Daily Standup Top Stories
How The Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern Deal Would Boost Petrochemicals
In a landmark move poised to reshape America’s freight rail landscape, Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS) announced a proposed $85 billion merger on July 29, 2025. This deal, if approved by regulators, would […]
Pakistan Strikes U.S. Oil Deal as Trump Jabs India
In a move that underscores the shifting dynamics of global energy alliances, the United States and Pakistan have inked a significant trade and energy pact aimed at unlocking Pakistan’s untapped oil reserves. Announced by President […]
BP to Cut 6,000 Jobs in Another Business Review
In a move signaling ongoing efforts to streamline operations and boost profitability, British energy giant BP has announced plans to eliminate approximately 6,200 office-based roles this year, marking an increase from its earlier target of […]
EIA Reports Surprise Draw in US Crude Oil Inventories: A Bullish Signal Amid Geopolitical Tensions
Welcome back to the Energy News Beat Channel, where we break down the latest developments shaking up the global oil markets. Today, we’re diving into the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Weekly Petroleum Status Report, […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
00:16 – How The Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern Deal Would Boost Petrochemicals
03:18 – Pakistan Strikes U.S. Oil Deal as Trump Jabs India
05:21 – BP to Cut 6,000 Jobs in Another Business Review
10:10 – Markets Update
11:01 – EIA Reports Surprise Draw in US Crude Oil Inventories: A Bullish Signal Amid Geopolitical Tensions
12:29 – 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] Why a mega merger among the railroad industry is pertinent to energy investors. Next, on the Energy Newsbeat Daily Standup. [00:00:08][7.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:16] How the Union Pacific North Fork Southern deal could boost petrochemicals. This is huge. In a landmark move poised to reshape America’s freight landscape, Union Pacific U.P. North Forks Southern announced a proposed $85 billion merger on July 29, 2025. This deal, if approved by regulators, would be the late. Nation’s first true transcontinental railroad spanning 50,000 miles across 43 states. What does this mean to invest and what does this means 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. [00:01:38][82.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:38] 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, X- 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, generate 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 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. [00:03:16][97.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:17] Oh, I couldn’t agree more. Hey, let’s roll to Pakistan here all the way from the railroad yard in the Gulf to Pakistan. Pakistan strikes U S oil deal as Trump jabs India. This is really pretty kind of take a look at it. The core of the U S energy pack. The deal focuses on a collaborative effort to develop Pakistan’s massive oil reserves. Energy security starts at home as described by Trump in this post. President Trump says we’ve just concluded a deal with a country of Pakistan where Pakistan and the United States will work together developing massive oil reserves. We’re in the process of choosing the oil company that will lead this partnership. Michael, this brings up energy as an export service. So you’re talking about oil companies that are going to be exporting services and knowledges. So it would be EAAs. So energy as an export service is actually a real thing. That’s how you become energy dominant is how you get that out there. That is why I made sure that energy as export service is in this article because it’s not a bad way to make money. [00:04:29][72.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:04:30] No, it’s not a bad money way to make money at all. I think it’s, this comes at an interesting time, the U S Pakistan relationship relative to all the stuff that goes on and, and has been going on in the middle East. I love this idea. Energy as a service. Yes, it kind of funny. I mean, everything’s in everything is as a service now, I mean it’s pretty unbelievable. [00:04:49][19.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:50] I’ve written articles about it, but I never really put it this way as an EAAS. But hey, this is something I do want to say on this article. And that is, I think again, I have been very vocal about President Trump raising tariffs on India to get Putin to the table. It is a mistake and I think it’s going to backfire. So there’s a Bloomberg article out there that I was reading And it is really a mistake, President Trump. You need to have President Putin want to do business. And let’s move on to the next one here. BP to cut 6,000 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- Yeah, the Bobs have been called in to 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, their decision to at a critical juncture for the company, I think they’re getting ready to do a move. That would be my guess. [00:06:20][90.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:21] 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. Is it, do they just shed their U S 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, some of the parts is greater than the whole cell 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 net? The other. Now, the hard part is if BP just sells, how is that accretive 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 are a shareholder because that’s an accretiv 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. I mean, 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 HESS 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, a, a merger and the question is who’s going to buy them. Nope, you bet. That’s it for me, dude. All right. Well, let’s jump over and quickly cover what’s going on in the oil and gas markets, guys. Before we do that, let us quickly go ahead and pay the bills. As always, thank you for checking us out here on the world’s greatest website, www.energynewsbeat.com. 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 oil and gas business. If you are interested in partnering with us and sponsoring the show, please reach out to us via on LinkedIn or questions@energynewsbeat.com you can also hit the links in the description below all the time stamps You can also subscribe to our sub stack there the energy newsbeat.sub stack.com the best place to follow Daily happenings of the energy Newsbeat you really are gonna be able to get inside stew in my brain We send out a daily newsletter designed to bring you the most pertinent energy news info and also what that means to you So we appreciate everybody who has subscribed via our sub-stack We also highly, highly recommend checking out and supporting Reese Energy Consulting. We love them over there. They’re probably one of the best midstream consulting firms, and not one of probably the best midstream consulting firm in the United States. Guys, they have massive amounts of experience dealing with. All types. Of companies, projects, and problems with the midstream space. And if you are all touching the mid-stream space, whether you’re an upstream company, whether you actually are midstream or you are in downstream and you need help in that space, give our friends over at Reese Energy Consulting, or call reeseenergyconsulting.com. And finally, guys, if you’re looking to allocate money into the oil and gas space and don’t know what to do with it, go ahead and fill out our oil and gas portfolio survey, answer a couple of questions, and it gives us an idea of what you need. We will send you a bunch of free resources and might point you in the right direction. You can visit that at investinoil.energynewsbeat.com. [00:10:07][226.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:10] If you look at top line indices through S&P 500, about 7 tenths of a percentage point. Nasdaq up about 1.2. A two and 10 year yields, actually the two year was down about a half a percentage point. Ten year yield was up about 3 tenths a percentage points. A Bitcoin up about a percentage up over 115,000. A crude oil, pretty got whacked today, down about 1 point 5 percentage points, 64.24 Brent Oil down about two percentage points, 66.93. Natural gas, though, spiked about 2.4 percentage points up to $3.08. XOP, which is our E&P Securities contract, actually got whacked by about 1.1 percentage points all the way down to 123.61. I think the main thing what we’re seeing, Stu, right now with the oil and gas markets has… Mainly. To do with the threatening tone around India and Russian imports. [00:11:01][50.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:11:01] We did see what should be normally a bullish EIA crude oil inventory draw of about 3.3 million barrels of oil, a little bit less, about 3 million barrels of oil. But Marco Rubio did come out, who was the Secretary of State, and indicated that there is going to be an announcement later today, actually, as we record this, on whether those sanctions against Russia will partake. It could be, you know, his quote was, It may be positive, it may be not. So we will see how this all plays out. Basically we saw us on the envoy, Steve Witkoff held quote useful and constructive talks, um, with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, which is sort of setting up for this Friday deadline. So it’s going to be really interesting. It’s too, I think you said it exactly. I don’t know where this is supposed to go. I don’t know why this is necessarily an issue right now, but I think the oil markets are taking this extremely bullish right now. So we’ll see how everything plays out that’s really all we’ve got guys. We are excited to be moving to a two day a week format next week, guys. You’re going to hear a show Monday early in your early in your podcast. Feed, whether you listen to us on Substack or YouTube, check us out there. And then you will be getting into a show Wednesday as well. We’re going to be diving into these topics. Definitely a little bit deeper, trying to cover specifically things you guys are interested in. And we’ve got some other exciting things coming on the podcast guys. So look out for some of those changes that we appreciate everybody for checking in and staying with us. Do who do we have running on the podcast on Friday? [00:12:25][83.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:26] We have Steve Reese and we, Kimberly Pace as well as the head of the oil and gas association for West Virginia, Charlie Heard. So it is pretty cool. [00:12:38][12.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:12:39] Oh, that’s awesome. Well that’s going to be a a great great show everybody tune into that on Saturday You will hear the weekly recap and then we’ll be back in your ear Monday morning guys Appreciate you guys sticking with us looking forward to keep giving you some great content, but for Stuart Turley, I’m Michael Tanner We’ll see you guys. [00:12:39][0.0][743.7]
