We Told You: Sanctions Don’t Work – ENB Weekly Recap

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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] We told you so, sanctions don’t work. Next, on the Energy Newsweek Weekly Recap episode. [00:00:05][5.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:00:13] Trump’s nuclear energy overhaul sparks unfounded alarms of safety in a bold mood that reactivate America’s energy sector. President Donald Trump has unveiled ambitious plans to quadruple U.S. Nuclear power by capacity by 2050. Michael, this is absolutely amazing. The overhaul includes executive orders aimed at reforming Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, accelerating deployment of activate advanced nuclear technologies and streamlining the regulatory process. But Michael, wait a minute. We’re not sure if we want to go that fast. Christopher Hanson, the recently fired NRC chairman, highlighted this issue stating that his termination was contrary to existing law and long stand precedent. I’m wondering if he was a member of the deep state is my opinion. Organizations like the Bull of the Atomic Sinus also critique the approach. Now, Michael, on this story, I just interviewed James Walker, who is the CEO of Nano Nuclear Energies Breakthrough. Let me explain what he said. He said they’ve got two reactors they’ve gotten licensing for, but guess what they’re building? Two plants that once they get their reactors done at the same time, they’re building the plants at the time so they can mass produce quality control nuclear modular nuclear reactors. They’re going to have controls on these things. And I think that if you had the old way of looking at how regulatory processes is done, I’d be a little worried, but guess what? They’re doing it under strict guidelines, and they’re going to have mass produced nuclear reactors. That’s different. And I that’s the only way we’re going make all of the numbers that president Trump wants to hit. [00:02:11][117.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:11] Well, and I also think the interesting part about this is the regulatory environment is really holding back the private investment in this. If there was an ability to actually turn a nuclear facility online, use it to do other things, power a data center, actually sell energy to the grid, I think you’d see a lot more nanonuclear style companies coming out and wanting to innovate in this space. I think the fact that they’ve done this and have been doing it for years, despite And the regulatory handcuffs that they have is actually really impressive, so I encourage everybody to go check out that interview you did with James Walker, CEO over there at Nanonuclear. But I think you hit the nail on the head. I think these quadrupling nuclear power capacity by 2050, that’s what he said. And the correct term you use in the article, it’s ambitious. Why is it ambitious? Well, because of the regulatory framework. And luckily, we have somebody as the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, who specifically, specifically understands that. Now, do I think we’re going to be able to hit this? I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s a massive reform. I love this, you said, you know, you also wrote here in this article that Trump’s strategy is outlined in multiple executive orders that he signed back in May of 2025, which includes the reform of the Nuculatory Regular Commission, which calls for a comprehensive review of all the NRC regulations within 18 months and sets aggressive deadlines for permitting and licensing, which is exactly what we need. [00:03:38][87.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:38] Yep, I agree. Net zero has cost Europe’s energy future. You can’t buy this kind of entertainment. Europe’s ambitions pursuit of net zero emissions by 2050 was once hauled as Michael, guess what? A bold step towards a sustainable future until you remove the subsidies. However, contingent grapples with skyrocketing energy prices, industrial decline, and Geopolitical problems. It has become clear that these policies have come at a steep cost Germany’s Deindustrialization is a cautionary tale. So goes Germany. So does the European Union compounding this, the cut-off of cheap Russian natural gas following the 2022 thing. Michael, France over the last several years, maybe the last eight years, has quit paying their maintenance, and they’re still running at a fraction of what they could on their nuclear because they go, oopsies, we don’t like nuclear, so they quit paying their maintenance and they can only bring part of their fleet back online. And so this is really pretty, pretty sad, but it’s still now here’s where it gets really fun. Europe’s import dependency ending on global powers with Russian supplies curtailed, Europe is now importing from the U.S. Qatar and others and Qatar provides 12 to 14% of Europe’s LNG. However, Europe’s net zero regulations are being thrown around at Qatar and you and I talked last week and they went, Not so fast. We don’t care about you. You need our gas, but we don’t care about. You. That’s a Putin imitating a cut a prince of cutter, I guess, is what that is. The dependency risks is fantastic for the United States. However, U.S. Firms are supplying 50% of the EU’s LNG and we’ve been warned. Holy smokes. They’re about to come after us if we don’t do something about it ahead of time. Net zero equals deindustrialization. [00:05:47][128.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:49] Yeah, it’s really true. I think this is a great article. I mean, again, this ambitious pursuit of net zero by 2050. So it’s almost the tale of two cities here. You’ve got in the United States, we have, we’re going to do nuclear by 2050, which is actually net zero emissions. Ironically, Europe’s now coming out and saying, oh, well, we are to do the same thing. But we’re gonna use offshore wind and solar to have probably the worst ways to generate energy on the planet. It was really funny watching Trump sit next to Keith Sturmer, the UK prime minister. He looked like he just got hit with deer in the headlights. He was talking about how ugly solar. Oh yeah. [00:06:29][40.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:29] Look, Trump says U.S. To hike India’s tariffs over Russian oil buys this story from Bloomberg. President Donald Trump said that substantially raising the tariff on Indian exports over the New Delhi’s purchase of Russia’s oil, ramping up his threat to major trading partner India, Quote unquote. Is not only buying massive amounts of Russian oil, they are then much for the oil purchase, selling it on the open market for big profits, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday. They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian war because of this, I will be substantially raising the tariff paid by India to the United states. Trump’s post did not specify how much he would, but I want to go on record President Trump saying this is a mistake. The U.S. President’s threat comes ahead of the August 8 deadline for Russia to read a truce with Ukraine. The administration threatening so-called secondary sanctions on the countries that purchase Russian energy, the US and other allies of Ukraine. View those purchases as being to help prop up Russian Vladimir Putin’s economy and undercutting pressure of Moscow to end the war. You’re having, you’re Mrs. President Trump, I dearly love you and think that you are the best president we’ve ever had. This is a mistake. And I want to go on record as saying so that there are a number of issues that your foreign policy group is not telling you on this. And I’ve been talking about this for about six months. Moscow’s deputy foreign minister says the EU has lost over 1 trillion euros by not buying Russian natural gas. In a recent statement, the Russian deputy foreign minister, Alexander, and I apologize. Grushko, claimed that the European Union has lost an exceeding of 1 trillion, 1.16 trillion due to the termination of the cooperation of trade ties with Russia. This assertion comes on the ongoing geopolitical tension stemming from 2022 invasion of Ukraine. And what is not mentioned in all of the places out there is why did President Putin invade? He invaded because they kept going on. And they kept adding countries past the Gorbachev and Reagan agreements, not to have any more on there. So this is not a surprise, like the mainstream media, the President Trump, as you call the lying mainstream media and the fake news. The fake news have been reporting that it was all President Putin’s fault. Not necessarily true when you take a look at who were the original members of NATO. Go look that up and you’ll be surprised who started NATO. That will be a big telltale sign there. There are eight affected countries based on gas dependency and economic income on this. And you take look at the GDP growth or decline that happened out of the deindustrialization during this. And it is a significant list in this article as well. There was a huge surge of bankruptcy amid the energy squeeze, high energy prices have been a key driver in business failures across Europe. Corporate insolvencies rose an average of 24% in 2023 compared to 2022 with a further 11 to 12% increase. And I had a hard time trying to figure out if they were just natural gas due to limited natural gas, or I could not tell whether or not they were natural gas related, as in not being able to have natural gas or if it was because of net zero energy policies, there is a fine line where it is showing up in there as well, too. President Trump, you’re making a gigantic mistake by trying to force President Putin to the table. President Putin will go to the table if he sees business on the other side of the negotiations. But that’s for all another discussion. What is the difference between oil, gas? And wind and solar and hydrogen. I’ll tell you what, it’s returned 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 a future. But I asked 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 solar 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. 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 kept 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 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. [00:13:09][399.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:10] 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’m gonna 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, its energy intent to produce. Overall, while renewables claim to be cheaper than new fossil fuel plants, intermittency often requires backup. Look at aircraft, 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 gigawatths 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 has 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 million. 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. It’s great. And that’s even with lower oil price. [00:15:31][141.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:15:31] 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. [00:15:44][12.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:44] I do like that. [00:15:44][0.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:15:46] 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 160,000 barrels per day. Michael, that’s a pretty big one. And when I produced 110 million motor gasoline, which is gasoline in the U S 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. [00:16:52][66.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:16:53] 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 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 India, oil is going to spike at least a little bit. [00:17:33][40.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:17:34] Oh, and it will be the biggest disaster, the win, 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. How the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern deal could boost petrochemicals. This is huge in a landmark move poised to reshape America’s freight landscape, Union Pacific, UP, Norfolk Southern, announced a proposed $85 billion merger on July 29th, 2025. This deal, if approved by regulators, would be the nation’s first true transcontinental railroad spanning 50,000 miles across 43 states. What does this mean to invest and what does this mean to petrochemicals? There are an upside and a downside. Michael, let’s talk about the upside. The upside is that there could be less confusion on rail shipments from the oil sands all the way through to the Gulf. That is huge. But now they’re also crying foul that there may be no price shopping or taking a look and thinking, hey, wait a minute, we may be held hostage for higher rates. And if you’re an investor in this, this may mean that you may be able to guarantee delivery because of a uniform methodology in a supply chain. This is huge, I think it’s actually a good thing. [00:19:33][118.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:19:33] No, I think it’s absolutely a game changer specifically for the downstream market. I mean, I don’t think people realize how much oil and gas actually travels via rail relative to pipeline. I mean if you are in the Uinta Basin, which is out there in Utah, almost exclusively your oil is railed out of there and considering it’s sort of becoming the new hotspot. We’ve seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions happen there. Most recently, ex- XCL sold all of their assets now to SM, and I think Northern Oil and Gas owns a small chunk. Four Point Energy has a big position out there, so it’s really interesting to see this happen. I think it’s going to, on some level, slightly lower rail costs all around. As you also mentioned, there are other downstream components like fertilizer and other specific refined products that go to and from the Gulf Coast. They’re gonna impact from this. I think the interesting thing, like you said, is what happens. And what does this mean for the overall markets? I do think we need to wait to see if this merger is approved. I mean, the Federal Trade Commission and President Trump isn’t just gung ho on mergers across the board. They’re a little bit better about the IPO market. We’ve seen more IPOs happen in the last, say, six months since President Trump has been in office than otherwise. But I do you think there was a little bit of populace, which kind of runs through both JD, Vice President Vance, and President Trump. Relative to just mass consolidation. Now, I think in this case, this benefits us all lowering costs and specifically from downstream products, but I’ll be interested to see how long this takes to get approved and if it actually does. [00:21:15][101.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:21:15] Oh, I couldn’t agree more BP to cut 6000 jobs in another business review, another MBR comes by and two more accountants or two more business consultants are called in. I always love those. Who are those business consultants that you always love, Michael? The Bobs, the two Bobs? Yeah, the Bobs. Tell me about what you. [00:21:38][23.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:21:39] Who here? [00:21:39][0.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:21:40] Yeah, the Bobs have been called into BP again. 6,200 office-based roles this year, Bob 1 and Bob 2, marking an increase from its earlier target of 4,700. But Michael, if you’ll remember, we ran an article a couple weeks ago on BP appoints new chairman with experience of relocation to New York. So if they’re looking at really beefing up their bottom line, and their decision to cut a critical juncture for the company, I think they’re getting ready to do a move. That would be great. [00:22:15][34.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:22:15] Be my guess. Well, I think they absolutely are getting ready to do a move. I think the next step you’ll see is them migrate back to the United States. I think. The interesting part is this. Are they going to just, are they going do a corporate takeover or are they gonna sell BP? I think that’s a fascinating question to ask. You know, is it do they just shed their US onshore business and retain all their offshore stuff and not even necessarily worry about the moving their headquarters to the United States. Now, if you want to do a full corporate takeover outside of Shell, I think it makes it difficult to be a London based entity. And have this merger take place. So in the interim, can you shed BP and can you almost do a sum of the parts as greater than the whole? Sell BP, get a premium for that, then sell yourself to Shell, where all you now have is this streamlined offshore and international portfolio. And will those two net sales end up being greater for shareholders than the other? Now, the hard part is if BP just sells, how is that a creative back to the shareholders if you don’t give a massive distribution? So I think if you’re. An activist investor, specifically like the Elliott Management Company, who has been vocal about trying to change things there, I think it makes it a rock and a hard place. Maybe you don’t want to sell BPX if you’re a shareholder, because that’s an accretive aspect that can fall back to you in the eventual sale. I don’t know what’s going to happen with that, but I find it interesting. We’re seeing cost-cutting measures and jobs dry up all around the oil and gas business majors. We saw Chevron announce that they’re going to cut about 35% of all the HES staff. That they just got hired. So, I mean, no longer are the days that you have a great, great title at an oil and gas company. That doesn’t mean anything. I think it’s super interesting to see what has happened there. And I mean I feel for everybody who’s gotten there, who gets their jobs whacked, but I do think this is then setting up to make a merger. And the question is, who’s gonna buy them? Yep, you bet. [00:22:15][0.0][1318.1]