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Kevin Gordon, Charles Schwab Senior Investment Strategist kicks off the show, tracking the S&P 500 ‘s first down day in the last 10 session. Morgan breaks down Palantir's quarterly numbers, plus a bull-and-bear debate on the stock with Dan Ives, Wedbush Global Head of Technology Research, and Brent Thill, Jefferies Analyst. Michael Kantrowitz, Piper Sandler Chief Investment Strategist, joins on the macro and Fed outlook, while Arjun Murti, Partner at Veriten, weighs in on the energy sector and falling oil prices. Plus, Hollywood gets caught in the crosshairs of U.S.–China trade tensions—our Julia Boorstin reports on the growing tariff risks for the entertainment industry.
Today we had the distinct pleasure of hosting Mark Lashier, Chairman and CEO of Phillips 66. Mark joined Phillips 66 as President and COO in 2021 and assumed the CEO role in July 2022. Prior to that, he served as the President and CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company (CPChem), where he held several senior leadership roles, including Executive Vice President of Olefins and Polyolefins, Senior Vice President of Specialties, Aromatics and Styrenics, and Vice President of Corporate Planning and Development. Mark began his career at Phillips Petroleum and holds a doctorate in Chemical Engineering. Beyond his leadership at Phillips 66, he serves on the Executive Committee of the American Petroleum Institute and is a Board Member of the Greater Houston Partnership and several other nonprofit organizations. Mike, Arjun and I were thrilled to host Mark for this Special Edition to discuss Phillips 66's recent performance, his strategic vision for the company, insights into today's energy landscape, and the ongoing debate with Elliott Management. In our discussion, Mark shares background on his career and transition to CEO, his early priority of addressing improvements in Phillip 66's refining segment, and the cultural transformation to re-instill pride and competitiveness amongst refiners, which involved engaging employees at all levels and investing in strategic capital projects to fix operational bottlenecks and improve reliability and earnings. We discuss Bob Pease's addition to the board, who was originally nominated through Elliott's engagement, and how he shifted from being skeptical to supportive of the company's strategy, execution, and focus on shareholder returns. We explore the history and structure of CPChem, the benefits of Phillips 66's integrated business model during times of volatility and potential downturns, and the company's industry-leading safety performance, which ties safety directly to employee compensation. Mark shares his perspective on why maintaining a diversified portfolio across refining, midstream, and chemicals is strategically and financially advantageous, as well as the optimization and regulatory advantages of an integrated structure. We touch on Phillips 66's strong ROCE versus peers, activist pressure to sell midstream assets for a higher multiple, growth across their midstream business, and broader global trends toward integration rather than asset breakups. Mark highlights the company's refining performance improvement, the rationale behind merging PSXP and DCP assets, efforts to attract generalist investors back to the energy sector by demonstrating consistent earnings, Phillips 66's philosophy of keeping assets “for sale every day” to ensure focus on shareholder value, and much more. We greatly appreciate Mark for sharing his candid insights into a complex and highly public debate. As you will hear, we reference a few items in the discussion. Phillip 66's Investor Relations presentation entitled “Delivering Value & Demonstrating Commitment,” released Monday, April 28, is linked here. Veriten's COBT episode featuring Doug Terreson is linked here. Thanks to Mark for joining us for an insightful discussion and thanks to you all for your friendship and support!
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.We will start with an apology to those of you that prefer the written notes but with the Super Vol nature of this tariff trade war and the dramatic market moves, we are going to do another short video. We tried our best to avoid “hot takes” and stick with how to think about what it means for the Energy sector over the long run—i.e., the “long takes.” For companies and investors that are not trying to day trade this crazy market, there are some fundamental questions about how to think about the macro, CAPEX, M&A, and what to do with so much uncertainty. We would like to wish everyone that celebrates a Happy Easter. We too will be enjoying the long weekend and will publish our next Super-Spiked in two weeks.
What does global energy transition look like in a time of major geopolitical change, including rebalancing of trade? In this special episode of "Energized: The Future of Energy”, host JJ Ramberg and Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel talk to Arjun Murti, partner at Veriten and founder of the energy transition newsletter Super-Spiked. They discuss the impact of President Trump's new energy policies, the role of North America in the global energy transition, and the possible impact of tariffs and trade tension on the energy sector.Host: JJ Ramberg and Greg Ebel Guest: Arjun Murti Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
What does global energy transition look like in a time of major geopolitical change, including rebalancing of trade? In this special episode of "Energized: The Future of Energy”, host JJ Ramberg and Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel talk to Arjun Murti, partner at Veriten and founder of the energy transition newsletter Super-Spiked. They discuss the impact of President Trump's new energy policies, the role of North America in the global energy transition, and the possible impact of tariffs and trade tension on the energy sector.Host: JJ Ramberg and Greg Ebel Guest: Arjun Murti Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.We had intended to publish a written note this week that we thought had some interesting analysis on energy sub-sector profitability over what we consider to be the 2021-2024 mini-cycle. But President Trump's April 2 “Liberation Day” Rose Garden event squashed those publication plans. OPEC decided to add to the noise with its own surprise announcement that it would add additional volumes. As of the April 3 close, energy equities, oil commodities, and the broader stock market have been hit hard and we have pivoted this week to producing a short video podcast to share our thoughts. With the major caveat that we are one day into whatever this potential new paradigm is—and given our aversion to providing “hot takes” on the news of the day—we wanted to offer some initial long-term perspectives on macro developments, i.e., “long takes” so to speak.
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.This week's video is a follow up to last week's written post titled "What Does Energy Pragmatism Mean for Climate & Sustainability" (here). We wanted to expand on some of the points in our own voice and also address various questions and pushback we have received.Our key messages this week: (1) Energy pragmatism means a return to energy's natural hierarchy of needs, rather than the inverted version that pretended anyone anywhere prioritizes carbon emission reductions over energy availability and reliability; (2) investment flows into non-fossil fuel energy sources are not impacted by western world virtue signaling, as the climate bubble actually peaked way back in 2021; (3) the other 7 billion people in developing markets hold the key to how energy markets will evolve in coming decades, not us Lucky 1 Billioners.
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.This past week we attended CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston. Pragmatism, balance, and realism have been the themes uttered by just about every single speaker. Some have long been in this camp. Others are new. All are welcomed. We are still embracing inclusivity at Super-Spiked. Some will say we shouldn't be so forgiving to those people that 5 minutes ago were calling for an end to fossil fuel investment and are now suddenly seeing the light in regards to reliability, geopolitical security, and affordability. You, our loyal subscribers, know where we have been standing all along. It is our mission that the dialogue, understanding, and macro energy policies recognize energy's natural hierarchy of needs, where all anyone anywhere at all times cares about is can I use energy right now. Without energy access there is nothing. So in that spirit, we welcome everyone to the world of pragmatism.Before we get into our Top 10 takeaways from CERAWeek 2025, we would like to offer our congratulations to Dan Yergin, Atul Arya, and everyone at S&P Global for putting on a world class show. We learned a ton and caught up with many friends and colleagues from around the world. There is no conference like CERAWeek that brings together all of the global energy industry in one place.
Greetings, and welcome back to the podcast.This episode we are joined by Mr. Arjun Murti - Partner at Veriten LLC and a Senior Advisor at Warburg Pincus. Mr. Murti has spent over 30 years on Wall Street as a sell-side equity research analyst, buy-side investor, advisor and board member covering the global energy sector. Mr. Murti previously served as a Partner at Goldman Sachs from 2006 to 2014. Prior to becoming Partner, he served as Managing Director from 2003 to 2006 and as Vice President from 1999 to 2003. During his time at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti worked as a sell-side equity research analyst covering the energy sector. He was co-director of equity research for the Americas from 2011 to 2014. Previously, Mr. Murti held equity analyst positions at JP Morgan Investment Management from 1995 to 1999 and at Petrie Parkman from 1992 to 1995. Mr. Murti serves on the board of directors of ConocoPhillips & Liberty Energy Inc. He also serves on the advisory boards of ClearPath and Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy and as a board observer to Welligence Energy Analytics. Mr. Murti graduated with a business degree specializing in finance from the University of Denver,Since November 2021, Mr. Murti has published Super-Spiked, a Substack newsletter and podcast about the energy transition.Among other things, we discussed The End of the Energy Transition Era & What it Means for Investors.Enjoy.Thank you to our sponsors.Without their support this episode would not be possible:Connate Water SolutionsATB Capital MarketsEnergy United 360 Engineering & Environmental ConsultingEVA SoftwareBroadbill EnergySupport the show
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.We follow up on last week's post that heralded The Rise of the Energy Pragmatism Era (here). No more inverting the hierarchy of needs with non-sensical net-zero-is-all-that-matters energy outlooks that would subjugate vast swaths of humanity to ongoing poverty. We have moved into an exciting and even fun new period for all things energy—new, old and everything in between. Oil & gas is converging with power. Technology and energy are converging in the sense that you can't have the former without the latter. Billion-person scale economies in the developing world are doing whatever it takes to bring wealth to their citizens—all of which is synonymous with energy growth. And for those regions it will be a focus on reliability, affordability, and geopolitics that will motivate an increasingly diverse mix of energy sources and technology. This is not about looking backwards...it's about the path forward.This week's video will start our discussion on new opportunities that could arise as energy pragmatism spreads, in particular to regions that had been most in “climate only” mode. What regions have been left behind that deserve a fresh look? How can we best meet the substantial energy needs of ALL 8 billion people on Earth? Real economics are returning, not unsustainable rich-country government handouts to the wealthiest amongst us. Welcome to The Energy Pragmatism Era!
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.The firehose of news flow out of the new Trump administration since, and frankly preceding, his inauguration has not stopped. While US presidents throughout history seem to elicit strong reactions, President Trump inspires a degree of hysteria from those that oppose him and a do-no-wrong deference from his supporters. What we find is that whatever the issue is—it could be domestic spending, sanctions, or tariffs—when someone has an obviously dripping disdain for Trump, it weakens the efficacy of their argument, even if partly accurate. The opposite is also true. We find both extremes to be pretty unhelpful in sorting through what matters. By the time this video podcast is published, President Trump will have only been in office for 4 weeks: there are still 3 years and 48 weeks to go—permanent freak out mode is not sustainable or healthy! In this week's video, which we recorded a little earlier than usual due to some travel this past week, we address a number of questions that have arisen. We are going to do our best to use our equity research analyst's mindset to assess policy actions taken or proposed. This means our only goal is to make the right call and provide the best insight we can for the companies we advise. We will keep our answers focused on how it all might impact the long-term energy macro and corporate strategy.
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.As long-time Super-Spiked subscribers know, we are not about “hot takes” on the issue of the day. With that said, it's been an incredible first week and a half since the US inaugurated its 47th president. A fire hose of Trump-driven news has instantly recast global narratives around energy and geopolitics as well as as a host of other topics we don't normally cover in Super-Spiked. The World Economic Forum's Davos gathering happened last week. And DeepSeek, a Chinese AI program in the spirt of ChatGPT and related programs, burst onto the scene after its US iPhone app went viral last weekend, upending stock markets and in particular anything and everything related to the A.I. trade. We are going to try our best to put this torrent of news flow in the context of what it might mean for the longer-term trends and outlook for the energy that is our bread and butter.
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.It's been a great start to the year for the traditional energy and power sectors broadly speaking. This video will publish just two days before we have a new administration here in the U.S. And as we highlighted in our last few Super-Spiked's from December as well as the “Big Themes for 2025” outlook post from last week (here), we feel considerable optimism that the narratives and perspectives about energy are becoming more pragmatic and sensible after a pretty rough stretch over 2021-2024 where a very narrow definition of “The Energy Transition” unfortunately dominated energy mindspace. Our confidence that that era decisively came to a close in 2024was on a full display in what was a remarkably civil and mostly thoughtful confirmation hearing for Chris Wright, president-elect Trump's nominee to be energy secretary, conducted by the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. In this video we hope to further expand on our key themes for 2025 through the lens of some of the pushbacks or key questions we have been fielding.
Brett Rampal discusses his journey into nuclear engineering, the evolution of nuclear energy politics over the past two decades, and his current role at Veriten. He highlights the challenges and opportunities in the nuclear energy sector, particularly regarding investment and public perception. The discussion also touches on the changing political landscape surrounding nuclear energy and the importance of addressing public sentiment and regulatory environments to foster growth in the industry. The conversation delves into the evolving landscape of nuclear energy, emphasizing the importance of community ownership, bipartisan support, and regulatory momentum. The discussion highlights the challenges and opportunities in deploying advanced reactor designs and the potential for new nuclear plants in response to growing energy demand. Brett relfects on the historical context of nuclear energy policy and the need for strategic investments to ensure a sustainable energy future.
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below. We follow up on our written post from last week, Reflections On The End of The Energy Transition Era (here), to talk about important lessons learned from what was an insane period of time. This week will dive into the importance of governance, an area that frankly is often a bit of a black box for investors and those not involved in board-level discussions. We'll include a disclaimer upfront. The comments this week are generic to our 32-year career as an equity research analyst studying and engaging with the energy sector. We are not referring to any specific companies that we are personally involved with or via our role at Veriten.
This holiday weekend on our Inside the Coffeehouse series, we welcome Arjun Murti and Jeff Currie back into the SmarterMarkets™ studio. Arjun is Partner at Veriten and Publisher of "Super-Spiked" on Substack. Jeff Currie is Chief Strategy Officer of Energy Pathways at Carlyle. David Greely sits down with Jeff and Arjun, reuniting these two former Goldman partners and colleagues to share their perspectives on the market, economic, and political forces shaping the future of our energy markets.
WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.We hope all of you that tune in or read Super-Spiked know that we try our hardest to be non-partisan and present views from what we refer to as an equity analyst's mindset, which means it does not matter what we personally think about an issue, we are just trying to make the right call. But this week we will confess that we are excited about the new energy team that has been proposed by president-elect former president Donald Trump with North Dakota governor Doug Burgum for Secretary of Interior and Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright for Secretary of Energy. President Trump has also proposed creating a new National Energy Council that will be headed by Governor Burgum that will look to co-ordinate a whole-of-government approach to energy policies.We will apologize in advance that we are likely to sound far more partisan than we prefer. For those of you listening that either serve or have served in Democrat administrations—or that simply were not happy with how the recent election turned out—please know that we highly value you as a subscriber and we appreciate our ongoing engagement with those of you in that camp that we regularly dialogue with.The appointments of Governor Burgum and Mr. Wright signify a return to an approach to energy that puts abundance, reliability, security, and affordability at its core and an “all of the above” approach to harnessing American energy resources and technology. We would contrast this with the prior administration's emphasis on addressing climate change, which we see as a subsidiary issue within energy and should not be the centering policy point that comes with a climate activist agenda. The “climate only” focus of recent years that took hold in the aftermath of COVID was a motivating factor for the creation of Super-Spiked and our eventual un-retirement and joining Veriten. Chris Wright in particular has been outspoken via his Bettering Human Lives report (here). The report beautifully articulates why we use energy in the first place: to better human lives. Super-Spiked and Bettering Human Lives share a common worldview and motivating spirit. In this week's video podcast we will discuss how re-prioritizing energy abundance, reliability, security, and affordability differs from the “climate only” agenda of the past several years from the perspective of energy equities. Our written post from last week, which we would encourage you to read, addressed various macro and policy issues around energy scenario analysis, power, new energies, and oil markets (here).
This week we provide some initial thoughts on the U.S. election, the bulk of which was decisively declared on election night itself. We regularly emphasize that we aim to bring an equity research analyst's mindset to evaluating the energy sector. That means we are simply trying to make the correct call on what we think will happen—not what we personally wish would happen or hope will happen. And we will do our best to stick with that in this video podcast, though when it comes to emotionally charged topics like elections, we'd have to admit that some amount of wish casting and personal opinion will creep in.In terms of Super-Spiked subscribers, we are going to guess that many of you, perhaps even a majority, will be pretty excited about the election results. But we also take a lot pride in the fact that we have a substantial contingent of subscribers that were hoping for a different outcome. The world is a better place for all of those viewpoints. And we thank all of you, those that agree with us and those that disagree, for your ongoing constructive engagement. As we repeatedly say, we are looking for the pushback to our views. It makes us better analysts.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the GREY button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below. We recorded this video podcast with a little less than a week to go before the November 5 US elections. We are seeing a lot of punditry commentary about what choosing one side or the other would mean for this policy or that sector and who will be the winners and losers depending on the outcome. We get it. There are differences between the parties, their areas of emphasis, and their rhetoric. But when it comes to the big picture outlook for the energy sector, we want to remind everyone that the structural macro trends unquestionably transcend micro politics. This is something we wrote about in our July 27, 2024 Super-Spiked, Does the US president's party impact the energy macro results? (here). At a high level, the answer is a firm “no.”Clearly individual companies and specific projects can be impacted as we have seen via the lack of approval for various pipeline projects or the LNG permit pause or the granting of tax credits to various new technologies. So yes, a specific company can be impacted by who wins. But at the big picture level, we believe the mega trends triumph over micro politics. Moreover, as we will show with the last 2 elections, various sectors did not perform as conventional wisdom expected.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the GREY button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.Amidst the geopolitical and macro turmoil, we take a step back this week to turn back to how companies can think about outperformance through all the volatility. One can't be frozen and simply wait for a calmer or better time to materialize. No one should be sitting around waiting for an easy bull market to emerge. Long-time Super-Spiked subscribers will know that we are long-running advocates for companies focusing on profitability and a fortress balance sheet. This week we will start the process of spending some time on the "G" word: growth. Growth became a 4-letter word for investors after the surge in CAPEX during the Super-Spike era and subsequent US shale boom led to profitless growth--something we have spent a lot of time discussing in prior posts.And let us be clear, profits and balance sheet health remain the priority. That said, there is no doubt investors will always side with companies that can grow versus those that cannot grow at a given level of profitability and balance sheet strength. The trick is to hit the trifecta: growth, returns, and balance sheet strength. Moreover, for especially the upstream portion of the industry where asset life is finite--oil and gas fields naturally deplete--it is critical to adequately reinvest back in the business if a company is to persist as a going concern.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the GREY button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.This week we continue the theme of normalization. The 2020-2023 period of “urgent energy transition,” “peak oil and gas demand,” and ESG hysteria we think is fading. It is being replaced with what we would call “normal” supply/demand/price volatility concerns. The biggest issue right now facing oil markets has been uncertainty on the outlook for China in particular. Going back to the super-cycle days of 20 years ago, we have long looked at copper markets to provide insights into China, given China is over 50% of copper demand. A noticeable gap has opened between weak crude oil prices and more resilient copper. Historically, the gap has closed with crude following the direction of copper. We shall see if history repeats.
Tisha Schuller welcomes Naomi Boness, managing director of both the Standford University Natural Gas and Hydrogen Initiatives to the Energy Thinks podcast. Prior to her role at Stanford, Naomi held technical and management positions at Chevron for over a decade where she most recently worked in upstream strategy and portfolio analysis, with particular emphasis on North America shale gas and global LNG projects. Naomi received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Leeds, a Master of Science from Indiana University Bloomington, and a PhD in Geophysics from Stanford University. She currently serves on many boards such as The Energy Leadership Institute, OpenMinds, Inc., Babcock & Wilcox, Ambient Fuels, LLC., geCKo Matericals, Aemetis, and Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas. Naomi is an advisor for Ammobia, Partnership to Address Global Emissions, Veriten, and EvolOH. In her free time, Naomi volunteers as an educator at interview workshops at Wardrobe for Opportunity in the San Francisco Bay Area. Watch the video on YouTube to see Naomi's special furry-friend and co-worker, Ginny! Subscribe here for Tisha's weekly Both of These Things Are True email newsletter. Follow all things Adamantine Energy at www.energythinks.com. Thanks to Kayla Chieves who makes the Energy Thinks podcast possible. [Interview recorded on September 16, 2024]
In this insightful episode of Wicked Energy with JG, Justin Gauthier sits down with Arjun Murti to delve into the intricacies of global oil demand and the evolving energy landscape. Arjun criticizes extreme political positions on oil and gas, advocating for a balanced approach to energy production and innovation. He sheds light on the governments stance on fracking and the broader implications of U.S. energy policies. The discussion pivots to China's "all of the above" energy strategy, highlighting their investment in coal, nuclear, natural gas, and renewables to ensure energy security. Arjun provides an analysis of China's significant influence on global oil markets and the challenges and opportunities posed by their demographic shifts. Other key topics include the economic viability of biofuels, short-term and long-term oil price forecasts, and the impact of interest rate cuts on the energy sector. The episode wraps up with insights into Veriten's strategic advisory work across the oil and gas value chain. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjun-murti-energy-analyst/ Websites: https://arjunmurti.substack.com/ Show Sponsors InflowControl InflowControl is a tech firm specializing in enhancing oil production efficiency and minimizing environmental harm through their Autonomous Inflow Control Valve (AICV®). The technology boosts profitability in mature oil fields by filtering out undesired gas and water, allowing previously overlooked zones to contribute to production. This results in both higher profitability and Lower Carbon Oil for stakeholders. For more information, visit the links below: Website: www.inflowcontrol.no LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inflowcontrol-as/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqdgIooQhYtUBo-auUlYw-Q Mainline Ventures Mainline Ventures stands alone as the premier strategy consulting firm dedicated to the energy sector, founded by former E&P C-Suite executives. They transform deal-making from an art into a science with their Process Driven Negotiation Technique, focusing on active deals and offering services like bespoke training, deal advising, and go-to-market strategies, often on a contingency basis due to their strategy's proven effectiveness. This approach not only yields measurable, scalable results but also seamlessly integrates with your existing operations, ensuring long-term sustainability without the need for changes in your team or technology. LinkedIn Link: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mainlineventures/ Website: https://mainline-ventures.com/
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the GREY button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.We are using the occasion of our 50th Super-Spiked video podcast to provide thoughts, lessons learned, and new perspectives gained from the first 49 videopods, 90 written posts, and what is now nearly 3 years of publishing Super-Spiked content. As always, we are especially appreciative of both the positive and constructive feedback from all subscribers; we really do love hearing from you. Our glass half-full world view sees energy narratives and conversations slowly but surely becoming more reasonable and less focused on extremist singular goals. There is a growing recognition that until you solve for how everyone on Earth will some day become energy rich, you will never solve sub-goals in areas like the environment or climate. We continue to believe geopolitical imperatives will be the driver of new energy technologies and sources for large population centers that are not blessed with abundant crude oil resources.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the GREY button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.This week we provide the third installment of our August series on “30 Years of Perpetual Transition” with a look at a number of noteworthy geopolitical and policy developments that have occurred. A key conclusion is that some events that were expected to be impactful were not, while others that had less fanfare did have a bigger impact. Some countries had grand openings that resulted in dramatically higher oil or gas supply. Others, not so much. Two weeks ago we discussed some of the different macro drivers that have changed over the course of our career (here). Last week we focused on sectors, business models, and strategy shifts (here). All of it is to point out that energy markets are forever changing. Energy transition has become an unfortunate and loaded term that most people would define as meaning a transition out of fossil fuels and into renewables over an arbitrarily short time frame like 2050. We do not agree that definition of energy transition is happening or would be desirable from the perspective of human prosperity. But there is a need for industry executives, investors, and policy makers to recognize that energy is in perpetual transition and that one needs to always be looking forward with a focus on the important drivers of change and to not let mis-guided and ill-informed rhetoric cloud judgements.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the GREY button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.This week we continue our series of "30 Years of Perpetual Transition" with a focus on how various energy sectors and business models have evolved. As a reminder, we recognize the term "energy transition" has become a loaded term, which most people now take to mean the idea that the world will be transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewables, over some arbitrarily short time frame like by 2050. We do not agree that this version of “energy transition” is on-track to happen or that it would be desirable from a human prosperity standpoint.But that does not mean nothing is changing. In fact, over the course of our 30-year career a ton of stuff has changed. Last week we focused on the energy macro with a closer look on big changes to the relative importance of various regions to oil demand (here). This week we will take a look at the major energy sub-sectors and give examples of how business models and risk taking have evolved.
Host: Tracy Shuchart for MicDropMarketsGuests: Arjun Murti and Rory JohnstonArjun MurtiArjun was the Goldman Sachs “Super Spike” analyst from the 2000s commodity bull market era. He retired as a partner in 2014 after 22 years as a sell- and buy-side energy equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Investment Management, and Petrie Parkman & Co. He has since stayed active as an independent board member of ConocoPhillips, a senior advisor at Warburg Pincus, and an advisory board member at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy as well as ClearPath. In March 2023, he “un-retired” to become a partner at Veriten, an energy research, strategy, and investment firm.He also publishes a substack SuperSpiked about the messy transition era. Rory JohnstonRory Johnston is a Toronto-based oil market researcher, the founder of Commodity Context, a lecturer at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, as well as a Fellow with both the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. He is a leading voice on oil market analysis, advising institutional investors, global policy makers, and corporate decision makers. Prior to founding Commodity Context, Rory led commodity economics research at Scotiabank where he set the bank's energy and metals price forecasts, advised the bank's executives and clients, and sat on the bank's senior credit committee for commodity-exposed sectors.Disclaimer: This material is presented solely for informational and entertainment purposes and is not to be construed as a recommendation, solicitation, or an offer to buy or sell / long or short any securities, commodities, or any related financial instruments. Please contact a licensed professional before making any investment or trading decisions
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below. For the last month of summer, we are aiming to produce a series of hopefully short videos that highlight key lessons from the last 30 years of what we are calling perpetual transition in the energy space with an aim to offer insights on the go forward view. Energy transition itself has become a loaded term of late, typically referring to the idea that the world will be transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewables, over some arbitrarily short time frame like by 2050. We do not agree that this version of “energy transition” is on-track to happen or would be desirable from a human prosperity standpoint.But that does not mean nothing is changing. In fact, over the course of our 30-year career a ton of stuff has changed. And we have little doubt that the next 30 years will NOT look like the last 30 years. The macro has changed, sectors and company strategy have changed, business models evolve, new technologies and sources or location of energy supply emerge, demand changes, which stocks and sectors perform best changes. Everything is constantly transitioning. So to reiterate, we do not subscribe to what most people today mean by “energy transition,” as we expect all forms of energy to grow in coming decades. But under the hood, energy markets are constantly transitioning, and we do wish to better understand the direction the world is headed.Today's video is the first of our new series and will focus on “30 Years of Perpetual Transition” in the energy macro. Next week we plan to turn to the various energy sectors and company strategy. In other videos, we will look at geopolitics, policy, and the environment.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.Our Super-Spiked post last week (here) asked the question of “Does the US President's party matter to energy macro results?” Our over-arching conclusion is that the bark of presidential or party rhetoric is far worse than the bite. Energy is by nature a long-term business and mega trends around sources of supply, global economic growth, geopolitics, and capital spending cycles drive share price performance, crude oil and natural gas production, as well as CO2 emissions trends than does whichever party happens to be in power for a particular 4- or even 8-year period. The fact that these long-term trends dominate over-arching results—and we observed that there is a notable exception for particular projects that might impact specific companies, something like an approved or rejected oil or gas pipeline or perhaps a new energies subsidy—the long-term trends mean there is likely far more common ground among the major parties than there is disagreement. Yet all we hear about are the extremist edges of the debate. So in the spirt of peace, love, and unity, this week's video will focus on where there is or should be common ground among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents here in the United States.
We continue our Summer Playlist 2024 this week with Arjun Murti, Partner at Veriten and Publisher of “Super-Spiked” on Substack. David Greely sits down with Arjun to discuss America's energy independence – and what it will take to maintain America's energy exceptionalism to help meet rising global demand into a future of lower carbon and more sustainable energy.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.This week we focus on the question “Can you trust the United Nations on energy and climate?” The question is sparked by a “climate change” warning label that YouTube placed on Super-Spiked Episode 37 “Goodbye Europe, Hello Rest of World” (here) that discussed an updated climate change statement from Barclays, German de-industrialization, and our thoughts on the role of US and Canadian traditional energy. The warning label linked to a United Nations website that highlighted what it described as “Facts” and “Myth Busters” on climate energy (here). In reviewing the 16 “facts,” we find that 2 we would agree are definitively facts, another 2-3 are factually true but start the U.N. down the road of advocacy and weaponizing the topic of climate, and the other 10-11 are a mix of opinion, advocacy, and in some cases outright falsehoods. Our concern with what the U.N. presents as “facts” is that it is the organization that oversees the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is widely (universally?) considered the authority on so-called climate science.We have spent considerable time in prior posts and videos discussing our concerns with institutional advocacy under the pretense of sober analysis from groups like the International Energy Agency (IEA), Glasgow Financial Alliance For Net Zero (GFANZ), and within bank and asset manager ESG/Sustainability groups. Frankly, we have been late to taking a closer look at the U.N. itself, most likely because we have not relied on its data directly and it has otherwise not been within the purview of our “Wall Street” approach to discussing energy and climate. The U.N. and IPCC clearly deserve greater scrutiny given their massive influence on how the world understands climate.
Greetings, & welcome back to the podcast. This episode we are joined by Mr. Maynard Holt - Founder & CEO of Veriten - an energy research, strategy and investing firm. The firm is well known for it's energy-related podcast (“Close of Business Tuesday”) and energy policy macro analysis (“SuperSpiked”), both of which are produced weekly.Maynard previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. from 2016 to 2021 and has over 27 years of experience in energy investment banking and strategic advice. A co-founder of TPH, Maynard functioned as Co-President from 2007 to 2016 and prior to joining TPH, Maynard worked at Goldman Sachs & Co. At Goldman from 1994 to 2007, Maynard worked in Leveraged / Structured Finance and was last a Managing Director in and Energy & Power / Natural Resources.Maynard launched Veriten to convene the brightest minds in and around energy in a civil, inclusive, and intellectually honest discussion to address the most pressing topics across the space. Like too many of us, he passionately believes there are better ways forward in energy and he wants to find them. Maynard is an avid classic Jeep collector and dedicated patron and supporter of youth sports and holds a BA in Economics and Russian from Rice University and a Master's in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.Among other things we discussed 27 Years of Investment Banking, Oil Demand Outlook & Why It's an Exciting Time in Energy.Enjoy.Thank you to our sponsors.Without their support this episode would not be possible:Connate Water SolutionsGalatea TechnologiesEnverus5Q Investor RelationsSupport the Show.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.This week we honor America's upcoming 248th birthday on July 4th, when it declared independence from the King of England, and take a moment to celebrate the country's incredible achievements in the energy sector. As my friend and colleauge Paul Dabbar eloquently wrote in a terrific Hoover Institute piece that we would encourage all Super-Spiked subscribers to read (here), America is an energy superpower, a position we should lean into in coming years. Energy supply makes us as Americans and the Rest of the World richer. It betters human lives, to quote another friend Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy. We have called this video American Energy Exceptionalism and it is a celebration of how fortunate we are with our endowment of substantial oil and natural gas resources, our world leading technology sector and culture of innovation and risk taking, and our leading capital markets and system of capitalism that underpins our national economic wealth.
Today we had the honor of hosting Reginald DesRoches, President of Rice University, in Veriten's offices at the Ion. Reggie assumed the role of President in July 2022, after previously serving as Rice's Provost and the Dean of the Engineering School. Additionally, Reggie serves as a professor of civil and environmental engineering, and as a professor of mechanical engineering. Before his tenure at Rice, Reggie was Chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Rice University is an essential part of Houston's community and is home to 8,600 plus students and more than 900 faculty members. As we discuss, Rice Management Company is responsible for developing the Ion District in partnership with the City of Houston, where Veriten first started in January 2022. We were thrilled to visit with Reggie and hear his perspectives on the world, energy, the Ion, and the current educational landscape. In our conversation, we explore how AI will change the educational landscape and future career prospects for the next class of students starting at Rice, changes in demand for top areas of study, the vital role energy plays in economic development and healthcare, student attitudes towards energy, and the importance of exposing students to real-world energy access challenges in developing countries or rural areas. Reggie shares Rice's efforts to increase study abroad participation to 50% to broaden student perspectives, the current generation's eagerness to address global issues and make a difference, Rice's University-Industry partnerships including Woodside and the Texas Medical Center, the role of industry in providing practical constraints and scalability considerations to university research, and the surge in industry interest Rice received following the Woodside partnership announcement (linked here). We discuss Rice's goals for the Ion District and the potential for Houston to grow into a leading technology and innovation center, Houston's unique advantages, Rice's strategic plan for the next ten years, the balance between STEM and non-STEM disciplines at Rice, navigating research funding, planning for new facilities, the competitive landscape for hiring new faculty, and the importance of having global representation on campus. We ask Reggie for his perspective on the evolving role of university presidents, and as you'll hear, the job is anything but easy. The Economist article Reggie references is linked here. We covered a great deal of territory and can't thank Reggie enough for joining us today. Mike Bradley kicked off the show by highlighting that the 10-year bond yield is hovering at ~4.25%. He noted this week's economic calendar isn't overly robust. WTI price has rallied ~$4/bbl over the last 4-5 days, trading back above $81/bbl and surpassing its 50/100/200-day moving averages. Whether you're looking at 3mo, 6mo, 12mo or 24mo timeframe, WTI price has been relatively rangebound over those respective timeframes averaging ~$80/bbl and with crude oil volatility trading at multi-year lows. Broader equities continue to be driven by the recent drop in bond yields and a continuation of the strong AI/Tech rally. Broader equity market breadth continues to be extremely narrow, with the top six AI/Tech stocks (APPL, MSFT, NVDA, GOOG, AMZN & META) seeing their combined market-cap increase by $5T over the last year, pushing their combined market-cap to ~33% of the S&P 500. Jeff Tillery expanded on Mike's thoughts on volatility, adding that the focus on commodity volatility will likely expand. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did! Thank you again to Reggie for stopping by. Go Owls!
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below. We turn back to our favorite topic and that is profitability and the goal of generating superior long-term share price performance. We spend a lot of time discussing ROCE, CROCI, and free cash flow. This week we wanted to talk about long-term stock buyback as one way to add per share growth to the equation and to highlight how buybacks plus M&A have contributed to significant outperformance from Murphy USA, the 2013 retail spin off from E&P parent Murphy Oil, which is in the very mature business of gas station and convenience store retailing. We also note the outperformance by the Big-3 US downstream companies versus the Majors, E&Ps, and the S&P 500.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below. We are just back from 8 straight days on the road, so this is going to be a short video podcast that touches upon three themes: (1) pushback on our view that the total addressable market (TAM) for oil is at least double current demand; (2) perspectives on the NVIDIA-like move in merchant power generator equities; and (3) a preview of what's next for the now controversial term "energy transition"? Next weekend we will be enjoying the long Memorial Day holiday, with Super-Spiked returning the first Saturday in June. Enjoy!
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.We follow-up to last week's post Obliterating Peak Oil Demand: A Progress Update (here). Our main issue with the peak oil demand narrative is that it it doesn't solve for how everyone on Earth will someday enjoy the lifestyles The Lucky 1 Billion of Us take for granted. We believe the total addressable market (TAM) for oil is 250 million b/d, well above current levels of around 103 million b/d. The analytical mistake we think many are making is deducting future electric vehicle (EV) growth from something near current oil demand as opposed to from oil's TAM when everyone on Earth ultimately lives within fully developed economies. Furthermore, EVs only address about 25% of the oil demand barrel and are unlikely to be viable solution for the entirety of even that sliver of demand.At its core, our long-term outlook for oil demand looks at the relationship between global GDP growth and the quantity of oil demand needed to generate a dollar of GDP. We observe the long-term trend that every year the world generally requires slightly less oil to generate a dollar of GDP, a concept we refer to as “efficiency gains.” In this case, efficiency gains includes both fuel economy (improving miles per gallon) and product substitution (e.g., EVs, SAF, RD). Based on our analysis of “efficiency gains”, there is essentially no evidence oil demand is on-track to plateau let alone decline in coming years. We believe there is not a decade let alone year when anyone today can definitively declare oil demand will peak. We show two country examples—China and India—which collectively have growth potential of 40-60 million b/d in order to reach a TAM that reflects a 10 barrels of oil demand per capita, consistent with “everyone being rich.” China and India are also examples of what we believe will be the main driver of limiting the TAM of oil markets to something well below 250 million b/d, which is geopolitical security. For countries that are not blessed with abundant crude oil resources, especially sizable ones like China and India, we see a strong motivation to limit growth in oil imports—the ultimate TAM limiter for oil markets.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below. We follow up on last week's deep post (here) on cash return on gross capital invested (CROCI), which we view as a complementary profitability metric to return on capital employed (ROCE). The videopod starts with the reasons to introduce a second, primary metric due to some of the issues with ROCE around write-offs and the inherent incentive to under-invest given the nature of the ROCE calculation. We discuss how CROCI offers different insights at the sub-sector level. Finally, we provide hypothetical examples based on actual company data for two companies that took large write-offs that boosted ROCE in subsequent years; one company continued to lag on CROCI while the other showed fundamental improvement. It is this kind of divergence that we find interesting, especially when ROCE is rendered less meaningful due to recent large impairment charges. As always, we welcome feedback, pushback, and discussion on this (and all!) topics we discuss.
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.We spent this past week in Houston attending CERAWeek 2024. It was another great event; thank you and congratulations to everyone at S&P Global for hosting and putting on a great show!Coming out of last year's event, our key theme was “The Energy Transition Needs To Transition” away from an obsessive focus on only counting carbon to one that centered itself around meeting the massive unmet energy needs of everyone on Earth with affordable, reliable, and geopolitically secure energy, which in turn would better enable environmental objectives to be met. A year later, we see “green shoots” that a healthier energy evolution era is emerging and that “The New Energy Transition Narratives” we discuss in this week's videopod are increasingly aligned with our framing.Energy demand is increasing nearly everywhere with all energy sources and a host of both traditional and new technologies. The developing world appears to be gaining confidence to go its own way, with diminishing western world influence. And the new trend of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven power demand growth is waking the US up to the needs for an “all of the above” energy approach if we are to have reliable and growing power generation. See our post from last week, “Will AI Be Our Salvation To A Healthier Energy Evolution?” (here).We see the potential for new business models, collaborations, and partnerships across energy value chains and between energy suppliers and users (Tech and Industrial sectors in particular) to be a likely future trend. It is about as interesting and dynamic of a period in the energy sector as we can remember over our 32-year career. We would like to wish everyone that celebrates a Happy Easter. We too will be enjoying the long weekend and will publish our next Super-Spiked in two weeks.
Today we had the honor of hosting Mike Wirth, Chairman and CEO of Chevron. Mike's journey at Chevron began as a design engineer in 1982 and since then, he has held senior leadership roles in several divisions of the company. Most recently, Mike served as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and as Executive Vice President of Midstream and Development before assuming his role as CEO in 2018. Beyond his role at Chevron, Mike is engaged in industry advocacy and global initiatives, serving on the board of directors of Catalyst, as an Executive Committee Member of the American Petroleum Institute, and as an Executive Committee Member of the World Economic Forum International Business Council, among other notable roles. With CERAWeek in full swing in Houston, we were fortunate to sit down with Mike to explore the current energy landscape, global energy dynamics, the future of energy, and of course, activity at CERAWeek. In our conversation with Mike, we discuss the changing tone and focus of energy conversations and the pragmatic and realistic tone at CERAWeek, Mike's background in engineering and its influence on his leadership style and decision-making processes, the importance of understanding customer needs and preferences in the energy sector, and the evaluation of investments that rely on subsidies. Mike shares his perspective on the integration of cultures during mergers and acquisitions, the importance of fostering collaboration and alignment while preserving the strengths of acquired companies, the future of exploration in meeting global energy needs, the evolution of shale innovation, current geopolitical risks, trends in government intervention, inflationary pressures, energy access in developing countries, and his perspective on recent developments surrounding Chevron's acquisition of Hess Corporation. We discuss corporate net zero pledges and the often underestimated complexities involved, the overall desirability of more engineers and more problem-solving thinking, the evolving power landscape, Chevron's capabilities in lower carbon energy and technologies, America as an energy superpower and how to maintain that status, and much more. We had a great visit with Mike and can't thank him enough for his time and thoughtfulness. He is an exceptional spokesman for sound energy thinking. To start the show, Mike Bradley shared his thoughts on three key events this week. Regarding CERAWeek 2024 where Veriten is an industry partner (details here), he noted themes are focused on AI, electricity, energy transition, hydrogen and permitting, with AI and electricity being mentioned in just about every conversation. US power needs are being underestimated and the energy transition discussion seems to be turning much more pragmatic. NVIDIA introduced its newest processor (Blackwell) at their conference on Monday. Expectations for NVIDIA and tech stocks were extremely elevated heading into the conference. The third key event is Wednesday's FOMC Meeting. Mike noted that it's virtually guaranteed the FED will keep rates unchanged given recent inflation stats printed on the hot side. Markets will be focused on Chairman Powell's comments which could provide a clue on the number of future rate cuts. On the commodity front, last week was the first weekly close for WTI above $80/bbl since November 2023. WTI trades at ~$83/bbl as US crude oil inventories declined last week and will be drawing in the weeks ahead. He also noted that Gunvor indicated this week that Ukrainian drone strikes have damaged ~600kbpd of Russian refineries, which has strengthened crude oil and product markets. WTI time spreads continue moving steeper into backwardation, and if WTI holds above its $80/bbl support, it could reverse extreme “bearish” oil trader sentiment. He ended by noting that energy as a percentage of the S&P 500 should increase given that energy transition conversation is turning much more pragmatic, that global e
Guests: Arjun Murti and Rory JohnstonArjun MurtiArjun was the Goldman Sachs “Super Spike” analyst from the 2000s commodity bull market era. He retired as a partner in 2014 after 22 years as a sell- and buy-side energy equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Investment Management, and Petrie Parkman & Co. He has since stayed active as an independent board member of ConocoPhillips, a senior advisor at Warburg Pincus, and an advisory board member at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy as well as ClearPath. In March 2023, he “un-retired” to become a partner at Veriten, an energy research, strategy, and investment firm.He also publishes a substack called SuperSpiked about the messy transition era. Rory Johnston Rory Johnston is a Toronto-based oil market researcher, the founder of Commodity Context, a lecturer at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, as well as a Fellow with both the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines. He is a leading voice on oil market analysis, advising institutional investors, global policy makers, and corporate decision makers. Prior to founding Commodity Context, Rory led commodity economics research at Scotiabank where he set the bank's energy and metals price forecasts, advised the bank's executives and clients, and sat on the bank's senior credit committee for commodity-exposed sectors.Follow host @chigrl on X@MicDropMarkets
WATCH the video on YouTube by clicking the RED button above.LISTEN to audio only via the Substack player by clicking the BLUE button above.STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of the slide deck by clicking the blue Download button below.We focus on some of the big macro themes that have emerged from earnings season across the broader stock market, with a focus on electric vehicle (EV) adoption S-curves, artificial intelligence (AI), ongoing US energy sector M&A, and the role of Canadian energy companies looking forward. Trends with both EVs and AI add to our confidence that demand for all sources of energy, including oil and natural gas, will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. We do not believe anyone can know today which decade let alone year that oil or natural gas will definitively peak. We would encourage readers to review Ford CEO Jim Farley's introductory remarks on Ford's 4Q2023 earnings call. Mr. Farley recognized the challenges Ford is facing in ramping EV sales; and while the company remains committed to longer-term EV growth, it is clearly going to be at a slower pace than what was envisioned even one year ago. At the same time, Mr. Farley noted an uptick in hybrid vehicle sales, which, ironically, may be the technology most appropriate for US consumers and could eventually, and finally, lead to marked improvements in fuel economy. It has long been our view that it is inappropriate to use a uniform rapid EV adoption “s-curve” in all regions; we do not believe the examples of Norway (driven by climate policy) or China (driven by geopolitical security) will be representative of the United States, India, or many other developing countries. As it relates to traditional energy, we believe the belief that rapid global EV adoption will lead to oil demand rolling over within the next 5-10 years is not anywhere near on track to occur, especially when one considers the massive untapped energy demand of the other 7 billion on Earth that are not amongst The Lucky 1 Billion of us. We recognize that “AI” has become a major buzzword, and with that likely comes some hype and over-enthusiasm about the subject. That said, we are believers that the next major technology revolution is here. The relevance to energy is that implied power demand from AI technology use, datacenters, and related infrastructure will be massive. After about 20 years of broadly flat US power demand, low-to-mid-single digit load growth appears to have returned (even higher in some regions). Load growth and growing penetration of intermittent resources like solar and wind are an unhealthy mix—a point that does not appear to be lost on the giant technology companies. In our view, it may well be AI that proves to be our salvation when it comes to what we have called “a messy energy transition era.” The general freak-out by many Big Tech firms over how to source power while also meeting sustainability goals, we believe could lead to a healthier narrative around energy overall. Big Tech is going to need “all of the above” energy solutions that can meet growing power demand. Near-zero methane natural gas along with nuclear are going to be important components of our power generation mix along with rising renewables output.
In this electrifying episode, we delve into the heart of the energy sector where Arjun Murti unpacks critical industry insights. Justin and Arjun explore the art of storytelling amidst the digital era's information deluge, highlighting how clarity of message can cut through the noise. Arjun, from his position at Veriten, offers a front-row seat to the investment community's shifting mindsets and the burgeoning interest in energy. The duo dissects trends in mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, and the crucial role of small-scale companies in fuelling industry success. Beyond corporate maneuvers, they dig into the nitty-gritty of volatile oil prices, OPEC strategies, and the need for resilience amidst market upheavals. Arjun shares his perspective on cost of supply, calling for a forward-looking approach to creating profitable and sustainable ventures in oil, gas, and emergent energy technologies. The two also contemplate the industry's environmental responsibilities, dissecting the role of ESG in shaping future energy solutions. Intriguingly, they assess the feasibility of a profitable future for new energy sectors without relying on subsidies. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjun-murti-energy-analyst/ Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/company/veriten/ Show Sponsors InflowControl InflowControl is a tech firm specializing in enhancing oil production efficiency and minimizing environmental harm through their Autonomous Inflow Control Valve (AICV®). The technology boosts profitability in mature oil fields by filtering out undesired gas and water, allowing previously overlooked zones to contribute to production. This results in both higher profitability and Lower Carbon Oil for stakeholders. For more information, visit the links below: Website: www.inflowcontrol.no LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inflowcontrol-as/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqdgIooQhYtUBo-auUlYw-Q Wicked Energy For more info on Wicked Energy, please visit www.wickedenergy.io. For the video version, please visit the Wicked Energy YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5PSzLBnSb7u1HD1xmLOJg If you or your company are interested in starting a podcast, visit https://www.wickedenergy.io/free-guide for a free guide on creating a successful podcast. Lastly, if you have any topics or guests you'd like to hear on the show, please email me at justin@wickedenergy.io or send me a message on LinkedIn.
Tisha Schuller welcomes Arjun Murti, partner at Veriten and author of the “Super Spiked” newsletter, to the Energy Thinks podcast.
Today was a big one – the first regular COBT of the year, and also the second anniversary of Veriten. Accordingly, we thought about something that would be truly special to mark the occasion and reached back for two COBT All-Stars… on the same show! Today's episode features two great friends: Dr. Lars Schernikau, energy economist, entrepreneur, commodity trader, strategic advisor, and the author of “The Unpopular Truth about Electricity and the Future of Energy” AND Rob West, Founder and Lead Analyst at Thunder Said Energy (TSE). Rob started TSE in 2019 and provides unique and thought-provoking analysis on energy transition research and technologies. Lars patched in from Dubai and Rob from Tallinn. What a delight it was to have this much firepower in the same discussion. Our COBT buffs may recall Lars previously appeared on COBT in March of 2023 (linked here). For Rob, today's episode marks his fourth appearance on the show; he most recently joined in July 2023 (linked here), prior to that in November 2022 (linked here), and first in January 2022 (linked here). We simply thought these two gentlemen together would be perfect for global energy 2023 reflection and 2024 speculation and vision. We were not disappointed! To start the discussion, we ask Rob and Lars for their view on the most significant macro factors for the upcoming year. Rob discusses the impact of higher interest rates and puts particular focus on the volatility of today's energy systems. Lars added his concern with our growing energy inefficiency and what that means for costs. Volatility, energy inefficiency, rising costs and government/corporate/investor decision-making wove in and out throughout our conversation today. We touch on weather's contribution to energy production volatility, recent warm weather and how it may be masking underlying problems, overall trends in European energy sentiment, China's self-interested energy policies and their control of raw materials, Rob's recent work on Harmonics, the current state of energy forecasting and the lack of transparency around models, last week's appearance by Senator John Kennedy (episode linked here) and much more. We were sorry the discussion had to end and wrapped up by asking everyone for the number one thing they are focused on for 2024 (in Bari Weiss rapid-fire style). We can't thank Lars and Rob enough for joining. We are honored to call them friends and appreciate all the work they are both doing to make energy, the environment, the inherent trade-offs, and decarbonization broadly more understandable. Mike Bradley kicked us off by discussing key themes for 2024. Economically, he highlighted that markets are expecting the FED will engineer a soft landing and cut interest rates beginning in Q1. He noted this scenario was consensus and that this week's CPI and PPI prints could be the first true test of this “goldilocks” thesis. From a commodity standpoint, he noted that analyst's 2024 commodity forecasts are much higher than the 2024 commodity futures curve, indicating 2024 estimates may be adjusted lower and could result in some energy equity headwinds in Q1'24. US natural gas production surprised in 2023, and investors are asking when will natural gas-levered E&Ps begin ramping up activity in anticipation of a 2025 LNG ramp. From a crude production standpoint, he flagged that one of the biggest surprises in 2023 was that U.S. crude oil production growth nearly doubled expectations and that in turn raises qu
We hope you all had a fantastic holiday season and that you are excited about the New Year! We had a special guest join us yesterday to kick off 2024. We have been lucky enough to get to know a number of Senators, Governors and Congressional Representatives over the past few years. One that we have been getting to know better recently is Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. Sharp, informed, well read, very funny, and representing a very important energy and industrial state, Senator Kennedy never disappoints when any public policy matter is up for thoughtful debate. We felt particularly lucky he took some time to brainstorm the coming year with us in this Special Edition COBT. As you will hear, Mike Bradley, Jeff Tillery and I explored a broad range of topics with the Senator including domestic and international challenges facing the United States in 2024, the divide in Washington regarding climate issues, Senator Kennedy's stance on climate change, the role of the government and private sector, the erosion of public confidence in institutions, and potential strategies for restoring that confidence. We also touch on the importance of leadership and transparent communication, power demand growth and infrastructure challenges, and the need to improve the understanding of energy-related issues in Washington. Senator Kennedy shares his perspective on the significance of the United States projecting strength and power and his optimistic outlook on American resilience in overcoming challenges. We are very grateful to Senator Kennedy for sharing his time and valuable insights with us all. Speaking of kicking off the New Year, we attended the Goldman Sachs Energy, CleanTech and Utilities Conference in Miami this week (agenda linked here). Arjun Murti spoke on a panel addressing “Where Are We in the Commodities Cycle?” I am biased but I thought he did a great job discussing why energy is so important globally, why energy broadly is an attractive sector, and why oil and gas peak demand is nearly impossible to predict. Overall, we saw many friends old and new, and increasingly perceive that Veriten's mission of “truth in energy” is gaining more visibility and support. Special thanks to Neil Mehta and the entire Goldman Sachs research team for having us and congratulations to them on a great kickoff to the year. We will return next week with the regular COBT schedule. We have a very fun “2-year Veriten Anniversary” show planned! Again, Happy 2024 and thank you for your friendship and support!
Today we were thrilled to visit with Brian Lee, Vice President and Head of US Clean Technology Research at Goldman Sachs, for 2023's final COBT episode. Brian has been with the firm since 2011 and offers a unique vantage point with his experience covering cleantech. Recently, Brian and his team released their 2024 Americas Clean Technology Outlook (linked here). With 2023 coming to a close, it was fantastic to hear Brian's end of year reflections as well as observations on the space heading into 2024. Goldman Sachs will kick off the New Year in Miami, Florida with their flagship Energy, CleanTech and Utilities Conference starting on January 3rd (agenda linked here). Veriten is excited to be attending. In our conversation with Brian, we discuss Goldman's approach to cleantech as part of the broader energy team, the cyclical nature of the sector, the gyrations of the last few years, the deeper appreciation investors are now gaining for the complexities of clean energy business models, the unique mix of stocks Brian and his team cover, the global investor footprint, current investor sentiment, and of course how rising interest ratees have greatly impacted his coverage group. Brian also shares his perspective on the total addressable market for solar including residential and utility-scale solar, residential solar market potential, policy impacts on solar, trends in solar energy, the latest IRA detailed guidance from the US Treasury, the outlook for more of such detail, and much more. With revised ratings out earlier this week, we also got Brian to share his specific stock views going into next year. Time flew as we were having fun! We ended with a “lightning round” and asked Brian to share his quick thoughts on China, the water space, and surging power demand growth to close out our conversation. It was a meaty and fantastic discussion. Thank you Brian! Mike Bradley kicked us off by highlighting year-to-date performance for bonds, commodities and equities. He noted the 10-year U.S. government bond yield began the year trading at 3.9%, peaked at ~5.0%, and has round-tripped back down to 3.9%, mostly because the rate of inflation has been cut in half and expectations that the FED could aggressively begin cutting interest rates beginning in March 2024. WTI price began the year trading at ~$80/bbl, peaked at ~$94/bbl and is now trading at ~$74/bbl. U.S. oil production in 2023 has grown by ~1mmbpd which has been offset by OPEC cuts of ~1mmbpd. U.S. natural gas began the year trading at ~$4.50/MMBtu and is now trading at ~2.50/MMBtu, mostly due to warm early winter weather, above average natural gas storage levels, and U.S. natural gas production that has grown ~5bcfpd in 2023. He highlighted that broader equity markets posted a stellar year with the S&P 500 up ~25% and the Nasdaq up ~55%, while the energy sector posted just a modest gain for the year. The best performing subsectors in 2023 on a "total return" basis were Nuclear (+60%), Coal (+35%) & Refiners (+20%), with the worst being Renewables (-25%) & Batteries/Solar (-30%). He flagged reasons why the Illinois Commerce Commission "rejected" a multi-year integrated grid plan from two key State electric utilities and highlighted the $15B merger agreement between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, further noting that it seems to be facing early opposition from both members of Congress and Unions and could face challenges from CFIUS (foreign investment in the U.S.). Arjun Murti shared a few of his reflections from 2023 including the disparities in energy access worldwide and the massive amount of energy demand 7-8 billion people will need, the continuing significance of energy as a
We are pleased to share with you a unique and special COBT episode. Late last week, The KBH Energy Center in partnership with Vinson & Elkins and Veriten, hosted a discussion in Houston featuring Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Secretary Dan Brouillette. Senator Hutchison is a Founding Member of The KBH Energy Center and most recently served as the US Ambassador to NATO following a distinguished career spanning both the public and private sectors. Secretary Brouillette is an Executive Council Member for The KBH Energy Center, the President and CEO of Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and former president of Sempra Infrastructure. He is a respected leader in the energy, finance and automotive sectors and also served as the Secretary of Energy. The combined extensive experience of Senator Hutchison and Secretary Brouillette in geopolitics and energy laid the groundwork for a wide-ranging and fascinating discussion. We were thrilled to moderate this unique COBT discussion in front of a live audience at Vinson & Elkins's offices. Senator Hutchison first shares the unique features of the KBH Energy Center including its focus on traditional oil and gas as well as emerging technologies and its multidisciplinary nature with involvement from the business, law and engineering departments at the University of Texas. We discuss the paramount importance of energy security for America, the state of energy policy, geopolitical considerations with Ukraine and Israel, and the importance of American leadership, especially in organizations like NATO. As you'll hear, Senator Hutchison recently wrote an article for the Atlantic Council that focused on the immediate need for stronger and more deliberate American leadership (linked here). Secretary Brouillette touches on the complexities of the energy transition, advancements in drilling technology and battery storage, the role of natural gas, power demand considerations, and economic challenges the US faces, including its stunning national debt. In our conversation, we also touch on future plans for The KBH Energy Center, the importance of involving young people in discussions about energy and the exciting opportunities they'll have to shape the industry. In this unique COBT, the fundamental importance of energy to everything we care about as a society was a driving theme. Senator Hutchison and Secretary Brouillette have both made significant contributions to energy policy and the industry and it was both an honor and super thought-provoking to get their perspectives on today's world. There are some serious issues for us all to be considering. We want to thank our friends at the KBH Energy Center and V&E for including us in the discussion and hope you find it as interesting as we did!
We were honored this past week to welcome back renowned author Walter Isaacson for a Special Edition COBT episode. Walter is a Professor of History at Tulane University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He is also a good friend and someone with whom we are always thrilled to visit. In his wide-ranging career, Walter has served as the Editor of TIME magazine, Chairman and CEO at CNN, and CEO of the Aspen Institute. As you may know, Walter has previously written on other fascinating people including Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs and Henry Kissinger. Most recently, he has published his latest work entitled "Elon Musk." Mike Bradley, Todd Scruggs and I were so excited to visit with Walter and hear his unique insights on his time spent with Elon, discuss the overall process of researching and writing the book, and dig in to unique anecdotes about Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter (X). We three read the book in preparation for the discussion and can absolutely recommend it. We learned a ton! Walter begins our conversation by sharing his personal interest in writing Elon's biography as the next feature in his series of books highlighting individuals ushering in a new era. Walter shares the course of events that sparked the book, starting with a two-hour phone call followed by a tweet from Elon that confirmed his appointment as his biographer. Elon's tweet put Walter on the roller coaster of being by Elon's side for two years, witnessing everything from business meetings and interactions with his family to rocket launches and late night factory line visits. We discuss the internal purpose and sense of mission that drives Elon, the urgency he expects from everyone around him, and his unique appetite for risk. Walter and the book take us on a journey from Elon's childhood days in South Africa to emigrating to Penn to PayPal to SpaceX and up to and including his experience buying Twitter. With a lot of stops along the way! Walter shares the risks Elon took with building and launching the first at-scale private rocket company and the complicated situation he found himself in with Starlink satellites, especially in Ukraine. For those of you who are interested, we previously had the opportunity to visit with Trey Mendez, Mayor of Brownsville and tour SpaceX and found the SpaceX stories particularly interesting (episode linked here). When we weren't talking SpaceX and everything that came with it, we of course discussed Tesla, Elon's plunge into AI, what Elon refers to as "the algorithm," and many other aspects of one of the world's most impactful people. We want to thank Walter profusely for sharing his time and thoughts with us. He clearly had a fascinating firsthand experience pulling together what is an absolutely gripping read. For those of you in Houston, Brazos Bookstore in partnership with Halliburton Labs and Veriten is hosting a live open-to-the-public discussion with Walter on Sunday, November 12th the Ballroom at Bayou Place at 5:00 PM CT. Tickets must be purchased in advance and are available linked here. We look forward to seeing Walter in Houston and hope you enjoy the book and discussion as much as we did! Our best to you all.
We have a Special Edition COBT episode to start the week focused on recent events in Israel. Mike Bradley and I were pleased to be joined by Mark Medin, Executive Vice President of the UJA-Federation of New York, to discuss the organization's efforts in aiding Israel, providing assistance to the Jewish community broadly, and sharing the UJA's informational resources with all of us. Through good friends, we first learned about the UJA a couple of years ago and have been subscribed to their mailing list ever since. Just after the attacks on October 7th, through their communications we became instantly aware of how connected they are to the situation as the CEO of the UJA was on the ground in Israel (his first message after the attacks is linked here). Like many of you, we've wondered how we can be helpful and get involved with humanitarian support. We immediately thought of the UJA as a resource and are so pleased they joined us on COBT to share their knowledge of the situation. The UJA-Federation's work has a massive footprint and their reach spans 70 countries to care for people in need, promote justice and inclusion, respond to antisemitism and global crises, and strengthen Jewish life. In response to the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7th, the UJA-Federation has remarkably already raised $100 million for the pressing needs of the people of Israel. In our discussion, we first ask Mark for his perspective on what it's like on the ground in Israel and how the UJA-Federation is supporting humanitarian efforts with trauma care, relocation assistance, travel, food, housing, clothing, and more. We discuss the organization's swift response in sending financial support (they have allocated $29 million to various charities already), the impact of false media claims on public opinion, understanding the West Bank, the bad actors versus the majority of peace-seeking citizens in Palestine, concern with global markets' calmness since the attack, other countries' involvement and history, the coming together of Jewish communities globally to stand up for the people of Israel, and more. The continuing humanitarian needs remain immense and dire. We greatly appreciate Mark and the UJA-Federation for their work and for sharing their important perspective. The UJA-Federation has several resources available on their website (linked here) to find information on recent developments, community events and local resources, along with the organization's emergency fund for Israel (linked here). Veriten has made a donation. We hope you find the discussion informative and also helpful in understanding the tragic events of the last two plus weeks. Our best to you all.
Today we had the honor of hosting Mayor Sylvester Turner, the two-term Mayor of Houston, in the Veriten offices. Mayor Turner and a delegation of the city's business and government leaders recently led a trade mission to West Africa visiting Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, and Ghana. Their mission focused on finding new economic opportunities for Houston companies in Africa, continuing to grow the cultural and civic engagement between Houston and Africa, and expanding opportunities for overall collaboration with African nations. We were thrilled to visit with the Mayor and discuss the trip and get his perspectives on how the Houston energy community and energy community at large in America can do more in Africa. We start with some background from the Mayor on the impetus for the trip to West Africa. In the discussion, we touch on the difference in energy sentiment in developing Africa versus the OECD and how oil and gas is more often seen as a necessity for survival and development in the region. The Mayor highlighted in his remarks the receptivity of constituents in African countries for American businesses to invest with a focus on “win-win” situations. We touch on the lack of classic energy investment in the continent from organizations like the World Bank, the richness of resources in the region, supply chain needs from much of the developed world in a post-Ukraine environment, and a reluctance or lack of trust the region has in some countries (i.e. former colonial powers) in helping the continent prosper. We openly discuss the competitive advantage the U.S. has over other countries to pursue opportunities in a continent with a huge population, a young population and 40% of the world's minerals. We mention the $2,500 per capita GDP that hasn't changed in over 20 years and dig into the historical issues with getting investment to the region and why there is a struggle to fill the slots in trade investment missions like the one recently organized by Mayor Turner's office. The Mayor emphasizes the need for the U.S. to recognize the opportunities in the African continent before it's too late and encourages America to not leave it to countries like China and Russia to take advantage when the desire from the region is for relationships with the U.S. We transition the conversation to the importance of relationships – from the work between mayors in various cities to relationships across the many sectors necessary to help the region as well as relationships within administrations and the need to work across the aisle and the importance of valuing everyone at the table. We close out the discussion focused on the energy transition and the effect of these decisions on the people most impacted economically, how we can all work collaboratively to meet goals without creating winners and losers, why Houston is a positive place for business, and what's next for the Mayor following the end of his second term in Houston. It was an exceptional discussion with an exceptional person. The Mayor always strives to have “everyone at the table” and we couldn't agree with his philosophy more. Mike Bradley kicked us off by highlighting several events that were topical last week and in coming weeks. From an economic standpoint, he highlighted that bond yields plunged on Tuesday due to a much weaker than expected JOLTS Job Openings report. He discussed the FED Chairman Powell's Jackson Hole speech last week and that September's FOMC rate decision would be dictated by near-term economic data. He noted that the UAW labor contract will expire on September 14 th and that it has serious economic, financial and political ramifications. From a commodity standpoint, he highlighted that crude oil prices have been stalled around $80/bbl. for the last few weeks. He also noted that crude “product” markets will be very focused on below average US product inventories, and the lingering effects of last week's Garyville ref
In this episode of our Meet the Manager series, Arjun Murti returns to the Value Perspective podcast to interview fund manager Andrew Lyddon. Arjun is a partner at Veriten, a knowledge and media platform with a focus on energy, technology and environmental trends, a director on the board of ConocoPhillips, a senior adviser to the Energy Group at Warburg Pincus, and an advisory board member at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. He is also author of one of our favourite Substacks Super-Spiked. Andrew Lyddon was one of the co-founders of the Value Team at Schroders back in 2013. He started his investment career at Schroders in 2005 and was previously part of a pan-European research team focused on the telecoms, construction and support services sectors. On top of the CFA, Andrew has degrees in intellectual property law and chemistry. Arjun and Andrew discuss the debate between value and growth dynamics and what it really means to be a value investor; an argument for growth using recent examples of growth companies, that could have been value had one been able to accept their growth potential; energy and the pros and cons of the sector; and finally Arjun takes the devil's advocate stance on energy, around the position of oil majors in Europe, the war in Ukraine and the challenges of ESG in the context of investing. Enjoy! NEW EPISODES: We release main series episodes every two weeks on Mondays. You can subscribe via Podbean or use this feed URL (https://tvpschroders.podbean.com/feed.xml) in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and other podcast players. GET IN TOUCH: send us a tweet: @TheValueTeam Important information. This podcast is for investment professionals only. This information is not an offer, solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or to adopt any investment strategy. Any data has been sourced by us and is provided without any warranties of any kind. It should be independently verified before further publication or use. Third party data is owned or licenced by the data provider and may not be reproduced, extracted or used for any other purpose without the data provider's consent. Neither we, nor the data provider, will have any liability in connection with the third party data. Reliance should not be placed on any views or information in the material when taking individual investment and/or strategic decisions. Any references to securities, sectors, regions and/or countries are for illustrative purposes only. The views and opinions contained herein are those of individual to whom they are attributed, and may not necessarily represent views expressed or reflected in other communications, strategies or funds. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amounts originally invested. Exchange rate changes may cause the value of any overseas investments to rise or fall. Past Performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated. The forecasts included should not be relied upon, are not guaranteed and are provided only as at the date of issue. Our forecasts are based on our own assumptions which may change.
Our Summer Playlist rolls on this week with Arjun Murti. Arjun is the Former Head of Equity Research on the Energy Sector at Goldman Sachs, a Partner at Veriten, and the publisher of “Super-Spiked” on Substack. SmarterMarkets™ host David Greely catches up with Arjun midway through the year to get his thoughts on where we are in the energy super vol cycle.
Today we had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Sama Bilbao y León, Director General of the World Nuclear Association ("WNA"). Sama joined the WNA as Director General in late 2020 and has had an extensive career in nuclear with over 20 years of experience in nuclear engineering and energy policy, serving in industry, academia, and international organizations. The World Nuclear Association represents the global nuclear industry to promote the industry and importantly, provide authoritative information to key organizations and political authorities. We were delighted to connect with Sama for a global nuclear discussion. It was spectacular and wide-ranging and we so enjoyed Sama's practical nature and worldwide perspective. To start the discussion, Sama outlined the organization's history and current member base of over 190 members in 44 countries. The WNA's members are responsible for most of world uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication; all reactor vendors; major nuclear engineering, construction, and waste management companies, and much of the world's nuclear generation. We discuss how the perception of nuclear energy has changed since Sama joined in 2020 and the organization's key areas of focus including working with policy makers and market designers globally to develop pragmatic policies for low-carbon energy sources, engaging the finance community to support profitable nuclear projects, and developing a strong global supply chain and talent pool. Sama shares her perspective on the state of nuclear in almost every part of the world, the opportunities for nuclear beyond electricity, financing and funding, novel applications, and the global supply chain. During the discussion, Sama mentions the periodic forecasts the WNA performs (the World Nuclear Association Fuel Report), linked here. Sama is one of the original founders of the North American Young Generation in Nuclear (linked here) and we touch on the importance of drawing new talent and fostering diversity, inclusivity and equity within the global nuclear community. We also cover nuclear power in the developing world and the opportunity for nuclear power to serve as a catalyst for social and economic development with collaboration between nuclear organizations and development banks. For more nuclear news, the World Nuclear News website is linked here. The entire discussion with Sama left us more bullish on the potential for greater use of nuclear power globally. The Veriten team kicked off the show: Mike Bradley highlighted two key economic stats this week (June CPI & PPI) which could influence interest rate policy at the July 26th FOMC meeting. He also noted the recent trade higher in WTI crude oil price (higher end of its recent $65-$75/bbl. trading band) due to OPEC's & Saudi's commitment to maintain their respective production cuts through August as well as China taking additional economic stimulus steps. He noted that these actions have shifted both Brent and WTI structure from contango back to backwardation. Mike flagged last week's energy equity sector outperformance and noted a few recent interesting equity market developments including an upcoming Nasdaq 100 rebalance (July 24th) which could result in temporary weakness in several of its largest AI/Tech equity members. He also noted another construction setback for the Equitrans Mountain Valley Pipeline and wrapped up by highlighting Oklo Inc. (an advanced fission technology company) announcing a deal to go Public via Merger with AltC Acquisition Corp. (a Sam Altman led SPAC). Oklo's press release is
Arjun Murti has been tracking global energy markets for three decades, including a stint as co-director of Americas equity research at Goldman Sachs. In this episode, Murti, who writes the Super-Spiked column on Substack, talks about rising global energy demand, the reasons for declining investment in the oil sector, “peak China,” gasoline as an “absolute miracle,” the exploitation of Africa's mineral wealth, and why “oil demand will be the last thing to go away.” (Recorded July 3, 2023.)
Greetings & welcome back to the rose bros podcast.This episode we are joined by Mr. Arjun Murti - board member at ConocoPhillips, Partner at Veriten LLC, and a Senior Advisor at Warburg Pincus. Mr. Murti previously served as a Partner at Goldman Sachs from 2006 to 2014. Prior to becoming Partner, he served as Managing Director from 2003 to 2006 and as Vice President from 1999 to 2003.During his time at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti worked as a sell-side equity research analyst covering the energy sector. He was co-director of equity research for the Americas from 2011 to 2014. Previously, Mr. Murti held equity analyst positions at JP Morgan Investment Management from 1995 to 1999 and at Petrie Parkman from 1992 to 1995. Mr. Murti serves on the advisory board of ClearPath, Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy and as a trustee of Kent Place School.Mr. Murti also publishes “Super-Spiked” on Substack, a newsletter that takes aim at a messy energy transition era and the clash of energy commodity & equity markets with energy & climate policy, ESG initiatives, and geopolitics.Mr. Murti also holds B.S., B.A. – Finance from the University of Denver.Among other things, we sat down and discussed Lessons from 15 years at Goldman Sachs, top quartile returns & why there is opportunity in Canadian energy.Enjoy!This podcast episode is sponsored by Connate Water Solutions.Do you need cost effective water sourcing options to supply your next drilling or completions program?Connate Water Solutions is a specialized hydrogeology company focused on water well drilling, testing and water management services in Western Canada and Texas.Contact info@connatewater.com or www.connatewater.com for more details.This podcast is sponsored by Eco-Flex Recycled Rubber Solutions. Eco-Flex has been providing the oil and gas industry with matting and safety walkways for 30 years, with mats that are a resilient, flexible, and an eco-friendly option for your toughest site conditions. With shock absorption, insulation, and easy maintenance, Eco-Flex mats are the perfect choice for any job. Checkout eco-flex.com for more details. This episode is brought to you by Canada Action - whose aim is to promote the science and positivity about Canadian oil and natural gas. The world absolutely needs more Canadian energy - join the conversation at canadaaction.ca or on social media.Support the show
BIO: Arjun Murti has over 30 years of experience as an equity research analyst, senior advisor, and board member, with global expertise covering traditional oil & gas and new energy technologies.STORY: Arjun made a call that oil prices would quintuple from $20 a barrel in the 90s to $105 in the 2000s and stay there for at least five years. The price averaged $100 a barrel from 2000 to 2014, entirely consistent with Arjun's call. However, after the 2008 financial crisis, the return on capital in the energy sector started falling. Arjun made excuses and continued to ride the wave all the way down.LEARNING: Let go of your ego and get out of the battle at some point. Frameworks need to grow, evolve and adjust to circumstances. Understand and inculcate reversion to the mean into your thinking. “At some point, you got to get out of your own ego and get out of the battle.”Arjun Murti Guest profileArjun Murti has over 30 years of experience as an equity research analyst, senior advisor, and board member, with global experience covering traditional oil & gas and new energy technologies.The bulk of his Wall Street career was at Goldman Sachs, where he retired as a partner in 2014. He recently “un-retired” to join Veriten, an energy research, strategy, and investing firm. Arjun publishes Super-Spiked, a Substack blog focused on the messy energy transition era.He is on the board of ConocoPhillips, a senior advisor at Warburg Pincus, and on the advisory boards for ClearPath and the Center on Global Energy Policy.Worst investment everAt the height of his career, Arjun made a call that oil was going to go from the $15 to $20 a barrel range it had been in from the mid-80s. He said the price would rise to between $50 to $105 in the 2000s and stay there for at least five years. And with that, the returns on capital and profitability in energy as a sector would do very well. Arjun called this the super spike.In 2002, the market started becoming bullish, and oil went from the 20-dollar range everyone thought the sector would be at forever to ultimately as high as $147 in 2008. The price averaged $100 a barrel from 2000 to 2014, entirely consistent with the high end of the range of Arjun's original call. He was pretty excited about the sector's profitability and experienced an ego boost after being proven right for five years.However, the returns on capital started rolling over, and Arjun made excuses for it. From 2006 to 2008, oil went from $65 to $100 a barrel, but returns on capital for the sector fell from 22% to 19%. 19% is still an excellent number, and that's the excuse Arjun used to continue riding the call. The sector then got interrupted by the great financial crisis of 2008, which Arjun never viewed as an energy event. The industry rebounded dramatically off those 2008 and 2009 lows, but the returns on capital had now fallen to 16%. Arjun kept making excuses as the returns continued to fall and never got off. Making excuses for his framework the entire way down became his worst investment mistake ever.Lessons learnedAt some point, you've to get let go of your ego and get out of the battle.Frameworks need to grow, evolve and adjust to circumstances.Andrew's takeawaysUnderstand and inculcate reversion to the mean into your thinking.Understand what the average is. Ride the wave but remember the...
In this insightful episode of Wicked Energy with JG, host Justin sits down with Arjun Murti, Partner at Veriten, to explore various aspects of the energy industry. They delve into Arjun's journey from a high-pressure career at Goldman Sachs to finding work-life balance at other organizations that ultimately led to landing at Veriten, a Houston-based energy research, strategy, and investing firm. The discussion highlights the importance of strong balance sheets for energy companies, especially in the face of reduced capital availability for traditional energy sources like oil and gas. Arjun shares insights on the need for oil and gas companies to consider having zero net debt to minimize dependence on external markets or banks, and the importance of capital discipline and reinvestment in the industry. They examine the challenges faced by European oil companies and the potential shift back toward traditional energy production. Focusing on the future of the energy sector, the conversation covers the U.S. shale industry, natural gas, and the need for companies to diversify and explore alternative sources. They also discuss the growth potential of the natural gas industry, the role of U.S. and Canadian LNG exports in providing cleaner energy to countries in need, and the significance of addressing energy poverty in Africa by utilizing local resources and encouraging investment. Lastly, Arjun talks about his involvement in 'The Cob Tuesday' podcast and his work on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Substack, where he shares free content to promote energy education. If you are interested in learning more or connecting, see the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjun-murti-energy-analyst/ Substack: https://arjunmurti.substack.com/ Website: https://veriten.com/ Wicked Energy For more info on Wicked Energy, please visit www.wickedenergy.io. For the video version, please visit the Wicked Energy YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5PSzLBnSb7u1HD1xmLOJg If you or your company are interested in starting a podcast, visit https://www.wickedenergy.io/free-guide for a free guide on creating a successful podcast. Lastly, if you have any topics or guests you'd like to hear on the show, please email me at justin@wickedenergy.io or send me a message on LinkedIn.
Arjun Murti is a Partner at Veriten, a knowledge and media platform with a focus on energy, technology and environmental trends. In this episode we discuss trends in the energy sector, transition, ESG and the "Super Vol" macro environment.For additional episodes of the Canadian Equities podcast connect with us at acumencapital.com/podcast.
We are thrilled to be sharing this Special Edition COBT with you. The new film "Nuclear Now" is just a week away from hitting theaters and we had the opportunity to not only see it early but also to visit with the film's acclaimed director, Oliver Stone, as well as Professor Joshua Goldstein, the co-writer of the book that inspired the film ("A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow"). Oliver is an Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter, producer, and author of "Chasing the Light." As you may know, some of his renowned work includes "Scarface," "Platoon," "Born on the 4th of July," "Wall Street," and "Midnight Express." Professor Goldstein is an award-winning scholar of international relations and an expert on war and society. Mike Bradley, Brett Rampal and I had the pleasure of hosting Oliver and Josh, talking about the key aspects of the movie, and delving where we could into the broader issues the movie raises. In our discussion, Oliver describes how a review of "A Bright Future" in the New York Times sparked his interest in nuclear as part of the solution to address climate change. It took two and a half years to create the film, which covers not only the history of how the technology was developed but also its high and low moments in popular perception. We touch on Oliver's takeaways from studying different aspects of American society and the overall misrepresentation of nuclear power that the film aims to correct. Josh provides background on how nuclear power and nuclear war became conflated, much to nuclear power's detriment. We also discuss Admiral Hyman Rickover and his development of naval nuclear-powered submarines, the Hollywood community's unfortunate portrayal of nuclear that's added to the narrative over the years, and the team's experience finding experts to interview as part of the film. Oliver also shares his perspective on international cooperation around nuclear and both he and Josh comment on the significant amount of fact checking that took place to create the film. “Nuclear Now" is technical in its approach and goes into significant detail around historical, existing, newer and future potential nuclear technology. Nuclear Now opens to the public on May 1st in select theaters across the US and Canada. The film will also be available via streaming at a later date – you can sign up for updates on that release. If you are interested in more nuclear content, last month Veriten debuted a podcast dedicated entirely to the world of nuclear, power, and industrial heat called Gener8. We hope you can take time to dig in and learn more. We want to thank Oliver, Josh, and the team behind Nuclear Now for improving the conversation around nuclear energy, for injecting more optimism into the energy/environment/climate discussion, and for spending an hour with us engaging on the film. We hope you all enjoy the film as much as we did!
It's easy to write off people outside our own ideological bubbles, even when we may have many goals in common. But as the effects of the climate crisis become more apparent, we need leaders from all political and industrial perspectives to work together. In the U.S., climate is a polarizing issue where it's too easy to assume that one side is working to reduce emissions and the other side is defending the status quo. But that's only a caricature of reality. There are people from many ideological backgrounds trying to address the climate crisis. So how can common ground be found between environmentalists on the left and Republicans on the right? And what does an EV-driving member of the ConocoPhillips board have to say about reducing emissions? Guests: John Curtis, U.S. Representative (R-UT) Arjun Murti, Partner, Veriten; Director, ConocoPhillips board For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It's easy to write off people outside our own ideological bubbles, even when we may have many goals in common. But as the effects of the climate crisis become more apparent, we need leaders from all political and industrial perspectives to work together. In the U.S., climate is a polarizing issue where it's too easy to assume that one side is working to reduce emissions and the other side is defending the status quo. But that's only a caricature of reality. There are people from many ideological backgrounds trying to address the climate crisis. So how can common ground be found between environmentalists on the left and Republicans on the right? And what does an EV-driving member of the ConocoPhillips board have to say about reducing emissions? Guests: John Curtis, U.S. Representative (R-UT) Arjun Murti, Partner, Veriten; Director, ConocoPhillips board For show notes and related links, visit ClimateOne.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This past year has reminded all of us that the energy transition, energy markets, and geopolitics are inextricably linked. In the last five years alone, extreme volatility in energy prices has created uncertainty for consumers and producers alike. For Wall Street in particular, an uncertain energy outlook brings up important questions about risk and strategy. Aligning energy investment with expected demand is hard, especially in the midst of an energy transition that's happening in fits and starts. Yet, effective investment is vital for both energy access and climate progress. How should investors address the tension between energy and climate needs? What do the coming years hold for oil and gas markets? And is the term “energy transition” even the right one? This week host Jason Bordoff talks with Arjun Murti about how Wall Street views the energy transition and how the turbulence has wracked energy markets over the past several years. Arjun shares the lessons he's learned in his years as an energy markets analyst, and how his experiences inform his view of the path ahead. Arjun has spent more than 30 years analyzing the global energy sector on Wall Street. He spent 15 years as a partner at Goldman Sachs and recently served as senior advisor and now partner for Veriten. Has also had stints as director at ConocoPhillips and as senior advisor for Warburg Pincus. Arjun is also on the Center on Global Energy Policy's advisory board.
This episode's guest is Arjun Murti, the host of the Super Spiked podcast and partner at Veriten. Arjun spent the first 15 years of his career at Goldman Sachs and worked his way to becoming a Partner. Then he decided to take time off to pursue his personal interests and spend time with his family. Arjun recently got back into the game joining the team over at Veriten, and he has also been putting out some very high quality energy content with his podcast and YouTube videos. This episode we discuss what is really happening with the energy transition, how coal is still on the rise, and how the rumors of oil and gas peak demand have been exaggerated. We talk about how energy equities remain out of favor and how volatility in prices is becoming the new normal. Lastly, we dive into the issues with moralizing energy usage, how the government is trying to pick the winners and where Arjun sees it all heading from here. Hope you enjoy the show!Arjun's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArjunNMurti Twitter: https://twitter.com/max_gagliardiTwitter: https://twitter.com/Always_Buildingtiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@max.gagliardiYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@max_gagliardi
Today's COBT episode is focused on Norway and in particular, the country's technology, climate tech, and broader energy landscape. What most of us don't realize about Norway is the country is the 7th largest natural gas producer in the world, is the single biggest supplier of natural gas to Europe, gets 90 percent of its own power from hydro, and is a major source of energy innovation. We have three excellent guests to help guide the discussion including Karl Liapunov, Head of Energy at Startuplab, along with Arild Selvig, CEO of ZEG Power and Jørgen Festervol, CEO of Heimdall Power. Startuplab is Norway's largest incubator and the country's most active early-stage investor and both ZEG Power and Heimdall Power are graduates of Startuplab! It was our pleasure to host the group and we were excited to dig in. Karl first provides context on Norway and background on Startuplab's program, which receives 600 applications a year and provides a network of founders, mentors, investors, industry experts and corporate partners to help companies succeed. Karl also shares key highlights from Startuplab's recent report, “Energy Transition & Climate Tech in Norway." We then turn to Arild and ZEG Power, which is focused on providing clean hydrogen with a uniquely simplified carbon capture process. Jørgen shares background on Heimdall Power and the company's fascinating grid technology. With a good understanding of each company's features and role in the Norwegian and potentially global energy landscape, we discuss the themes and types of companies Startuplab sees in the Norwegian energy market, where Hydrogen will be most valuable, the potential FERC requirement for dynamic line monitoring, Heimdall's new Houston office, and more. We end the discussion with Karl, Arild, and Jørgen's advice to early-stage companies and each had fantastic advice. We can't thank them enough for joining! Mike Bradley kicked off the show by flagging that the rise in US bond yields continues to be a headwind for US equity markets and will probably continue to be a headwind until the March 22nd FOMC meeting. He highlighted WTI crude oil price has been stuck in a relatively tight trading band (~$72-$82/bbl.) over the last 3-4 months and that energy companies are getting comfortable with that trading band and potentially a higher trading band for 2H'23. He also flagged the sharp rebound in an oversold natural gas market due to a late winter blast but also that S/D fundamentals are still out of balance. He wrapped by referencing the cross-border merger deal between Baytex Energy (Canadian-based) and Ranger Oil (Eagleford-based), and the possibility of an acceleration in 2023 E&P M&A. Todd Scruggs, Veriten's senior partner focused on investments, rounded out the Veriten team for today's session. A big thank you to our friends in Norway for sharing their time and expertise and thanks to you all for your support and friendship!
Brett Rampal is the director of nuclear and power strategy at Veriten, a Houston-based energy advisory firm. In this episode, Brett, a nuclear engineer, talks about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's recent approval of NuScale Power's reactor design, why the agency could soon be overwhelmed by the number of companies trying to get permits for their reactors, the emerging fuel-supply challenges, and why the “biggest opportunity for nuclear in the U.S. might be for thermal output, not electricity.” (Recorded January 25, 2023.)
Yesterday was a special day as February 2nd marks the one-year anniversary of Veriten's launch. A year ago, we hosted our first COBT at the new company and were so honored to have Secretary James A Baker join us at The Ion for Veriten show number one. During that show, Secretary Baker discussed many things, including Ukraine, the National Debt, and why fossil fuels were important to the country's security and economic health. More than anything, Secretary Baker reminded us of the power America can harness when we collectively set our eyes on "making progress" rather than simply on "making noise." As we reflected on our first year, we were incredibly lucky to find a first anniversary guest who could help us view today's world from a truly commanding height. Jeff Tillery and I had the honor of visiting with Eric Cantor, former House Majority Leader and current Managing Director and Vice Chairman at Moelis & Company. Eric's extensive 30-year career in politics and business allowed for a robust discussion spanning public policy, economics, energy and other industries, the markets, and the globe at large. It was a fascinating and wide-ranging exchange. We kicked it off by hitting the top three issues on Eric's radar including monetary and fiscal policy, the social divide in the US, and the geopolitical strains stemming from the challenging US / China relationship. These three themes remained paramount in our discussion as we covered a broad range of topics including the IRA's and the CHIP Act's international impact, Eric's takeaways from Davos, his observations on the similarities and differences with the current and last national debt debate during his time in public office, and the ever-present partisan divide in the US. He also covered implications of the new interest rate regime, impressions of the energy policy debate, the 2024 Presidential race outlook, US relationships with Latin America and India, the importance of energy security, and more. We wrapped with Eric's vision and outlook for the next ten years. On one thing Eric was resoundingly clear, that the numerous problems the US faces are outweighed by his optimism for and confidence in America and the American system of governance. At Veriten, we are very excited about what all of you are helping us build. We are up to 15 people and have an advisory board that brings us to 20. Our mission remains the same - save the world by saving the conversation, and help all of us create a better framework for understanding what the energy world really looks like in ten years. The first year has been great fun and a great challenge... thank you for riding with us and supporting us along the way! It was our pleasure to host Eric and we can't thank him enough for his time. Thanks again for a wonderful year and we hope you enjoy the discussion!
We are beyond excited to share this week's COBT as we had the opportunity to visit with the team at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). Joining us for the session are Dr. Holly Bamford, Chief Conservation Officer, Dr. John Lamoreux, Director, Fish and Wildlife Conservation, and Kristen Byler, Senior Scientist, Marine Conservation. Since its inception in 1984, NFWF has collaborated with federal, corporate and individual partners to put over $7 billion to work with conservation projects across all 50 US states and US territories. We were delighted to visit with the team and talk about NFWF's mission to build partnerships and drive conservation efforts for current and future generations. To help orient the conversation, Dr. Bamford first shared background on the organization, it's fascinating history, and mission. From there, we discuss how the organization's partners are involved with each project and respective community, the diversity of their partnerships and projects and focus on "Getting Stuff Done," the link between nature and the energy sector including specific projects NFWF is working on with the energy industry, NFWF's involvement with carbon sequestration and associated challenges, the need for national standardization for carbon sequestration, three ways to invest in nature to sequester carbon, how individuals can get involved with NFWF, and much more. We had a hard time ending the discussion but wrapped with where Dr. Bamford, Dr. Lamoreux and Kristen see NFWF ten years from now. It was a great discussion and we are inspired by their eager spirit to "Do More Good In More Places." Mike Bradley kicked us off with a quick market update from the past week, flagging the possibility that natural gas companies may pull back on rig count and flagged a few upcoming events including PPI reporting, the World Economic Forum in Davos taking place this week, Chinese market activity, and the beginning of oilfield services Q4 results, with SLB first out of the chute. Jeff Tillery also joined for today's discussion as well as Nick Lance, Veriten's Nature-Based Solutions Project Lead. We look forward to following NFWF's projects and progress over the coming years! Thanks to you all. Let's keep 2023 rolling!
Thanksgiving is such an awesome holiday... great food, family, relaxation. It's got it all! One thing we have been struck by... and I think it was most striking during COVID, is that the energy world NEVER STOPS and that's what makes all of this possible. Because energy people are out there working on this day, for the third year in a row we have an episode that introduces you to them. As you will hear, today's show features Brock Schmidt from North Dakota, Brad Okland from Fort Worth, and Nick Heddings from Williamsport PA. These three guys and their teams are working today! Not to ruin the surprise, but towards the end the guys also reveal their favorite Thanksgiving dish. Great stuff!A few special thank yous are in order:- To all of you for your support- To the Caterpillar team for helping us find Brock, Brad and Nick and letting them join us on the show- To energy workers everywhere, especially today, who are out there making it happen for all of us!- To the fun people at Schatz. During the show, Brock says there is a truck stop in North Dakota which has some awesome pies and such. Well, we found them and now you know too! I would be remiss if I didn't also thank the fun and growing team at Veriten. You are a wonderful bunch and make coming to work fun every day!Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
For this week's session, we were thrilled to welcome back Rob West. Rob is the lead analyst at his own firm, Thunder Said Energy. Rob had a career in research at Redburn and Sanford C. Bernstein before leaving to start Thunder Said in 2019 and first joined us for COBT on January 4, 2022. He has immersed himself in the technology details of the energy transition and brings a unique "how are we going to accomplish all of this" perspective to all of his analysis. Even though there are immense challenges, and we have dug ourselves in a hole in many ways, hang in there as you will hear Rob's optimism in particular towards the end of the discussion. Rob joined us today from his home in Tallinn, Estonia. In our conversation, we pull from Rob some thoughts on the Russia-Ukraine war and delve into the sentiment in Eastern Europe and the Baltics about Russia's aggression. Rob recently wrote a research piece entitled "Energy Shortage: Fear in a Handful of Dust?" At the heart of the paper is that the road to a better world, including a successful transformation of our energy system, goes through having energy "surplus" and not through energy "shortage." Quite the contrary, he points out the dangers of energy shortage in a number of areas including higher food prices, the negative climate effects of more wood use, diminished economic prosperity, reduced security, and the instability of democracies during periods like the one we are in. Rob reminds us of the serious bottlenecks to be solved, the second law of thermodynamics (and the implications for energy loss), that we need energy to build new energy systems, and the importance of innovation. In total, Rob points to ten key reasons why the world needs energy surplus, and why such surplus not only helps us achieve our environmental goals, but also helps us avoid a world that would ultimately be more dangerous and also more painful, especially for those who have less. To kick us off, Mike Bradley took a look back at what oil and gas prices looked like in January of 2022 when Rob last joined us and shared current bond, commodity, and equity performance. He noted that the last few days of energy equity volatility was predominately related to the direction OPEC might pursue at its December meeting and wrapped up his discussion by laying out both the failure and success coming out of COP 27. Colin Fenton noted the European Union has put a number on its proposed price cap for natural gas: €275 per MWh, as measured by the TTF month-ahead price in the Netherlands. The proposed cap would begin on January 1, 2023, last for one year, and activate only in the event of emergency conditions locally, as determined by the spread between spot prices in Europe and a basket of spot LNG prices from around the world. EU Member States would need to approve the proposal before it could take effect. Veriten's head of nuclear research and strategy, Brett Rampal, also joined the team today. As we pause and reflect about Thanksgiving, we want to wish you all the best and reiterate how grateful we are for your friendship. Be on the lookout for a special message on Thanksgiving Day! Thank you again to Rob for joining and thanks to you all!
Today we had a fantastic guest join us, Ted Nordhaus. Ted is the Founder and Executive Director of The Breakthrough Institute and a co-author of "An Ecomodernist Manifesto" as well as "The Death of Environmentalism." Ted has spent his career advocating for technical solutions to environmental problems and is a thought leader on energy, the environment, and global climate. We covered a lot of territory in our time together and were thrilled to visit with him! The Breakthrough Institute is a global research center that seeks innovative technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges. We enjoyed learning more about their areas of impact and in our discussion we also touched on Ted's observations on the current state of the environmental world, his recent article in Foreign Policy, the issues with denying developing countries resources and infrastructure to use fossil fuels, the impact of Ted's upbringing and background, which countries are funding developing nation's energy growth, nuclear as a prime example of technology that has both scale and impact, the deregulatory movement needed to fix seventies era environmental laws that are still in place, and much more. We could have continued for much longer and greatly appreciate Ted for joining. In our upfront discussion, Mike Bradley shared bond, commodity and equity performance from the past week noting the widest inversion of two and ten-year US government bond yields since 2000, natural gas pricing's tie to demand over the next few weeks, midterm elections, and COP 27. Colin Fenton zoned in on oil and gas prices, specifically the difference in probability for NYMEX and WTI prices over the next few weeks compared to 2023. We also had Veriten's nuclear champion Brett Rampal join for today's session. We hope you will enjoy the session as much as we did. Thanks to you all!
Veriten Founder and CEO Maynard Holt stopped by the Flecha Azul Tequila Podcast studio to visit with his old friend Dan Pickering about all things Energy "classic" and his take on the next steps of The Energy Transition. Our co-host Josh Lowrey just tried to hang on while these titans of industry went back in forth in a wide ranging conversation that didn't stay on the famous Pickering agenda for long.....and you'll enjoy the detour. Thank you to our sponsors: Pickering Energy Partners https://pickeringenergypartners.com/ Energy Workforce & Technology Council https://energyworkforce.org/ Preng & Associates https://www.preng.com/ Merit Advisors https://meritadvisor.com/ For more information on the production of this podcast, visit https://uprightdigital.com/
For today's COBT, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright. Chris is a fascinating energy mind - his background includes MIT and UC Berkeley mechanical and electrical engineering degrees as well as a broad-based life-long passion for all forms of energy. He was an early shale pioneer and today is Chairman and CEO of Liberty. Chris also dedicates a significant amount of his time talking to policymakers globally about what he feels are the choices society should be making in energy. For the second year, Chris has helped drive the Liberty ESG report to be not just a report on Liberty but more broadly an analysis of energy ESG globally. It's absolutely worth your time and very digestible. As you will hear, Chris lays out the three global challenges that he sees for energy and environmental policies including solving energy poverty globally (replacing wood and dung with clean cooking fuels could save 2 to 3 million people from death annually), pushing towards reliable and affordable energy systems with minimal environmental impact, and addressing climate change thoughtfully. As we discuss these objectives, you will hear us touch on a broad range of issues and factors. When discussing what the world of energy looks like in ten years, Chris had a really great and unique answer (and goal): "net zero poverty by 2050." It was a stimulating and exciting session with Chris today and we can't thank him enough for joining us.In our upfront discussion, Mike Bradley summed up bond, commodity and equity performance from the past week and the loud reactions to the recent OPEC+ meeting. Colin Fenton highlighted an important update from the London Metals Exchange concerning Russian metal exports and shared his takeaways from Annie Proulx's new book, " Fen, Bog and Swamp." Ryan Zorn, Veriten's Senior Contributor, also joined and asked for Chris's “energy discussion forecast” beyond the elections. Thanks to you all. We hope you enjoy as much as we did!
Today it was our pleasure to host James West, Senior Managing Director and Partner at Evercore ISI. James heads Evercore's oil service, equipment and drilling research team as well as the sustainable technologies and clean energy team and has an extensive research career covering the OFS sector. As you will hear, we had a hard time wrapping up the discussion as the scope of what James sees, analyzes and discusses daily covers a broad range within energy, across the globe, and across a broad swath of investor types. It was a fantastic discussion. In our conversation today, we touch on James's observations gained from covering traditional/classic energy as well as the clean energy space, his takeaways from recent investor meetings in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Italy, his latest insights on the European energy and security crisis and how it may play out, the return of investors to oil and gas, climate investors and their mandates, the revenge of the S in ESG, the meaning of just transition, offshore's role in supply and demand in the coming years, the Evercore energy research group's culture, scope, and overall organization, helpful and harmful energy policies, the appropriate size for the US SPR, and much more. We wrap with James's thoughts on the energy world ten years from now. We had great fun talking with James and hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. For the Veriten team's upfront discussion, Mike Bradley highlighted bond, commodity and equity performance, noting rising natural gas production and potential outcomes from the upcoming OPEC meeting. Colin Fenton continued the commodity theme with a look at the market's reactions to a potential cut in production and also shared optimistic observations from recent meetings in Midland. In today's discussion and here in this lead-in, we also want to acknowledge the recent passing of legendary energy industry veteran Steve Chazen and offer our deepest condolences to his family. Steve touched so many of our lives and he and his tremendous contributions will not be forgotten.
We hope you had a safe and restful Labor Day weekend. For this week's COBT, we had the pleasure of hosting Katherine Blunt, Renewables and Utilities Reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Author of recently-released "California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric and What it Means for America's Power Grid," published just last week. Katherine was quickly thrown into covering the PG&E story in 2018 as the Camp Fire erupted three days after she started. Since then, she has investigated PG&E's complete history to understand all the contributing factors to that tragic and devastating fire. It's a complicated story with serious consequences and her book is a straightforward and insightful examination of not only the fire, but America's power history. Her well-received new book also contains many implications for utilities across the country. In our discussion, we touch on key themes in "California Burning" including the formation of monopoly companies supplying power to California in the early 1900s, the lack of maintenance on nearly 100-year-old equipment which was the catalyst to the fire, the people and infrastructure involved in California's electric power system, PG&E's bankruptcy and restructuring program, the negotiated settlement for fire victims, public perceptions of PG&E, reactions to the book, the pressures utilities face to keep expenses low, PG&E's nuclear asset Diablo Canyon, and more. PG&E has declared the book will be required reading for employees, a promising declaration as they work to bury ten thousand miles of distribution lines and mitigate fire risk for the future. The book is very well written, Katherine was a fantastic guest, and we all feel much more informed. Thank you, Katherine!The Veriten team quickly hit a few key points to start the show: Mike Bradley reported live from the Barclay's CEO Energy-Power Conference in New York and touched on early conference themes, market volatility, recent deal activity and news, and a recent California law on EV production and implications on power generation. Colin Fenton flagged lithium prices, Russian gas flows into Europe, Iranian crude oil exports, and prepared us for the discussion with Katherine looking at California-Oregon border and Palo Verde power prices. As always, thank you for your support and friendship!
I had been following Arjun and enjoyed his views and industry leadership. And when he agreed to stop by the podcast it was cool. Not just cool, but way cool. It was an absolutely great discussion where Arjun articulated some of the real concerns facing the world. Everyone in the world deserves low-cost, sustainable energy.Arjun is an advisor or board member for Veriten, ConocoPhillips, Warburg Pincus LLC, and the Center on Global Energy Policy.We talked about the world's energy policies and the world trying to impose those same failed policies on the less fortunate countries. Let's put the lowest kWh with the least impact on the environment and let the markets decide which type.Listen or watch this podcast, and enjoy listing to an industry leader with some really great ideas. After that, subscribe to his Substack HERE and his LinkedIn HERE., and Twitter HEREI would also like to thank our Sponsor: Enverus. If you have to make a decision in the energy market you need data. If you need energy data there is only one Enverus. Also, we would like to give a shout-out to Mark LaCour with OGGN, Paige Wilson also with OGGN, and David Blackmon for their help in the energy leadership roles with Enverus. It's more fun running down the road together!
Today's subject is something we have wanted to study for some time now: global population growth. We were lucky enough to find a leading expert to join us and today had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Darrell Bricker. Darrell is a Senior Fellow in Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, the CEO of Public Affairs at Ipsos (the world's leading social and public opinion research firm), and the Co-Author of "Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline." All of us here at Veriten enjoyed reading Empty Planet. As you will hear, Darrell and his Co-Author John Ibbitson not only immersed themselves in all the available UN data but also traveled to six continents to conduct field research and interviews to refine their assumptions as they created their own estimates of global population growth through 2100. It was a fantastic and riveting conversation. To help frame our discussion, we kicked off with a few data points on historical global population, global life expectancy, the UN's fertility scenarios for through 2100, and the UN's projected global population (medium-fertility scenario is 10.36 billion in 2100). From there, we jump into a lively conversation with Darrell about Empty Planet, the driving factors behind a potential decline in global population, the issue with population models, a deep dive on cultural factors in Brazil and China, COVID-19's impact, cultural shifts in immigration, and the impact of climate change. We reference Charles Jones's study on the unintended consequences of a declining population. It was a fascinating session and we are thankful to Darrell for sharing his time and expertise. The Veriten crew started the show: Mike Bradley shared an overview of weekly equity and commodity performance, flagging a busy week for earnings in the energy sector and prepped us for our main discussion with a look as debt as a percent of GDP across the top ten economies in the world. Colin Fenton walked us through the key factors affecting gasoline and natural gas prices and warned the Federal Reserve will need to continue to raise interest rates.
Today we had the honor of hosting Governor Mike Dunleavy of Alaska for an exciting and informational episode. Governor Dunleavy is a Scranton, PA native and as a young man moved to Alaska in 1983 where he had an extensive career in education serving as a teacher, principal, and superintendent before his 5-year term as an Alaska State Senator from 2013-2018. He became Governor in 2018 and is up for re-election this November. We had a fantastic time visiting and walked away from the discussion impressed with Gov. Dunleavy and his passion to advance the state's energy opportunities. Gov. Dunleavy helped frame our discussion with background and history of the state, the state's unique features, history of their energy production, difficulties with federal regulations, the proposed pipeline from the North Slope to Nikiski and how it would impact the state's LNG exports to Asia, the Native American and US veteran populations of Alaska, and information on Alaska's energy transition minerals. We also cover relations with Russia and the full spectrum of energy available in Alaska from hydro, nuclear, geothermal, wind, solar, and tidal, to oil and natural gas. Overall, we learned a lot about the state (which Gov. Dunleavy thinks is the "best kept secret in the United States of America") and have a better appreciation for their contributions and challenges. We can't thank the Governor enough for his time and consideration and are looking forward to Veriten's future visit to Alaska! The Veriten team quickly hit a few key points to start the show: Mike Bradley highlighted interesting headlines of the week including OPEC's 2023 Market Outlook and ERCOT's struggles with the heat, and also covered weekly equity and commodity performance. Colin Fenton provided a macro market outlook and warned that coastline states that skipped the 2014/2016 slump may see areas of recession, and that unfortunately inflation peaking does not mean inflation is over. Thanks to you all. We hope you enjoy and that you learn something new about Alaska!
We are continuing India Week with a great friend and industry leader, Monte Dobson. Monte is the CEO and Lead Country Manager of ExxonMobil India and was appointed to the role in October 2021. Prior to his current adventure in India, Monte led technology development for unconventional resources in Exxon's upstream solutions business and was extensively involved in developing Exxon's Permian oil position. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to visit with him and hear about his experience in India and the work Exxon is doing to advance India's energy independence, energy growth, and energy transition. Monte first set the stage with some of his high-level impressions of India and key data points to get a snapshot of the country. As you may know, India is experiencing rapid growth in the economy (projected to be third largest economy by 2030) and has 1.4 billion in population with a median population age of 28 years. In our conversation, we touch on the talent ecosystem and recruiting for talent in Bengaluru (Bangalore), three business areas in the country that ExxonMobil is working to progress, taxation considerations with natural gas, whether India will increase its domestic production and its overall level of energy imports, the three pillars of security/reliability, affordability, and emissions, the ease of doing business in India, the keys to success, and more. We end with Monte's vision of energy in India in ten years and could have continued for much longer had it not been late in Bengaluru. We had a quick upfront discussion: Mike Bradley shared a brief market and commodity update and flagged the SCOTUS ruled in favor of West Virginia in the case of West Virginia vs. the EPA. Colin Fenton shared macro insights as we wrap the first half of the year and looked at gas supply data for the US. The Veriten team had a great week learning more about India and we are excited to continue to expand our knowledge of the challenges and opportunities of energy and the environment in the developing world. If you missed Tuesday's episode featuring Sunita Narain with India's Center for Science and the Environment.
We are focusing on India this week at Veriten and are excited to study the country, their needs, their challenges, and their opportunities. Today we were delighted to welcome Sunita Narain, Director General of the Center for Science and the Environment (CSE). Sunita is a 40-year environmentalist, political activist, and author; her work includes in-depth research on the governance and management of the environment. She is the editor of " Down to Earth" magazine and the author of " Conflicts of Interest," a collection of essays on the environmental movement in India. We were lucky enough to meet Sunita at this year's CERAWeek in Houston and as you will hear, she is incredibly passionate, upbeat, thoughtful, and pleasant. We are big fans and supporters. To start the session, Sunita provides background on the CSE and their history. The CSE is a think tank agency that focuses their research on environmental issues with the intent to use their research to push for change. In our discussion, we touch on India's advanced waste management systems, the coal industry, the letter Sunita wrote to the Finance Minister about natural gas taxation, air quality, water management, climate change, the current high temperatures in India, energy security, developing the energy grid in India, and the importance of thinking interdependently in today's world. We wrap up with Sunita's vision for the energy and environmental world in ten years, and her thoughtful and touching response emphasizes how different the developing world is from the day-to-day discussions we have in the OECD. Overall, we are excited to follow the CSE's developments in the upcoming years and are also glad to have made an incredible friend in Sunita. Mike Bradley kicked off the session with a look at energy and commodity performance and highlighted key upcoming macro events, including the Supreme Court's ruling on West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency and its importance. Colin Fenton chimed in with a follow-up on the LME copper curve, manufacturing activity, and China's shortening of COVID lockdown restrictions. Later this week, we will sit down with Monte Dobson, CEO and Lead County Manager of ExxonMobil India and are excited to spend more time learning about India. As always, thanks to you all for your support!
Today we had the pleasure of hosting Meredith Angwin, Energy Analyst and Author of " Campaigning for Clean Air: Strategies for Pro-Nuclear Advocacy" and most recently " Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid." Meredith is a passionate advocate for abundant, affordable, clean energy and has also been an early advocate for nuclear energy. In her extensive career, she has headed research projects on pollution control for fossil fuels, corrosion control for nuclear plants, and was one of the first female project managers at the Electric Power Research Institute. More recently, she has shifted focus to grid governance, reliability and oversight. In her latest book and with us live today, Meredith explains the grid and associated challenges in a straightforward and understandable way. We focused today on " Shorting the Grid" and the story Meredith tells us all by closely examining power in New England. Our key topics included an overview of the structural history of the power industry, the advent of the Regional Transmission Organizations ("RTOs"), background on New England's historical reliability measures (running oil during weather driven demand increases), new pay for performance initiatives, and additional structural changes and challenges in the market (like MPOR, the minimum offer price rule). We also touch on hydro power, the implications of the current natural gas price spike, the warning signs of more potential power shortages, overdependence on renewables with limited backup fuel, the lack of transparency and accountability, the hazards of relying on natural gas but not building enough pipelines, and, of course, what Meredith thinks the power market could look like in ten years. It was an extremely educational and interesting session and we are thankful to Meredith for joining us. We wholeheartedly recommend her book. It takes some really complicated issues and makes them easy to follow. Mike Bradley started the show with an update on weekly equity and commodity performance and key events, noting that European natural gas is at the lowest price since the Ukranian war started and also focused on recent executive action around US solar tariffs and the mixed messages the government is sending to Industry. Colin Fenton provided an update on US LNG export data and crude oil, showing markets are reacting to the EU's ban on Russian deliveries and also noting inflationary effects on US households with new credit cards skyrocketing. Brett Rampal, Veriten's nuclear expert, also joined and peppered in his thoughts and observations in the session.
We are excited to share a Special Edition COBT with you today! We had the opportunity to visit with former guest Alex Epstein, Author of " The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels" and Founder of the Center for Industrial Progress. Alex recently published a new book, " Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas - Not Less." We appreciate his tenacity for swimming against the current tide and are always interested to hear from him as he is at the center of the energy, climate, and technology debate. Our conversation starts with a look at the key themes in "Fossil Future" including energy freedom, freedom to trade, and the importance of contracts / property rights for underdeveloped countries. Alex's philosophical background is at the core of the book which examines and questions how experts think and the knowledge system trickle-down from expert opinions to all of our own conclusions. We also touch on his reflections since his first book released in 2014, potential world population growth or shrinkage, the importance of philosophy, "Arguing to 100," initial feedback he's received for "Fossil Future," human flourishing, and of course, what he thinks the energy world will look like in the next few years. Thank you to Alex for joining! With so much to discuss, we had a quick intro from the Veriten team: Mike Bradley compared index prices from when Alex's first book released in 2014 to today for commodities, US CPI, World Food and NAM Fertilizer. Colin Fenton reminded us that in the sea of chatter about a potential recession to stay open to the possibility of stagflation. As always, we hope you enjoy and welcome your feedback! Thanks to all of you from all of us at Veriten.
We are thrilled to share a Special Edition COBT featuring Maria Korsnick, President and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). As a brief introduction, Maria has 36 years of experience in the nuclear industry from operations to management positions and has been with NEI since 2015. In her extensive career, Maria has been responsible for five reactors at three different locations and now uses her technical and operational background to advocate for the industry with key legislative and regulatory advancements. We had much to discuss! Maria's passion for nuclear energy is unmistakable and in our discussion we touch on the commercial nuclear industry, the America-Russia-China dynamic and importance of having long-term global relationships, the media's impact on the nuclear industry, the Civil Nuclear Credit Program, clean energy tax credits, applications for non-energy nuclear power use, re-purposing nuclear waste, and how putting nuclear energy together with alternate forms provides a compelling option for making the energy sector reliable and affordable. Nuclear's energy density relative to other energy sources is fascinating. We are excited to see how the NEI continues to advance the industry with governmental support. The Veriten team had a brief lead-in to start the show: Mike Bradley shared a quick look at the uranium ETF (URA) to prepare us for our discussion. Colin Fenton noted the lack of nuclear power mentioned in the European Commission's REPowerEU Plan released last Wednesday and had a few tidbits on wheat prices and Russian Ruble gains. We are also excited to announce that Brett Rampal has joined the Veriten team as Director, Nuclear and Power Strategy and will be leading our nuclear efforts. It was fantastic to visit with Maria. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did! Thanks to you all.
We are amped up for this week's feature session on power with ERCOT. With us today is Brad Jones, Interim President and Chief Executive Officer, and our good friend and former COBT guest Bill Flores, Vice-Chair and Independent Board Member. As a brief introduction, Brad has a 30+ year career in the electricity industry optimizing electricity businesses as well as designing electricity markets and operating electricity grids across North America. Bill previously served as a U.S. Congressman for ten years and has also served in board governance and senior leadership positions for public and private entities. Our conversation had massive scope and depth and it was a pleasure to host them both.As you may or may not know, Brad stepped up to serve as Interim CEO in 2021 and has since helped to make significant strides in several initiatives for ERCOT. In our discussion, we touch on the changes Brad and the team have made in the past year, background on ERCOT and correlated legislation, the challenge of managing multiple power sources, transitioning priorities from "C.A.R.E" to "R.A.C.E.," transmission planning, the benefits of running a business in Texas, managing electricity in Texas versus other states or countries (today we learned "Dunkelflaute" is the German word for dark and calm, meaning no sun and no wind), and what the next ten years might look like for power. You can find ERCOT's current 60-step road map to improving grid reliability. The Veriten team had a brief lead-in to start the show: Mike Bradley pointed out a few OFS announcements regarding Russia over the weekend and shared tidbits from Aramco's year-end presentation and conference call. Colin Fenton touched on a few regulatory news items including the SEC's climate disclosure proposal and letters from Congress to the CEOs of energy companies. Todd Scruggs presented background data on ERCOT (courtesy of Orennia) to prepare us for our power discussion.It was fantastic to visit with Brad and Bill. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did! Thanks to you all.
We are thrilled to have Martin Lovegrove, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Kirk Lovegrove & Company join us today. Martin has a wealth of knowledge and experience around strategic advisory, acquisitions, and divestitures with 50 years in the global oil and gas business. In his career, he has advised 120+ clients on over 500 mandates and has developed four independent successful advisory companies along the way. It was wonderful to visit with Martin and get his perspective on all the issues swirling around in today's world. Undeniably, a great deal has happened since last week's episode with Dr. Angela Stent and Dr. Dan Yergin. As we all watch the harrowing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine develop, we wanted to provide a list of organizations that are offering relief support to the country including a few charities specifically focused on children. In our discussion with Martin, we discussed the current European energy and security mindset, how we got here, the future of oil and gas, his thoughts on key players, the outlook for classic energy companies, the energy transition going forward, the great opportunities the oil and gas industry offers to the next generation, and generally his reflections on a half century of working with the industry. It was incredibly insightful; we very much enjoyed our time with him and know you will enjoy the conversation.The Veriten team did a fantastic job of summarizing key news items for today's lead-in. Mike Bradley examined equity and commodity performance, noting the past week has been one of the most volatile weeks in energy markets in the past decade. He also presented fascinating data on both the classic and clean energy complexes. You will see a very interesting chart comparing the XLE and the ICLN. Colin Fenton explored where Russia's gas flows are now going in light of recent events, with flows through Ukraine down 50%. Also in Veriten news, today marks Todd Scruggs' official first day and we couldn't be happier to have him join the team. Todd serves as Partner/Investment Opportunities and is already hard at work thinking about investing for the next energy decade.
On this special "Twosday," we had the fortune of welcoming back two special guests for a discussion centered on Russia and the Ukraine and all the potential reverberations from the current conflict. Our first guest is Dr. Angela Stent, Senior Fellow at Brookings and one of the world's leading specialists on the Former Soviet Union, Russia, and Russia's relations with the West. In our discussion, we reference her most recent book, "Putin's World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest." Our second guest is our longtime friend, Dr. Dan Yergin, Vice Chairman at IHS Markit and Chairman of CERAWeek. Dan is the author of a number of seminal books on energy and in our discussion we also touch on Dan's latest book, "The New Map."Angela provided an excellent synopsis of how and why we got here to launch our conversation. My own personal summary would be an aggressive leader and an aggressive country sensed the time was now to press their agenda. We covered a whole range of important topics with Angela and Dan including Putin's potential master plan, what influenced Putin to start this, how Russia and China are increasingly working together, how this all effects the plans for energy transition, the impact of a potential Iran deal, why energy security is now firmly back on the table, and many other issues. In sum, Dan and Angela tag-teamed everything we threw their way and we came away much more informed. We are so grateful to visit with them both and appreciate them sharing their knowledge and expertise with us all!As always, our Veriten team kicked off the show: Mike Bradley shared an update on weekly energy performance, upcoming earnings, and his observations on Iranian sanctions vs. OPEC spare capacity vs. crude oil price. Colin Fenton chimed in with a satellite-based count of current global crude oil stocks and freight rates, a snapshot of Chinese-Russian oil flows, and an overview of the current Chinese market economy to prepare us for our global conversation.
We are deeply honored that our first Veriten COBT guest is Secretary James A. Baker, III. A native Houstonian, Secretary Baker is one of the most accomplished and insightful leaders in the past 50 years of American history.It is undoubtedly difficult to neatly summarize Secretary Baker's accomplishments and contributions to the country and to the world. Mr. Baker served as White House Chief of Staff for President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1985, before moving to Secretary of the Treasury from 1985 to 1988. He was President George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State from 1989 to 1992, during which time the Berlin Wall fell, German reunification came to pass, and the Soviet Union dissolved, bringing an end to the Cold War. He served again as White House Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to President Bush from 1992 to 1993. Altogether, Mr. Baker led five presidential campaigns for three presidents and was a trusted advisor to a fourth. Prior to his time in Washington, Mr. Baker graduated from Princeton University and served in the United States Marine Corps, received his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and practiced law in Houston at Andrews and Kurth. In 1994, Secretary Baker founded Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy which is one of the nation's and the world's leading nonpartisan think tanks. He is presently a Senior Partner in the law firm of Baker Botts.It was our distinct pleasure to host Secretary Baker at Veriten's offices, located at the ION in downtown Houston. In our discussion, we touched on the state of the world, the state of the energy and climate discussion, Ukraine and the issues around it, and other domestic issues including the national debt and inflation. Mr. Baker's knowledge, perspective and humor were encouraging and insightful. At 91, he is still sharper than ever. We are beyond thankful to have spent the time with him and hope you enjoy our discussion as well.We had a quick lead-in with our Veriten team members Mike Bradley and Colin Fenton. Mike shared a timely market update on the outperformance of energy equities relative to the S&P 500 index. He also shared his expectations about this week's OPEC meeting in light of recent strength in crude oil markets. To frame our national debt discussion, Colin gave an overview of the key data and showed how the massive surge in public debt fuels the inflationary pressures that policymakers have been slow to recognize.Thank you all for your support and friendship. We extend you a warm welcome to Veriten and look forward to everything to come. We are so excited!
For our first COBT episode of 2022, we had the great pleasure of hosting Rob West, Founder and Lead Analyst at Thunder Said Energy. With the ongoing crisis in European gas markets and the tense uncertainties over Russian troop deployments along Ukraine's border, it was rather fitting that Rob joined us live from Estonia for our global energy and energy transition discussion. Rob shared the background story on how and why he founded Thunder Said Energy in 2019. One of his main objectives is to identify and track already-existing technologies that could realistically decarbonize the global economy at acceptable cost in coming decades. Then he estimates the optimal mix to accomplish that goal and shares his findings with his clients. To that end, he presented some of the core cost and risk findings from his year-ahead outlook, published yesterday: "Energy crisis: ten themes for 2022?". It was a fantastic and timely conversation and one we know you will enjoy as much as we did!To start the show, Mike Bradley provided a substantial overview of key energy themes for 2022 and reviewed this week's developments in OPEC+ governance and oil production strategy. Matt Portillo shared the TPH Research outlook for natural gas and crude oil in 2022. Colin Fenton bended our minds with a journey from how the multiverse plot device in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise is starting to shape other cultural conventions (including energy policy) to yesterday's data on Tesla vehicle inventory currently in stock within 200 miles in Boston. (The punchline is the inventory is scarce, very expensive, and mostly located in New York and New Jersey).As you all likely know, my official last day at TPH is this Friday, January 7th. My experience at TPH has been a once-in-a-lifetime endeavor and I thank all of you and our past and present TPHers who made it possible. TPH is a special organization and I expect it to continue to thrive.As of this Friday, we are spinning out COBT into a new business called Veriten, taken from "veritas" and energy to represent "truth in energy." This new energy information platform will have one key mission: to improve the quality and purpose of current debate around the future of energy and the environment. Like you, we want to see a meeting of the minds on climate, economic development, national security, and technology that is as productive and civil as the issues are serious.
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