Daily Energy Standup Episode #142 – Energy Crisis Lingers: Germany’s Regulator Issues Warning, North Dakota Tribe Makes Bold Move, and Ohio Welcomes Powerful New Plant

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Germany’s Regulator Warns The Energy Crisis Is Far From Over

June 11, 2023 Allen Santos

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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Michael Tanner: [00:00:15] What is going on. Everybody, Welcome into another edition of the Daily Energy News Beat Stand up here on this gorgeous Monday, June 12th, 2023. As always, I’m your humble correspondent, Michael Tanner, coming to you from an undisclosed location here in Dallas, Texas, joined by the Executive producer of the show, the Purveyor of the show and the Director and Publisher of the world’s greatest website, Energynewsbeat.com, Stuart Turley, my man, you have a good weekend. [00:00:40][24.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:00:40] I’m doing pretty good but looking like Thursday I’m sneak in this one in this one is from Dr. Patrick Moore, the founder of Greenpeace Confessions of a Greenpeace Drop out get to interview him this is going to be pretty cool. [00:00:55][15.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:00:56] For those of you who listen, which is 100% of our audience, Stu was holding up a book so thanks for being descriptive there, Stu. But no, that’s an awesome interview that we’ve got coming up. Doctor Patrick Moore, former founder of Greenpeace, now thinks it’s a scam. So highly recommend tuning in to that one. [00:01:15][19.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:01:16] We have an absolutely loaded show. Today’s Stu lot happened this weekend. We were sitting here in our little pre-show meeting I was boom stories left and right, but we’re still left with five. First up on the menu today, guys, Germany’s regulator warns the energy crisis is far from over yet, duhhh. So Germany’s energy regulator finally coming around is something we already knew here so Stu will cover what’s going on in Germany. [00:01:41][24.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:01:41] Next step this is an awesome story, North Dakota tribe buys idle oil pipeline from Enbridge, you’ve got to love it we’ll dive into all the little details about this one. Next up, New gas fired 1875 megawatt plant comes online in Ohio to make natural gas great again, we got to love that Stu will cover what’s going on with that plant. [00:02:04][22.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:04] Next up, UK windfall tax to be scrapped if oil and gas prices fall to quote normal levels to be very interesting to see what they consider normal levels. But they did have to come out and say this as prices have fallen relatively, you know, as we stand here, we’re about $70. These were impacted somewhere around 80 to $90 oil so it’d be interesting to see how they change that. [00:02:25][20.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:25] And then finally, Germany’s 30,000 wind turbines are causing local rainfall droughts in a twist, nobody saw it coming. Wind turbines are now causing rainfalls, droughts. Stu will dive into all of those scary details. [00:02:40][14.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:40] He will kick it over to me I will quickly cover what’s going on in the oil and gas markets from a finance perspective, oil looks like it will open down a little bit after finishing its second straight week down, week over week in a lot of this Saudi lollipop stuff was was outweighed by just some weak demand numbers will cover some of the trading sentiment around there and see what Stu sees coming up in the markets and then we’ll let you guys get out of here, start your Monday. Hopefully you only have a few meetings that either bang your head of digging it through but otherwise, we appreciate you guys checking us out. [00:03:09][28.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:09] Before we dive into the show guys, as always, check us out. www.Energynewsbeat.com Hit the description below. All of the stories you are about to see and hear are available and link in the description below linked on the website and available to read and then there’s a lot more. As I mentioned, I moved about five or six stories Stu is try to run 12 stories for this show. So in the sake of time we wheedled the down. [00:03:31][21.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:32] Check out www.EnergyNewsBeat.com to see all of that email us Questions@Energynewsbeat.com we appreciate that check us out on YouTube @Energynewsbeat, Dashboard.Energynewsbeat.com the best place for all your data and energy news combo. All right, Stu, we’ve got a big show today, where do you want to start? [00:03:49][17.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:50] Okay. Hey, let’s start with this one here, Germany’s regulator warns the energy crisis is far from over. Michael, this one’s pretty darn interesting from the standpoint that natural gas storage facilities in the EU, the total EU are at 70% capacity, while in Germany natural gas tanks are at 76. The magic number that they think they need is 75 but for all of the EU. [00:04:20][29.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:21] But part of the problem is that that is also leaving in their 25% reductions in technology and in commerce that they’ve shut down. So let’s see, economies shut down, no baths, people stink. I mean, it’s pretty amazing. [00:04:39][18.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:40] The regulator said if everything goes well, we’ll have full storage facilities in late summer and then they bombed down in here a little bit later. They noticed that it was May 22nd, it was 23.2 below the average before the 2018. The crisis is not over, Mark Speaker said at the presentation of the utility giant’s first quarter and May. [00:05:06][26.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:08] Well here’s the thing that the quote from what’s his face you know the president of Germany’s energy regulator. His name is Klaus Schwab excuse me, Klaus Miller. [00:05:16][8.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:05:17] Oh, jeez. Oh, geez. [00:05:18][1.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:20] But his name is Klaus Miller, the quote that you originally read, Stu. If everything goes well, I don’t know if that scares me, because as we learn, if there’s anything we’ve learned and you’ve taught me, nothing ever goes as planned. [00:05:34][13.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:34] So if your entire plan for securing your energy storage for the winter relies on everything going well, I’d move and I’d start stocking up on shoes. Because remember, you don’t have to start burning shoes, you know, keep your newspapers stuff in your shirts. [00:05:49][14.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:05:50] Yeah and it’s like, oh, by the way, it depends on the weather, so, you know, okay, yeah, we can predict the weather. Just, hey, I’m going to go ahead and stay over there in Germany so we don’t have to burn all the fuel coming back over to the, you know, back and forth across the pond. Negatively changing…. [00:06:06][15.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:06] You are so good you are so environmentally friendly I appreciate it. [00:06:09][2.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:09] I am, by the way, I’ve got this great interview that I’m doing here with Dr. Patrick Moore. Okay Negatively changing the environment in Germany, 30,000 wind turbines causing local rainfall, droughts. Michael, this one I thought was absolutely a wonderful article and Andy is producer if you could bring in the map and fly it in here is the site represents one chart depicting wind energy installation concentration around Germany. [00:06:47][37.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:47] The northern half of Germany if you notice on this, this map as it rolls in for our folks to do look at it or look at it on Energynewsbeat com you’ll see the northern half has most of the wind power and also has most of the drought. Oh so there is an, if you’ll notice it down here, Michael if you look down towards the south where there’s a little bit of wind anywhere there’s wind, there’s a drought. [00:07:18][30.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:18] Yeah, it is very interesting in the northern half of Germany is experiencing a drought versus the summer half. I will push back a little bit you know, I still need a little bit of a connection between, okay, the wind farms are popping up and the drought’s giving there. Is it correlation? Is it causation? [00:07:34][15.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:35] I think it’s causation and I’ll tell you why. Is it a coincidence that the soils are dry, as were most wind turbines are located and that is in and also says in a larger farms the soil’s even drier. What do you know? [00:07:53][17.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:56] Interesting thing. [00:07:56][0.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:57] See It’s not just necessarily, oh, it’s drying it up. It is drying the soil so that when it does rain, it is not able to absorb the water nearly as much. So it is a secondary cause and effect that is, I thought, very well articulated in here. [00:08:16][19.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:17] We love a good second-order thinking, but this just, you know, I can get behind droughts to get rid of wind farms. But if we’re still getting if we’re still talking about wells, I say kill them. [00:08:26][9.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:27] My young, my young burner here. Oh, my gosh, you’ll save the earthworms but you won’t save a whale. [00:08:33][6.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:37] Okay, I’ve just spoken the bear Stu. What’s up? Let’s go to North Dakota. [00:08:40][3.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:41] No, Let’s go to the UK because we’re still over in the pond we got to make sure we’re not like Kerry. [00:08:45][3.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:46] Yes, you’re right because we’re boating, we’re being energy efficient so we gotta.. [00:08:48][2.9]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:49] Energy. [00:08:49][0.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:50] Boating across. You’re right, Your right. [00:08:51][0.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:51] That’s right, UK windfall tax to be scrapped if oil and gas prices fall to normal levels for unquote normal levels. The government has announced that it will remove the windfall tax on oil and gas companies, that energy prices fall to normal levels. [00:09:10][18.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:11] Let me read this to you, the levy raised about £2.8 billion today, but the government said energy companies are cutting back on investments as a result, putting in the long term future of the UK’s domestic supply at risk. [00:09:29][17.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:29] This is this reeks of just total stupidity and this puts a long term future on UK’s domestic supply at risk. This goes along with the other story, Michael. The wind farms are not sustainable long term due to finances that’s why Germany and the UK are in trouble because of wind energy in the higher prices, thanks to the revenue based from windfall taxes on energy profits, we’ve helped save the typical household £1,500 on their energy bill in July. But they’re not thinking, you know, pass tomorrow. This is kinda like the… [00:10:10][40.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:11] They’re trying to have their cake and eat it, too they understand that rising energy prices are generally bad for the society because you see the impact on your electrical prices, immediately, and you see it impacted when you go fill up your gas tank immediately there’s no real lag. [00:10:28][16.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:28] Now, I think what the issue that they’re talking about is we’re seeing a slow cut back on investment that is, if this tax continues to be levied, you’ll see less, less investment to get to the point where, as this Treasury mentions, this puts the long term you know, this is the quote, this puts the long term future of UK domestic energy supply at risk. [00:10:47][18.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:10:48] I think the interesting part is, is that the Treasury also came out and said that, yes, we are interested in in getting rid of this tax, but if you use the offit for Budget Responsibility energy price forecast based on their forecast, whatever that is, it can’t be good. [00:11:04][16.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:04] But if I write about Goldman Sachs you know, they probably outsourced it to Goldman Sachs and they’ve just got it all oil price for for the next six years. But that tax wouldn’t be removed until 2028. [00:11:16][11.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:17] Exactly. [00:11:17][0.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:18] They don’t want this to be removed, but they want to but they’re signaling we’re in trouble. It’s really funny. [00:11:24][5.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:24] Okay. Gareth Davies, culture secretary to the Treasury, said it’s right that we recover excess profits resulting from Putin’s war and the use of money to help people with their energy bills. Putin’s war. [00:11:41][16.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:41] Okay Sanctions don’t work and they’re one of the reasons, the biggest reasons that the energy has gone up plus the bad planning. You can’t blame everything on Putin. I despise I don’t think Putin’s a nice guy it’s not Putin’s 100% his fault. Okay. Anything else on this? [00:12:02][20.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:02] No. I mean, you know, 2024 [00:12:04][1.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:08] Everything, whatever you had this week in your work, working, my only good nerve left. Those are always our best shows when you’re working my only good nerve. Let’s head out to Across the Pond we’re now in North Dakota tribe buys idle oil pipeline from Enbridge. I absolutely love this story. The Native American tribe in North Dakota. But the energy companies, Enbridge to help, not Enbridge. Kind of like what your ancestors coming from Arkansas. [00:12:41][32.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:42] They had an has that and Arcata nation announced Friday that but did not disclose how much it paid. The tribe expects the pipeline which will connect its oil facilities on its Fort Berthold reservation to Enbridge large pipe line. I am very, very happy for them there needs to be revenue for that tribe, and there are more than 2600 active oil and gas wells on the reservation. I’d like to go one step further, Michael. Is there any way that those natural gas dividends or natural gas could go straight to them to deliver low carbon electricity and stuff, id say burn the gas… [00:13:26][44.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:27] No, because I don’t think the I don’t think the reservation’s own the minerals and this is where I think this is why it’s critical that, you know, the last sentence of this article, owning the pipeline will benefit the tribe financially. And that’s why this Native American tribe went ahead and bought this. [00:13:41][14.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:42] I mean, think about it there’s 2600 active wells doing 144,000 barrels of oil, oil per day, according to the U.S. Department of Minerals. It’s going to allow them to basically get their hands and get squeezed in to the oil market. [00:13:56][14.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:57] And again, there’s there was a probably a lot of bridge financing involved with this, you know, what I mean, they didn’t buy this bad boy in cash. Somebody came in and financed this thing to the cows gone. [00:14:06][9.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:06] The question is what this is going to most likely allow them to do is, again, unlock 3900 oil and gas wells that companies who own that lease probably want to drill. And now they’re going to be able to take a fee, a per barrel fee for transporting this oil. [00:14:23][16.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:14:24] Right. So if they don’t have the minerals, they at least get something from the oil, Everything pumped out of there. [00:14:28][4.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:29] Exactly why buying this pipeline is advantageous because now you get a a small slice of, you know, whatever, whatever it is. And if you’re talking, you know, to 2600 oil and gas wells are doing 145,000 barrels of oil a day, imagine what 3900 new wells would do. [00:14:45][16.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:14:46] This particular portion of the pipeline that they bought can transport 15,000 barrels per day. [00:14:51][5.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:52] Whoop! Whoop! [00:14:53][0.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:14:53] Hey rock and roll! You know, and I always love transporting on a pipeline instead of via a tanker. [00:15:00][7.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:01] So absolutely, you’d much rather this than a train, holy smokes, you’d rather this. But great, great. We love this, we love this crew, love more people getting their hands on pipelines. I love the divestiture of pipelines from big bought big entities to smaller entities know much like what’s going on in Colorado right now with the EMP sector, you’re going to end up seeing 1 to 2 large players that’s what’s happening in been happening in the pipeline space. [00:15:26][25.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:26] I love this decoupling from standpoint and Enbridge is notoriously a horrible midstream operator. I’ll just go out there and say that they routinely rank as one of the lower midstream operators for a variety of reasons. We saw that specifically in the Dallas Fed survey that came out a month and a half ago so but also love this. [00:15:46][19.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:15:47] Going back and forth between the Canadian border the I believe it’s the Michigan governor has been really wiping them out and it’s really caused some issues between Canada so they’re having to deal with a lot of headaches. So. [00:16:02][15.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:16:03] Yeah,. [00:16:03][0.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:16:04] I’m only in defend them for about two and a half seconds. Let’s move on to the next good story. The new gas fired 1875 megawatt plant comes online in Ohio. I think this is fabulous, Michael, because this entered into operation. The Guernsey Power Station in Guernsey County, southeastern Oklahoma, is now sourcing gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays Yahoo! And it’s replacing a coal plant this is one of the best things for the environment that you can do and I just want to give them a complete shout out. [00:16:44][39.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:16:44] This is from Ross Dee and president of Cathines Energy. In 2022, coal fired plant requirements accounted for approximately 89% of retired capacity in the PJM region, as more and more coal fired plants are retired, the name for thermal resources in the IS central, reliable, flexible power they provide is crucial for grid stability and increasing demand of power. This is also putting in the GE gas turbines, which are phenomenal, GE is really doing great on getting these things in there, these are the seven HA gas turbines. [00:17:24][39.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:17:25] Yeah, no, I mean, if you’re going to replace coal, you better replace with natural gas. Don’t be dumb enough, replace it all the way and that’s all I always say. Love that 89% number of retired capacity going from coal to natural gas you got to love that. [00:17:36][11.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:17:36] And on the seven eight is one of the reasons I like that is because it does support hydrogen in the same thing with natural gas. That’s a little forward thinking instead of putting in the Wal-Mart special turbines. [00:17:49][13.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:17:50] Yeah, no, it’s it’s true. [00:17:52][1.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:17:52] Okay. My arms are tired from going around the world Dude [00:17:55][2.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:17:55] And yeah, we’ll quickly bounce around, cover oil prices, we actually just saw the markets open here. It’s 501 here on the 11th Sunday night. So we actually just saw markets open. Oil currently trading down 7010 was actually trading somewhere around 6990 when that market opened about 2 minutes ago but we would bounce back up. [00:18:15][19.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:18:15] And again, it’s very hard to reconcile what’s going on in the markets right now because what what you know, if you were to Google oil price news, you’re going to see the same headline six days in a row, you know, battle between demand side forces and supply side forces. Now, what’s on either side of that equation? On one equation, you’ve got OPEC. [00:18:37][21.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:18:37] OPEC’s specifically what they did last week Saudi Arabia’s moved to cut 1 million barrels from the market, clearly is a sign that the supply it’s a clear sign that they still believe there’s a supply side issue going on and that cutting supply is the answer, in my opinion but we’ve seen this last week. It’s not the answer. [00:18:56][18.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:18:57] If you actually want prices to continue to rise, you’re going to have to do a lot more than just continually cut from OPEC there are other things you’re going to have to do. And let’s also not report that the U.S. and Iran were attempting to finalize this interesting new nuclear deal Stu, I don’t know if you have much about that. [00:19:15][18.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:19:16] After both countries denied the report, you saw a huge drop in oil prices you could see it right here on the stick last week. So, you know, do you see that that potential renegotiation of that nuclear deal actually happening or is this being floated out there to mess with oil prices? Because I mean, oil was sitting at $71, went all the way down to below $69, then immediately back up to 71 all on this news. [00:19:40][24.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:19:41] I think it’s a political hack job because the New Iran, Russia, China and Iraq, all of those new contracts are coming in or going to overshadow anything and the only thing that I truly think that this means is that you’re going to see another KC 135 end up with several billion dollars of cash on the Iranian landing pad where the Americans were. Obama authorized cash payments again and if that happens, you’ll see a deal. Otherwise, it’s going to be graft not my honest opinion. [00:20:16][34.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:20:17] I was hoping you’d give us the lighter version, but as always, you give us, unfortunately, the cold, hard truth. So again, this is mostly this news is most likely just being used as a political tool, as Stu said, to raise and lower oil prices, Natural gas still $2.29 not much movement over there. What are you worried about this week, Stu? What’s caught your mind? What are you focused on? [00:20:38][21.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:20:39] There is some major things going on around the world politically, and you’re also seeing a major, major backlash on ESG investing. So I think there’s a great awakening waking up this. And over the next bit, you’re going to see some real articles coming out about ESG investing people are tired of it. [00:21:01][22.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:21:01] Yeah, well, get on the train we hated too. Couple programming notes I will be out on Wednesday traveling back to the motherland, Colorado. So, you’ll deal with starting a solo or on a on a Thursday solo show but I will be back in the seat on Sunday, and it looks to be a scary weeks Stu. [00:21:22][20.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:21:22] Buckle up kid, buckle up. [00:21:24][1.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:21:25] All right, guys, we’ll let you get out of here. We appreciate you checking us out on this Monday. We’re giving you good vibes for this week hopefully nothing too crazy crossing your plate. But if so, remember, you can do this and you’ll be fine. We’re sending you the faith on this Monday, guys, You got it. Stuart Turley, I’m Michael Tanner we’ll see you tomorrow! [00:21:25][0.0]

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