Daily Standup Top Stories
Now that Bill Gates has said that Climate Change is not our biggest existential threat to Humanity, how much money has he cost the global markets?
Charles Payne from Fox on Gutfield hits it out of the park.
Emerging Cybersecurity Threats: Chinese Manufacturers’ Control Over Electric Buses, Power Grids, and Phones
In an era when electrification and digital connectivity are transforming global infrastructure, recent revelations have raised a growing concern: the potential for remote manipulation embedded in Chinese-made electronics. From electric vehicles to critical power grid […]
Illinois Gov Pritzker to Approve Bill Calling for 3 GW of Battery Storage by 2030 – But How Much Will They Lower Electricity Prices Remains to Be Seen
In a move poised to reshape Illinois’ energy landscape, Governor JB Pritzker is set to sign the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability (CRGA) Act, a sweeping energy reform package passed by the state legislature in […]
Exxon Buys Out Legacy Sinochem JV, Expands in Midland Basin
In a strategic move to consolidate its footprint in one of the world’s most prolific oil-producing regions, ExxonMobil has acquired Sinochem’s stake in a longstanding joint venture (JV) in the Permian Basin’s Midland sub-basin. This […]
ExxonMobil Sues California Over Climate Reporting Laws
ENB Pub Note: This article by ZeroHedge is only part of the story, but it’s a huge first step. Hats off to ExxonMobil for standing up to California, as we see that their overreach on […]
OPEC+ Agrees to a 137,000 b/d Increase for December Followed by a 3-Month Pause: What It Means for Oil Markets and Investor Outlook
In a move that underscores the delicate balancing act facing global oil producers, OPEC+ has agreed to a modest production increase of 137,000 barrels per day (b/d) for December 2025, while simultaneously announcing a three-month […]
Highlights of the PodcastÂ
00:00 – Intro
00:13 – Now that Bill Gates has said that Climate Change is not our biggest existential threat to Humanity, how much money has he cost the global markets?
04:30 – Emerging Cybersecurity Threats: Chinese Manufacturers’ Control Over Electric Buses, Power Grids, and Phones
06:08 – Illinois Gov Pritzker to Approve Bill Calling for 3 GW of Battery Storage by 2030 – But How Much Will They Lower Electricity Prices Remains to Be Seen
09:45 – Exxon Buys Out Legacy Sinochem JV, Expands in Midland Basin
12:17 – ExxonMobil Sues California Over Climate Reporting Laws
17:10 Market Updates
20:10 – OPEC+ Agrees to a 137,000 b/d Increase for December Followed by a 3-Month Pause: What It Means for Oil Markets and Investor Outlook
22:05 – Chevron Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results
23:27 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:00] What do Bill Gates and Exxon Mobil have in common? We’ll find out next in the Energy Newsbeat standup. [00:00:05][5.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:13] Now that Bill Gates has said climate change is not our biggest existential threat to humanity, how much money has he cost the global markets? Holy cow, Batman. Charles Payne from Fox on Gutfeld hits it out of the park. I had a blast writing this article on theenergynewsbeat.substack.com. Michael, this was fantastic and a surprising pivot that sends ripples through the environmental and energy sectors. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently declared that climate change, while a real issue, is not an existential threat to humanity. Holy cow, Batman. And then I saw Gutfeld the other day and I copied it and put it in here. This is huge. Key points. War on natural, on gas. Shut down the nuclear plants. Charles Payne. I absolutely love that man. He absolutely hits it out of the park and goes, hey, wait a minute, why are the Dems shutting down everything? And then he just goes on to goes, and he says, Michael, instead of the JD, what would Jesus do? He comes up with, what’s Greta gonna do? So I took it one step further and go to the GDN, what will Greta do now? But let’s go through the rest of this stuff and the Gates global influence on climate politics. I went ahead and tried to come up with some serious numbers and that man has absolutely eviscerated the global economy. We’re talking billions. The company acquired by carbon engineering for 1.1 billion in 2023 and plans to scale DAC globally. Direct air capture estimates. Market could reach 150 billion annually, who’s going to pay for all that direct air capture carbon taxes? How much is the carbon tax blue hockey costing consumers, Michael? That’s all in here. This is kind of fun. [00:02:15][121.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:15] No, I think you did a really, really great job of, of breaking this down. I mean, it was inevitable that Bill Gates was going to eventually come around to this. Now I think what’s fascinating is how public he came out and did this. And knowing a little bit about Bill Gates’ background, maybe some of the implications from some, you know, some lists that may or may not be floating out there. I find it really fascinating that he comes out and publicly state this. I mean it’s one thing to change your mind in private and just say, Hey, I’m gonna stop. Quietly stop funding this type of stuff. But the fact that he goes and writes an op-ed specifically talking about how it’s not an existential threat to humanity after exactly what you said, spent the last 10 years dumping billions of his own dollars in there, attempting to basically turn the entire climate change narrative into an apocalyptic story. I find it really interesting and I don’t know if I quite have an answer to what his motive is. It’s a, other than there’s some motive here. There’s some unknown motive. We don’t know about why he’s doing this. Is he shifting into invest wanting to invest in another project? Is he, you know, all the way and then all over Cuckoo land, is there some blackmail that’s going on? I don’t no, I doubt it. Yeah. [00:03:26][71.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:26] Yeah, I think you’re onto something because Larry Fink has stepped away from ESG and ESG is now no longer used on BlackRock. You are onto something, Michael. I hadn’t even thought of that. [00:03:37][11.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:03:37] What is it? I don’t know. You talk a lot about his breakthrough energy ventures. Maybe he’s seeing it can’t raise money and he’s like, well, if it can raise money, I’ve got to be able to step out and do something else really interesting. But I find it extremely hilarious and he must, and he obviously knew he’s not dumb. He probably has some of the highest paid PR people in the country. He clearly knew he was going to get backlash and there was going to be articles. And we, he’s probably thought, man, the energy news beat podcast is going to have a real good laugh at my expense, which we are, so thanks, Bill, but my question is, he knew the implications of this. I wish I could come on and give an answer about why he’s doing this. I don’t quite know that, but I guarantee in the next six months, it’ll come out. Mark this down. [00:04:20][42.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:20] Oh, absolutely. And anyway, we’re off and running. He’s probably Biden-esque. He’s got somebody acting for him now. He’s already been jailed. Who knows? Just kidding. Okay. [00:04:30][9.4]
[00:04:30] Let’s go to the next story here. Emerging cybersecurity threat. Chinese manufacturer control over electric busses, power grids and phones. Holy smokes. There was an article that just came out in the end and I got a note from the Tammy Nemeth on the Nemeth report. Norway electric bus scandal kept call recent tests conducted by Reuter Oslo public transport operator uncovering alarming problems in electric vehicle manufactured by China’s Yutong comparing a European made bus with Chinese counterpart. They could remotely control those busses. So I expanded that article and went in and said, Hey, wait a minute, has everybody slept in the last 24 hours since we’ve talked about all the cyber security problems with all of these stuff that if you’re going to buy something from China, it’s going to have a back door in it. We’ve got it in the phones, we’ve got in on the grid, we got it on everything else. So anyway, I had a blast writing this one. [00:05:34][64.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:35] Yeah, I think it’s, it’s really interesting what’s going on here in Norway. And I mean, it seems to be all these scandals are around the, you know, the electrification space, the alternative renewable energy space. I wonder if there’s a theme going here, but, you know, I wouldn’t, I would buy anything from, from China. I’ll tell you that much, except maybe a BYD that those don’t, those do look cool. [00:05:56][21.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:57] They, they are cool, but they, they shut down at will. So, you know, if you don’t speak Chinese or Mandarin shut down. [00:06:05][8.4]
[00:06:08] Let’s go to our favorite governor Pritzker. This is the second favorite governor behind governor Newsom, Illinois’s governor Pritzker to approve bill calling for three gigawatt of battery storage by 2030, but how much will they lower the electricity electricity prices remains to be seen. Michael, you can’t buy this kind of entertainment. I saw this on about 15 different articles. The democrat side saying a storage facility is going to lower the prices and the bill which is declared both the house and the senate in a heated debate mandates the deployment of three gigawatts of battery storage. E.S. By 2030 alongside incentives for geothermal energy. Okay, so that’s how they snuck this in there calling it lowering the energy prices there. But the bill provisions batteries at the center, the CRGA, which is the the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act is almost as brilliantly named as the Inflation Reduction The inflation reduction act did absolutely nothing to do anything with inflation. And this is going to be the same way. The part the Democrats are saying one thing, the Republicans are saying another. And I guarantee you, this is gonna be a huge increase to every bill in Illinois. [00:07:37][89.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:38] No, I think it will. Obviously some of these megawatts are subsidized. You have in this article about $110,000 per megawatt of installed capacity is actually from a grant with a total of about 280.5 million available in funding. We also, obviously the investment tax credit, which is available under the Inflation Reduction Act. A.k.a. The porculous bill does provide about a 30% credit as well. So in my opinion, this is just taking advantage and designed to take advantage of the inflation reduction or this investment tax credit, which phases out at the end of 2026, if I’m not mistaken. [00:08:13][35.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:14] Uh, and beginning of 2027, it really starts fading out in 2027. But, but storage does not produce energy and it is a cost. And then when, and nobody, there is nothing in here, Michael, that says the end of life for those batteries, they only last so many cycles of powering in and powering out. There is no money for getting the batteries. [00:08:39][25.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:39] I agree. I think it’s a good concept, bad implementation. As in, I’m not against storage. I think everybody who owns a home should have their own personal battery bank sitting outside it to manage the load that your house brings in. Now the question is how expanding that out to a state-wide storage program as you mentioned the ROI necessarily is there so it’s good idea bad implementation if they’re going to do anything subsidize individuals to purchase battery backup for their homes so that they can that will actually lower their energy cost because they can purchase from the grid when it’s less expensive and not purchase from the grid as prices go up so again good idea, bad bad implementation [00:09:23][43.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:24] Oh, I, and you know, it’s funny. I had a power outage for about four hours while I wrote this, I walked down the hall, flipped the switch and I just ran off my house of batteries and I kept going. Didn’t even notice it. My neighbors were without power and I was about to go up and help them out. But when you sit back and take a look, I just run normally because I have batteries. [00:09:45][20.8]
[00:09:45] All right, let’s go to the next story here. Exxon buys out legacy Cino Kim, JV expands in Midland Basin. I kind of like this one from ExxonMobil and really getting into there in a strategic move to consolidate its footprint. One of the world’s most prolific oil and gas producing regions, ExxomMobil has acquired Sunil Kim’s stake in a long-standing joint venture. JV is what we call in Oklahoma. The Permian Basin’s Midland Subbasin, and you take a look at the deal, the acquisition bolsters Exxon’s dominance in the Midland Basin where the Wolf Camp formation is renowned and assuming full control can optimize drilling programs. I like anything that gets it out of China’s hands. China does not need to have anything or anything to do with the United States farms and or our oil or equipment on the grid. [00:10:40][54.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:40] Yeah, I agree with you there. You know, this Sinochem JV was actually in pioneer back in the pioneer days. And this actually has a, you know, we don’t have an acreage map. If you kind of were kind of looked at the acreage, map of this, it’s some pretty key drilling locations that just boost their working interest. And again, I think this, you know, from McDonald’s perspective, whenever you have a chance to acquire more working interests in wells, you already operate, you’re going to go in and take that all day long, that 40% stake in that acreage is. Could have, you know, they didn’t release the numbers, but it was probably if you do the back of the napkin math, valued at about $2 billion, that’s really, really low hanging fruit for Exxon. They have the ability to fund that right now. They probably could be able to do that with a mix of cash and stock. I don’t know if I’d want China owning necessarily stock and Exxons mobile, but we’ll see what happens there. And it just makes complete sense if your Exxone, the core acreage is already tied up. Now, what do you do? You go back in and find all the, you go look up and down your drilling schedule Don’t say hey. 50% of our top 300 locations, 50% of them, we have less than 80% working interest. Land team, go out there and get me that 10% working interest, and here’s the value you can pay per acre. So I think this is probably the next move. I doubt Exxon is really going to be sitting there necessarily trying to see who are we going to buy next. I think there are some interesting moves they could do before they reach that point. I think it’s going to be very interesting to see how these guys move forward. I want to talk, we’re going to talk a little bit about maybe not Exxon specifically, but one of their key assets, Guyana coming up here in the earnings report, I got some funny stuff there, but Exxone also did something interesting in California, which we’ve got to call out. [00:12:16][96.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:17] We gotta love California. Hey, ExxonMobil sues California over climate reporting laws, kind of like our story with Bill Gates at the top of the note here. When you sit back, I got this story from Zero Edge, you gotta love those guys. Exxomobil sued California to stop the enforcement of two climate reporting law, claiming they forced the company to publicly endorse climate change options it disputes. The company argues that these laws violate the first amendment by compelling corporate. Speech and conflict with existing federal securities regulations on environmental and financial risk disclosure. The lawsuit seeks to have both California laws declared unconstitutional and preempted by federal authorities setting up a significant legal challenge over power and climate regulation. This is going to be tracked by us because this is huge. [00:13:14][57.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:15] Yeah, I think anytime you can make, you can sue on the grounds of the first amendment. You’re going to have a pretty good chance of winning. I think those, those winnings, if you’re on the side of free speech, tend to end up being a fairly, not to say lucrative, but you, you win them more often than not. You know, they’re basically arguing that these laws violate first amendment by. Helling corporate speech, which conflicts with existing federal securities regulations on these, their environmental and financial disclosure, Rick. So I mean, good for them. I mean nothing more. Go ahead and make them show up in court. Why not? [00:13:47][32.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:47] Exactly. The one thing I have to say is Michael, we’ve got what, 50 ballpark, 50% of our oil in the United States is done by privately held companies. And so they are under the gun because they don’t have the money that a Exxon or a Chevron or anybody else has to fight the legal system and the law, fair and legal crap that has been put on the oil and gas and the demonization. Charles Payne brought it out in the early on, so go to the sub stack. Energynewsbeat.substack.com and watch that video. It’s actually really good. Kind of tied it all together there and off to you. [00:14:23][36.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:23] No. And we’re going to talk a little bit about Exxon and their Guyana asset in a bit, but first we got to pay the bills. As always guys, the news and analysis you just heard. Is brought to you by world’s greatest website, www.energynewsbeat.com. Stu and the team do a tremendous job making sure that website stays up to speed. Everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. Go ahead and hit the links in the description below for all links to the timestamps, links to articles, and specifically subscribe to the show on YouTube,subscribe to this show on Apple iTunes. Give us a follow there. Subscribe to our show on Spotify. Please leave comments there and subscribe to our sub stack, www.energynewsbeat.substack.com. That’s probably the best place to support the show. Stu does a great job of releasing two to three articles a week that really encompass the big themes that are going on. We also drop all of our podcasts there, which give a little bit of a breakdown. We just had a great, great podcast. So I highly, highly recommend everybody subscribe to the energy newsbeat.sub stack.com We’d also like to thank friends of the show Reese Energy Consulting for supporting the show guys. Reese Energy Consulting is the foremost midstream expert. Guys, if you had at all. Are dealing with issues in the midstream space, whether you’re an upstream company and need help with your first purchaser’s contract or renegotiating your gas contracts or figuring out where you’re gonna tie in your next pad because you’ve got multiple different options and you’re trying to break it all down. Reese Energy Consulting can help. If you’re in the mainstream space, I need an extra pair of hands, need some permitting or regulation help, or need some red team analysis on a final investment decision, guys. They have the team that can help you check out ReeseEnergyConsulting.com They have clients everywhere and all throughout the country from two people in a garage all the way up to the largest publicly traded companies in the world. So if you’re wondering, are you a good fit for them? The answer is yes. ReeseEnergyConsulting.com And finally guys, investinoil.energynewsbeat.com We are coming up on the end of the year. And I promise you guys, you do not wanna be paying money to Uncle Sam. You wanna keep as much money in your pocket. You wanna diversify your portfolio a little bit and you want to get some dividends. You can do that by investing in oil and gas. Check out investinoil.energynewsbeat.com Fill out our portfolio survey and our tax calculator. And guess what, you guys, you guys are gonna get and get a nice ebook that tells you here’s what you should look for when you invest in oil and gas. And also figure out what your tax burden is and figure out how much you might save relative to your tax burn if you did invest in Oil and Gas, guys. We practice what we preach here, guys, we do this stuff ourselves. Investin oil.energy newsbeat .com Don’t give your money to Uncle Sam. Figure out and find out if oil and gas investing is for you. Depending on if you qualify, we will, again, send you all that information and we may or may not point you in the right direction. Again, investin oil.energynewsbeat.com. [00:17:09][165.8]
[00:17:10] All right, kind of a choppy day, Stu, for, for oil prices on Friday. You know, we, we had a little bit of chop earlier in the week. We are up above 61. We dropped a little below 60, kind of danced around that number, saw a little bit of an upward lift. And I want to ask you a little bit, because a lot of the North pressure on oil prices specifically has to do with Venezuela. I want to touch on that quickly, but, but we also did see a huge pop in natural gas prices over the last three days. We closed at about four, you know, four 11 or excuse me, four 12. We’ll open at about 4 11 here very shortly as we record this at about four o’clock Sunday afternoon. Go Broncos, by the way, we just kicked a walk off field goal. Against the Texans. So sorry for anybody listening in Houston, but go donkeys. But going back to oil prices, Stu, a lot of this pressure that we saw upwards on Friday was this real aggressive tone that the Trump administration is making towards Venezuela. Give me, give us a little bit of an insight. What, what is going on down there? [00:18:07][56.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:18:07] Well, we’ve got the carrier that the we’ve got regular deployments of B-1 bombers, as well as B-52s flying around. B- 52s can carry about 20 different missiles on them on the exterior tanks. The B- 1s carrying them on an interior. Bombay, and they also hold maybe about 18, I believe, somewhere around that range. But when you sit back and take a look at having missiles being launched at you, it is now serious. And I have said this before, I think that this is more along the Monroe Doctrine. We’ve had China in the Southern Hemisphere for a very long time. I think this is the quiet part nobody else is talking about, and that is President Trump is not digging China in our backyard and China has been doing all of these things in Venezuela and all in up and down in South America and I think they’re just Quietly kicking China to the curb in South America. [00:19:09][61.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:09] Well, I just hope I don’t I’m not really looking to go storm the beaches of Caracas anytime soon. So [00:19:16][6.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:16] I think they’re going to do it now. Secretary. Oh, you break a news. Do you think they are going to invade? Oh, we’re going invade Venezuela. Oh I think he’s going to tell it’s the same thing that he is also secretary of war. Pete basically said also on the Christians being murdered in Africa. He said stop it or you will be executed. So they’re not holding any not they’re gonna hold people’s feet to the fire. And when they tell you they tell trying to get out of Venezuela, you better get out Venezuela. [00:19:46][29.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:47] And I mean, what that has to do with the oil markets, you know, mainly is obviously there would be a complete halt to Venezuelan crude making it to the open market. There’s, there’s not much making it out right now. So I think that’s part of, I think what you’re seeing in the spike there. There’s some big news here, but first rig counts dropped by four on Friday. Frac counts had dropped by three. So basically all the gains we had last week on frac rigs got wiped away and same on rig counts. I think the big news that happened this weekend, Stu, OPEC plus agrees to 137,000 barrel per day increase for December followed by a three month pause. What does this mean for the oil markets? This was announced this weekend, actually about probably, you know, overnight Saturday, you over Saturday night into Sunday. OPEC has agreed to do a pretty modest production increases. As the title mentions, 137,000 barrels per day for December, but they also at the same time announce a three-month pause on further hikes from January to March and we sort of already know that they’re not really going to be able to make that 137,000 barrel increase. They’re already producing a little bit more. I think what’s interesting is they’ve come out and firmly said, Hey, we are not increasing January through March. Now, obviously that can change. It doesn’t matter. I, I think this move really, and, and I think with the data shows, and you point this out in your article is that this move is pretty heavily influenced by the recent U S sanctions on Russia. And doesn’t really move again. It’s not a market share. It’s I think it’s a geopolitical tensions and fluctuating demand signals. I believe it’s, it’s really interesting. What does this mean for the oil markets? It could see a little bit of a drop. I doubt we’re going to be able to see a massive increase in pricing. My guess is we’ll probably sink below 50 or below 60 this week, just as sort of the markets wrap now, obviously if something crazy goes down as Venezuela, we’ll obviously see prices hike there. I think it’ll be very interesting to see. We also did see that Saudi Arabia oil rig count has dipped to a 20 year low of only 20 active rigs in July of 2025, which was down from about 46 early in 2024. A little bit that’s due as you point out. And I think the data proves this to be true of pivot towards more gas, a gas heavy development, but Hal Burton continue to sheds rigs. They’re super, super interesting. [00:21:58][131.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:21:58] And they’re breaking out rigs out of mothball. That was a quiet story. [00:22:03][4.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:03] That is, it’s very interesting. You know, on the earnings front, really just the big boys, Exxon and Chevron generated their earnings. Nothing too interesting from Exxson really. You know, they continue to, obviously their Sinochem introduction was, was pretty interesting and their earnings pretty, all is, all, all as good with them. Same with Chevron. I just find it interesting though, you know in their business highlights on their press release, dude, they’ve owned Hess for about what, 13 seconds and all, I, I’m, you can literally, we can see it on the watcher. They’ve owned Hess, for 13 seconds, and one, two, three of, or no, three of the top five business highlights have to do with Guyano. Oh, look what we’ve got now. We’ve got Guyana. So I feel like [00:22:45][41.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:44] I feel like I’m watching a football game in a soccer game in the UK. [00:22:49][4.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:50] Yeah, absolutely. It just changes on a dime. It’s hilarious. Owning Hess for all about 12 seconds. And now they’ve achieved first oil in Yellowtail, the fourth development in Guyana’s offshore Stabroic plug. Oh, it’s like, welcome to the club guys. We’ve been here for a couple, we’ve been for a few years. So, all right. That’s all I’ve got to do. My favorite segment of the week. What’s got you nervous this week? [00:23:12][21.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:23:12] Nothing. I think the world is actually healing. I think we’re going to see some great things. I do not. I think that the war in Ukraine will come to an end. One of these days, whenever they can get the warmongers out of there. And I think we’re gonna see some world changing. [00:23:26][14.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:23:27] Well, good. So why guys, we appreciate You everybody starting their week with the energy news, be podcast for Stuart Turley. I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you next time guys. [00:23:27][0.0][1384.3]
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