Daily Standup Top Stories
Made in Germany, fuelled in America
European gas futures predictably relinquished recent gains as fears of Australian LNG strikes receded after Woodside Energy struck a tentative deal with union bosses (more on this below). But the most interesting EU gas story last […]
US debt explosion may force the Fed to halt a key tightening campaign so the financial system doesn’t become unstable
The Treasury’s deluge of T-bills could force the Federal Reserve to halt quantitative tightening. That’s as the debt binge may pressure bank reserves, economists at the St. Louis Fed wrote. The Treasury has issued $1 […]
US doubles imports of uranium from Russia: largest amount since 2005
In March, US senators called for an import ban on Russian uranium. What happened is the opposite: In the first half of the year, the USA bought 416 tons of uranium from Russia, more than twice […]
UK Oil And Gas Giant Cuts Investments And Defers Projects Over Windfall Tax
Ithaca Energy, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the UK, has reduced investments and is deferring some projects this year and next, due to the burden of the windfall tax Britain has […]
It’s only a matter of time until the ESG movement will R.I.P.
ESG is on its last legs. How do I know this? Consider the actions of BlackRock, the big money manager and one of the initial and fiercest advocates of the Environmental, Social, and Governance investing […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro02:32 – Made in Germany, fueled in America05:27 – U.S. debt explosion may force the Fed to halt a key tightening campaign07:16 – U.S. doubles imports of uranium from Russia, the largest since 200509:09 – UK oil and gas giants investments and deferred projects over windfarm tax11:49 – It’s only a matter of time until the ESG movement will R.I.P.13:21 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Stuart Turley: [00:00:15] Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News Beat Daily Stand Up. My name’s Stu Turley, president CEO of the Sandstone Group. Got an action packed show today, and Michael’s out on assignment. I think he’s taking a nap. That’s what millennials do. Just kidding. He’s a hard working millennial, and he deserves a little time off. Well, I’ll tell you what, it is just crazy out there in the energy news. Made in Germany. Fueled in America. This is Boston. High prices for diesel coming around the corner. U.S. debt explosion may force the Fed to halt a key tightening campaign so that the financial system doesn’t become stable. They haven’t got it done so far. Let’s kind of hang on and see what’s going to happen. U.S. doubles imports per year of uranium from Russia, its largest since 2005. I got a few jokes on that one. And Putin is waiting for my imitation of him. UK oil and gas giant cuts investments and defers projects over a windfall tax. Couple of things like my good friend Irina Slav says sanctions no work. Neither do windfall profits tax. Both of them are pretty stupid. So let’s go over here to the last article and it’ll only be a matter of time until the ESG movement is rip. This one’s kind of crazy. I’ve been saying this for a little while. There will be a time of revolting and investors are revolting. And I’ve got some other jokes on that. But we’ll go ahead and leave that alone till I get to that story. But for all of our wonderful listeners, thank you so much for listening to the energy news beat, the podcast, as well as the Daily Stand Up. I love all of my guests. Love all the listeners. We have such a van tastic interaction with folks. [00:02:01][106.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:01] We also have some great, great leaders, industry thought leaders from around the world coming. And I mean, I’m so excited about some of the leaders from Africa. I’ve got other leaders from the U.S. just a lot of big fun. I’ve already got five in the can that I’m trying to get out as soon as we can. And it’s all about ESG and taking care of the environment. So not bad for an energy kind of podcast. But let’s start on this first story made in Germany, fueled in America. When we sit back and we take a look at what the price difference is on natural gas versus what natural gas is in the UK and the EU compared to the US, this is frightening. And when the EU lost the Nord Stream Russian imports it is absolutely bonkers. European gas futures predictably relinquished recent gains as fears from Australian LNG strikes receded after Woodside Energy struck a tentative deal with the unions. The most interesting EU gas story last week was BASF deal to import US LNG from Cheniere. We like that, which could save the German chemicals plant as much as 4.8 billion compared to buying gas at European wholesale prices. Wow. You know, that is just absolutely nuts. Typically, deals are struck just like this one, BASF, they had to shut down last month. BASF just had to shut down a fertilizer plant, which again, snowballs. And the whole energy cycle of problems for food inflation. The world revolves around energy, and this is another example of it at the close in the different ports or different hubs. Henry Hub As to 66, just as a price for natural gas, the jkm and the t f in the in NWT LNG, those are all between 1196 and 13.46 tells you that there is a significant difference in a and incredibly amount of difference between the U.S. [00:04:28][147.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:29] and what the UK has to pay for natural gas. You got shipping fees, you got it transported across the ocean, you got to declassify it and then you got to get it into the pipes. It’s expensive, but that price is nuts. Why doesn’t the U.S. really take advantage of it here? I don’t know. But anyway, in 2019, the world was awash with gas. I love the way they said that the cost of liquefying and transporting it. There were, I believe, 29 different 67 cargoes had to be canceled because of COVID and the lack of purchasing. That’s all changed. Geopolitical issues and sanctions all changed all of that. So you got to love Cheniere, you got to love LNG, you got to love the great United States energy machine. With that, let’s go to the next one. U.S. debt explosion may force the Fed to halt a key tightening campaign so the finance system doesn’t become unstoppable. A couple of bullet points here. The U.S. debt binge may force the Federal Reserve to halt quantitative tightening campaign so the financial system doesn’t become unstable. And according to the St Louis Fed, the Treasury Department has issued 1 trillion T-bills since June, when the debt ceiling standoff was resolved and another 600 billion before the end of the year. That is a nuts, quote unquote. Although there are currently ample reserves, there is some lower levels of reserves that can cause stress in financial markets. The St Louis Fed economist wrote in a paper. So as the Fed continues with cutting into two, it will need to evaluate when to slow and stop recommendations redemptions to avoid draining too many reserves from the banking system and caused undue financial stress. Personally, I don’t think they know what they’re doing. [00:06:37][127.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:37] And the only way again, I, I say I stress you’ve got to get your energy policies in line, energy security before you can even try an attack on the monetary system. You can’t do one without the other and they’re not even trying. So market funds have largely been on the sideline due to the Treasury T-bill. There is a risk that in our IRP balances remain sizable and bank reserves represent the majority of the contraction in the Fed liabilities as key contenders continues. Buckle up. Okay. Let’s go to the next story here. Next story, U.S. doubles imports of uranium from Russia, the largest since 2005. This, to me, is just about as amazing as it gets. Two weeks, three weeks ago, President Biden signed a new order prohibiting my uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. However, there is a uranium mining that had been approved by the EPA and by all means where it would not be harmful to the environment or to the Indian and native lands. But now they’re reconsidering all of that. And so I’ve got a question. Is this uranium, any of the uranium that Hillary and Bill sold from the U.S. supply to Russia, is it coming back? I’m just kidding. No, not I’d be kind of curious to see Mar U.S. senators call for a ban on Russian uranium. What are they going to do when we’re going to be spending 69.5 million, the highest since 2000 to we buying 32% of all uranium imports comes from Russia. We are about as dumb as it possibly gets. The first half of 2023 by 416 tons of uranium from Russia. That’s 2.2 times more than the same period last year and the largest since 2005. We are complete morons. I don’t get it. [00:08:57][139.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:57] And I don’t understand why we’re not trying to become energy independent. But that’s what BRICS is all about. The rest of the world is going away from the United States, and it’s because of our leadership. UK oil and gas giants investments and deferred projects over windfarm tax. You cannot just go out and provide windfall profits tax and not think it’s not going to hurt businesses or consumers. It’s a energy. One of the largest oil and gas producers in the UK has produced investments and is deferring some projects this year due to the burden of the windfall tax Britain has levied upon the industry. Nobody says anything about the record low losses that the oil and gas companies have had. When COVID hit, they said, Oh, you got to keep pumping oil. They think the people around the world think that $2 at the pump or $3 at the pump is all it takes to get that gasoline there. You got to refine it. You got to drill it, you got to export, you got to haul. There is a lot to it. You got your iPhones. You got to have the petro. You got to have the. Downstream items to do it. The windfall tax, so-called the energy profits levy, has prompted many companies operating offshore in the UK to cut investments and review projects. Holy smokes. After the UK raised the windfall tax to 35% at the end of last year, Harbor Energy, the biggest oil and gas producer in the UK North Sea, backed out of their latest licensing round. I don’t blame them. And you said the Shell says it would be reevaluating each project, compromising its 30.5 billion or £25 billion planned investment in the UK energy system. Total energy is, Michael says. [00:10:54][117.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:55] It also says it will be slashing its business in the UK by 25%. This article is just amazing. You cannot have low energy prices with sanctions or windfall profit tax. Let’s get in discussion. But you can’t isolate your pipe dream inside a bubble and expect it to actually work. You got to sit back and you have to hand it to the oil and gas companies for going out and saying, wait a minute, we’re holding our commitments to our investors. We are holding our commitments to doing the best we can for the environment. So let’s go ahead and go to that last article here. You got to sit back and what is going to happen to this when consumers are going to pay more for energy because of the windfall profits tax and then the subsequent response by the oil companies. It’s only a matter of time until the ESG movement will rip. Well, BlackRock is really not only are they leading the investment hypocrisy, they’re leading in the ESG hypocrisy. So when you sit back and take a look, this is an opinion piece, and I agree with it. And the BlackRock is now backing out of ESG, but yet they’re still marketing themselves as an ESG investing firm. But they’re they’re greenwashing. What they had been doing, they weren’t letting everyone know that they owned Middle East oil and gas pipelines. They’ve owned all these other things. And they say, oh, we’ve never done that. You lose 2.7 trillion. You’re going to start admitting to it. So many shareholder proposals were overreaching, lacking economic merit or simply redundant. They’ve now are now announced that they’re only going to do they’re only approving less than they’re not approving 94% of the ESG energy policies or programs that are being dropped off on their doorstep. [00:12:59][123.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:00] So they are realizing that there is not a market for not getting a return. Look at the bank failures in the United States. People are starting to wake up and realize that you cannot have windfall tax, you cannot have sanctions, you can’t have ESG without accountability, without accountability. You’ve got to be able to have common sense commitment to the environment, commitment to the investors and a balanced approach. All of these stories all kind of interact with each other. And it is just we’ve got to have some common sense. So if you’re an energy thought leader, if you’re a CEO, if you are a author, if you are in the wind, solar or nuclear, if you’re in the geopolitical space, if you’re in international or in the U.S., I want to talk to you on my podcast. I have so much fun and I learn from everybody. I have an absolutely wonderful day and I will see you tomorrow with Michael. Have a great day. [00:13:00][0.0][761.6]
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