Daily Standup Top Stories
Biomass power station produced four times emissions of UK coal plant, says report
The Drax power station was responsible for four times more carbon emissions than the UK’s last remaining coal-fired plant last year, despite taking more than £0.5bn in clean-energy subsidies in 2023, according to a report. The North Yorkshire power […]
Politicians Backing Net Zero Working Hard To Make Gas Prices Much Higher
The only way for ‘net zero’ politicians like Kamala Harris to eliminate gasoline is to make it unaffordable or illegal. Any politician who supports the “net zero” agenda is working to make gasoline […]
U.S. Oil Industry Pumps Record Volumes with Fewer Workers
The number of upstream and oilfield services jobs is flatlining and has started to fall. The hiring slump is not because production is falling. Efficiency and technological advances in fracking services, as well as the […]
Second LNG Tanker Seen Docking at Sanctioned Russian Facility
ENB Pub Note: We have been following the “Dark Fleet” for years, and many said that it would only be in the crude oil space. The growth of LNG demand over the last several years […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
01:10 – Biomass power station produced four times emissions of UK coal plant, says report
02:56 – Politicians Backing Net Zero Working Hard To Make Gas Prices Much Higher
06:25 – U.S. Oil Industry Pumps Record Volumes with Fewer Workers
11:15 – Second LNG Tanker Seen Docking at Sanctioned Russian Facility
14:37 – Markets Update
17:50 – Rig Count Update
22:17 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:14] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into the Monday, August 12th, 2024 edition of the Daily Energy News Beat stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, biomass power station produce four times emissions of a UK coal plant, according to a new report. We can’t make this up for. Next up politicians backing net zero working harder to make gas prices much higher. Next up, US oil industry pumps record volumes of oil with fewer workers. Talk about synergies there. Finally in the news segment second LNG tanker scene docking at sanctioned Russian facility. Then tortured me. I will quickly cover what happened with the oil and gas markets on Friday and talk to you about what we saw with the rig count, and then we’ll finish up by making a few predictions about what we think this week will bring. As always, I’m Michael Tanner, joined by Stuart Turley. Where do you want to begin? [00:01:09][55.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:10] Let’s start with our buddies in the UK. Hey, a biomass power station produced four times the emissions of the UK’s coal plants. As a report, Drax received 22 billion pounds in subsidies, being the UK’s largest emitter in 2023. The company rejects flawed research. Let me go through some of the flawed research here. [00:01:35][24.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:36] Hit me with. [00:01:36][0.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:36] It. You can’t buy this. The technology that underpins Beccs is proven is the only credible, large scale way of generating such renewable power and delivering carbon removals. Here’s the problem with this biofuel. It’s imported from the U.S. in wood chips and pellets. Is you. I’m serious. The government is considering the request for bill payers to foot the cost of supporting its power plant beyond the subsidy scheme deadline of 2027, to keep burning wood for power until the end of the decade. The only way this thing makes money is with tax subsidies. And it is not. I mean, you can’t ship wood across the pond and expect the economics to actually be good for the environment or the pocketbook. I mean. [00:02:28][51.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:28] Just look at a fire that you build outside, like use your eyes. Of course, there’s more emissions from a fire. I mean, it’s it’s laughable that they actually thought this was a solution that would solve them. [00:02:40][11.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:40] Oh, no, I don’t get that. Burning wood for power is expensive risk that, UK energy independence is no place for a journey to net zero. This is not stupid. I can’t believe that they’re doing this. [00:02:53][13.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:53] We need to make shirts that say net stupid. [00:02:55][1.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:56] Politicians backing net zero. Working hard to make gas prices much higher. Unbelievable. Michael. Net zero agenda is working to make gasoline prices much higher. Is basic arithmetic? Okay. You can go to Oklahoma State and they won’t teach you how to add. They expect you to add when you get there. One mule plus two mule equals three mule. Hey I’m serious. Biden administration. That was funny. Biden administration supported the destruction of the fossil fuel. They wanted to end fossil fuels. Day one. They went ahead and they cut the the pipeline, the Keystone pipeline. You go through some of this whole list of gas gouging policies. Now, remember, you take a look at the other policies in here. And that is they’re coming from California. They’re trying to input California on the rest of the United States. And all that is, is net zero. And this is not good. [00:03:53][56.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:03:53] Well, nothing like you see the EPA rolling out. They say in this article the quote social cost of carbon that they want to put it a $190 a ton, which would be somewhat equivalent to about a $1.50 addition per gallon of gas. [00:04:06][13.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:07] The social cost of carbon gas. What is soon as they get control of social media and they can kill eggs, they will go out and they will start fining you that. If you put a mean tweet out. [00:04:22][15.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:04:23] There, there, they’ll be close to doing that. They’ll be close to doing that. They this is a great article. I don’t know who actually wrote this. Let me scroll down to the bottom here. This is energy talking points. Oh this is out of Alex Epstein. This is we love Alex. That’s when he lays out eight different gas gouging policies. Basically you’ve got a whole of government approach. Oh crazy. You’ve also got Biden War two. So number two is Biden has worked to increase gasoline prices by expanding anti fossil fuel ESG divestment movement. [00:04:53][30.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:54] Do you see the climate disclosure as number three. [00:04:56][2.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:04:57] Yep. Climate disclosures. You got a moratorium on oil and gas leases for number four. Hiking the royalty length for new oil leases by over 50%. Okay. We’ll push back a little bit. New Mexico had a low royalty rate that. Was not in line with federal leases and other states. So what they did was just. Right. Size it all. I, I I’m okay with that from the standpoint of that’s not going to go. It’s not killing production per se. But you know we’ll go there. Number six is critical though. Restricting the leasing on nearly 50% of the Alaskan Petroleum Reserve. Number eight FTC number seven, going after oil and gas mergers. I mean, we know that’s true. All the stuff that Chevron. Exxon tried to lead Scott Sheffield off crazy. And then obviously number eight canceling the Keystone XL pipeline which you know, unbelievable. [00:05:45][47.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:46] And of course. [00:05:46][0.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:46] Now we got to ship it. [00:05:47][0.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:48] Oh absolutely. And now you see the Harris wall ticket is going to be even worse. So all right well don’t worry. [00:05:55][7.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:56] When Kamala Harris gets elected on day one she’s going to bring down inflation. Don’t worry. When she gets elected she’ll bring down inflation. Mind you that she’s already been elected. Oh yeah. Now she’s been here right now. She should wait till she gets elected to to worry about it. [00:06:10][14.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:10] I saw that I saw her walk by and she made a comment and she says, I’m going to bring down grocery prices. I’m like, where have you been for the last four years? [00:06:19][8.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:20] Just go talk to the big guy. [00:06:21][1.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:21] Yeah. Hey, walk down the hall. Are you awake? Hello? Hey, let’s go to the next story here. Michael. U.S. oil industry pumps record volumes with fewer workers. You and I have been talking about the efficiencies of scale for a long time. But efficiency and technology advancements in fracking services, as well as the ongoing consolidation in the industry, have been pushing employment numbers lower this year. Michael, what do you feel is the number one reason we’ve lost 29 or 2962 jobs in May in oilfield service, but yet we’re still pumping out some big volume. [00:06:58][36.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:59] Well, one, it’s people are moving to to to, you know, bigger pads, larger, you know, longer laterals. You know, you need the same amount of people to drill a four mile laterals. You do a two mile lateral, but instead of needing drilling two wells at the same time, you only drill one. You get the same amount of lateral length. And let’s not even talk about the amount of oil. There’s a little bit of degradation as you go up. The, you know, you you you you increase mileage. It’s not a one for one ratio, which it might be. The difference is I think it comes back to what we always talk about when we talk about mergers. It’s the synergies. Yeah. And surges. This is what really hurts employment. And this is specifically I think oilfield service is seeing a lot of this because you know rig count has it. You know, recounts have been falling on the steady. And that’s always going to hurt. Right. Employment specifically on the server side. But I think what you’re seeing and what this article points out is that the upstream sector, which is the operators themselves, have been shedding jobs and. Right. And I think a lot of people don’t realize this because I think it’s, you know, most people are, you know, it’s early retirement. It’s people who may have worked an extra five years who decide to get out of the industry now for a variety of reasons, because maybe they’re getting pushed out. You know, they’re being nicely told. Hey, would be nice if you retire people getting, you know, whether it’s, you know, layoffs happening in a merger and they know then people deciding not to go back in and get another and get a new job or, you know, the job market is, is, is is a little bit frothy right now when we talk about what’s going on in the oil and gas. Yes, we’ve seen prices stabilize above 70, which has been great. But at the same time we’ve seen production continue to rise. And, you know, you’ve kind of got that inverse relationship which you think is would you think would be, you know, or related together. But instead we’re seeing an inverse correlation. So wow, it’s super interesting. I think a lot of companies have realized, and especially as the shift from the shift from just produce oil to produce oil, but try to do it profitably, that’s changed the narrative a little bit. And people are expensive. Let’s not let’s be honest, people in gas industry are paid really well as they should be, but people who are the highest paid employees in any sector are the first ones generally to get laid off. [00:09:11][132.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:11] Right. The EIA put out that. [00:09:13][1.7]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:13] The idea is to a. [00:09:15][1.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:15] You’re you’re paid a lot more than I am to because you’re worth a lot more. The EIA expects crude oil production to average 12 13.2 million barrels per day this year, up from an average of 12.9 million last year. In 2025, the U.S. crude oil production set to accelerate growth and hit an average of 13.7 million barrels per per day. [00:09:38][22.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:38] Yeah, we all know the EIA is going to continue to revise up and up. They feel like it’s better to to pitch for sanity purposes, pitch low number and then revise upward based upon demand, which, you know, OPEC’s probably the other way around. They’re going to throw out a big demand number, probably revised downward. You’re seeing the Permian take off. You’re seeing a lot more degradation going on. It’s it’s it’s there’s a lot going. [00:10:01][22.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:01] On and on. One thing I got to hand it to our great oil and gas oilfield service as well as oilfield exploration folks as we deliver the low. Emission of oil and gas on the planet. We do the best out of anybody. [00:10:15][14.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:15] What I mean was, is, you know, you know that the war in Ukraine, we’re now bombing oil rigs. Yes, yes, I know it’s a Russian oil rig. So not saying I’m in favor of Russia, but I mean, you’re talking about the amount of emissions that are going to come out of that of that. And no one’s talking about it. It’s oh yeah, we got Russia a great I’m all for getting Russia Putin bad. I’m with you. Yeah. But now all of a sudden but now we’re going to bomb oil rigs and no one’s worried about the emissions. [00:10:42][26.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:43] Going. [00:10:43][0.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:43] On from that yet. We flare ten MCF and everybody loses their mind. [00:10:48][4.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:48] But let’s let’s pretend we’re California and hypocrisy and import oil from Iraq. Like we said last week, you know, on the on the show, the we’re the fourth largest Iraqi. And I said I ran last week but it’s actually Iraq that we import oil for California is a that’s hypocrisy. Let’s go to the last story here before I get all worked up. Second LNG tanker scene docking at sanctioned Russian facility. Speaking of Russia and I call Putin on this one a, you know, he’s a I’m sitting here looking at this and going, people were laughing at me when I was saying the Dark fleet for LNG tankers are coming along and they’re I’m like, dude, you ain’t seen nothing yet. LNG Dart fleet is alive and well and it is growing. The number of new builds is a whole reason for this. They are making more LNG tankers than you can possibly shake a stick at. And so I found this one was pretty interesting. It was fired up. It’s the Alecia energy is part of the suspected Dart fleet of LNG vessels. They even named it by how long? It was 290m or 950ft long. That’s pretty amazing. That’s a fairly decent size ship. Yeah. [00:12:12][83.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:12:12] I mean, the ironically, it’s owned by an India based company, so India could care less. They’re doing what they think they need to do to supply themselves with low cost energy. And it’s clear sanctions don’t work. [00:12:23][10.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:23] No, they they do not work as intended as Irene, this law would say. But last week we ran an article on India has bought 1000 more increase in their Russian oil purchases since the start of the Ukraine war. 1,000% increase. You gotta hand it to them. I’m like, hey, I’m all for it. They gotta take care of their people they’re putting in. They got ten new coal mines going in. That’s not plants, that’s ten new mines. So they can quit buying coal from China. So anyway, you gotta love this mixed up energy. Where would you have at four years ago when you start and I started our podcast, would you believe that it would have gotten this crazy? [00:13:07][43.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:08] Yeah, because I have to listen to you every day. I’m surprised it’s as calm as it is, actually. So all right, let’s go ahead and jump over and cover what happened in the oil and gas and finance market guys. But before we do that let’s go ahead and pay the bills. As always, thank you for checking out and visiting us at Energy News Beat.com the best place for all your energy and oil and gas news, all the news and quote unquote analysis that you’ve 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 at the tip of the spear when it comes to the energy and the oil and gas business. Go ahead and check out the description below for all links to the articles that we cover. Links to the timestamps. You can also check us out on Substack. And as always, we are partnering up with our friends over at the Crude Truth and Pecos Country, operating the one and only Rey Trevino. If you’ve ever wanted to get involved with investing in oil and gas, you’ve ever wanted to call yourself an oil man. You ever wanted to roll the dice on some new drilling wells? We have a great, great opportunity for you. Go ahead and hit that link below. And Energy News Beat.com/investin Oil or just go ahead and check out the link below in the article. Buy yourself some working interest. Trust me, it’s a great decision. If you want to gamble all your money away in hopes that we hit a good one. Just kidding. But it’s great opportunity. Also a great tax deduction. Hit that description below if you’re interested in learning more about that. We’ll get you connected with everybody. [00:14:35][87.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:37] Let’s go ahead and jump over now into the overall markets. You know we’re talking half a percent on the S&P 553 44. Nasdaq was up about a little over half a percentage point sitting above 18,502 year yields a half a percentage point. What we did see ten year yields shed about 1.2 percentage points. Dollar index fairly flat. Bitcoin dropped about 1.2 percentage points over the weekend. As we record this Sunday afternoon on the 11th. It’s still sitting above 60,000 though. Crude oil on Friday up about a. Percentage point 7684. After barely squeaking above $77, Brant jumped above $80 and actually settled at 80 001. It was only up about 0.2 percentage points. Natural gas up three quarters of a percentage point $2.14. It’s you know, and it was it was a frothy week still. We were you know, it was you know, we were up. We were down. We were all over the place. Everything in between, you know, on in terms of oil prices, though, we did see an overall kind of 3% week over week gain, mainly due to the fact of some more positive economic data that came out. A lot of what’s going on is a little bit of the, you know, we saw, you know, missiles flying from Iran. Syria came out and said they don’t want to get, you know, stuff happen in Syria. NATO’s doing some crazy stuff. So the geopolitical tension is ratcheted itself up a little bit, which will always come to put prices above. We also did hear Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicate that we were probably going to go ahead and lower rates come September. There was a trio of fed policymakers that came out on Thursday and said that they were, quote, confident that inflation was cooling enough to cut rates. I’m not sure if I believe that, but that’s what they’re telling us. You know, we also saw a larger than expected fall in US jobless claims, which people are saying, you know, help the recovery. But then again, if you listened to anybody, even this show on Monday, you thought the sky was falling because of this yen carry trade. So who knows what to weigh folks to please don’t believe anything and nothing anyone says to you you should believe in. Especially if I say it. I’m telling you because it’s all over the place. We also saw the number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fall, which is a that’s good quote, suggesting, according to Reuters, that fears in the labor market is that is unraveling were, quote overblown and that the gradual softening in the labor market remains intact. I mean, again, do I believe any of this quote unquote analysis? I don’t know, I think the markets are pretty frothy right now in terms of, you know, when you have this much volatility in the over, I mean, it’s clear if you can have an eight, you know, what was it, a 6% drop on Monday because of some. Yeah, because of what the Japanese Federal Reserve is central Bank is doing to their interest rates. That causes the United States, quote unquote, flash crash. I mean, it’s all rebounded. But it to me, it underpins that the confidence that people claim they have in the markets. Is it there or else people wouldn’t panic sell. Now we can go back and talk about this. You know this yen carry trade. I’m tired of hearing about it. Point is it’s frothy out there folks. We did see rig counts. We’re going throw this chart up. Recounts were up two week over week sitting at 588 candidate. We saw drop a two rigs internationally. We saw drop a 23 rig. So United States bringing back them oil rig Stu we got to love it. You know this going back to the story we talked about in terms of, you know, dropping employment in the oil and gas business. As recounts rise, so will jobs. I mean, you’re talking about we’re still down 66 rigs from last year. I mean, that’s I mean, I’ve seen statistics out there that it’s 100 people per rig is generally the type year you’re talking. There’s at least, you know, 6 to 10,000 jobs just right there in rig count, let alone the support staff you need on the operators side, let alone the economic impact down the chain that it brings. Because it’s not just people that work on the rigs, it’s all these other people. So it’s a it’s a massive where’s. [00:18:41][244.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:18:41] That hot shot when you need it. [00:18:42][1.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:18:42] Yeah exactly. But you know markets do you know at least when prices open up here in a bit from an oil price standpoint. You know we look to be basically at $77 at the open 7698. So you know, as you listen to this Monday morning, things probably have rolled over hopefully for the positive again as the as the and this is what I want to ask you see what’s going on in the Middle East. Because that in my opinion is what’s causing this. The topsy turvy in oil. No, the oil markets don’t care about the yen carry trade. They don’t really care about. They do care about supply and demand. But you know, we’re seeing record oil production. We’re also seeing record demand. The volatility that we’re seeing is what’s going on in the Middle East. Walk us through what you’re hearing. [00:19:23][40.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:23] I’m hearing that Russia put out a notice, stay out of Israel airspace this next week in the next ten days. That to me was the first retro I’ve heard in a long time. That kind of puckered me up a little bit. Iran was then threatening to that they have a rumor. Rumors are they may have five nuclear warheads. They were then going to say they were going to let one off in the desert and then come out and say that they are now a nuclear power. But I really firmly in my heart believe that they do not want to use those nuclear. And I if they do have them, I hope that they do not. But by Russia coming out and saying stay out of Israeli airspace. I can see why people are getting nervous. [00:20:11][47.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:20:12] Yeah. I mean, that doesn’t make me feel any better. About what? I mean, so. So talk about what? What we expect to come up this week. I mean, do you expect to see things in the Middle East get spicier or. [00:20:21][9.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:22] Yes, more relaxed and more? I think it’s going to get spicier. The one that we’re not talking about and you haven’t heard me talk about Russia, Ukraine more much at all. Ukraine went up and they went up into north, just east of the. Oh, I have the article right here. And Russia in this section of Ukraine over by the Zoodles section, is a section where they’ve actually gone into Russia and captured the men are now all encircled around it. But what most people don’t understand is that Ukraine has canceled their natural gas contracts to continue, carrying that Russian natural gas after 2024. Russia has decided that they are going to Ukraine. Is not carrying 2024 gas from Russia in past 2024 to 2025. They are no longer going to be doing it. That section in the Soo Does is got a lot of pipelines that are interconnects right there, right in that section, but next to Russia in this area. So they’re sitting on a bunch of natural gas pipelines that they’re afraid that if they respond and blow those up, those are critical junction points for Russia. So it’s pretty interesting. Nobody’s really talking about how important that is. [00:21:45][83.3]
Michael Tanner: [00:21:45] Yeah. I mean, you know, and then you got Lindsey Graham coming out this week saying, well, you know, Ukraine sitting on 10 to $12 trillion of critical minerals. It’s like, oh, sweet, thanks for saying the quiet part out loud. Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud, Lindsey Graham. He’s going to have me enlist. If it was up to him, he’d have me. He he’d have me storming the beaches in Sebastopol if he. [00:22:07][21.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:07] Is, or he is truly a war monger and I wouldn’t vote him out of office. No, I am a non war kind of guy. Yeah. [00:22:16][8.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:17] Well thank you, thank you so. Hi, guys. Well, with that lovely ending, we’ll let you get out of here. [00:22:22][5.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:22] Out of that dude. [00:22:23][0.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:22:24] All right guys with that have a great week. We appreciate you guys checking us out on the world’s greatest podcast www.energy newsbeat.com for Stuart Turley I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe. [00:22:24][0.0][1308.4]
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