligence**, delivering the latest **oil and gas news** for today. The Daily Barrel | July 24, 2026 Silicon Valley spent Thursday discovering a lesson the oil patch learned before most AI founders were old enough to spell EBITDA: capital intensity is charming until the bond market sends the invoice. Alphabet and Tesla both showed negative free cash flow as AI-related spending ballooned. But while tech deals with capex, energy markets are digesting a sudden **oil price spike**. Brent crude price punched through $100 before backing off Friday, and suddenly everyone wants to know whether this is a price signal or just geopolitics wearing steel-toed boots.  *Figure 1: Silicon Valley tech giants show negative free cash flow as capital intensity hits the Nasdaq. Source: Financial Intelligence.* --- ## Global Markets: Strait of Hormuz Risks and WTI Oil Price Stability The answer is that the price matters, but the duration matters more. Brent slipped to roughly $98.87 Friday and WTI to $90.59, while remaining on track for weekly gains of about 12% and 9.7%, respectively. The move followed attacks on Saudi tankers and renewed concern over traffic through the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz. That is a real physical risk, not a social-media rumor with a chart attached. The immediate winners are obvious: unhedged producers with low-decline barrels already flowing, royalty owners, and anyone selling prompt crude into a nervous market. The less obvious winners are operators whose balance sheets let them wait. They can harvest cash without turning a temporary geopolitical premium into permanent payroll, acreage obligations and service contracts. The losers are producers heavily capped by hedges, buyers trying to close deals against last month’s strip, and operators about to bid completions. Service inflation usually arrives faster than lender price decks. A $15 move in crude can disappear surprisingly quickly when casing, horsepower, diesel and labor all remember they have pricing power. Sellers, meanwhile, will try to monetize Friday’s screen before buyers decide how long the disruption can realistically last. What should the patch watch? Not the television map. Watch tanker insurance, freight rates, physical differentials, prompt backwardation and the first calls from service companies. Those indicators will reveal whether the market is paying for barrels that are actually missing or merely paying for the possibility that they might go missing. The EIA’s July baseline still expects Brent to fall toward $70 in the fourth quarter and average about $65 in 2027 as inventories rebuild. That forecast may prove too calm, but it is a useful reminder that today’s headline price is not tomorrow’s bank case. Reuters, Oil heads for a weekly rise amid Middle East escalation https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-set-weekly-rise-amid-red-sea-shipping-attacks-kazakhstan-output-cuts-2026-07-24/ EIA, Weekly Petroleum Status Report https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/wpsrall.pdf OPEC, July 2026 Monthly Oil Market Report https://www.opec.org/monthly-oil-market-report.html --- ## Oil and Gas Acquisitions: Matador Paloma Acquisition Adds Delaware Basin Inventory Matador made the same point in corporate form. Its $1.275 billion Paloma Permian purchase adds approximately 11,100 BOE per day, 16,235 net undeveloped acres and more than 156 drilling locations in Eddy and Lea counties. The strategic asset is inventory. The expensive barrel is merely helping everyone feel better about buying it.  *Figure 2: Permian Basin operators like Matador increase undeveloped Delaware Basin acreage inventory. Source: Rig Count Log.* Why should someone in the oil business care? Because the next mistake will not be missing the price spike. It will be believing the spike changed the quality of an asset, the durability of a hedge book or the amount a lender is willing to advance. Reuters, Matador to acquire Paloma Permian https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/matador-resources-buy-paloma-permian-13-billion-2026-07-23/ Matador Resources, Paloma and Woodford acquisition announcement https://www.matadorresources.com/news-releases/news-release-details/matador-resources-company-announces-strategic-delaware-basin --- ## Oil and Gas Capital Raising: Risk-Proofing the Price Deck Against Commodity Volatility Here is the practical move for anyone raising money or marketing an asset today: add one page to the deck titled, “What Still Works Without the War Premium.” Most presentations do the opposite. They lead with a commodity chart, update the strip, and let higher prices improve every metric at once. That makes the deck look better and the sponsor look less serious. Sophisticated family offices and energy investors know spot oil can move $10 before the next investment committee meeting. They are not buying your price forecast. They are buying the resilience of the asset and the judgment of the team. Show the base case at the current strip, then show the same project with oil $15 lower and completed-well costs 10% higher. Keep the geology, decline curves and operating assumptions unchanged. This reveals whether the opportunity is driven by rock and execution or by spreadsheet perfume. Brokers should apply the same discipline to sale packages. Mineral owners should resist repricing every undeveloped location off Friday’s screen. Operators should avoid promising distributions from prices their hedge book cannot capture. Capital raisers should explain exactly where the project breaks, because investors will calculate it anyway, usually with harsher assumptions. The best capital deck in a volatile market is not the one with the highest IRR. It is the one that makes the investor comfortable being wrong about oil.  *Figure 3: Texas gas takeaway pipelines route associated gas to Gulf Coast LNG terminals. Source: Midstream Network.* Dallas Fed, Second-Quarter 2026 Energy Survey https://www.dallasfed.org/news/releases/2026/nr260624des Texas Railroad Commission, June drilling permits and completions https://www.rrc.texas.gov/news/texas-drilling-permit-and-completion-statistics-for-june-2026/ API, How missing infrastructure affects Waha and other energy markets https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/news/2026/07/08/how-missing-infrastructure-affects-three-energy-markets ### Continue Your Morning * [How to Raise Capital for an Oil & Gas Company](https://www.wildcatters.co/intelligence/how-to-raise-capital-for-an-oil-and-gas-company) * [Browse Oil & Gas Investment Opportunities](https://www.wildcatters.co/marketplace/mineral-rights) * [How to Value Mineral Rights](https://www.wildcatters.co/intelligence/how-to-value-mineral-rights) * [Texas Drilling Permits This Week](https://www.wildcatters.co/intelligence/texas-drilling-permits) * [Latest Oil & Gas Listings](https://www.wildcatters.co/marketplace) * [Wildcatters Intelligence](https://www.wildcatters.co/intelligence) * [Daily Barrel, Oil Prices and Independent Operators](https://www.wildcatters.co/news/daily-barrel-oil-prices-rig-count-independent-operators-june-29-2026/oil-prices-rig-count-independent-operators) --- ## Top Reads * **Reuters, Oil heads for a weekly rise amid Middle East escalation** https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-set-weekly-rise-amid-red-sea-shipping-attacks-kazakhstan-output-cuts-2026-07-24/ * **Reuters, Matador to acquire Paloma Permian** https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/matador-resources-buy-paloma-permian-13-billion-2026-07-23/ * **Matador Resources, Paloma and Woodford acquisition announcement** https://www.matadorresources.com/news-releases/news-release-details/matador-resources-company-announces-strategic-delaware-basin * **EIA, Weekly Petroleum Status Report** https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/wpsrall.pdf * **OPEC, July 2026 Monthly Oil Market Report** https://www.opec.org/monthly-oil-market-report.html * **Baker Hughes, North American Rig Count** https://rigcount.bakerhughes.com/ * **Dallas Fed, Second-Quarter 2026 Energy Survey** https://www.dallasfed.org/news/releases/2026/nr260624des * **Texas Railroad Commission, June drilling permits and completions** https://www.rrc.texas.gov/news/texas-drilling-permit-and-completion-statistics-for-june-2026/ * **API, How missing infrastructure affects Waha and other energy markets** https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/news/2026/07/08/how-missing-infrastructure-affects-three-energy-markets * **Wildcatters Intelligence** https://www.wildcatters.co/