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Biden admin cracking down on another popular home device
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Texas will fall behind without transmission development
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Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
03:17 – Battered and Demoralized the Truth about Ukraine
06:35 – Goldman Commodities research Chief Jeff Curie set to leave
10:04 – U.S. LNG, the Global Economy, and Environmental Solution
12:44 – Biden Admin cracking down on another popular home device.
15:18 – Texas will fall behind without transmission development
18:53 – Market Updates
19:55 – Talks about Earnings around Saudi Aramco
23:05 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:07] What is going on Everybody, Welcome into another edition of the Daily Energy News Beat Stand up here on this gorgeous Tuesday, August 8th, 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, How are we doing today? [00:00:30][22.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:30] This is a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I mean, we got as an action packed show and we got some CEOs lining up to be on the Podcast. [00:00:39][9.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:00:40] Yeah, you are working on some some people for your podcast guys. I would encourage you, if you haven’t listened to Stuart long form interview podcast, you can find them on their same channel Energy News Podcast does a great job. He’s got some some pretty crazy guest lined up we’ll keep the names at Bay Harald Hamm, but we will let you know when things. [00:01:03][22.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:03] And more than that. [00:01:04][0.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:06] We do have a great menu guys for you lined up don’t worry we haven’t thought about or forgotten about Ukraine. First article Battered and Demoralized The Truth About Ukraine, Stu will tie that into what’s really going on with the Global Energy Economy. [00:01:20][14.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:20] Next up, U.S. LNG, the Global Economic and Environmental Solution, this is a great dive specifically into LNG and why here specifically in the United States, it’s going to be a great solution going forward. [00:01:33][12.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:34] Breaking news on the street, Goldman Commodities Research Chief Jeff Curry set to leave our favorite bull, we will have a quick moment of silence for the deceased and then talk about maybe what goes on in his place and maybe a little bit of what his legacy is. [00:01:50][16.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:50] Next up, Biden admin cracking down on another popular home device, this has my blood boiling it’s absolutely hilarious we’ll cover it. And then finally, Taxes will fall behind without transmission development , something you and I have been preaching out for years,. [00:02:05][14.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:06] He’ll kick it over to me, I’ll quickly cover that 1% drop in oil prices, mainly due to some of those weaker demand numbers that are coming out. We did see that gas spike all the way up to $2.70 mainly off the back of some bullish weather reports. Few earnings will touch on some of the highlights and then I will wrap it up and send us some out of here. [00:02:25][19.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:26] Before we do all that, guys, remember, all the stories are courtesy the world’s greatest website www.EnergyNewsBeat.com the best place for all of your Energy News. Stu does a great job of curating that website along with the team, we have an excellent team of that works with us. They do a insane job of making sure that website is up to speed, with what you need as your one stop shop for all of your Energy News. [00:02:46][20.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:47] Dashboard.EnergyNewsBeat.com our data energy news product get it while you still can definitely going behind a paywall sometime here so appreciate everybody’s giving us feedback. Hit us up in the description below. [00:02:58][11.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:58] If you listen to us on Spotify podcast on Apple Podcasts, check out the description below. You can have a question, there’s a Q&A chat where you can ask us any questions. You can find all the descriptions, the timestamps to the articles. Let’s go ahead and kick this off, though. Stu, Where do you want to begin? [00:03:12][13.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:13] Hey, let’s start with Russia and Battered and Demoralized the Truth about Ukraine. You know, Putin called the other day and he was like, dude, I have a imitation between The Sopranos and Elmer Fudd and he thought it was funny but here we go. [00:03:33][20.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:34] Kiev’s officials are warning the West that a massive Russian attack against their own Demoralized, fractured army is imminent. McGregor notes that this is always Moscow’s strategy to allow the Ukrainians to exhaust themselves in a fruitful offensive before mounting a renewed attack. [00:03:57][22.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:57] Michael the NATO and the U.S. have poured billions of dollars into this because Russia had actually outplayed chess in the energy space, this all started because of energy. Russia has about 750,000 troops right behind that line, they have lots of ammunition. The United States has no ammunition we’ve given it all to Ukraine, So our leaders are complete knuckleheads. [00:04:37][39.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:39] I hate to do this, but guess who’s going to get hurt on this? The Germans, the E.U., everybody is coming in and NATO needs to go away. The vast delusion is a form of utopianism, an obstinate instance where they conflate morality and militarily. Is the liberal wish is it to be the idealists. There was a total peace deal that Kiev wanted in. U.S. dropped it out. I just also watched some other films. Have you seen the cotton picking videos of Cave In and what’s going on right there? [00:05:26][47.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:27] No, I have not. [00:05:28][0.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:29] It looks better than New York City. I would rather go take my wife out to Kiev in dinner and have a very enjoyable evening knowing that I’m not going to have anybody crap on my sidewalk in front of my dinner. It is beautiful. Everybody’s out the beach is out, that’s not a war zone. So this is all a bunch of hoo ha and it’s the energy market that is getting clobbered. [00:05:59][30.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:01] Yeah. So, you know, it all does come back to energy. I think this article does a good job of kind of of laying those pieces out. I think you’ve done an above average job of covering what’s going on with Ukraine. What’s next? [00:06:15][14.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:16] Ask them. Hey, you know, we are pretty well followed group in Russia and China now. [00:06:22][5.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:23] Yeah. Considering you’re running Putin’s campaign and are in the running to be on the cabinet of Xi Jinping staff. Yeah. I mean, yeah. [00:06:31][7.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:31] I speak Russian like I speak Scooby Doo. Yeah. Okay. Goldman Commodities research Chief Jeff Curie set to leave. Michael, do you want to give him a moment of silence for him? [00:06:42][11.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:43] Yeah, we’ll do it. A quick moment of silence. All right. That was great. I mean, we already joke, You know, he is retiring. It’s more that it’s more that he’s not taking a new job immediately they’re not necessarily filling the role. I think really the interesting question is what happens here? But I’ll quickly cover to give you guys an idea. [00:07:11][28.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:12] Jeff Curry, he was the prominent commodities analyst, really known for his bullish stance in terms of leading Goldman Sachs commodities oil trading group. We joked it made many jokes of his expense. to give you an idea he was correctly predict, what’s up? [00:07:29][17.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:31] Im laughing we did. [00:07:31][0.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:32] Yeah they give you a little bit of his background he rose to fame mainly correctly predicting that the China driven boom of the 2000 that really I blew it that decades surge in oil prices. He did have less luck attempting to repeat that in that sort of supercycle that then proceeded from 2010 onwards. [00:07:50][18.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:07:51] His quote is great. It’s right below that, a couple of paragraphs. He’s a little bit of a mad scientist at long term Goldman colleague, Colleen Foster, describing him as a creative, eccentric and inventive. There’s never a time I couldn’t get a meeting with a CEO, an oil minister or a hedge fund founder if Jeff Currie was with me. How cool is that? [00:08:15][24.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:17] Yeah. I love this Cleveland-Cliffs quote I’ve been critical of Goldman Sachs Commodity Desk for years. So that’s the final quote. We’ll leave it at that. Jeff curry, time is done. [00:08:29][12.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:30] I love it. Okay. Let’s go to the next one here. You want to have another moment of silence? Just kidding. Before we leave that one, there was five other executives that have left they’re doing some housecleaning. They loses another partner in state of recent departures, She’s the fifth partner to depart bank in the last week. Oh, Opoku. [00:08:59][28.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:01] Yeah there’s a there’s he’s definitely. Goldman Sachs is going through a huge change over they’d come out you know I was doing some reading on this they’ve had like 60-something, 62,90 something partners leave over the past few years. [00:09:13][12.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:14] Generally very rare for senior partners in the banking space to leave, if only because you become fairly embedded with the company you’re at that longevity leads to, you know, becoming that Managing Director, working your way up the chain. [00:09:24][10.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:25] That turnover has been a little bit more than I think most people have expected, especially coming out of Goldman. It seems like they seem to be pushing back on that narrative, though, even though externally do their PR by saying, no, no, this is just normal happenings there’s something to be said, though. [00:09:38][13.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:38] I think there I think there’s a culture change going on there and it’s either for the good of the bad. Yeah, and we won’t know because we’re not on the inside. Are these bad people getting flushed out or is this management now introducing a bad culture and good people deciding to leave? We won’t know the answer until two years down the road. But something’s afoot. [00:09:56][17.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:57] Something is afoot, and we’ll see how many show up on CNN and show up on CNN. We know they were fired. Okay. U.S. LNG, the Global Economy, and Environmental Solution. Michael, this story is critical in about 16 different ways. Okay? [00:10:14][17.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:16] Every corner of this world could benefit from clean American natural gas, not just environmentally, but also from a national security standpoint, said Marcellus Shale president Dave Callahan. He’s cool cat. Interviewed him on air with the Philadelphia based Labor and Energy show. [00:10:38][21.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:39] Here’s where it gets really, really good. David is over there and at the Marcellus Shale Coalition. Very great job. He is really leading the charge on getting the great natural gas out of the Marcellus in to market here’s where this gets a little wild. [00:11:03][24.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:04] The magnitude of the Marcellus Shale gas in enormous, we have the opportunity using LNG to provide energy security here at home and to the world, said John Bain EQT Director of government affairs and MSC board chairman on the show as well too. “We could put LNG on the water, but we don’t have the facility or the pipelines to do so. We can be self-sufficient all the while helping the world”. [00:11:38][34.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:11:39] This is critical for one other aspect. Steve Reese, I want to give a shout out to Steve Reece because I’m interviewing him and some other folks that are big folks in Europe, and there’s a new bunch of information coming out about how USA can turn the corner on this. So my Podcast, we got some more big dogs coming on and it addresses this exact article and how we’re going to address it. So just want to self shameless plug there. [00:12:15][35.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:12:16] Yeah. No, we absolutely absolutely love it. LNG is I mean, if there’s anything that’s going to help bridge the transition for from so-called oil to renewables is rolling his eyes. But if that transition is going to happen, LNG is critical to it. What’s next? We have to talk about the Biden administration banning ceiling fans. [00:12:38][22.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:40] Holy smokes. Michael, I got two fan stories here for us. Biden Admin cracking down on another popular home device, and this is not the jetpack this is not anything else like that. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, Published a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding energy conservation standards for ceiling fans. Michael. If adopted, the new energy efficiency standards would apply to all standard ceiling fans, hugger ceiling fans, large dynamic and now ceiling fans and high speed bell driven ceiling fans. [00:13:25][45.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:29] I mean. [00:13:29][0.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:30] This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of, you know why? [00:13:33][3.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:34] I don’t know what it really means going forward in terms of I mean, Stu, it’s absolutely incredible what they want to ban here. I mean, I get the belt fans. I’m with you on belt fans, Stu I’m with you on Bell fans I’m not with you on the fans in here. And eventually, when they go to smart grids, they’re going to shut all that stuff off. That’s the real key about going to electricity is the shift to smart grids. That’s whats scary. [00:14:02][28.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:14:03] You got it. It’s all about control. I’m sorry. I’m getting all riled up and for our podcast listeners, I’m flaming around our house and I’m waving my hands in front of my camera, and that’s going in and out of focus. [00:14:15][12.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:14:16] This is nuts. And I hope that the union flags this as another climate change episode, which I always love being banned by the U.N. because they’re a bunch of chowder heads. This is just ludicrous. I mean, unbelievable. The ceiling fans mean that you can keep your air conditioner up higher because you get air flowing around. This saves electricity, Hello! [00:14:49][32.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:50] This is not second order of thinking. [00:14:51][1.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:14:52] No, this is McFly! Hello! I mean. [00:14:55][3.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:56] Hello, McFly! [00:14:56][0.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:14:57] Hello, McFly! And that’s why I’m getting upset. I’m getting grumpy at this chowder headed administration. I’m sorry for swearing to our listeners. Let’s go to the next. [00:15:09][11.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:15:09] What’s next? [00:15:09][0.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:15:10] I’m sorry. I got to go take a blood pressure pill my ear, blood, my ear just exploded. Okay. The next one, Texas will fall behind without transmission development. Michael, this story is really, really huge and and I think I got really tickled at some of this. This is a quote out of the story, not me speaking. [00:15:32][21.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:15:33] While Climate Change is likely here to stay, you’d expect a rich place like Texas to keep residents cool with adequate power. So far this summer, they have, however, frequent warnings of power shortages and the memory of 2021 blackouts are enough to keep Texans on the edge of their seats. [00:15:51][18.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:15:54] Okay. There was another story that came out that said, Oh, this Sunday, which was yesterday. They you know, they they said that we would have an 800% increase in our bills. Righ! Yeah. No, it didn’t happen. [00:16:14][20.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:16:15] So what’s happening is we’re seeing that climate crisis has become climate doom. It has never changed and as strange as strained transmission system deserves much of the blame. I can agree with that. [00:16:33][18.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:16:34] And I can also agree that they need storage on here and there’s only one company that I would approve for storage for this, and that’s Fryr battery out of Norway because it is recyclable batteries and that’s the only way that I would ever approve anything in this if I was the Secretary of Energy and I would not change my name to Granholm and thank you for asking. [00:16:57][23.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:16:59] Clark Level ten said his company’s recent surveys of U.S. clean energy developers and buyers found that most of them think lengthy grid interconnection queues are more of a problem than supply chain challenges. I disagree. I think they both are. [00:17:17][18.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:17:18] And I mean, I think ERCOT getting a D-plus for grid planning and development is a better score than I would give them, considering the the mode we’re in. [00:17:28][10.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:17:29] Okay, let me throw this girl at you. And well, I don’t want Peter getting mad at us for me throwing a squirrel so we’ll play nice about it. We’ll keep it away from your dog, Sandy. Here’s what I’m asking. [00:17:42][13.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:17:43] If the grid, it can be upgraded, but all the funding goes to all the tax deductions go to Wind Turbines and Solar that none of them there’s 24,000 Wind Farms and projects that can’t connect to the grid because there’s no money for tax deductions to go to the grid. You and I have talked about the $3.5 billion it took to put the West Texas wind farms available for the east part of Texas. This is not a easy problem. [00:18:22][39.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:18:23] Yep. Now they are are drastically falling behind and again, the D-plus better than I would have given them. [00:18:30][6.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:18:31] Yeah, but let’s focus on ceiling fans and dishwashers and, you know, oh, my bears, you know, lions, tigers. [00:18:39][8.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:18:40] Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. [00:18:42][2.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:18:43] Oh, yeah. Back to you, man this was just. I got my blood all worked up. [00:18:47][3.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:18:50] Um, yeah. So let’s move on to Oil and Gas after that escapade. You did see prices up to 82 are down really about 1% really well down to about 80 to 40. Really what we see the drop in is is off the side of weaker demand. We obviously have much stronger weather patterns that are increasing natural gas, $2.73. [00:19:11][21.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:13] But again, you know, if if you know, basically the goal is the at the end of September this driving season will end. Couple that with pulling back of the weather can we sustain this continual bullish trend in the 85,90?. Stu seems to think so. Jeff Curry I assume seems to think so whoever is taking over for Goldman Sachs. [00:19:36][23.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:38] The markets may be aren’t so sure. Again, is this a blip in what is still a bull run to the north? It’ll be very interesting, I think that’s where the sentiment on Oil and Gas is getting back a little bit to what we considered, quote unquote, fundamentals. [00:19:50][12.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:51] I thought it’d be interesting to cover specifically what’s going on in Earnings around Saudi Aramco and I thought it was interesting to note Stu, Saudi Aramco to give you an idea Stu how much what do you think their net income was? For a quarter. [00:20:07][15.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:08] They I just saw the thing they increased their payout to the Saudi fund by $21 million or billion. [00:20:15][7.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:16] 29 billion. So to give you guys an idea quarter over quarter or quarter to 2023, they hit about 30 billion in profit. They did about 32 billion last quarter, but are down about 40% year over year. But dividend payouts are up about 50% from eight. From 8.8 billion a year ago to 19.4 billion, mainly due to the fact that the Saudi government is expecting a deficit from its other investments. [00:20:46][30.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:47] And again, floated Aramco on the open market only floated 10% of it in order to continue to pay back dividends. So this was more of a cash call by the Saudi government, you know, a CFO job. You got the CFO in Saudi Aramco. He ain’t got no control that’s where people go to die. You’ve never heard of the CFO of Aramco. [00:21:09][22.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:21:10] No [00:21:10][0.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:21:11] Made it. [00:21:12][0.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:21:12] But you know what, two years ago or excuse me, three or four years ago, Saudi Aramco lost all the money because of COVID. And they would I believe it. I got to throw a number out and I’ll have to fact check me. It was 89 billion or something that they lost they came back around the following year they took care of the pricing and then they paid that back plus some. [00:21:34][21.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:21:35] So they borrowed they lost the money because the government took the money they needed the $89 billion so Saudi Aramco took debt on for the first time ever they paid that back and that again the following year and then the budget surplus started rolling. I love the leaders at Saudi Aramco. I think they doing great. [00:22:03][28.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:04] Yes, you do. You’re vying for Board of Director Position. [00:22:06][2.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:07] I mean, we I just got a note from them they want us to bid on some things over there. I guess they listen to the podcast. Michael. [00:22:14][7.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:15] Sponsored by Saudi Aramco. I am down. I’ll tell you I will be the CFO of Saudi Aramco Easy I slot me in there. You know, it will just be like, you know, give me the 100 Biden deal. Whatever deal he got, I’ll take. [00:22:27][12.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:28] I don’t want anything to do with nothing but I do if anybody wants to, I got a copy of the letter here that they’re asking. [00:22:35][7.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:36] I’m all about it. All right, Stu, what else we got before we let these people go? [00:22:39][3.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:40] I’m not sure, but I am so thrilled for all of our listeners and all the feedback. We got some big things coming around the corner for Sandstone. [00:22:49][8.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:50] Yes, we’ve got some great things coming guys. Very excited and we appreciate you sticking to us. For Stuart Turley, I’m Michael Tanner, We’ll see you Tomorrow, folks. [00:22:50][0.0]
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