Week Recap: EPA Reverses Regulations, Trump Diplomacy, and US Sanctions on Oil

Weekly Daily Standup Top Stories

EPA Unleashes 31 Actions To Overturn Biden- and Obama-Era Regulations, Boost American Power

March 14, 2025 Stu Turley

Chevron Out, Black Market In? The Fallout of U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela

March 19, 2025 Clark Savage

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

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Michael Tanner: [00:00:09] What’s going on everybody? Welcome into a special Saturday, March 22nd, 2025 edition of the Daily Energy Newsbeat standup. Appreciate you guys tuning in for this weekly recap where the team goes ahead and just throws together some of the top stories from the week. A lot happened this week. Fed decided to keep rates the same, you know, all the stuff going on with the Trump administration. So action, action packed week. I’m not going to take too much of your time. I am just going to quickly give a quick shout out. Subscribe to our news, uh, that guys, theenergynewsbeat.substack.com. You can hit the description below for all those links. Check out, sponsor the show, Reese Energy Consulting. We love those guys. If you’re getting screwed on your marketing contracts or you’re building an LNG facility, call Reece Energy Consulting. They’re the go-to people for that. And if you want to become Billy Bob Thornton from Landman, investinoil.energynewsbeat.com. Guys, I promise you get some monthly distributions, save money on taxes, never too early to start saving and thinking about 2025 taxes and obviously become Billy Bob Thornton from Landman because it’s sweet. But I’m going to go and kick it over to the to cue up some stories guys. We will take tomorrow off and we will be back in the chair on Monday. We’ll see ya! [00:01:09][60.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:09] The EPA unleashes 31 actions to overturn Biden and Obama error regulations, boost American power. This is following up on President Trump’s commitment to cut consumer energy or the energy prices by half. Now, how he defines that is yet to be seen, but listen to this. We’re driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down the cost of living for American families and unleash American energy to bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more. This is really important because it’s going to go after Michael is reconsidering his risk management program, the RMP rule, RMP, yes, that is correct, rule claiming the press release that rule made America’s oil and natural gas refineries and chemical facilities less safe. That rule is about really the core mission. And what they’re trying to say is that fossil fuels are bad because of CO2. That’s what it’s all coming down to, is CO2 a pollution? Well, CO2 is actually plant food. Now, is it the particulate matter? And this is where I want everybody to really start really getting a grip on. And coal with clean technology is not as bad because it’s the particulate matter that’s the pollution, not the CO2. Plants love CO2. Let’s go after the particulate matter and get it cleaner. Make sense? [00:02:35][86.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:36] Yeah. No, I’m completely with you there. And I think, you know, as you always talked about regulation through legislation, this is a quick, easy way to remove that we’ve already seen with the Chevron, the overturning of Chevron deference, that, you know, these deregulation aspects are going to be much more helpful from the EPA. I love this quote here, how the EPA touted, it will be the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history. Valuing to give the lower cost of living for Americans and quote, give power back to the states to make their own decision. I can’t argue much with that. Love that. [00:03:08][32.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:08] No. In fact, it’s going to be, we’re going to see that your vote matters in your states. And as the education departments come back to the states, as your energy policies go, you will see the states that succeed will be anybody other than New York, Delaware, New Jersey, California, because follow the energy policies and follow the money. Will Trump use the Federal Reserve as leverage too? I thought this was an interesting article from normally a left leaning publication from Christopher Smart, the Arbogat Roth Group. It is very interesting when you consider the only institution can create dollars is the Fed, which was established in 1913, has established swap lines for federal banks that have been critical in meeting sudden demand for dollars and calming global financial markets in time of panic. Here’s the problem, Michael. And as we go through this, there is a unwillingness of the Fed to be audited. They do not want to be audited. And I think that you’re seeing, as President Trump sets up minerals, he sets up the gold. There has been more gold coming into the United States than in the history. Is it because they’re about to do the audit on Fort Knox? Is it because he’s looking at going back to a different standard and get rid of the Fed. All of President Trump’s actions are aligning to get rid of the Fed, a privately held company that is printing US dollars should go away in my opinion. And that’s what I think we’re seeing. That’s why this article is pretty important. And I thought it was pretty important from a left leaning side of the fence. [00:04:54][106.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:55] Yeah. I mean, you know, when, when, when you, my only issue is that if you use the fed as a weapon that we’ve seen what happens in the financial crisis, when you try to use the fed to backstop bad policy, you end up in the situation where, I mean, the inflation that we saw from 2015 or really 2020 to now is solely due to what they did in retrospect in the financial crisis. So getting it, you know, having the executive branch too involved with the fed defeats the purpose of the fed, in my opinion. [00:05:29][34.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:05:30] But there are a lot of things that we can do on this and you can’t, why tax us if you can print money? That’s why you sit back and kind of go, you don’t need my money if you’re just gonna go print money. So you gotta get back to how we before 1912, how we had so much wealth. After only 15 years of operation, Germany’s first offshore wind farm being scrapped. Germany’s AlphaVatus offshore wind farm and operation for 15 years will be dismantled due to unprofitability after subsidies were expired. It has become too unprofitable to operate without massive subsidies. According to Blackout News, a decisive factor for dismantling the Pioneer project is expiration of generous subsidies made possible through Germany’s EEG Renewable Energies Feed-In Act. The subsidy meant that the Alpha Ventus wind farm got 15.4 cents per kilowatt hour after being put in operation. Now that the subsidy is run out, the wind farm operators received only basic tariff of 3.9 cents per kilowatt hour, making the farm unprofitable. Here’s the bottom line. This is going on around the world and when you take the soft money or the maintenance dollars out of it, you’re talking some serious problems with quote unquote renewable and wind and solar. Here’s the big problem coming around the corner and that is who’s going to do the land reclamation costs because it has been proven that they cannot be installed from day one with profit. And then if they had to tag on the land reclamation for each wind farm or each solar panel, they would not be doing it. So we’re about to have a welcome to Rutrow in the world of renewable, non-sustainable energy around the world. Who’s gonna pay for it? So buckle up, hang on. [00:07:47][136.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:07:47] Trump says he’ll speak with Putin on Tuesday on Ukraine peace push. I applaud President Trump for overcoming almost every obstacle, everything from being shot to now becoming president, to now having all the information that was removed from all of his team members. His team member is still kind of fighting this unarmed battle, going up there trying to have a peace talk, so to speak. A lot of land is a lot different than it was before the war, you know, President Trump told reporters. We’ll be talking about land, we’ll be talking about power plants, and you know, that’s a big question. That is the nuclear power plant built by Russia in Ukraine, and it is being controlled by Russia. And I’m sure it is going to be on the talking points because that is one of the key power sources for Ukraine. And there is a lot and it’s a complicated process. And so we hope it’s a great conversation and we’ll have more on that tomorrow. But it should be very interesting. This was out of a Bloomberg story as well too. [00:08:57][69.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:58] President Trump and President Putin conclude their phone call as US pushes a ceasefire. President Trump on his phone on his truth social post says, my phone conversation day with President Putin of Russia was a very good and productive one. We agreed to immediate ceasefire on all energy and infrastructure and an understanding that we will be working quickly to a complete ceasefire and ultimately an end to this very horrible war between Russia and Ukraine. This war would have never started if I were president. Many elements of a contract for peace were discussed, including the fact that thousands of soldiers are being killed, and both President Putin and President Zelensky would like to see it end. That process is now in full force and effect, and we will hopefully, for the sake of humanity, get the job done. Well done. I still think President Trump is fighting an uphill battle and needs some help there. But when we take a look at Bloomberg, Bloomberg put out there in their article, European leaders fear that the US may cut a deal without them. They’re a little late to the party because they’re wanting a war and they’re not wanting it stopped. Putin wants a halt in arms sale before agreeing to pause. And I kind of agree with President Putin on this from the standpoint that he doesn’t want us re-arming the Ukrainians only to then throw away the time and let that be a time for them to redo it. But if he is doing it in good faith and he stops bombing everybody and stops the killing, I can agree and think that it would be a good thing. So that is a tough call. I don’t have a really good opinion one way or the other on that, but hey, we’re following it and we hope for the best and we hope to have it end soon. The big thing about ending this soon is that all of the other articles and the traffic and chatter that I’m seeing around the world for people wanting cheap Russian natural gas in the EU. They’re tired of high energy prices. We’ll see how that goes. [00:11:05][126.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:06] Let’s go to Harold Hamm. Drill baby drill needs $80 or as Stu would say, drill baby when fiscally responsible. ESG has actually done a good thing for the oil and gas operators over the last several years, the last decade. And that is that they’ve been fiscally responsible. And I applaud Harold Hamm. Harold Hamm said that we would need an oil price of around $80 to cover the cost of drilling wells. U.S. Energy Secretary Wright, the administration isn’t targeting a specific oil price of oil, but it wants to bring back common sense and pro-energy policies. Chris Wright is the right man for the right job at the right time. And Scott Sheffield broke out and he said the cash breakeven price including dividends is $50 to $55 for US oil companies and that $50 is not going to work. It is not going to be incentivizing to increase CapEx budgets. In fact, you will see a drop in rig counts. You will see a lot of folks in there. And I found this on X, the lines break even oil from 87 different EMP firms, exploration and production firms, sourced from the Federal Reserve of Dallas. And you can take a look, it ranges anywhere from $59 to $70 on those oil and gas firms, the 87 different firms that were interviewed on that from the Federal Reserve from Dallas. The Federal Reserve from Dallas has a good reporting, and I’ve always enjoyed watching and reading their reports and stuff. When you go down below that, this is the Shell Pioneer added, when you go below that $50 while you talked about, you’re below the point where you’re going to drill baby drill. And Harold Hamm is dead on right. It’s got to be around that $50, so when we take a look at what I think is happening around the world, Saudi Arabia really needs above $80. They need that $85 and that $90 in order to meet their budgets for Saudi Aramco to pay its fair share of the sovereign wealth fund. So you’ve heard me talk about this a lot, but they are very influential in the oil pricing area. When you take a look at OPEC and OPEC plus, what’s about to come around the corner is we’re seeing tankers are coming offline and they’re being redone for LNG tankers or steam tankers are coming off and they are being sold or scrapped. And so the dark fleet is really not there for Russia to use Arctic LNG. And it’s been hurt. It is the only place that sanctions have hurt in that area. In the gray market, dark fleet, or the sanction fleet, then when you take a look at it, there’s about 900 tankers that India and China have been buying crude oil all around the world. And so there’s a huge area there. So there is going to be an opportunity for the United States and president Trump, if he’s listening to get the shipyard business going, open up an area where we can take distressed tankers and redo them and reflag them under the United States, that would get us light years ahead into the entire, into the next generation, because we’re going to have to be in a situation where we can, in order to export a great US LNG energy outside of this US or propane or butane or any of the other refined products that the other countries want, plastics or any of those kinds of things so that they can build. That is where we’re going to make up a lot of the trade deficit around the world. And that’s exporting some of those refined products as well, too. But we need tankers in order to do it. The Jones Act kills us on this entire process. [00:15:08][242.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:09] Chevron out and black market in the fallout of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. This one is super interesting. So we’re going to go back all the way to February 26. Current U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to end what is known as the General License 41. Now remember, this license was granted in the Biden administration, which allowed Chevron to operate in Venezuela, despite the sanctions that were on there. So basically what this did is the US Treasury, this authorized the US Treasury of foreign asset control to create a system to allow Chevron to actually begin producing oil in Iran. There were four corporations that were authorized under this general license 41, one of them being Chevrol, Repsol, Martuel L. Prom, which is, you can assume is a French company and NI, and that contributed about 320,000 barrels per day in January, which is about 25% or a little bit over say 35% of the country’s about 1.06 million barrels per day. That’s according to Pesa, who’s the state owned energy company. There are a bunch of other stuff here. But what’s interesting is Trump has now gone in and removed this license. So why was this license here in the first place? We know that during the first Trump administration, he basically shut down all Venezuelan activity and really in attempt to economically sanction the Maduro government. I mean, it goes without saying that, you know, most people aren’t a fan of what Maduro is doing down there. I’m no fan of what’s going on. You could really call it a humanitarian crisis. So the idea was let’s basically ramp down their oil production. Well, what happened was a couple of things happened. You saw companies who had interest in Venezuelan oil, you know, really cry foul and say, hey man, we’re losing money over here. You saw a humanitarian crisis as less money started flowing into the country. Now you could argue that even if money was flowing into the country, would it go down and solve the humanitarian crisis? Probably not. I mean, some of the stuff that’s coming out of Venezuela right now is absolutely scary. So the purpose of this license was really to allow Chevron to recoup its debt that it had in the industry while subsequently minimizing cash flows that came to the Venezuelan state. Because what happens was under these sanctions, guess what? You end up really and you end up in this situation where the black market takes over. So if Chevron’s not allowed to produce those barrels, those barrels are still going to get produced by Pada Vesa. And then they’re going to go ahead and sell them on the black market. And so the idea with this general license 41, as it’s called, was, okay, let’s take those barrels that are going to get produced. Let’s put them back in the hands of Chevron, who’s obviously not going to be necessarily handing the cash over to the Venezuelan government. So it’s going to minimize the amount of cash flow that flows, you know, all they’re going to get instead of the full barrel value, which is, you know, whatever the net barrel value is, they’re just, you know, pay the base is just going to get whatever royalty that’s agreed to by Chevron. They’re not not going to pay the royalty, but they are going to reduce heavily the amount of cash that’s flowing while allowing Chevron to recoup some of its so-called debt. I’m not of the camp that Chevron needs to worry about its Venezuelan debt, in my opinion, but that was the idea. Keep oil flowing. If you go through Chevron, it gets out of the Venezuelan government’s hands. You reduce their net cash flows because, as Stu has talked about tremendously, the dark fleet then takes over and fills the void. And obviously, you know, even with that, those barrels are still going to produce. And so what we saw happen really in 2020 through 20, you know, what we really saw was that there was a huge increase in the amount of dark fleet. You know, we saw, you know, you know, Venezuelan oil minister Tarek El-Assami, you know, according on a read straight from the article, it flourished under the strictness of sanctions. And in March, in 2023, it was leaked to Reuters that Padave’s had 21.2 billion in unpaid bills from intermediaries. And this guy managed the oil sector from 2020 to 2023 when this scandal was uncovered. Basically what he did was he constructed this wildly opaque system to produce and sell Venezuelan oil on the black market. And in doing so, he ramped up output from about 400,000 barrels to about 750,000 barrels when he was forced to resign. All of these transactions were carried out in cash and crypto, and they were able divert billions of dollars from what was due to the Venezuelan state relative to hopefully eventually get flown down to its citizens. We know that really wasn’t going to happen though. And stayed in this guy’s crony hands. The hard part is now this, and so the idea of this, the goal of this general license was to attempt to reduce that and eventually did in March of 2023, he got kicked out. But it’s this infamous gray market that happens. We know China has come in and bought a bunch. I’ll read straight from the article, PEDA VESA still exports part of its crude to Malaysia, where it’s rebranded and then sent on to China. There’s this book written in the book called On Sanctions in Venezuela, economist Estrubal Ovarius and Juan, gosh, I’m going to butcher this last name, Juan Palacios, showed that in 2023, the US, Spain, and India represent 34% of veils when in oil exports, while China and Malaysia took 51.6% and in 2024, their shares virtually inverted. So what does that mean? And that means that general license 41 is helping because now instead of it all going on the gray market, it’s all going to US, Spain and India, which are the cashflow mainly is going to those companies. So it’s going to be interstate. I understand what President Trump is trying to do. I mean, obviously what he’s trying to do is cripple the Iranian regime. Now the question is, is the sanctions actually the best way to do it? Stu has come on this podcast plenty of times and said, sanctions don’t work. And so we will really see how this plays out. I’m interested to see how this plays out. And to be honest, I don’t know. I see both sides of this. If you had to ask me to stick my neck out for an opinion and say, what side do you fall? I actually think that allowing these companies to export their oil, keep it and reduce the amount of cashflow going into Venezuela is good. Now the problem Is that only gonna make the people of Venezuela suffer worse and and really where I come from is what can we do to? Relieve the suffering going on in in Venezuela, so we will be we’ll be very interested to see how this plays out And we will be following this tremendously [00:15:09][0.0][894.2]