Daily Standup Top Stories
OPEC+ Has Come Close to Its Limit, Leaving Prices Open to Spike
In the volatile world of global energy markets, OPEC+—the alliance of oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia—is pushing against its production boundaries. With spare capacity dwindling, the group finds itself in a precarious […]
Exxon Considers Return to Iraq: A Potential Re-Entry into the Majnoon Oil Field
In a significant development for the global energy sector, ExxonMobil is reportedly in advanced talks to re-enter Iraq’s oil industry after a nearly two-year absence. The U.S. energy giant is eyeing the massive Majnoon oil […]
China to Build 11 New Oil Storage Sites in 2 Years
In a strategic move to bolster its energy security amid global market volatility, China is accelerating the construction of 11 new oil storage facilities over the next two years. State-owned oil giants such as Sinopec […]
The United States Has Begun Receiving Shipments of Tungsten, Straight from Rwanda, Bypassing China
In a significant step toward securing America’s supply chains and reducing reliance on foreign adversaries, the United States has received its first direct shipment of tungsten concentrate from Rwanda. This milestone, achieved through a partnership […]
President Trump Approves a 211-Mile Road to Alaska’s Ambler Mining District
In a move poised to unlock vast mineral resources critical to America’s energy transition and national security, President Donald Trump has approved the construction of a 211-mile access road to Alaska’s remote Ambler Mining District. […]
Shell’s Q3 Profit Soars on Strong Trading and Production
In a positive signal for investors, energy giant Shell plc has released its third-quarter 2025 trading update, indicating a significant uptick in performance driven by robust trading activities and increased production volumes. The update, released […]
Shell to Take $600 Million Hit from Scrapped Rotterdam Biofuels Project
In a significant setback for its renewable energy ambitions, energy giant Shell has announced it will incur a $600 million financial hit in the third quarter of 2025 due to the cancellation of its biofuels […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
00:14 – OPEC+ Has Come Close to Its Limit, Leaving Prices Open to Spike
04:53 – Exxon Considers Return to Iraq: A Potential Re-Entry into the Majnoon Oil Field
06:30 – China to Build 11 New Oil Storage Sites in 2 Years
08:41 – The United States Has Begun Receiving Shipments of Tungsten, Straight from Rwanda, Bypassing China
11:13 – President Trump Approves a 211-Mile Road to Alaska’s Ambler Mining District
16:14 – Markets Update
17:52 – Shell’s Q3 Profit Soars on Strong Trading and Production
18:25 – Shell to Take $600 Million Hit from Scrapped Rotterdam Biofuels Project
21:59 – 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] Does OPEC Plus really have spare capacity? We’ll find out next on the Energy Newsbeat stand up. [00:00:05][5.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:14] OPEC Plus has come close to its limit, leaving prices open to spike. In a volatile world of global energy markets, OPEX Plus, the alliance of oil producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, is pushing against production boundaries, with spare capacity dwindling. Michael, this is huge because everybody says OPECs got lots of it. Guess what? Not so much of it! These attack the geopolitical are fueling supply risk. But let’s take a look. I’ve got a chart in here. Global recovery oil reserves. I did not know or have on my bingo card that Venezuela had 303 billion barrels of reserves. No wonder we got an armada sitting out there off the coast of Venezuela. But then, you know, coming down there and seeing the U.S. Has only got 45 billion barrels, Russia’s got 80 billion, the UAE 113. Wow. But let’s come down here to this one. Let’s go to spare capacity. Saudi Arabia, to the best number that I could find, had 3,100 estimated barrels per day of spare capacity, I’m not so sure about the UA, I started digging in on that one and Iraq. They are looking at having, Iran is looking at actually having Exxon come into Iraq. So Exxons, they’re looking to come in Iraq. Why in the world would we even have any spare capacity when they’re bringing in a US oil and gas exploration company in order to be able to do it? I don’t think so. But when I got in here from also Josh Young on his substack, taking a look at The ratio of oil to gold ratio, we’re at the lowest it’s been and when it is normally this low, oil starts going up. [00:02:10][116.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:10] Yeah, that, that I think, I think there’s two really interesting things in this article. One, what you just pointed out, the fact that we’re at that gold to oil ratio to the point where we all of a sudden see oil swinging back around, but we all know gold is reaching all times highs. Trust me, guys, I got some Samaria partners in my portfolio added to my position a few days ago. Thank you, Carl and Wasif. We love them over there. But the other thing that I you mentioned that’s aptly aptly true is the estimated spare capacity, because remember what happened on Sunday, they said they’re going to add another 137,000 barrels per day. But you just read off these numbers and wait a second, they’re only slightly close to that. These are in kilobarrels per day, okay. So this is, you got to multiply this by a thousand. So really this 3,100 is really 310,000. The UAE is 100,000, Iraq’s 500,000 Kuwait’s 300,000 but that still only adds up to a 600,000 barrels per day, so they’re slowly getting to the point where that 2.2 million barrel cut that they did five years ago or four years ago is never going to be able to come back considering these numbers. And we already know based on reports that happened last week that they’re even struggling to reach this 137,000 per day. It’s part of the reason why we saw oil prices spike today, not necessarily because of this, because the street doesn’t buy all of this. We’re adding barrels back. We’re adding barrels back. It’s hard when you shut in a well, it is hard to bring it back. And even if it does come back, it generally doesn’t come back as strong. So then you’re focused on new drilling. Well, the problem is one of the things that I, that I’ve been, we’ve been talking about for years is the pressure depletion that’s gone on in Saudi Arabia. At some point in oil field loses pressure, especially if it’s a conventional sandstone take shale out of it, because it’s a little bit of a different story. Yes, you need bottom hole pressure, but primarily you’re talking about different completion methods, but in conventional reservoir, bottom hole pressure is everything. And trust me, the pressure depletion that has gone on in Saudi Arabia, they’ve been producing the same fields for 60 years. The field is the same field, they haven’t moved. It’s not like they’ve gone out and found another field. I mean, the one thing we benefit from in the United States is the fact that we’re always trying to innovate and find new fields. That’s the whole, that’s what drives the US small independent is trying to find that new field, that untapped field. Well, in Saudi Arabia, it’s one company, the Saudi Aramco. So they’re just going to produce the guarfield until they can’t produce it no more. And trust me, they’re having to suck a lot harder on the straw for the exact same amount of oil. [00:04:41][151.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:41] That’s funny. I’ve got two mices in my hand. So this is a way that we have well recovery does not work. Clear. Take two mouses. Try to go clear. It doesn’t work that way, man. It’s a lot harder than that. Let’s go to the next story. Exxon considers return to Iraq a potential re-entry into the Manjun oil field. I hope I said that right and didn’t offend any Manjuns. Significant development for the global energy sector. ExonMobil is reportedly in advanced talks to reenter Iraq’s oil industry. And Michael, I have a map in here. It’s in the lower right-hand corner, closer to Iran. I don’t know that you and I are going to be doing a podcast from that rig anytime soon. That’s way too close out of the middle of nowhere. Way too close. No, that’s not good for me. ExxonMobil has a tumultuous relationship with Iraq’s energy landscape. The company previously was held stake in the West Kerna One oil field but was exited early in 2024 citing operational and security concerns, you better give all the guys total battlefield pay if you’re going to hire them as an export as a service for keeping energy dominance going. I also put in there for the whole field the Manjoon field. A whole history of how much they’ve had in there. You actually had Chevron, Halliburton, and a bunch of other folks in there, but this brings up a huge point. And I’m holding my hand like President Trump. I just realized, it’s anti-TDS syndrome. When I start imitating Trump and my guy keep doing my hand like him. So we can’t just do drill baby drill in Iraq. We need to do drill, baby drill, in the United States. I mean, it doesn’t do any good to do drill, baby drill over there. All I heard was Halliburton. [00:06:28][106.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:29] Iraq, Dick Cheney. [00:06:29][0.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:30] Let’s go to the next story here. Okay. China to build 11 new storage sites in two years. Just when you thought we couldn’t, you know, you sit back and look at the United States and we’re not filling the SPR that old Biden kind of stole in order to win an election. Sources indicate around 37 million barrels of storage have already been completed at the site. The remainder slated for rapid deployment in 2025 and 2026 these facilities will be distributed across various regions now there’s an oil mix chart that i found i did not know china is actually burning a lot of oil for power generation in certain areas i didn’t realize how much oil they were doing just like saudi arabia saudi Arabia burns a significant amount of oil for power generation. So that’s why they’re doing this. [00:07:25][55.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:26] Well, and I think part of the reason is in Saudi Arabia is there’s just so much oil there. They don’t know what to do with it. It’s almost like burning money to stay warm. That’s what the Medellin cartel was doing way back when it was at some point. You just need, you’ve got so much cash, you might as well burn it to stay warm. It’s cheaper that way. You can’t put it anywhere. It’s a little bit like Saudi Arabia. China’s a bit different. They just have so much energy demand that they need to take it where it comes from. It was actually very inefficient to burn oil specifically for power. You generally don’t see that. You see it converted into petroleum products into more of those refined products, jet fuel, gasoline, all that good stuff. So this is an interesting outlier, but 18% in this article. I love this. It comes from Russia. So you can see that that number has jumped substantial since the start of the war, and it probably goes to show they’re getting a nice cheap price for it. So on some level they’re like, okay, well, we might as well just begin to burn this. It makes some sense that way. And what’s interesting is that you pointed out that These imports account for 74% of China’s oil consumption. [00:08:28][62.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:29] It’s a big number, but you also sit back and think that they’re paying all the money to build the extra storage. That’s how cheap they feel oil is, and it’s a good investment in the United States right now. Let’s go to the next story. The United States has begun receiving shipments of tungsten straight from Rwanda. Bypassing China. I kind of like this story. In a significant step toward securing America’s supply chains and reducing reliance on foreign adversaries, the United States has done something right for a change. Speaking of Chris Wright, has received its first direct shipment of Tungsten from Rwanda. The milestone achieved through partnership of Rwamanda Mining Company Trinity minerals, and U.S. Based Global Tungsten and Powers, GTP, marks a brilliant effort. I thought this was absolutely outstanding. Senior officials, G.T.P., a subsidiary of Australian Planees Group and Commodities Trader, celebrated the arrival along with U. S. Ambassador to Rwanda. This is really cool. I want to know where I did not get this, and I failed to do this when I wrote this article this morning. I should have put in there, where is it going to be refined and turned into final product of tungsten? Because that is a big question. [00:09:49][79.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:50] Yeah, this is great from a supply standpoint or in terms of supply security, because now we get to cut out the middle man there. Obviously know what’s going on with China, with the fires. What I hope is that we then begin to put standards for how this stuff should be mined because we know what the problem is in Africa. It’s child mines. You know, child labor and they are not paid well and they are not treated well. So my hope is not only is we getting China out of the equation, but we’re starting to treat them right. I think we will, but we will see it. It hasn’t necessarily been the case. A lot of these, you know these buyers of critical minerals to have kind of put their, their eye, their hands over their eyes and say, well, I see not their little current, you know, there’s Sergeant Schultz. I see nothing. I see not thing. So, you know, it’s pretty interesting from that standpoint. So I think. You know, depending on what, what we decide to see there, it, it’s going to continue to push us forward to kind of bolster our critical minerals output. This has sort of been a theme of the Trump administration and specifically secretary of energy, Chris Wright. He’s, he’s focused on, on a bunch of different things, specifically these international partnerships. Also, there’s been some domestic infrastructure approvals, just like the Amble road in Alaska, which is a goal is to unlock a bunch of deposits of copper and zinc. So not only are we going international, we’re coming here internal. [00:11:12][82.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:13] Yep. That’s the next story. President Trump approves in 211 mile road to Alaska’s Ambler Mining District. This is pretty cool story. I’ve even got the map for the Ambler access project in the story. I think this is again, a commitment from secretary Bergham, Chris Wright, and Lee Zeldin in an effort to be the three horsemen of the energy dominance apocalypse. I truly believe they’re going to get it done. And this is the Ambler Mining District is a treasure trove of critical minerals. 75 mile long belt, rich in high grade resources. It’s pretty darn cool. [00:11:50][37.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:51] Yeah, it really is interesting. I think, and as I mentioned in the last segment, the investment. Critical. It’s going to keep you know, if we are going to move to a big battery centric society, which I was actually at a lunch today and we were talking about this. I’m not against the rollout of high grade lithium battery. I think that’s great. Battery backup, battery storage. I even think that the EV revolution when it comes to what Elon Musk is doing with Tesla, some of them is not bad. And I think it’s in there for the long term. The critical part is how you power them. How do you charge that battery? It’s definitely not going to be wind. And it may be a little bit of redundant solar, but it’s going to be natural gas. It’s going be coal and being able to get these minerals and blow that out is going to be critical. And I applaud the administration for making this going. [00:12:34][42.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:34] I do too and I want to add one thing before we turn it over to your segment and that is I want make sure that we understand that we need to have the hardware that these things go into made in the United States because there was a story we ran on Newsbeat that the in South Korea there was lithium battery backup in a data center that was remotely overrun and burn down. So all of a sudden the South Korean government had hackers in and that went through there. So not only are we getting tungsten, we’ve now got the Ambler Road. The government is doing that. We’ve got to make sure we get the factories to build the products that use these things now. [00:13:20][46.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:20] No, absolutely. And we’re about to cover on the other side here, exactly what Shell did with a filled renewables problem, but we’re going to take a quick break and pay the bills. As always guys, the news and analysis you just heard. Is brought to you by 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. Go ahead and hit the links in the description below for all links to the timestamps, links to articles, and specifically subscribe to the show on YouTube, subscribe to this show on Apple iTunes. Give us a follow there. Subscribe to our show on Spotify. Please leave comments there and subscribe to our sub stack, www.energynewsbeat.substack.com. That’s probably the best place to support the show. Stu does a great job of releasing two to three articles a week that really encompass the big themes that are going on. We also drop all of our podcasts there, which give a little bit of a breakdown. We just had a great, great podcast. So I highly, highly recommend everybody subscribe to the energy newsbeat.sub stack.com We’d also like to thank friends of the show Reese Energy Consulting for supporting the show guys. Reese Energy Consulting is the foremost midstream expert. Guys, if you had at all. Are dealing with issues in the midstream space, whether you’re an upstream company and need help with your first purchaser’s contract or renegotiating your gas contracts or figuring out where you’re gonna tie in your next pad because you’ve got multiple different options and you’re trying to break it all down. Reese Energy Consulting can help. If you’re in the mainstream space, I need an extra pair of hands, need some permitting or regulation help, or need some red team analysis on a final investment decision, guys. They have the team that can help you check out ReeseEnergyConsulting.com They have clients everywhere and all throughout the country from two people in a garage all the way up to the largest publicly traded companies in the world. So if you’re wondering, are you a good fit for them? The answer is yes. ReeseEnergyConsulting.com And finally guys, investinoil.energynewsbeat.com We are coming up on the end of the year. And I promise you guys, you do not wanna be paying money to Uncle Sam. You wanna keep as much money in your pocket. You wanna diversify your portfolio a little bit and you want to get some dividends. You can do that by investing in oil and gas. Check out investinoil.energynewsbeat.com Fill out our portfolio survey and our tax calculator. And guess what, you guys, you guys are gonna get and get a nice ebook that tells you here’s what you should look for when you invest in oil and gas. And also figure out what your tax burden is and figure out how much you might save relative to your tax burn if you did invest in Oil and Gas, guys. We practice what we preach here, guys, we do this stuff ourselves. Investin oil.energy newsbeat .com Don’t give your money to Uncle Sam. Figure out and find out if oil and gas investing is for you. Depending on if you qualify, we will, again, send you all that information and we may or may not point you in the right direction. Again, investin oil.energynewsbeat.com. [00:16:14][173.4]
[00:16:14] I mean, we saw prices to kind of actually jump that it’s kind of interesting, you know, kind of piggybacking off the story that we started about, you know. People aren’t buying this 137,000 barrel a day. Increased oil was down to about 6608. So about a seven tenths drop, but real, but that early trading session, it was up big. So some interesting signals coming out. Natural gas took an absolute nosedive today was down about three and a half percentage points closing all the way at $3 and 33 cents. So still up. We’re still above that $3.30 grind, but I think there’s some interesting stuff going on. You know, a lot of people are worried and I think the sentiment on the street had a lot to do with some of the info that’s coming out of Russia. We saw today that a top Russian diplomat said the impetus to reach a peace deal with Ukraine was largely exhausted while this peace deal could allow more Russian oil to flow to the global markets. I would say that this is an unfortunate news. Yes. Yes. With you, Stu needs prices to go up, obviously, because he’s about to take that job at Goldman Sachs. So he needs prices go high. But we need to figure out what’s going on with this Russia-Ukraine conflict. So we need figure this out. Not great. [00:17:24][69.9]
[00:17:25] I think the other thing, Stu, that we saw was we actually saw a little bit of snapshot into Shell’s Q3 earnings. They didn’t release their earnings today, but what they did is they came out and mentioned and talked about their trading profits. And so this is a huge, huge, huge segment of their profit margin that they are able to talk about. They basically talked about their refining margins. So they estimated that their refinding margins jumped to $11.6 per barrel. And to give you guys an idea, that’s up from $8.9 per barrel in Q2. They have massive, massive refinery utilization somewhere at night between 94 and 98%. And so it’s, it’s going to be, it, it it’s gonna be pretty big. It looks like it’s going to come at about a $400 million profit, again, pure profit. That’s one of the reasons why Shell and BP go heavy, heavy into the trading is because all of this is generally pure profit, there’s not much cost associated with it. So that’s going speak volumes for their bottom line Q3,. [00:18:25][59.9]
[00:18:25] But that was followed up by their mention that they are taking a $600 million hit from their scrapped Rotterdam biofuels project, Stu. I’m just going to go ahead and read a little bit from the article here in a massive setback for its renewable ambitions. Shell announced today that it will incur a $6 million financial hit in the third quarter of 2025. Probably the reason why they announced their trading profit in a little to try to kind of even out the PR guy of the week. We love that there, but they’re taking this hit in a $600 million hit in the third quarter of 2025 due to the cancelation of its biofuels plant in Rotterdam. This project was originally approved in 2021, designed to produce about 820,000 metric tons of biofuel, construction was paused in 2024 and ultimately was deemed uncompetitive leading to its full scrapping. And obviously we did see the interest. They also on top of that biofuels cancelation, they flagged another 200 to 400 million of impairment related to its rebalancing and its participation of interest in Brazilian who be field and their chemicals division is supposed to post a loss for the quarter. I mean, so just not good. So again, you can see why they decided to up and go ahead and drop their trading profits because a lot of bad news on the thing. And this comes as a shift from Shell. I mean, Shell was one of the early companies into renewables, but in fairness, they were one of the first companies to pull it all back. And I think a lot of what they’re dealing with right now was the fallout. Everything looks good on a balance sheet when you do this. But now, when you first do a wind project, you first do a renewables project. Oh, we’re going to do this biofuels project. It’s going to look great. Anything can look great on a balance sheet. But then the income statement comes out and the income Statement says all and cash flow from operations says everything taking these impairments again to Rebalance the balance sheet shows that at some point people are gonna have to start focusing on what they believe, so no biofuels plant. Hey, it is what it is, Stu. [00:20:21][115.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:22] And sustainable aviation fuel was also what they were making. I don’t, I know about you, but I don’t want to be sitting next to Jerry Nadler with sustainable aviation fuel, wondering where it came from. [00:20:32][10.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:32] The last thing you want to see when you get on a plane is five rats on a treadmill, losing their mind, trying to make sure that the turbine spin. [00:20:40][7.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:40] No, you don’t want that. You also don’t wanna sit next to Jerry Nadler. No. [00:20:43][3.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:43] I don’t who would you rather sit next to Jerry Nadler or Katie Porter? [00:20:46][2.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:47] Neither one. [00:20:47][0.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:48] I’d rather just be on the wing, just strap me to the wing please. [00:20:51][3.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:52] I’ll drive. [00:20:52][0.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:53] Speaking of great interviews, you finally got the General Flynn interview done and cooked. The team is working on it. I had a chance to listen to it. It was great. There’s only about 20 things we have to cut out so we don’t get kicked off YouTube, but it was great and I think it’s really awesome. Some of the stuff you guys have coming up. What’d you think of it? Did you have fun? [00:21:10][16.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:21:10] I had an absolute blast and general Flynn is an outstanding. He invited us to the, to participate in his energy summit in DC. So that tells you he had fun and he will be back. [00:21:23][12.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:21:23] Absolutely. It’s going to be great. We really appreciate general Flynn and his team for setting this up guys. So anticipate that we’re probably going to launch that on Tuesday of next week. So go ahead and watch out for that guys. But with that, we’re going to go ahead. And let you get out of here, finish up your week as always. We’ll have a what’s coming out tomorrow for the podcast though. Oh, let me get here. I have it. I had it. And so we’ll have something on Friday. Obviously the weekly recap drops on Saturday and we’ll be back in the Monday and then you will see General Flynn on Tuesday. We’re gonna start teasing it. We got a little trailer in the works Hopefully it’s nice spooky and scary. Cool. So it’ll be good guys. So appreciate everybody for Stuart Turley and Michael Tanner That’s us for us this week. Check out our podcast tomorrow weekly recap on Friday We’ll see you Monday. [00:21:23][0.0]
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