Daily Standup Top Stories
Why would President Trump want to Annex Greenland? Is it for the weather or critical minerals?
Ok, there is a lot of speculation today from X around Donald Trump Jr.’s trip to Greenland. I watched the call with President Trump calling into a town hall-style gathering, and it was very clear […]
Trump Considers Executive Order to Protect Natural Gas Appliances
Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump is considering issuing an executive order to save natural gas-powered appliances from federal, state, and city regulations seeking to phase these out of new buildings on environmental concerns, sources with […]
Trump Says He Wants No Wind Turbines Built During Administration
President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he would seek to have a policy of having no wind farms constructed during his second term, threatening billions of dollars in planned wind projects. “We are going to have a policy […]
Russia’s Gas Cutoff Stokes Tensions in Moldova
Russia’s decision to cut off gas supplies to Moldova is seen as a political move to destabilize the country’s pro-Western government. The gas cutoff has had a severe impact on Transdniester, a breakaway region of […]
EU scoops up record amount of Russian LNG – Bloomberg
Flows of the fuel to the bloc reportedly surged ahead of the end of pipeline gas transit through Ukraine, the news outlet reports The volume of liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipped by Russia to […]
Phillips 66 to Acquire Midstream NGL Assets in Permian from EPIC
Phillips 66 has signed a deal to acquire EPIC Y-Grade GP LLC and EPIC Y-Grade LP for $2.2 billion, expanding its midstream footprint in the Permian Basin. The two, part of EPIC Consolidated Operations LLC, […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
01:18 – Why would President Trump want to Annex Greenland? Is it for the weather or critical minerals?
04:48 – Trump Considers Executive Order to Protect Natural Gas Appliances
06:58 – Trump Says He Wants No Wind Turbines Built During Administration
09:39 – Russia’s Gas Cutoff Stokes Tensions in Moldova
11:18 – EU scoops up record amount of Russian LNG – Bloomberg
14:22 – Markets Update
16:21 – Phillips 66 to Acquire Midstream NGL Assets in Permian from EPIC
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:10] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into the Wednesday, January 8th, 2024, edition of the Daily Energy News. Beat Stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, why would President Trump want to annex Greenland? Is it for the weather or the critical minerals? Next up, Trump considers executive order to protect natural gas appliances. Sticking on the Trump theme,he also Trump says he wants no wind turbines built during his administration. Well, then jump over to Stu’s favorite country, Russia. They decide to get Russia gas cut off. Stokes Tension in Moldova. Very interesting. And then finally, the EU scoops up record amounts of Russian LNG, according to our friends over at Bloomberg. Stuart Then toss it over to me. I will quickly cover what happened in the oil and gas markets and then talk a little bit about another midstream acquisition. This by Phillips 66 acquiring the epic NGL assets from Epic Midstream. Some interesting thoughts I’ve got there. Stu, as always, I’m Michael Tanner, joined by Stuart Turley. Where do you want to begin? [00:01:17][67.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:18] I’ll tell you what, this was nuts on the news desk. Michael, why would President Trump want to annex Greenland? Is it for the weather or for the critical minerals? Let me guess. [00:01:28][10.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:29] Him? I don’t. [00:01:30][0.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:30] Know. That’s a tough one. [00:01:32][1.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:32] Can you help you explain it to me? [00:01:33][1.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:34] Well, when you take a look if you look at the article, we have Russia right over the Arctic and then you have Greenland and you have Canada. My father had an emergency when he was flying a B 47 on nuclear alert and had to dump all of his fuel and land in Greenland and almost ran off. The runway is a very short runway in Greenland, by the way. So if you take a look, it is right there. And for our national security interest in the presser today, President Trump was standing there and he says there’s all these Russian boats and there’s all these Chinese boats. China has actually started a mining company and it has been mining critical minerals in Greenland, stealing them pretty much, and almost nothing. And it is amazing. I also embedded in here from Donald Trump Junior, a little bit of a town hall that they had in there. And all the Danish people were like, we’re in Guam. So this is absolutely I did not think this was all there. So I asked on X, I ask group, what kind of minerals are there? Lithium, graphite, No, B m, platinum group metals. Titanium. Cobalt. Zirconium. Uranium, iron ore. Zinc. Gold. This is like exactly what we need. But I want to go on record. Michael. We do not need to be strip mining that up there without taking care of the environment, even if it is more expensive. And we don’t need to have whales doing the work. I know you don’t have a high, you know, a high regard for whale life, but I have a high regard for children and the environment. And I think that we would be better at it than China or in, you know, looking at how that it’s all about the critical minerals, but it’s also the ships. I agree with President Trump on this. I think it’s going to be kind of interesting. Well, I. [00:03:29][115.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:03:29] Think this article also points out Green Lives Matter, Ultra Frog 17. I love this tweet here. The reason why President Trump wants to buy Greenland, it’s all about his trade war with China. And this is where I think and I completely agree with this analysis here, it’s got nothing to do with, in my opinion, strategic military capabilities. I mean, sure, we we’ve already got a base there, so it may make the base. Maybe we can make the base a little bigger. The former who knows it all for the critical minerals. And it really has more to do with hurting China than helping us. I mean, all these critical minerals are theoretically used for the energy transition we’re about to cover. Two stories would Trump said we ain’t doing the energy transition any more. So why do we need these minerals if we don’t Aren’t going to use them for all of the stuff because Trump’s about to ban it all? Wait a second. It’s because it’s all part of the economic war with China. Now, personally, I’d rather get into an economic war with China than a hot war with China. Exactly. We get into no war with China. But if we got to do something, at least make it there. So that’s my read on all this. [00:04:36][66.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:36] Well, we also need the critical minerals because like we talked about on the Monday show, you know, gallium, we don’t air the whatever there was for the the minerals that we don’t even have that. So anyway. All right. Let’s go to the next one here. Trump considers executive order to protect natural gas appliances. They’re eating the cats and the dogs and they’re cooking them with gas. We can’t have that. Despite the illegal efforts to ban access and use of natural gas and our industries hard at work to keep life in essential, affordable and reliable, especially during. The extreme cold we are facing. However, she is the Karen Harbert, president of the American Gas Association. The EIA said In a 2020 residential consumption survey, 61% of American households use natural gas for at least one energy use. That that is critical. The cost alone would be incredible when you consider how expensive it is. I don’t know that President Trump is going to be able to cut our energy costs in half in the first year based off of the stuff that the Biden administration has left landmines for. [00:05:46][70.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:46] Well, he definitely won’t be able to cut it that much. It’s going to be a slow burn. I think a lot of what he needs to do is get some of this LNG stuff turned around. But the problem is you start all of a sudden exporting LNG costs are going to go up here because now all of a sudden we’re going to be sending all of our natural gas overseas. So it is a little bit give it a pull. I mean, I think this is a no brainer. I think what Trump is doing is trying to counteract what he sees as Biden, basically trying to screw them in the last 20 days here of the administration. We already you know, I covered this yesterday on the solo shows, just a lot of red meat getting thrown out to everybody on the aisle a little bit here, a little bit there. But, you know, again, do I think they’re actually going to ban natural gas? No, but you never know. And we might as well take the protection. Here’s a quote from the Karine Harbor. She’s the president of the American Gas Association. It speaks volumes. What an order from the White House is needed to stop her own government from banning natural gas furnaces and water heaters. I don’t think there are enough mice in the world to power treadmill style furnaces. So, you know, we’re save the mice, protect our natural gas furnace that needs to go in t shirts. [00:06:52][65.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:52] And we know Americans are not getting on the treadmill. [00:06:54][1.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:06:54] Trust me, we know that. All right. Let’s move to wind turbines. What’s up here? [00:06:58][3.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:58] Trump says he wants no wind turbines built in his administration. Michael, if you had asked me on our Sunday show that we recorded, if I had this on my bingo card this week, would Trump buy Greenland and would he ban windmills? No, I did not. This is a quote from today’s presser. We are going to have a policy where no windmills are being built, Trump said in a lengthy tirade against wind power during a conference at his Mar a Lago residence in Florida. I did not write that. That was from the article. They litter our country, Trump said. Nobody wants them in there. Very expensive. Here’s where. If they were fiscally responsible and they actually worked, I’d be almost all in on them because it would reduce fossil fuels. But they’re not fiscally responsible from day one. And then the waste these things have. Now, he is not picking a fight, Michael. This needs to be known. He’s not picking a fight with the solar industry because he goes the solar panels are okay. So he’s kind of drawn a line in the sand box between wind and solar, and he’s kind of going, I’m going to take our wind at the throat. I did not see that one coming. [00:08:09][70.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:09] Well, because you could argue that solar has some use. There is a sliver of use, in my opinion. Wind has no use. You know, the only thing wind is I mean, there’s two reasons why wind is good. One. Offshore wind kills the whales. We know. We love that. And number two, I mean, to some of these, there are some farms and this is in Oklahoma. [00:08:29][19.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:08:30] Kansas, I got a whale oil pod calling in right now. [00:08:33][3.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:33] Eat is calling and they’re shutting it down. Demand dies. But you also have to realize there is a small segment of the ranching community in north Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas that does rely on the surface use damages and relies on this for revenue. So I don’t know how you you obviously he’s saying no more should be built. There’s about I was looking this up today there’s about 8 to 10GW of wind power already approved in in the process of being built. So who knows what happens that but there is a small sliver of revenue that does go to these landowners who, you know, need it, especially if you’re living in a place that, you know, it’s hard to ranch you. Your crops don’t really grow. How else do you make money from a wind farm? I wouldn’t do it, but, you know, you pay me enough money. I throw a wind farm in my backyard and, you know. [00:09:20][46.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:20] And it’s a big problem that we’re about to see in the next five years. My goal is that the wind farms that are out there that go broke, who cleans that crap up? It’s about $500,000 per windmill to take it down and get it out of there. Who’s going to recommend the land? It’s about to be a huge issue. Let’s go to the next story here. Russia’s gas cut off stokes tensions in Moldova. This is really a big piece of the energy security out there. And it ties into the following story with the EU scoops up record amount of Russian LNG. It was a blow to Moscow underscoring it when Russian natural gas stopped flowing to across Ukraine. That pipeline is a critical point for Ukraine’s resources. That pipeline last year in 2024 generated 5% of their GDP in Ukraine, and now Ukraine is not going to have any power coming out. They have one of the largest power plants in the world, and it’s being shut down right now because it’s being held by Russia. So Ukraine is going to have some serious problems on this and Moldova on this is one of the ones right there is seeking to diversify its energy sources and reduce its dependance on Russia. But this will take time and could be costly. They should have been doing it over the last several years. [00:10:49][89.1]
Michael Tanner: [00:10:50] Yes, This goes back to what President Trump said in 20 visit 2016, 2017, when he went over to Germany and said, hey, you got to you know, you’re getting high off your own supply here. You better diversify and make sure that you can’t have this happen. So it you know, it’s never good when one when when when you have your business and you have one revenue source, I’d be in trouble. You know, if the government is your only revenue source I’d be wary of doge right now. Similar to energy supply. If you only have one supplier of energy, I would be scary. Let’s stick. In Russia though, the EU seems to be still buying it. [00:11:21][31.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:12:00] Start calling you Where’s our calling you? Stuart Turley Economics. [00:12:02][2.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:03] Economics. I’ll tell you, I do. This is just about which way? Okay. $0.50 from the pipeline, $30 from LNG for the same amount. It’s just absolutely nuts. They’re going to be paying more for it. The economic damage to the EU, I don’t know that they’ll be able to recover. I don’t know. The UK will be able to recover all. [00:12:27][23.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:12:27] They can because currently LNG is becoming basically the bill, the largest use in terms of energy globally. Putin knows that. He announced in December. We’re going to continue to increase and just start flooding the market with it. You know, they basically control all the major pipelines that flow in and out of the EU. So again, it’s having a diversified portfolio in terms of where you buy and sell your energy. But but Russia is just you know, it all comes down to Russia is just lucky they have a lot of gas. So they’re going to be able to export that. No problem. Let’s go ahead and jump over to finance, Stu. But before we do that, let’s go ahead and pay the bills. As always, thank you for checking us out here on the world’s greatest website. www.energynewsbeat.com all the news and analysis you just heard is brought to you by said website. Stu in 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. Go ahead and hit that description below. All the links and the timestamps links to the articles, check us out on substack. The energy news be.substack.com. We are starting to roll out some paid only content, so if you want to get access to some exclusive white papers that we are writing, go ahead and become a paid subscriber. It’s the best way to support the show and we’ll be rolling out is it tomorrow? We rolling out our minds Mineral model white paper. [00:13:44][77.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:13:45] Tomorrow or Thursday. I’m not sure which we’re going to. It’s going to be one of those days. [00:13:49][3.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:13:50] Tomorrow or Thursday, we’ll be rolling out our my the infamous mines mineral model white paper. Will we dive into all things critical minerals Should have thrown a little Greenland in there. Maybe it would have changed the analysis a little bit. And in the following week, we’ll we will be writing and releasing a follow up article which basically takes that mines mineral model and applies a pretty basic capital asset pricing model in order to understand maybe where are some great underserved markets that could use some investment. So we will cover all that and a bag of chips here, guys. [00:14:22][32.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:14:22] Let’s go ahead and quickly, quickly jump over and cover the markets here. S&P 500, tough day for the market. It was down 1.1 percentage points. Nasdaq down 1.7 percentage points. Amazon got hammered today, really dragging the Nasdaq down to a ten year yields. Two year yield was down about a half or up about a half a percentage point. Ten year yield up 1.3 percentage points. So you know what that means. I’ll let you guys decide. Their dollar index was up about 0.3 percentage points. Our Bitcoin was down about five percentage points, 9685. I mean, we did see crude oil have a pretty great day, opened the day somewhere below 7350. We closed just above 7450 and now we spiked as the afternoon trading session is open were all the way over 74 to 61. So prices are running. Brant Oil 7620 natural gas. Up about a point three percentage points, $3.45 as we record this about 501 here Central Time on Tuesday. You know, it’s it’s going to be very interesting. We did see some some oil sanctions on some Chinese, specifically China’s Shang Dao Ports have been blacklisted. All the incoming and out coming vessels in there have been banned. So that puts an interesting squeeze on specifically where supply is going. We also have seen some indications that China demand is going to come up. We did see again, as we talked about yesterday, that the the official selling price in that Saudi Arabia will be selling to China is going up. We did see API crude oil inventory drop today and pulling them up right now. We did see a four hour forecast did it was forecasted to drop by about 250,000 barrels and actually dropped 4.0 million. So the API’s guesstimate of the EIA’s crude oil inventory, which you will obviously get as you listen to this on Wednesday. So part of the reason why you’re seeing prices right now sort of spike and then most likely we’ll see that rise overnight. So big draw when it comes to the when it comes to our oil reserves. The only thing interesting stew that I saw, Phillips 66 to acquire epic NGL midstream assets in the Permian. This is a pretty interesting deal. Phillips, 66, went ahead and inked up a deal to acquire the epic NGL Why Grade Jeep LLC and the Why grade LP, which is basically the entire combined entity for 2.2 million R 2.2 billion with a B dollars. The reason for the LP obviously is you’ve got the GP, the manage it, the LP, you kind of you, you do this as a classic private placement. There’s there’s kind of two sides to the equation. Pretty interesting quote there from Mark last year. He’s the chair and chief executive over at Phillips 66. This transition transaction bolsters Phillips 66 position as the leading integrated downstream energy provider. This transaction optimizes our Permian NGL value chain, allows Phillips 66 and produce to the right producer with comprehensive flow assurance reaching fractionation facilities near Corpus Christi Sweeney, Mont. Blue, Texas, and expect to deliver attractive returns in excess of our hurdle rates. And to give you an idea, these epic midstream NGL operations comprise of two different fractionation units with each of a capacity about 170,000 barrels on near Corpus Christi, about 350 miles of purity distribution pipelines and NGL pipeline, about 885 miles long and a capacity of about 175 barrels per day on this NGL pipeline links Delaware Midland and the Eagle for basins now all the way to those fractionation facilities and Phillips 66 already existing Sweeny Hub, which provides for a bunch of different distillations and stuff. Basically they’re able to increase its pipeline capacity to about 250,000 barrels per day and has a sanctioned second expansion to about 350,000. Again, guys, this goes back with my theory of you’re going to see a lot more pipeline M&A happen because these valuations are never going to be higher if more pipelines are going to get built because of less regulations. This $2.2 billion acquisition, maybe $1.5 billion or $1 billion in three years. Now, why can Phillips 66 absorb this? Well, because they have an initial infrastructure. If you’re able to buy something, lower the cost of production, but keep revenue high. Well, now you’ve created margin for yourself that can allow you to afford a larger, you know, a quote unquote, larger valuation. You know, no private equity company is going to go buy these midstream assets because they don’t naturally have the ability to do that unless they can roll it in with a larger, more integrated company. So I think you’re going to see a lot of these larger midstream already conglomerates be able to pick off some of these smaller ones due to this fact. So I think this is just another cog in the wheel of I would be short midstream long LNG facilities. As always, guys, you do not take investment advice from us, maybe? Stu Definitely not. That’s all I’ve got. Stu What else do we miss the day? What should people be worried about is think about the phrase these next couple of days. [00:19:06][284.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:07] I’ve been freezing where I’m at. [00:19:08][1.5]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:09] So yes, it’s been okay. It’s been cold. Let let’s be very careful here. It’s only it’s been not that cold. [00:19:14][5.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:15] It’s been five below or five above with windchill. I call that a winter. [00:19:19][4.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:20] That’s like when people say I’m 17.5. If you got to throw that half in there, then you’re not that old. You got to throw wind chill in there. I have no. [00:19:27][6.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:27] Hair. Wind chill on my hat. Okay, look, you got to have a hat. [00:19:31][4.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:32] Good point. I am Eskimo. I am part Eskimo. [00:19:34][2.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:35] Yeah, You’ve got a fur coat year round. [00:19:37][2.2]
Michael Tanner: [00:19:37] Did you sell my guys with that? Will let you get out of here. Get back to work. Stay warm out there, guys. And for Stuart Turley, I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks. [00:19:37][0.0][1152.4]
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