Daily Standup Top Stories
What is the Difference Between Oil, Gas and Wind, Solar and Hydrogen?
Returns to investors and shareholders is the key. Stu Turley
New Study Finds Wind-Turbine Dismantling Costs Are More Than Claimed, and There Is a Crisis Looming
As the world races toward renewable energy targets, a new Finnish study has cast a shadow over the wind power industry, revealing that the costs of dismantling onshore wind turbines are far higher than industry […]
Russia’s Gasoline Prices Surge After Refinery Hit by Drones
In a significant escalation of Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russian energy infrastructure, multiple refineries were targeted on August 2, 2025, leading to a record surge in domestic gasoline prices. The attacks, attributed to Ukrainian forces, […]
U.S. to Scale Iran’s Sanctions Through Finance Channels Impacting China
In a bold escalation of its foreign policy, the United States is intensifying sanctions against Iran, with a particular focus on disrupting financial channels that support the regime’s oil exports. This move primarily targets China, […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
00:15 – What is the Difference Between Oil, Gas and Wind, Solar and Hydrogen?
05:07 – New Study Finds Wind-Turbine Dismantling Costs Are More Than Claimed, and There Is a Crisis Looming
07:20 – Russia’s Gasoline Prices Surge After Refinery Hit by Drones
09:39 – U.S. to Scale Iran’s Sanctions Through Finance Channels Impacting China
13:25 – Markets Update
14:48 – Coterra’s Earnings: Preparing for the Oil Price Rebound
16:46 – CEO of Denver-based oil and gas company says he was subject of ‘sham investigation’
20:59 – 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] The difference between oil, gas, and wind and solar? One makes money, the other doesn’t. Next, the energy news beat daily standup. [00:00:07][7.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:15] What is the difference between oil, gas, and wind and solar, and hydrogen? I’ll tell you what, it’s return to investors and shareholders is the key to this article. This was a great article by a guy named, oh that was me. In the ever-evolving landscape of the global energy tradition, fossil fuels like oil and natural gas continue to dominate. At the same time, renewables such as wind and solar are emerging alternatives like hydrogen and touted as the future. But I ask the question, why are wind and solar called renewables? When the subsidies are removed, they are not sustainable, nor are they renewable. I go through all the things in this about why oil and gas, coal and steel, and microplastics used to create wind and are not. Calculated in any of the calculations. But what happens is when you go to the bottom line of this story, returns to investors. Michael, oil and gas companies excel in returning capital to shareholders in 2024. The global industry distributed nearly $213 billion in dividends and $136 billion in buybacks, totaling over $349 billion. How much do you think you got in buybacks from renewable or hydrogen companies? What? Zero. Zero. Okay. Here’s what bugged me about writing this story. I spent hours trying to find the information and I kept getting all these answers back and I go look over here. And all of a sudden I just kept getting more and more air sick by the amount of information that they were hiding and I keep having to dig deeper and deeper. It is amazing how good they’re getting at hiding the information. And so when you take a look at this, Michael, you pointed this out best that the United States most likely will be net zero before the UK and the EU because we are going down a natural gas and nuclear path. And they’re going down not so renewable and not so sustainable financial fiscal collapse through net zero. I thought it was pretty interesting. [00:02:32][136.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:33] Well, I think it’s extremely interesting. The fact that we are, quote unquote, going net zero, but it involves us using more fossil fuels and the UK spinning up offshore wind ends up not being able to achieve net zero. But I love what you basically put in this and specifically this idea of energy output per dollar invested. And so I want to just kind of read this section here. Despite higher investments in renewables, the energy yield per dollar varies. Here we go. In 2023, each dollar invested in wind and solar PV generated 2.5 times more energy output than a dollar in fossil fuels. However, oil and gas remains profitable only due to the established infrastructure and high margins with which fluctuate depending on the market, hydrogen lags, it’s energy intent to produce. Overall, while renewables claim to be cheaper than new fossil fuel plants, intermittency often requires backup. Look at AirCai, 90 gigawatts in 2024, But have over 180 gigawatts installed on nameplate resources due to the installation of a specific amount of wind and solar Nobody is adding additional gigawatte into any of the calculations and then you have that great great chart to go I mean, so it’s this concept that oh on the margins wind and Solar If you just take into account a wind farm, it’s cheaper than natural gas But the problem is nothing exists by itself It exists in a value chain of moving from upstream, which is either oil or natural gas, but also the wind is upstream, the electrical generation, which you can consider midstream, and then finally the downstream, which is delivering it to the end user. So it’s going to be unbelievable, as you mentioned in the difference between returning money to shareholders, oil and gas has distributed nearly 213 billion of dividends in 2024, and that’s dividends. You gotta also add in the $136 billion of buyback, totaling over $349… Billion on dividends and about 35% of that was just Exxon and Chevron, about 113.8 billion on payouts and that’s in 2023. So your two largest energy providers are just shoveling cash back to shareholders. That’s right. And that’s even with lower oil price. [00:04:52][138.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:52] And that does not include the private sector, which is doing quite well, especially for our day job. Michael, when we review oil and gas deals, we see actually money going back to investors. I kind of like that. [00:05:04][12.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:05] I do like that. All right, what’s next? [00:05:06][1.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:07] Let’s go to this next one. I had fun writing this one as well. New study finds wind turbine dismantling costs are more than claimed and there’s a crisis looming. This is out of Finland. Holy smokes, Batman. You can’t buy this kind of entertainment. Listen to this. Minimum total cost per turbine at 929,000 euros escalating to a maximum of 105. Thousand euros i mean you’re talking that’s a lot of money dude i mean per windmill that’s absolutely nuts [00:05:43][36.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:44] And that’s on average. I mean, I think the difference between an oil and gas P&A is you’re looking somewhere 25,000 to 75,000. Now, obviously, the occasional, you know, the occasional goes super expensive, but the average is way higher than what we see in oil and us. [00:06:01][17.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:02] Oh, absolutely. And what gets me is when I was trying to research this article, all the answers kept coming back of, you know, when you, when we take a look at either chat GPT or grok or any of the others, they have all of them kept saying, Oh, wind and solar is cheaper than all this. And there’s, and they kept saying that none of the wind farms have been abandoned. And they also all said all of them are 20 to 30 years. I’m going hogwash. I’ve been talking that they are redone at three years and their average rate increase is at eight years. At eight years they are fiscally no longer viable. I mean without subsidies there’s day one not done, but eight years is a real real number there. [00:06:49][47.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:49] Now, if we recall though, this one big, beautiful bill does basically end the renewable tax credit for projects not in construction after 2026. The difference is the definition of in construction. And so I think what you’re actually going to see between now and the end of 2026 is a rush to get things permitted and a rush to get a stake in the ground so that when they end up eventually, maybe decidedly develop it in 2035, they still are eligible for the tax credit. [00:07:17][27.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:17] Oh, yeah, it’s just going to be some scammy stuff going on. Let’s go to the next one here. Russia’s gasoline price surge after refinery hit by drones. This one is really kind of interesting. You sit back and go, oh, well, Russia got hit. What’s it going to mean domestically prior to the attack? The refiner was processing around 18,000 tons of crude per day with an annual capacity of eight. Point three million metric tons approximately a hundred and sixty thousand barrels per day Michael that’s a pretty big one and when it produced a hundred ten million motor gasoline which is gasoline in the US and 1.27 million tons of fuel oil here’s where it gets a little dicey how much Russia’s stuff is still being exported to the EU This whole thing is just absolutely hilarious. Petrochemical and so-called the damage to the exports and affected customers are Brazil, China, African nations like Egypt, Tanzania and Libya. We’re talking some serious, those drone strikes in Russia really are affecting a lot of folks. [00:08:26][68.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:26] So, I mean, really what I want to know is what does this mean for a lot of the energy policy? So these tariffs that are theoretically going, not tariffs, but these sanctions that Trump wants to put on Russia in an effect to try to end the war. And a lot of it has to do with energy and they’re going to go, he’s going to start punishing India and China for buying. This doesn’t help. And so my question to you is it seems like now You’ve got three players in this game, all with wanting different outcomes. And where do you think this leaves us in terms of where the energy market’s going to go? Because all of a sudden, if you sanction China and Indian, oil is going to spike, at least a little. [00:09:05][39.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:06] Oh, and it will be the biggest disaster, the most, President Trump is the most winning president we’ve ever had as a United States president, period. I will say that. This will be a gigantic mistake. The repercussions for what he is about to do to India is causing a chain of events that his people are not telling him. India is now back, Modi is now walking back against some of the things that he’s doing. And I think that it is a huge mistake. Let me cover this next story. This one is US to scale sanctions through finance channels impacting China. He is now trying to go after and cripple through China. China’s role is pivotal. In 2019, official data showed imports around 926,000 barrels per day. From Iran. So if we go after China to try to put a stop to Iran, this is also going to be just as bad because I put in this article. Also, if India pops up as well and he does this at the same time, we, I don’t know that President Trump has enough political clout with China and India to survive very well. I think the combination of these two stories, even though one is sanctions and then the other one is tariffs. This is actually going to be very, very bad. This is a 1-2-0 moment. [00:10:39][93.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:40] I mean, I think it’s, it’s really interesting. And I mean I think, it, it it’s clear that Zelensky doesn’t want the war to end, which is ironic because he’s the one taking the most amount of casualties and all of the, as we love to talk about these second and tertiary and fourth order effects, it all, you know, it is like, what is, what does the drone strike in Russia have to do with the sanctions going on in Iran? I mean it’s all interconnect. [00:11:06][26.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:07] It is. And the best thing that President Trump can do right now is call up President Putin. Hey, my buddy, how you doing? How you doing, and why don’t you just get a talk and say, why don t we end the war and let s open up some oil reserves up in the Arctic and do some deals? Hey, would you mind building me some nuclear ships or let s do a joint deal? I guarantee you, the war would end tomorrow. [00:11:35][27.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:36] It would, it would. Well, let’s quickly jump over and talk a little oil and gas finance, guys, 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. Stu and the team do a tremendous job making sure that website stays up to speed. Everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. You can also hit the links in the description below for all of the timestamps. You can subscribe to our Substack, theenergynewspiet.substack.com It’s the best place to stay up to beat and get truly inside Stu’s brain. I know that’s a scary thought, but if you wanna know on analysis up there, please subscribe to our sub stack. It’s a great way to support the show. Also shout out to friends of the show, Reese Energy Consulting. We love, love them guys. If you at all are impacted by the midstream space, whether you’re an upstream company who needs help with their first purchaser agreements, whether you are a midstream company just needing a little bit of outsource project or have questions and need expert opinion, the team at Reese Energy consulting are the experts when it comes to all of this stuff. But they have clients ranging from two guys sitting in a garage all the way to the largest publicly traded companies. So if you’re wondering if you are a fit for them. The answer is yes, finally, guys, check us out. InvestInOil.EnergyNewsBeat.com to take our oil. Gas portfolio survey if you are sitting in California or sitting in New York and you need a tax deduction You’re worried about how much money and if your money is going into funding offshore wind cut that out right now Invest in oil and gas fill out our oil and Gas Portfolio Survey answer a couple questions We’ll send you a bunch of free resources and then go ahead and point you in the right direction If you want to or if you qualify that’s invested oil that energy newsbeat.com Stu [00:13:25][109.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:25] So let’s go ahead and look at our top line indices. Mark, it’s not. Doing great today down about three tenths of a percentage point six tenths on the NASDAQ two and ten year yields doing very well Two-year yields up one point one percentage points now ten year Yields up about two tenths per percentage point dollar index basically flat for the day Bitcoin down one point four percentage points down to one Thirteen a hundred thirteen thousand a point crude oil getting hammered again down one Point seven percentage point for about a dollar 18 down to sixty five Brent oil only down about a half a percentage point 67 74 natural gas actually jumped $2.40 or 2.46 percentage points up 7 cents just creaking above $3 even XOP was our EMP securities contract up about half of a percentage You know, mainly, Stu, this was off the, again, you know, a lot of what’s happening with oil over the last few days is obviously the threats on the Chinese and Indian imports from Russia. We also saw over the weekend OPEC deciding to increase oil production, actually going ahead and bringing back all of the cuts. So, you, know, it’ll be interesting now to see what levers OPECs has from here. I’m going to go out and say they’re just they’re going to hold back and they’re they’re gonna kind of sit tight for a little bit. I do think that the demand outlook is getting a little bit weakened. It’s going to be very interesting on the oil front what happens from there, but we’ll kind of wait and see. [00:14:48][82.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:48] Stu is kind of all quiet on the Western Front today. We’ve got some earnings that are coming out. I read through a bunch of earnings. I mean, we’ll roll through them real quick. Cotera, you know, Royalties. You know, we saw, I’d been back, they announced their earnings. I went back, I mean, they continued to crush it. You know they did about… You know, they’re doing about 500,000 barrels of oil a day or just shy of a million BOE per day. They continue, they continue to crank. What I find interesting is mainly the letter to the shareholders. And so to give you guys an idea, here’s a paragraph in there from their macro update. We have set up our business for the rest of 2025 to hold oil volumes flat while cutting capex. That’s gonna be very interesting to see how that works. They’re gonna maintain one of the highest drilled but uncompleted well balances in the industry and use free cash flow to pay down debt and continue to repurchase shares. This will allow us to make flexibility for a green or red light in the short term, but a green light is eventually inevitable given we believe current oil prices are unsustainable over the long term. So what are you hearing from some of the, one of the smartest companies in the US? Well, they’re saying is they’re playing this cycle like this is the cycle low and we’re going to wait until oil prices rebound and turn on these wells. So this goes a little bit stew to what we’ve been talking about, You know where we are in this oil price cycle. We’re at a place where people are cutting cutting capex prices are beginning to fall Eventually prices are gonna fall enough to where demand supply then outstrip Excuse me supply will outstripped demand prices begin to fall supply will begin to follow reach a balance But then supply is gonna fall even lower than demand and that will cause prices to rise in the future So understanding where you are in the cycle is key to making profitable oil and gas investments. And if you’re interested in understanding more about how we think of that, again, guys, you can invest in oil.com or investinoil.energynewsbeat.com or hit me up on LinkedIn. I’m happy to answer any questions. [00:16:46][117.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:16:46] This is just an extremely funny story. So I don’t really have this on the list here. CEO of Denver-based oil and gasoline company, Sentinel Peak Resources says he was a subject a sham investigation. Okay, so Michael Duninsky, who’s the co-founder of Sentinel Peak Resources, claims an inter-company rival used a whisper campaign about his quote-unquote lifestyle to oust him as CEO. Guys, so who is Sentinel Peak? They own about three billion of oil reserves primarily located in California. The quick timeline of this is that at the end of December According to Duninsky, they say business was going well, they were actually weighing the possibility of maybe to sell. And he was handed a memo claiming that he has, quote, exhibited unacceptable behavior in the workplace and that a preliminary investigation by Sentinel Peak board members had uncovered a concerning level of inappropriate behaviors that put the company at risk. He was eventually put on leave, not told what he had done wrong. And then finally on July 28th, so a couple days ago, fired a lawsuit. Against them, okay? So what’s going on here? Okay, so this inner company rival, this guy’s name is George Ciotti, who was actually the other co-founder of Sentinel, along with Michael Duninsky in late 2022. I guess, according to the lawsuit, Mr. Ciotti—this is a quote from the lawsuit—Mr. Ciotti wanted to be the CEO of Sentinel Pink Resources and was disappointed not to be considered Mr. Duninsky’s successor, therefore initiated a sham investigation into Mr. Duninsky to create a vacancy for the role he coveted. So what’s the rumor? You might ask. Apparently the rumor that’s being spread is that Michael Duninsky, I shouldn’t be laughing, and his wife are swingers. And that this rumor began because Mr. Scottie started spreading it at the local country club, the Glenmore Country Club. If you’re a Denver guy like myself, you’ll know that that’s in the very pompous Cherry Hills Village. So I don’t really feel so sorry for these people that they have to, Oh no, they’ve got to hang out at the Cherry Hills country, not the Cherry Hills country club, but the Glenmore country club. So it’s pretty, I just find this hilarious too. He’s seeking about 650,000 in back wages, the 3 million that he invested in to Sentinel peak and the unknown value of Company stocks do I am adding to our bylaws that you are not allowed to host me if if you start spreading a rumor that I am a swinger [00:19:18][151.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:18] I don’t want to know what goes on, that’s the key difference. [00:19:21][2.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:21] Oh, you think your inner office politics are bad. Imagine working at Sentinel Peak. No, thank you. But here’s my question. And I know no information other than what’s on the Denver Post. But to me, when there’s smoke, there’s fire and something like that. I could start a rumor that says Stu was a conspiracy theorist. Oh wait, that’s true. I’m sorry. We got to pick another rumor. I could a rumor that says Stu- [00:19:44][22.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:44] I’ve been right though Michael [00:19:45][1.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:46] Yeah, it’s a good point. So then in that case, I’d go, I can start a rumor that says, Stu has the most beautiful looking hair of all time. And guess what? Stu wouldn’t care and nobody would care because guess what, there’s no truth to it and there’s not evidence to support it. I mean, he’s got that beautiful, beautiful Reese energy consulting hat on. And if I was telling people that underneath that was the longest and most luscious locks of all time, people would be like, well, I don’t mean, I know Stu, I know that’s not true. There’s ample evidence. I don’t think you could just start a rumors that someone is a swinger without any, any… [00:20:18][31.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:18] Resource especially because you don’t know if I’m talking about my back hair or not [00:20:22][3.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:22] Okay, we wouldn’t see my back hair either. So we’re gonna leave you guys with those beautiful images But this is hilarious. You think your company has bad inter office politics. Imagine working at sentinel pete [00:20:34][12.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:35] No, thank you. [00:20:35][0.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:36] Alright, Stu, what did we miss? Anything? [00:20:37][1.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:38] No, just buckle up. We’re going to wait and see how President Trump handles because by Friday, I’m hoping that Jazzy Crockett abandons her post and Greg Abbott claims all Democrats who are not back in their seat by Friday are positioned vacated. Go Greg Abbot. [00:20:54][16.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:54] Yeah, absolutely. So we will see how that goes. But with that, guys, we’re gonna let you get out of here, get back to work, start your week. Appreciate you guys checking us out here on the World’s Greatest Podcast, Energy Newsbeat. Stand up for Stuart Turley, I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks! [00:20:54][0.0][1234.2]
