Larry Fink All In on AI

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Blackrock’s Larry Fink Jumps On “Next AI Trade”, Warning World Will Be “Short Power”

Vermont becomes 1st state to require oil companies to pay for climate change damages

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Michael Tanner: [00:00:14] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into the Monday, June 3rd, 2024 edition of the Daily Energy News Beat stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, BlackRock’s Larry Fink jumps on boat. Next I trade warning. It will be a warning. The world will be short power. Oh he’s going to 360 on a roll. 180 on this one. Next up climate crisis versus drill, baby drill. Heirs urge Democrats to hammer Trump as convicted felon at every opportunity. Next up Vermont becomes first state to require oil and gas companies to pay for climate change damages. Reparations are here, folks, and we’re paying for it. Next up, it’s time for a nuclear power renaissance. A great opinion article that we will cover. And then finally, Canada and Ottawa goes the way of Vermont, tries to muzzle oil and gas companies with huge fines for praising their climate efforts. Stu, then toss. I will quickly cover what happened in the last few days in the oil and gas markets. We did see oil prices in the week not very good. We did see the EIA come out with on Thursday. Their SPR and and crude oil inventory will cover that actually a, a pretty down, you know, a, a big draw relative to what I think we saw in oil prices. Rig count stay fairly flat and then we will cover ConocoPhillips buying Marathon Oil. We will cover all that and a bag of chips, folks. As always, I am Michael Tanner, joined by Stuart Turley. Go ahead and kick us off. [00:01:45][91.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:46] Hey, let’s start with our buddy over there at Blackrock Larry thank jumps on next I trade morning world we be short power. This is absolutely a hoot. he’s the CEO over there and I’m going to start real quickly. Do you remember in last year they lost $1.7 trillion in the first half of the year because of their ESG investments in wind and solar. Now this comes out to a quote. This is a quote out of the article. I do believe properly, build out I we’re talking about trillions of investing. So data centers can be as much as 200MHz. And they’re now talking about data centers being one gigawatt that power to city. He told the say the amount of power that’s needed to use AI has a huge impact on society. Well, you need dispatchable power because they can’t turn off. And on these data centers, wind and solar is not an option. [00:02:51][64.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:52] Well, it’s the same stuff we said last week in in my opinion with this article shows and everyone should take away from this article is that Larry Fink is a capitalist. He is going to let the winds of money dictate what he believes in. When when everybody was pouring money into ESG, he was all for ESG. Now that everybody has sort of the ship has turned a little bit. We’re all talking about AI. Well, all talking about the necessary power needed to build out these data centers. Oh well, guess what? Now he’s talking about Dispatchable Park. If you believe anything that comes out of Larry Fink’s mouth, do it at your own peril. Because I promise you, he’s only looking out for himself and Blackrock and how they make money. He’s right. In this case. I agree with him. You need the dispatchable power because these data centers can’t just be flipped on and off. We’re going to need to build out a grid system that can handle the amount. As we talked about, you can’t sleep at night because the wind’s not blowing. But what this clearly shows. And everybody who’s listening to the show knows this. This is just another example of Larry Fink doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about whether he he cares about where he believes the money is going to be. And right or wrong, it’s his job is he’s beholden to the shareholders. So there’s maybe a larger conversation to have here about that. But he’s just about the money. And that’s really all it is. [00:04:05][72.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:05] It is, you know, and, dispatchable power is critical. Let’s go to the next one here. Climate crisis versus drill, baby drill. Soros er, urges Democrats to hammer Trump as convicted felon at ever every opportunity. I’ll tell you, when when they talk about this out of this article, repetition is the key to a successful message. And we want people who wrestle with the notion of hiring a convicted felon for the most important job in the country. So now, remember, Michael, this the other Soros, the George Soros, his son said he is going to be much more violent or excuse me, radical than his father was. So where this comes in is, that, I did my job. Bragg is reporting that his father got him in there. Where this ties in to climate change and drill, baby, drill is watching. The next few months, you’re going to see a choice between free energy policies, which is drill, baby drill. Nuclear or wind and solar, or you’re going to see the climate narrative lawfare. Really hammering home. And it’s going to be funded by the Soros group. That’s where that’s coming together on this story. [00:05:25][79.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:26] Yeah. I think it’ll be interesting to see how big of a of a stink. Both campaigns, both the Biden and the Trump administration may not administration campaigns what they make, how high they rank. And I mean, right now there’s all this other stuff we’re dealing with. We all know. You know what happened last week with the condition, with the conviction of President Trump, whether or not you agree with it or not. I think the show stands firm. I think we think it was a political scam. The real question is, where is that going to? Is that going to issue going to rank above? You know, is that all that’s going to be talked about in this, you know, in this election cycle? If that’s the case then it’s a, in my opinion, a distraction from the other critical issues. We’ve got to be talking about. One of them you bring up is the difference between whether or not we are going to have free energy versus kind of this, you know, climate totalitarianism, as we call it. So it be interesting to see kind of on the list of items that come up where whether or not this even shows up. I think it’ll be interesting in the debate that they have coming up at the end of June. How big of an issue energy is? I have a I have a feeling it’s not going to come up at all, because we’re going to be dealing with the unfortunate situation that happened last week. So I’m a little bit I don’t believe energy, unfortunately, is going to be that big of a thing of a campaign topic this time, because I think people are going to be worried about in these campaigns when we’re worried about fighting back and forth between, quote unquote, he’s a felon or quote unquote, it was a sham. [00:06:44][78.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:45] That I disagree. And here’s why. In my meeting with Senator Ted Cruz last week with the Americans for prosperity was phenomenal. I mean, it was a powerhouse, and I disagree. Energy. Energy is life and prosperity. Low cost energy is prosperity. Here it is on the ballot. So let’s go to the next story here, because that feeds into this story. Vermont becomes the first state to require oil companies to pay for climate change damages. Michael, I added lawfare as a category on energy news. Me today. I was like, this is just we got to start have we’re going to have a whole theory of things that are funded by the Soros family, attorneys, lawfare. It is just gonna go nuts from here on out. And and so that’s how all this is tying together. Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay their share of damage caused by climate change, after the state suffered catastrophic summer flooding and damage from other extreme weather. Michael, I have a real question here and I’m like, I want your opinion on this. Kim trails are they real or are they weather modification? Weather modification has been going on by the government for years. And call anybody you want. Yeah. How are you going to prove that it’s fossil fuel damage versus game trails or weather induced by the government? I’m just have no clue if anybody’s listening. There’s this is this is disgusting. [00:08:23][98.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:24] Yeah, I mean I have no I have I have no idea. I don’t know anything about Kim Trails. So I’m going to leave that up to, to to you. What’s going on in Vermont? [00:08:31][7.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:32] Well, Republican Governor Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law with a signature late, saying he will be very concerned about the cost and outcome of the small state taking on Big Oil along what will be a grueling legal fight. Well, I understand the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in many ways. How in the world are we going to prove it? The only winners out of warfare are the attorneys and then the climate narrative. That’s it. [00:09:03][30.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:03] Yeah. So what they’re going to do is they’re going to basically the the Vermont State Treasurer, along with the agency of natural resources within their state, is going to provide a report by beginning of 2026 on the, quote, the total cost that Vermont and the state paid relative to the emissions of greenhouse gases from 1995 all the way to 2024. There’s a weird little two year gap in there, so I wonder who’s going to do that. That assessment will look on the effects of public health, natural resources, agriculture, economic development. And then they’re going and a bunch and a host of other stuff, and they’re going to use some federal data to determine the amount of covered greenhouse gas emissions attributed to a fossil fuel company. And it’s basically a polluter pays model, which says, you know, if you’ve traded or refined or extracted crude oil, in the court or in the, in the volumes, more than a billion metric tons. Then you’re going to be liable to pay. The funny part is there are no oil companies based in Vermont. So what are you going to do, go after cross state? It gets back to again the stuff that you touched on in your speech, with Ted Cruz, with legislation to regulation. This is how it comes down. Exact regulation through legislation, whatever it’s called. [00:10:10][66.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:10:10] Isolation through regulatory action. So it’s time now because of all this for a nuclear power renaissance and next story, the Biden administration. I don’t get this. The Biden administration announced new steps to bolster the domestic nuclear energy, such as streamlining licensing processes for building new reactors, extending the life of existing reactors. We just had two new ones come online here this past week. At its peak in the 1990s. United States had 112 nuclear power plants. Currently has 54 power plants in operation. Nearly half of those of the 25 are in the process of being decommissioned. Incredibly, 60 of those being built around the world, not one is under construction in the US. We just had two of them come online, this past month. So, I. [00:11:07][56.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:07] Mean, this is great. I’m all we’re all for nuclear power on this. And it doesn’t matter, you know. And what what it seems to be is that the way this is going to get movement is bringing back the owner or rolling back owners regulations that have been put on the nuclear industry. And as much as I hate to say, there’s got to be some federal funding to get this stuff done. [00:11:26][18.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:26] Absolutely. And I gotta hand it to Senator Cruz again. I hate to keep bringing this up, but he was on it. I mean, like a crow on a junebug. When the when the young man from, Abilene Christian with their, molten salt reactors saying, they were being held up by the d.o.e.. Oh, boy. He was on the it. Go go go. Senator Cruz, I like it. All right, what’s next? Let’s go to Ottawa. Ottawa tries to muzzle oil and gas companies with huge fines for praising their climate efforts. Companies publicizing their environmental actions will have to prove the truth of every word they say, measured against undefined, intentionally recognized methodology. Shut up. Oil and gas companies don’t talk about the environment in emissions games unless you’ve made that interesting. [00:12:16][49.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:17] So this is, this. [00:12:18][1.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:18] Is Alberta, minister of Environment and Protected Areas, Rebecca Schultz. [00:12:22][3.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:24] Yeah. Bill C 59. Here’s the quote. We are looking at every legal option we have available to us. And that does include the Alberta sovereignty within the United Canada Act. There’s a potential constitutional challenge as well. Basically, companies publicizing their environmental actions will have to prove the truth of every word they say, measured against the really the undefined, quote, internationally recognized methodology. I don’t know what that methodology is. I’m sure they’ll come up with something on the spot to retroactively make sure these people get hammered. It’s unbelievable. [00:12:55][31.7]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:56] Yeah, unbelievable. [00:12:57][0.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:57] Million dollars for the first offense. A second conviction would raise the fine to $15 million. Pretty crazy. [00:13:04][6.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:13:05] I tell you, what’s going to happen is you’re going to see some, again, more lawfare from the green. And who’s funding the green? [00:13:12][7.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:13] A host of people. It’s not just one. [00:13:15][2.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:13:15] Oh, I know, all right, I’m all alone. After you, dude. [00:13:18][2.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:19] Nice. Well, we’ll go ahead and cover what happened with with oil and gas over the weekend. But before we do that, guys, as always, thank you for checking out the world’s greatest website, Energy News Beat.com the best place for all your energy and oil and gas news. All the news and analysis you just heard is brought to you by that website’s doing the team do a tremendous job making sure that website stays up to speed. Everything you need to know to be the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. Check us out. In the description below for all the links to the articles links to the, timestamps so you can hop back and forth. We are we we do have some ads rolling at the beginning now, so the timestamps may or may not be off by 30s. So forgive us there. And you also going to hit all the links to the articles. Check us out. Dashboard.energynewsbeat.com. [00:14:05][46.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:06] The oil ends fairly soft this week guys. I mean you know at the end of last week we saw oil settle above 80. Now we see it settle below 7776, 99. As we await for markets to open here. looks to be opening a little bit lower. We’ll probably see. Excuse me. Higher. Excuse me. We’ll probably see. Open above 77 here. When markets roll over in a bit here on Sunday afternoon. But but right now we’re below $77. Mainly as we record this here on Sunday afternoon. The OPEC meeting that’s going to take place later in the afternoon or daytime, you know, nighttime for us, daytime for them, really is going to turn out with is really going to come with, okay. Now what will OPEC do. Are they just going to keep extending the production cuts. That’s what all the sources are saying right now. Will they add a little bit of a topper which might end up helping and supporting oil prices. Who knows. We’ll see what happens. You know, the other big thing we saw was inflation come in at projections, or at their projected level, which made overall markets slightly run a little. When we saw the S&P 500 actually jump about a full percentage point, you know, day over day on Friday, Nasdaq was basically flat, but it was down about a percentage point. And then when the inflation data came in, as expected, I mean, people were expecting a higher print than than what it came in. And it was a little bit of, interesting, interesting narrative around there. But, you know, the big thing for oil prices again, crude oil currently down 1.8 percentage points. It ended Friday at 7699. Brant oil 8174 natural gas, $2.58. Again, we do expect that numbers as we open here shortly to rise. We did see the EIA come out and even with on Thursday posting a one point going, we can go and pull that image up. They’re posting a and we pull it up here. I think it’s all in like a 3.7 million barrel draw from this from the, crude oil, commercial reserves, that, you know, represents one of the larger draws we’ve seen in a few weeks now, and higher than was originally expected. We did see the Strategic Petroleum Reserve add about 500,000 barrels. So a little bit of a build there. We did see rig counts go going through the rig count chart up basically flat 600 rigs that same week over week. So about 96 rigs down on a year over year basis. We saw Canada pick up eight rigs. And internationally we did pick up seven rigs. You know, the only other thing that happened this was on Thursday. But I you know, we were off on Thursday. ConocoPhillips to buy Marathon Oil in $17 billion all stock deal which is again interesting. ConocoPhillips swoops in buying Marathon Oil. Which will add about, you know, if you if you go ahead and look at their reserve report, somewhere around 2 billion barrels, of recoverable resources. Mainly it’s that Eagle Ford, and North Dakota, position that marathon has big BOC in position. Big Eagle for crossover position there for ConocoPhillips. What’s interesting, though, is that now ConocoPhillips will be a bigger active player in the BOC. And they don’t necessarily have, too much BOC in assets. So it’ll be very interesting to see them entering, entering that North Dakota. I mean, it’s definitely, a little bit different. You know, again, one of the big things they tout is, you know, reduced administration and operating costs of about $500 million. So unfortunately, we’re, you know, we know what that means. Layoffs. ConocoPhillips stock was actually down about 3.3 percentage points. You know, but again, that’s because we’re talking about an all stock transaction. And again, we’re seeing it used to be we saw about six months ago, eight months ago everything was cash. Now everything’s moved into stock because in my opinion, I think these, you know, management teams, you know, in quote unquote allegiance to the shareholders are key, are wanting to keep the exposure to the stock relative to just cashing out. Again when oil prices are low, we tend to see cash transitions because people want to cash out, take their money and run. The real question is where does the ConocoPhillips stock goes from here? Obviously, they’re one of the largest shale producers right now. Relative to, you know, their other, you know, their other competitors, Exxon and Chevron. Obviously, Exxon will become the biggest shale producer once they go ahead and snatch up and make it official for pioneer. I think they they’ve already done that. So I think actually we got to start kind of rephrasing, you know, Exxon Mobil is now the biggest shale producer, specifically, you know, you know, this this valued marathon at 14.4 billion. And they had about 2.8 billion, an outstanding debt. ConocoPhillips could come out and say they expect to increase share buybacks worth about $7 billion in the first year, and expect to do about 20 billion in the first three years. We’re definitely going to do a deal spotlight on this one. So we’ll kind of save a lot of my analysis for that. We’re still lining up who exactly we want to bring on, but I, I think, you know every so we’ve got Conoco Exxon Chevron all made deals. The real question is what’s next now. Is it you know, there are rumblings that we double Eagle is going to be selling again this you know double eagle for they could be valued somewhere about $6.4 billion. I’ve heard since an energy rumor on the street is they put themselves up for sale. You know, if you if you’re a deal spotlight listener. We did see some of the stuff that, came from, excuse me, that did come from the deal spotlight that I recorded with John Farrell There could be a possibility Grayson Mill is up for sale. That’s another back end player. So I think there’s a few names, but I think the in terms of what the big companies are doing, I think, you know, that’s going to wind down. And I think it’s going to be a lot more mergers now. I think we’ve seen the acquisition phase go through. It could be a lot more, mergers of equals, which is going to be super interesting. But that’s really all I’ve got. Stu. Anything else people should worried about coming up this week? [00:19:51][344.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:19:52] I’ll tell you, it just, buckle up and get ready for some serious entertainment in the next 30 to 60 days. [00:19:59][6.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:19:59] Yeah, it’s it’s going to get crazier as we move closer, especially as we move into election season. Guys, it’s going to again, as we talked about, it’s going to be interesting to see how energy decides to play itself out during this. But we will make sure you. Stay up to speed with everything you need to know, on that. But, with that, guys, we’re going to let you get out of here. Start your Monday. We appreciate you checking us out here on the World’s Greatest podcast. Energy podcast, for sure. I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks. [00:19:59][0.0][1167.3]

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