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Green Swindle Loses Again: EV Automaker Runs Out Of Juice
Nikola, a hydrogen-electric semi-truck maker, filed Chapter 11 after a spectacular market collapse. With news of another green company going under, the green industry would never have fully developed if the federal government had not […]
NY’s Net Zero Dream Unravels As Utopian Climate Plans Face Lawsuit Woes
Everything about New York’s vision for a net zero economy is unraveling, and its utopian climate plans have only gotten worse. Back at the beginning of the year, I had a post titled “New York […]
Highlights of the Podcast
00:00 – Intro
01:10 – Green Swindle Loses Again: EV Automaker Runs Out Of Juice
02:45 – NY’s Net Zero Dream Unravels As Utopian Climate Plans Face Lawsuit Woes
05:22 – Markets Update
07:24 – Civitas Resources, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results
08:48 – Chord Energy Reports Strong Q4, Increases Dividend
09:32 – Outro
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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Michael Tanner: [00:00:10] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome into the Wednesday, February 26th, 2025 edition of the Daily Energy Newsbeat Standup. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, green swindle loses again, EV automaker runs out of juice. The story of Nikola and the trucking business. We will cover all that. And then finally, in the new segment, New York’s net zero dream unravels as utopian climate plans face lawsuit woes. I will then jump over quickly to cover what happened to oil and gas markets. Oil prices fell off a little bit of a cliff that it will cover about why. And then the two earnings I want to highlight. One, Civitas, mainly because their stock absolutely cratered on some news that may be not be related to their actual stock price. But then as we jump over, we will also look at Chord Energy, who we’ve talked a little bit on my Deal Spotlight podcast. And we will dive into all that and a bag of chips, guys. As always, I am Michael Tanner rocking a solo show today. Stu is out on assignment. Let’s go ahead kick this off. All right. [00:01:09][59.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:01:10] First up, green swindle loses again. EV automaker runs out of juice. If you guys don’t remember Trevor Milton and his hyped up Nikola, they were supposed to be the EV replacement for semi trucks. They were kind of a splash competitor up there with Tesla. You know, they went public, if anyone remembers, in the hype of June of 2020 with their market value jumping all the way to 27 billion. We actually had it higher than Ford, even though they had had really not sent a single vehicle. But it is a lot of stuff turned out to be pretty false there in 2022. Their founder, Trevor Milton, as I mentioned, went to jail for fraud. Their infamous vehicle rolling down the hill was actually doing just that, which was rolling. They were supposed to have a thousand mile ranges on all electric trucks. The issue is they only actually delivered about 500 of the 14 ,000 promised trucks. And they had to recall about 209 of them over battery fire issues. The median price tag on these trucks was $250 ,000, which is about twice the speed of an internal combustion engine. And so they finally, even after firing him, trying to reconsolidate, have gone bankrupt. And it’s pretty crazy. And so it was, you know, again, pretty unbelievable what happened with them. You talk about going from 27 billion all the way down to zero now to basically be sold for parts. It really goes to show that these automakers, you know, Tesla being, I think, the exclusion of this, all these automakers that are other than the normal established ones really traded these really crazy multiples. I think this goes into kind of the green new scam that we’re going to talk about. [00:02:44][94.8]
Michael Tanner: [00:02:45] So let’s jump over to the next one. New York’s net zero dream unravels as utopian climate plants face lawsuit woes. You know, New York was really relying on theoretically wind and solar to save its electrical woes, but they, and they had multiple, multiple contracts to build very large wind farms to replace some of their fossil fuel generation. But all of them or most of them have already been completely canceled or rebuilt at a much higher and uneconomic prices, which is the minority. Basically, you know, the reason why this situation has got worse is because since president Trump has taken place, he began dismantling the federal support and subsidies for these, which means, which goes to show that these projects can’t stand up without any subsidies. According to this, this executive order, which temporarily withdrew all outer continental shelf from leasing wind power. You know, there are, you know, basically all if, you know, most, if not all of New York’s offshore wind is actually on these leases. So they really can’t actually build anything. But, you know, basically what, what this goes to show is that New York was relying on many billions of dollars to prop up wind, solar, and green. It’s pretty unbelievable to see what’s happened. To give you guys an idea, the New York state climates leadership and community protection app of 19 of 2019 actually remains on the books. The statute commands the complete restructuring of New York’s energy economy. I’m reading straight from the article now to reach quote net zero greenhouse gasses by 2050 with an immediate first deadline of 20, 70 % of electrical generation renewables by 2030, though they actually never had a plan to achieve that that was supposed to be on the book. So it goes to show you that all this green stuff is, is, is, was being subsidies. If one, if, if, if by a stroke of a pen, a president by just pulling away subsidies can absolutely decimate an injury. It goes to show you really how much they do rely on subsidies and, and, and how it really can’t hold its weight under, you know, scrutiny relative to other sources. So wind farms, they’re falling left and right. [00:04:42][116.9]
Michael Tanner: [00:04:42] Let’s go ahead and jump over now and quickly look at finances guys. Before we do that, we got to pay the bills as always. Thank you for checking us out here on the world’s greatest website, www .energynewsbeat .com, the best place for all your energy and oil and gas news, Stu and 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. You can hit that description below for all links to the timestamps, links to the article, shout out to sponsor of the show, Reese Energy Consulting. Go check them out guys. ReeseEnergyConsulting .com for all your oil, gas marketing and LNG needs. And as always guys, invest in oil .energynewsbeat .com if you want to become Billy Bob Thornton from Landman. [00:05:20][38.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:05:22] But let’s jump over here. Market headlines here guys. S &P 500 down about a half a percentage point. NASDAQ down a full 1 .2 percentage points, two and 10 -year yields went out 1 .7 and 2 .3 % respectively. Dollar index fairly steady at about down about three -tenths of a percentage point. Bitcoin down to 88 ,000, shed about 3 % or about $3 ,000 day over day. Crude oil, pretty monstrous day, down about three percentage points. 69 .11 as it currently trades right now as we record this about 5 .45 here central time on the 25th. Brent oil was down somewhat less down to 73 .19. Natural gas was down about three percentage points all the way to $4 .12. XOP was our E &P securities contract and was actually down 2 .36 percentage points. So not a great day for oil stocks. Mainly, part of the reason why prices are down to its two -month low has a lot to do with complications specifically from the U .S. economy. A lot of tariffs going on, specifically some weak economic news coming out of the United States and Germany. We saw consumer competence fell to its lowest and sharpest pace in the last three and a half years with 12 -month inflation going higher. With Trump’s plans to increase higher tariffs that has raised inflation worries around the Federal Reserve, which means they could keep interest rates higher, which is again going to slow economic growth and energy demand. Tariffs beginning on Canada and Mexico imports are scheduled to start March 4th. So I think people are awaiting that. He did have a quote that say they are on time and on schedule, which may boost oil prices by reducing supplies from both countries. So that was offset a little bit by that. We did see the fact that the deal between Russia and Ukraine that’s being negotiated kind of without, a little bit without U .S. or the Ukraine’s involvement. But it’s very interesting, folks, what’s going on with some of those, some of those negotiations and whether or not anything will actually be accepted by Ukraine considering their negotiating upon their behalf. But we will be following that. And I think that’s really what’s driving prices. [00:07:23][121.6]
Michael Tanner: [00:07:24] Let’s quickly look over at Civatas, guys. They go ahead and release their earnings today. It’s pretty fascinating to see. Basically, I think the thing to see here is that their earnings were okay. I mean, you saw about $1 .3 billion of free cash flow, net income at $151 million, adjusted net income at $171 million, operating cash flow at about $858 million, sales volumes of about $352 billion a day, oil volumes of about $164 billion a day, capex of about $279 million, and adjusted free cash flow at about $519 million. Stock got absolutely hammered, though, down 18 percentage points, shed about $9 all the way down to $40 .35, really due to the fact that they, out of a whim, terminated their COO without cause. And basically, T. Hodge Walker, the COO, was officially terminated without cause, effective immediately, the company said. He was originally their VP of their Chevron, of the Chevron’s Rockies divisions prior to becoming Sibatos COO in April 2020. So he can’t even last two years. Not great there. And they also did say they’re eyeing a 10 % workforce reduction, which means all doesn’t quite go well. Yay, cash flow numbers look great, but they’re still eyeing a little bit of it up. So the street didn’t like any of those numbers. [00:08:48][83.4]
Michael Tanner: [00:08:48] Chord Energy also dropped earnings today. They had about a decent quarter. The market didn’t like it that much. Their oil volumes were actually up relative at the high end of their fourth quarter guidance at 153 .3 thousand barrels per day. The funny part is, if you look at that over a quarter to quarter, they actually shed about 5 ,000 B crude oil, barrels per oil per day, and they spent about $275 million in capex to do that. So I think the street, they were down slightly more than the XOP contract at 2 .42 % of the street. Didn’t really like those numbers. Again, show business is hard, guys. You spend a lot of money to barely increase production or in Chord’s case actually shed production. [00:09:31][43.0]
Michael Tanner: [00:09:32] So guys, with that, I’m going to let you get out of here. Short show for me. Appreciate you all checking us out here on the World’s Greatest Podcast. Check us out www .energynewsbeat .com for Stuart Turley and Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks. [00:09:32][0.0][557.8]
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