Daily Standup Weekly Top Stories
Venezuela Looks To Pay Down $20 Billion In U.S. Debt With Oil Exports – Why is there an extimated $6 B price difference?
The opposition party in Venezuela is working up a proposal that would see 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day exported to a trustee, who would then pay creditors who have laid claim on various […]
Shell CEO Dreams of Leaving UK for Greener (Profitable) Pastures in the US
In a truly heartwarming display of corporate compassion, Wael Sawan, the CEO of Shell, has openly mused about the possibility of abandoning the UK to make even more money elsewhere. It seems that pesky ‘windfall’ […]
Batteries And Renewables Are Saving Texas During The Heat Wave
Texas, along with much of the South, has been subject to a relentless, prolonged heat wave for several weeks – the kind of climate-fueled extreme weather event that scientists have warned us will happen with […]
DAVID BLACKMON: Biden Is Spreading Around Green Subsidies Like A Vegas Gambler
A pair of stories published this week help document a rising phenomenon on the U.S. energy landscape: Hundreds of speculative, potentially non-economic projects being pursued solely due to the existence of billions of debt-funded dollars […]
This high speed train could be the first to be powered entirely by renewable energy
California’s long-awaited high speed train will be solar powered, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. It’s been a rocky road so far for the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s promising new project. This high speed […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
01:09 – Venezuela Looks To Pay Down $20 Billion In U.S. Debt With Oil Exports – Why is there an extimated $6 B price difference?
04:06 – Shell CEO Dreams of Leaving UK for Greener (Profitable) Pastures in the US
11:00 – This high speed train could be the first to be powered entirely by renewable energy
13:57 – DAVID BLACKMON: Biden Is Spreading Around Green Subsidies Like A Vegas Gambler
15:50 – Outro
Follow Stuart On LinkedIn and Twitter
Follow Michael On LinkedIn and Twitter
– Get in Contact With The Show –
Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:07] What is going on Everybody, Welcome into a special edition of the Daily Energy News Beat Standup here on this gorgeous Friday, July 14th, 2023. As always, I’m your humble correspondent Michael Tanner, joined by Stuart Turley, bringing you our weekly recap where we cover and replay all the top segments from last week its a busy week Stu we had a lot of good stories. [00:00:28][21.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:29] Oh, you can’t beat it when you got a High Speed Train in California that’s been 15 years in the making and 7,000% over budget you can’t buy that kind of entertainment. [00:00:43][13.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:00:44] That’s just one of the stories that we ran last week the team does a great job of curating and picking our top segments. But before we dive into that, guys, again www.EnergyNewsBeat.com the best place for all of your energy in oil and gas news. But I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to the weekly recap, folks we’ll see you Monday. [00:01:03][19.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:04] This one reeks of potential like, Hey, where’s my crayon? Venezuela looks to pay down 20 billion in U.S. debt with oil exports why is there an estimated 6 billion price difference? There’s a B there refresh your screen. [00:01:22][17.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:23] So when you take a look at this, Michael, why are we allowing Venezuela to get use oil in trade? Okay. Now, the way I did, I took a look at this parting with 200,000 barrels of Barrels per day of its crude that generates much-needed revenues but they’re going to give it to the United States in lieu of doing that. And I started doing my crayon there’s $6 billion difference between what they would sell it to us for supposedly and, you know where is that price difference? [00:02:07][44.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:07] I’ll have to I’m going to put a spreadsheet in here for the folks that will be on here. When you start having 20 billion and then the 14 billion is what Venezuela is really going to get credit for what is that 6 billion difference going to do, Michael? It seems a little odd to me. [00:02:27][19.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:28] Yeah, I’m on I don’t know. I’m going to have to see this crayon and this napkin that you’re using. So you’re going to need this is like the missing 13 minutes on the Nixon files, like missing napkin where is it? I’m going to need your crayon math on that one. [00:02:42][14.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:42] I can’t Trust. [00:02:43][1.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:44] Right now there’s 200,000 under this newly proposal on 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day that’s being diverted to China would currently be diverted basically cost free to the United States. [00:02:56][11.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:57] What I mean, basically what it would be doing is it would generate revenues that would immediately go back into paying off the value. You got to remember, Citgo, which is Venezuela’s most prized possession, sits within the United States so it’s already been seized. [00:03:10][12.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:03:11] So now all of a sudden, there’s not much else to do other than go get some free oil. This proposal requires sign-off from the Maduro regime. You also have to remember, guys, In January, Washington went ahead and signed off on a license that would allow Chevron to ship 134,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude up to the United States coast Venezuela is currently exporting about 750,000 barrels per day and refined products. So remember, they used to shut down there and that’s up over the last year. [00:03:42][31.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:42] Okay, Here’s a squirrel for you in the hamster wheel. Okay. If we sit back and take a look, there also is Biden is is kicked out more SPR releases I’m trying to get information on that as well, too. So we’re also lowering our strategic oil reserves well, this kind of crap is going on. What’s going on? [00:04:05][23.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:06] Shell CEO Dreams of leaving UK for greener and more profitable pastures in the U.S. This brings up a bunch of different questions. I love the picture, pictures of big shell on fire like, Hell, you know, I don’t know where where that really came from. [00:04:24][17.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:25] But you remember Shell was over in the Netherlands, in Dutch, and then they moved to the UK. Now UK is coming in with a windfall profit tax Oh, so Shell, who went totally ESG and said, we’re getting out of the oil and gas business. [00:04:47][21.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:48] So they moved to the UK because the Netherlands was also trying to get out of that. Oh, they have a lot of natural gas fields there they need them now. So the U.S., why would any business want to come to the U.S. with our administration? [00:05:08][20.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:10] Well, because it’s not the U.K. Administration. I mean, it’s absolutely clear that even a Democratic administration here is going to be a little bit nicer to the industry than what goes on in the U.K.. I mean, I think it’s interesting it’s purely financials, though what’s interesting is that Shell does trade at a discount relative to its U.S. counterpart. [00:05:29][18.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:30] That’s in that Paragraph that our. [00:05:31][1.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:31] Its an Interview he called it, quote, the valuation gap between them and it’s truly that’s just the valuation gap. I mean, they had record profits in 2022 of over $40 billion dollars that’s huge. [00:05:45][13.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:45] That is? [00:05:46][0.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:46] I mean, it would be it’s absolutely insane. So, you know, I think what’s interesting is, okay, now, are they relocating their headquarters to the U.S.? Probably not but it might be interesting to think about it. [00:05:59][12.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:59] Let me ask you this, because you’re usually very good about picking this out. Do you think that this was one of those posts or articles that they lobbed out there to try to get a waiver from the windfall profits tax? [00:06:12][12.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:13] No, I think this is. They are. I mean, this is this seems to be a little bit this is not initially from Shel directly like this is somebody interpretation of what Shell is doing. Shell has come out what is Shell come out and said? They’ve come out now and said they’re moving more towards U.S. returns and asking more in the United States. What does that mean? [00:06:39][25.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:39] Could mean a lot of stuff. Does it mean they want to ultimately move to the United States because the U.K. government is screwing them out of, you know, excess profits from windfall taxes? It’s likely probably it’s it’s a small likelihood, I don’t think necessarily more likely then what exactly this you know, the CEO will give him credit. [00:06:59][20.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:00] Wayland Swann, CEO of Shell he this quote unquote, valuation gap between where Shell sits and where these large, you know, where Exxon and Chevron and Conoco Phillips set. So that’s probably got more to do with it in that if you get more involved in the United States oil and gas business, maybe there’s more to it. [00:07:21][21.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:22] I mean, you know, it’s bad when companies are troubled, when you’re trying to get more involved with the U.S. oil and gas business that’s when you know it’s gone completely south. [00:07:29][7.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:32] Exactly Right [00:07:32][0.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:33] You know what we need more of? We need more 500 quality drilling locations. [00:07:37][4.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:38] Yeah. Well,. [00:07:39][1.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:40] I wonder who they can call for some high quality drilling locations. [00:07:42][2.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:43] I got a few [00:07:43][0.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:44] You got fee in your backyard? [00:07:45][0.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:45] I do. [00:07:46][0.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:47] Let’s move to this next one, Stu. Tell us how batteries in renewables are saving us. [00:07:51][3.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:51] I love this article it was great. At first I thought it was a picture of the view it was one for our podcast listeners, a picture of a cow. And I really thought it was a picture of one of the members on The View so, you know sorry, that’s what attracted me to the article. So when we’re sitting here, along with Texas the South. [00:08:14][22.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:15] Texas, Michael has some of the single best we are now just recently outperforming California in the amount of renewable energy used on the grid so Texas is not only are we oil and gas, we’re renewable we got nuclear and so, hey, I’m all about Texas love me some Texas. [00:08:40][25.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:41] Yes. I think what we have to realize is this it’s the battery storage that’s been saving us, not necessarily the dispatchable Wind and Solar that’s been available right now. And we can store electricity in batteries in multiple ways we can use it, you know. So I think that’s the critical component to this article. [00:09:02][20.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:03] Yes. When you come down into the storage now, how much does storage add to the cost per kilowatt per hour in maintenance in adding it in there? And so California, I have to throw that I have to fact check myself, but I believe it is around $0.27 per kilowatt hour and Texas has half of that. [00:09:27][23.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:28] So a good chunk of our stuff is still natural gas good. You know, we and so you sit back and we have four nuclear reactors to the one that California is running. So plus, all the people are moving from California to Oklahoma to Texas and I hope they leave their voting policies there. [00:09:49][21.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:50] Yeah. I mean, you have to realize Texas accounted for 70% of the grid battery additions in the first three months, resulting in 3300 megawatts. So, I mean, we’ve got the grid, we’ve got that we’re the market will come with an efficient way to solve the problem. [00:10:07][17.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:07] We’re not. ERCOT, wasn’t just going to sit around and keep letting this happen again? The market was going to figure it out. And guess what? It’s finding out it’s storage is what we need and the money’s being funneled into the storage. [00:10:17][9.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:19] And that’s where it should be because, okay, if you are 100% oil or 100% natural gas and you’re going to fail if you’re 100% coal you’re going to fail, if you’re 100% nuclear, you’re going to fail. We need all forms of energy to elevate the humanity out of the poverty. Here’s where it gets a little silly you got to balance it out to the lowest kilowatt per hour nobody seems to be able to figure that one out. [00:10:51][32.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:51] So when you sit back and kind of go this article is Hoot! Michael Holtz get ready. Ready to go on the Train [00:10:59][7.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:59] I’m ready. [00:11:00][0.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:00] This high speed train could be the first to be powered entirely by renewable energy very exciting aint it let’s go through some. [00:11:09][8.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:10] I’m so excited tell me more California High Speed Rail Authority. [00:11:13][3.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:12:03] Oh 28 Billion to Finish? [00:12:03][0.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:05] Yeah. [00:12:05][0.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:12:05] What is that, 19. That’s holy smokes 150 Billion?. Oh, they get all that they deserve. [00:12:13][7.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:13] Oh, they do and last month, after 15 years of its initial approval, the California highway High Speed rail Authority announced that new system would be now fully solar powered leaning on its initial promise as an environmentally friendly alternative to highways. [00:12:32][18.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:33] Michael, If they’ve taken 15 years and they’re 7,000% overbudget do you think they’re really going to power this thing later on down in here? It says the high speed trains will have. Let’s go through some of those numbers. They will have batteries in case the solar or wind fails while the train is going down the track, What do batteries do, Michael? [00:13:04][30.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:04] They’re going to explode. You’re going to literally be on this train and then you’re going to end up on fire. [00:13:09][4.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:10] They weigh a lot in inertia so not only is this thing going to be a bullet train, it’s going to go through 17 states on the way to Mexico if it can’t. [00:13:21][11.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:23] That’s unbelievable. [00:13:24][0.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:25] Anyway, I’m sorry this just got. We knew we’d have a funding gap ever since the project started well, I know what I know is this the earlier we build it the cheaper we’ll be that is IR guy of the week right there. [00:13:41][15.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:41] Yeah, that is we just build it now it’s going to be the cheapest it’ll ever be. I’m going to start using that excuse of my bank, and they got to buy it now. [00:13:52][10.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:53] We got to love David Blackmon hooo! Biden is spreading around around green subsidies like a Vegas gambler. This one was really pretty funny I talked to David about this this morning Reuters reported a project on Monday a new low carbon ammonia manufacturing facility being built in Texas by a Dutch company, OCI, with an initial investment of 1 billion OCI, builds the plant as the first in the world that will capture and store 95% of the emissions created from the making of ammonia, not great. What are you going to do with it? [00:14:43][50.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:44] Yeah, I mean, if you didn’t realize that subsidies were the only reason a lot of this stuff is getting built because of the subsidies. Well, wake up. [00:14:53][9.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:57] The subsidies are there to be grabbed and OCI is grabbing them that’s a straight quote from L Hoshi. [00:15:05][7.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:15:08] I love this quote down to the bottom of billions of dollars of subsidies for green innovations of all sorts, for battery back capacity for mining, lithium and other minerals and for burgeoning EVs are all in place. Thus, rent seeking companies love a good economics throw in their rent seeking companies, are going to cash out on the rents that are available, betting that the rest of the necessary equation will work itself out. A real question is it probably won’t work itself out well. [00:15:33][25.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:15:34] They don’t even have an order they don’t have any customers. They don’t this is a really not so good business model no, not a great business model. [00:15:34][0.0]
– Get in Contact With The Show –
