Daily Standup Top Stories
Zeldin, Trump, Prepare Assault on EPA Endangerment Finding
This article is from David Blackmon’s Substack, and we highly recommend subscribing. This is an expected move by the EPA that can have a wide-ranging impact. This will be another nail in the coffin for […]
Department of Interior Secures Win for American Energy Dominance – Safely and Timely
In a resounding victory for American energy independence, the Department of the Interior (DOI) has successfully facilitated the restart of oil production at the Santa Ynez Unit (SYU) off the coast of California. This achievement, […]
Trump Tariffs in Flux as Trump and Von der Leyen Set to Meet with Trade Deal Balance
In a high-stakes diplomatic rendezvous set against the backdrop of Trump’s Scottish golf resort in Turnberry, US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are scheduled to convene today at 4:30 […]
Ovintiv Reports Second Quarter 2025 Financial and Operating Results
Highlights: Generated cash from operating activities of $1,013 million, Non-GAAP Cash Flow of $913 million and Non-GAAP Free Cash Flow of $392 million after capital expenditures of $521 million Second quarter production was above the guidance range on every product with […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
00:13 – Is Trump stalling solar and wind projects, or are people waking up to the fact that China has embedded kill switches or spy products in renewable energy components?
03:36 – Zeldin, Trump, Prepare Assault on EPA Endangerment Finding
05:45 – Department of Interior Secures Win for American Energy Dominance – Safely and Timely
07:42 – Trump Tariffs in Flux as Trump and Von der Leyen Set to Meet with Trade Deal Balance
13:09 – Markets Update
16:58 – Rig Count Update
17:12 – Frac Count Update
17:53 – Ovintiv Reports Second Quarter 2025 Financial and Operating Results
20:37 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner [00:00:00] Is President Trump stolling solar and wind projects? Next on the Energy Newsbeat Daily Standup.
Stuart Turley [00:00:13] Is Trump stalling solar and wind projects? Or are people waking up to the fact that China has embedded kill switches and spy products in the renewable energy components? You can’t buy this kind of entertainment. I had fun on this one. Michael, this story was actually published from Felicity Broadstack on oilprice.com. She wrote, who’s stalling wind and solar? And I went, OK, let’s take a look at what she has to say. She says the United States President Donald Trump announced plans to tighten federal permitting on restricting solar and wind and she goes on, but what she. Does not mention is what Secretary Burgum just pointed out this week. I mean, this week, he points out, holy smokes, we’re prioritizing secure supply chains and reliable base load to unleash American energy. And in this video clip in this substack article I put in, Doug goes, oh, and they’ve been bugging all of the wind and solar equipment to have kill switches. And I had published that in May. And so this is absolutely a hoot. And so when you sit back and take a look, Is Felicity at oil price right and saying Trump’s delaying it? No, he’s going, hold up. Let’s get some real supply issues fixed. Let’s put in reliable energy and not have any back doors for hackers. When you take a look at the patterns of espionage, let’s not forget the spy balloons, let’s also not forget in 2024, I wrote, could China hack our electric grid in four words? Yes. And how soon? And the real question was, was my orcas in on it? That went nuts on the story as well. So this is not something we’ve been sitting on our hands kind of going, oh, wait a minute, this may or may not happen. But it brings up a huge question. The erosion of confidence highlights a broader geopolitical reality. Renewable energy isn’t just about sustainability, it’s about sovereignty. For China, the hidden radios and backdoors may have secured short-term gains, but they’ve ultimately cost the long game in wind and solar dominance because we’re going to find new supply change.
Michael Tanner [00:02:32] I mean, I think you’ve laid out the circumstance very, very precisely and extremely well, you know, it’s, it the unfortunate side of regulation. And this is where I don’t go full libertarian or, or for an anarchist. Like I think do still, I mean there was a need for regulation. Yeah. Good regulation that is sounded in good policy and has the ability to be updated as new information comes in is the best type of regulation. I love your last quote here. The lesson is clear in an era of cyber threats, trust is the ultimate currency. And that’s the key. We’ve got to trust that our energy supply chains are correct. Because I mean, like you And all of a sudden, a third of the United States is without power. I mean… It could be absolutely incredible. It could scary. I mean, I don’t think we can fully understand what it would be like a world of all the sudden for three days, we didn’t have power. Oh, boom. Oops. Oops. I’d be sweating. That’s all I know.
Stuart Turley [00:03:36] There you go. [00:03:36]Hey, let’s go to Lee Zeldin. [1.0s] Zeldon and Trump prepare an assault on EPA endangerment finding. This is from our buddy over there, David Blackmon. And I’ll tell you what, we’ve been expecting this on a long time, but they’re trying to make sure they can get this through the courts. The Trump administration is gearing up to revoke one of the most overreaching, unscientific regulatory edifices ever erected. The EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding news broke this week that the environment protection agency has drafted a plan to rescind this cornerstone of federal climate policy. And I just heard Al Gore say he saw a man-bear pig. I mean this is absolutely horrific for that man his days of being a grafting thief are over after this.
Michael Tanner [00:04:28] No, absolutely. He’s just going to have to go back to pretending that he invented the internet, which the funny part is you could argue that he was responsible for the funding and pushing the funding through the Senate that ultimately led to the internet. So I do find it hilarious that on some level that’s where his ignorance comes from is the fact that, Oh, I signed a bill. Okay. Well go, go back to grifting when it comes to climate. You’re doing a much, much better job there. I love the fact that Lee Zeldin who’s leading the EPA under the Trump administration is doing this type of stuff. I love the fact that they’re focusing on legal arguments, specifically saying that the EPA lacks power to make broad proclamations about greenhouse gasses without specific congressional authorization. I mean, once upon a time you actually had to go to Congress to get things done. And now all of a sudden it feels like we can just, you know, executive order here, sweeping policy over here. It’s like, Oh, it’s almost like the constitution has something in it called Congress, where we actually feel like it’s a representative government. Unbelievable.
Stuart Turley [00:05:28] Well, you’ve opened up a can of worms there. And part of the problem is because Congress has not been doing their job. They gave all their power to the unelected bureaucrats that have more power than the politicians. So hopefully we’ll see some of this turn around. [00:05:45]Let’s roll to the next story here. [1.2s] Department of Interior secures a win for the American energy dominance. Safely and timely. I like this. This is partially a story of a resounding victory for American energy independence. The Department of Interior has successfully facilitated the restart of oil production at the Santa Ynez Unit, SYU, off the coast of California. But this is gonna be all for naught, Michael. In 2026, they lose 20% of their refining capacity. So this is yay. Okay. Now what are you going to do for me when the Gavin Newsom’s plans go through. They did just announce that California is trying to find a buyer for that one, which has never been done before. So I think Gavin Newsome knows they’ve pooped on the rug.
Michael Tanner [00:06:39] Well, I think Gavin Newsom understands he spoofed on the rug a bunch, but he’s still trying to get his media tour out so that we, you know, he can kick off his 2028 campaign. I mean, California is probably the epitome of terrible energy policy. We see it time and time again. I think, you the interesting part that this points out is the lack of pipelines that are going across the Sierra mountains, which I’m going to go ahead and turn this off. I’m just going to turn this on. I’m turning this off now. On one hand is a massive, massive capital infrastructure project. On one end is also there’s some environmental things to worry about. I don’t, I’m not, you know, yes, we should be, we, we should be navigating our mountains. I don’t think we should just be haphazardly laying pipelines in them though. So I think there’s a, there’s fine line to back there, but that truly isolates that market from the other parts of the United States, which forces them to import all their energy from people that… Don’t have US best interest at heart. I mean, it’s really the thread between this line and the first article that you wrote, there’s a line there.
Stuart Turley [00:07:34] Yep. You forgot Alaska. They were importing almost all of their oil from Alaska. Yeah, they used to at least. Yes, until Gavin got in. [00:07:42]Let’s go to the next story here. [1.2s] Trump’s tariffs and fluxes. Trump and Von der Leyen set to meet with trade deal balance. At the time we record this, they will have met and everything else. But updates on the U.S. Pressure China deal, stabilizing force of pressures. But now I started looking around on this and we take a look at what he’s trying to do with China. And he may be letting Russia and Iran and Iraq sanctions go in order to get Putin to the table. Wow. Wow. I did not see that mix.
Michael Tanner [00:08:19] No, I mean, I, I think Trump has found himself in an interesting scenario when it comes to Russia, because he said that the moment he took office, he was going to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. And this is where, you know, I was talking with, you know, I was at a client’s office on Saturday doing a little extra work and we were talking about a potential new project that we were going to do and I thought it was important to say, hey, let’s go back and look at what worked on the first project, what didn’t work and then use that as a template to how we move forward. And I think what Trump does is, and one of the lessons I guess from that was, hey we need to be a lot more clear about the specific drilling plan that we’re going do because it’s not that we are behind schedule, or it’s not that we are not fulfilling the production targets of this project. The problem is the drilling schedule has been a lot slower than we expected. And so the problem is you can paint yourselves in these corners by theoretically saying, yes, I’m going to do this, but you put these insane timelines on that cause you to not necessarily be able to fulfill it in the timeframe that you say. And that’s my issue here, specifically with Trump. I think he came in and said, I want to be able to end the Ukraine war. Well, I believe that. But then he to step further and said, I’m going to be able to do it in 24 hours. And whether that’s hyperbole, whether that was Trump just being Trump. And I’m, and, and I’m and trust me, I like Trump being Trump, I find it, I find that refreshing for our commander in chief to speak so openly, but you can paint yourself into these corners where now all of a sudden he may have to overreact. From a energy policy standpoint in order to get Russia to the table by going after China via these tariffs, that these second and third order effects that we always talk about can really all be come back to. Just say you’re going to end the Russia-Ukraine war. You don’t need to put a timeline on.
Stuart Turley [00:10:05] No, the problem with president Trump is that his entire team was not prepared and we’re feeding him misinformation. So what they were giving him information saying that he was negotiating from a position of strength with Russia. He was not so.
Michael Tanner [00:10:21] All right. Well, that brings up a whole nother can of worms, but I’ll leave it there because we’ve got a show to do. So anything else? Nope. We’re off and running. Cool. Well let’s jump in guys and talk a little oil and gas finance. But before we do that, let’s go ahead and pay the bills as always. Thank you for checking us out here on the world’s greatest website www.energynewsbeat.com. We had the last four or five days. Views been going off. Everyone’s checking us Got to like it. Got to Like it. So we love that, guys. Thank you. Thank you to everybody. Hit out and check out the links in the description below. You can see all of the articles, all of the timestamps. You can also find the link to our sub stack, the energy newsbeat.substack.com. We appreciate every single one of our subscribers. It’s really the best place to get a daily dump of everything that’s going on in the energy business in one fail swoop. Stu does a great job of taking basically the most important topic of the day, digesting it and giving it to you in a daily newsletter. That’s theenergynewsbeat.substack.com. Highly recommend subscribing there. If you wouldn’t want to support the show further, sign up for a paid subscription. It really is the best way to support the show, obviously. Subscribing for a free subscription is great, but if you really want to go that extra next step, subscribing to a paid subscription is the way to do it. We are gearing up for our next Energy State of the Union that will be going out exclusively to our paid subscribers. So you don’t want to miss that. Also guys, thank you to Reese Energy Consulting for making the show possible. We absolutely love everything about Reese Energy consulting. Guys, they are probably the number one midstream experts and consulting firm on the planet. If you guys have any problems, whether you’re an upstream company, need help with purchasing or marketing, guys, they… Solve it for you and get back dollars into your pocket that you’re wasting just because you don’t know how to go approach these midstream companies and negotiate your first purchaser contracts. If you’re in the midstream space and you have a project that needs some support on or you’re considering a new investment and need some red team analysis, the team at Reese Energy Consulting is as experienced working with all companies throughout the value chain, whether you are two guys in a garage or whether you’re the largest publicly traded company in the world, their clients span that entire reach. And you are a fit for them, that’s reeseenergyconsulting.com. And finally, guys, check out investinoil.energynewsbeat.com or hit the link in the description below if you are interested in adding oil and gas to your portfolio. We have a great survey there that will talk and kind of run through exactly some of the high-level questions that you’re gonna need to know. And depending on what your answers are, we’re going to send you a bunch of information on what it looks like to invest throughout the entire energy chain. And again, depending on your answers, We will possibly point you in the right direction. So that’s investinoil.energynewsbeat.com for oil and gas portfolio survey. [00:13:09]Stu, let’s go ahead and run through some top line numbers here. S&P 500 was up about four tenths of a percentage [5.1s] point. NASDAQ down up about three tenths per percentage point. Two and 10 year yields basically flat for the day. On Friday, dollar index up about tenth of a percentage point. Bitcoin up above $119,000. So about… Rolling over as we record this about Sunday afternoon. This is about, it’s up about a percent crude oil dropped about 1.3 percentage points down to 65 16, actually the lowest it’s closed on a Friday in three weeks. Brent oil was down about three-tenths of a percentage point down to 68 48 natural gas fairly flat for the day was up about half a percentage point on a relative basis up to $3 and 11 cents XOP, which is our EMP securities contract actually dropped about six-tents of a percentage point, but as I mentioned, oil finished on Friday at Basically a three-week low mainly on the concerns of what Stu talked about when it came to the Trump tariffs Remember these tariffs on China are related to the fact that China is buying Russian oil and it’s really a we’re going to get at Russia through China and hopefully have China put pressure on Russia between me you and the fence post because we’re all friends here I don’t think that’s going to work I think we’re gonna have to get a little more creative when it comes to that Stu and I have talked too much Sanctions don’t work. I think some other interesting things to note on Friday we did see that European commissioner. President Ursula. I mean, that’s just, I mean I can’t, the fact that her literal name is President Ursula, it’s, it, it it’s like a bad Disney movie gone wrong. They did meet on Sunday in Scotland and they said they expected to reach a framework on a trade deal this weekend or the weekend that has just happened. So it could be very interesting on that point. We did see US manufacturer Capital Goods unexpectedly fall in June while those shipments of those products actually increase moderately, which is. Truly suggest that business spending on that type of equipment has slowed considerably in the second quarter, most likely due to the tariffs. Again, the tariffs paid by the importer, not necessarily the exporter. We also did see that the U.S. Is preparing to maybe allow different partners, Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Peda Vesa, to operate with limited sanctions in the nation, their biggest partner being US based Chevron. That theoretically could boost Venezuelan own oil exports by a little more than 200,000 per day, which would actually be a huge, huge boost to us. Refiner’s is remember that really heavy Venezuelans crude is perfect. For a lot of the Gulf Coast refineries. And so this would quote unquote ease some tightness that was in a note by ING analysts. There is an interesting thing. We also did see that OPEC came out on Friday and said that their joint minister committee will schedule to convene on Monday as you listen to this, but it does not hold any decision-making authority over production levels. Those four OPECK delegates set an OPECC plus panel. Is to raise oil output when it meets, noting that the producer is keen to recover market share while summer demand is helping to absorb the extra barrels. I’m going to call again, a little bit of buhaki on that. I don’t necessarily think it goes back to market. I think they’re telling us it’s market share. I think it’s everything to go back to an increase of revenue. Again, in order to increase revenue, you have to increase barrels on the market. But if you want to diversify your economy away from oil, you need money to do that. So it’s this real catch 22. They find, I think that’s the longer term. I think it’s convenient to say market share because then it, then it just, it allows Trump to be cool with that because it drives oil prices down. So I think there’s another thing we did see the world’s number two crude oil producer, the great state of Russia. In Stu’s words, Stu being the chief of staff there over to Putin. We did see daily oil exports for its Western ports were set to be around 1.77 million barrels per day in August, which is actually down from 1.93 million barrels, according to the numbers in July. And that’s based on some Reuters calculations. [00:16:58]We also, Stu did see [1.1s] rig counts drop on Friday by two. So U S rig counts down to. Week over week to 542. Canada actually saw an increase of 10 rigs and internationally, we saw an increase of 27 rigs. [00:17:12]On the back of that, [0.6s] we saw the U.S. Frat count spread drop again by six, meaning, I mean, rigs are dropping, frat counts dropping. It’s only a matter of time before we begin to see production roll over. I think there’s been a lot of interesting conversations out there, I think, you know, in terms of peak Permian oil. I think they’re some very interesting. I was, you an article today or yesterday. Talking about some specifics when it comes to shale oil and how that, that business model of, of shale, it was, was always designed to be a short-term business model and yes, it’s extended 20. 25 years now, but you know, the, the end could be coming near a super interesting conversation. We’re going to have to talk a little bit more about that. [00:17:53]But finally, Stu, we did see [1.1s] OVNTive drop Q2 earnings and you know really the, the, at a high level, the street reacted very positively to their earnings report. As I mentioned, the XOP, which is our kind of EMP aggregate ETF was down 0.6 percentage points. O’Vintiv was up 3.6 percentage points. Why? Well, it actually has more to do with what’s going on in Canada than the United States. Going back to rig counts, Canada has increased 10 rigs week over week and are actually pushing their July 2024 number here shortly. And remember, O’vintiv is the combination or is includes in Canada, which had an extremely, extremely… Strong Canadian presence. To give you guys a quick idea, their, their Permian production averaged about 215,000, you know, 250,000 BOE per day, which is 80% liquids, which is great. Get this to Motney production, which is their Canada asset average 300,000. BOE per day, only 20% liquids though, but pretty unbelievable. They’re actually going to invest somewhere 575 to 625 million in 2025, which would constitute between 75 to 85 net wells. They’re expected to spend anywhere between 1.2 and 1.25 billion into the Permian, which is about 130 to 140 net wells, and they’ll drill a little bit in the Mid-Continent region where they have about 100,000 BOE per day, about 59% liquids. So real interesting here. I think at a top line, Stu, the numbers that came out, net earnings of about $107 million, which. Worked out to be about 1.8. Or $1.18 per share cashflow from operating activities, about $1 billion non-GAAP cashflow, which again, who knows what that means, but it was about $913 million and they’ve spent about $512 million in capital expenditures and about $392 million of free cashflow. Which is actually pretty good. Their total $615,000 BOE per day ended up being at the top end of their guidance, which I think what, considering the fact that they spent $100 million less in capex Since quarter over quarter and increase their production to the top end of the guidance. I think what the street rewarded them from the, from the stock price bump really was on well performance. And so they’re doing a, I think a great job down there. I’m just, I’m, I I’m cracking up Stu. Cause in the middle, you’ve got the, we’ve got the little context leads in there. And I just see a nice big picture of our favorite person, Mike Umbrough standing there with the telescope. So shout out to good friend of the show, Mike Umbro. But that’s really all I saw Stu. What else do you have? What my favorite time of the week? What are you nervous about this week? What’s keeping you up at night?
Stuart Turley [00:20:26] I just, what in the world is president Trump going to do this week? Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of fun.
Michael Tanner [00:20:31] No kidding. What files are going to get released this week? Who knows? Who knows. We’re going to have a lot of fun. [00:20:37]Absolutely guys. Well, we appreciate [1.1s] you guys checking us out here on the world’s greatest daily energy news show for Stuart Turley. I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow folks.
