The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts non-OPEC crude oil production to increase by 1.8 million barrels per day this year.
OPEC+ has maintained output cuts for three years, reducing its global market share from 53% in 2016 to 47% in 2024.
Global crude inventories are shrinking, with OECD stocks falling below the five-year average.
Crude oil production in countries that are not members of OPEC is set to account for most of global supply growth both this year and next. That’s according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which saw non-OPEC growth at an impressive 1.8 million barrels daily for this year and 1 million daily next year. OPEC may have a problem with that.
OPEC and its partners in OPEC+ led by Russia have been withholding a substantial portion of their combined oil production for going on three years—an amount close to 6 million barrels daily in total, equal to some 5.7% of global supply, according to Reuters. This has helped keep international prices relatively high, motivating more drilling in non-OPEC countries. The question now, with such forecasts, is how much longer OPEC and its OPEC+ friends will keep curbing their own output—and market share—benefiting their rivals outside the cartel?
According to the Energy Information Administration, oil production outside OPEC last year added 1.8 million barrels daily—the same amount of supply the EIA believes non-OPEC producers will add this year as well. This supply growth will be led by the United States, Canada, Guyana, and Brazil. OPEC supply, meanwhile, will only add some 100,000 barrels daily this year and another 600,000 bpd in 2026, per this forecast.
Now, it is a fact that OPEC—and OPEC+—have shown impressive restraint with production these past three years. In the past, they would have already opened the taps to drown the competition. This restraint seems to have convinced forecasters that a reversal of that policy is quite unlikely, and rightly so. OPEC officials have consistentlyrepeated that the group has no plans to change tack, regardless of whether it is the International Energy Agency asking them to boost production or the U.S. president. Yet non-OPEC supply keeps growing while OPEC supply stays curbed.
According to the International Energy Agency’s latest monthly oil report, global oil supply is set to expand by 1.6 million barrels daily this year, “with gains led by the Americas.” That means the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Guyana again. Yet the EIA, for one, and U.S. oil executives, for another, do not seem to expect big production moves in the U.S. due to prices—and any substantial increase in other non-OPEC producers would affect these as well, ultimately countering the supply predictions by both the EIA and the IEA.
Stocks, meanwhile, continue to shrink, and it may well be this fact that is helping OPEC and OPEC+ stick to their production cuts, in the belief that sooner or later, the reality of melting global oil inventories will assert itself among traders and change their betting behavior.
The IEA said in its February Oil Market Report that in January alone, global crude oil stocks took a plunge of 950,000 barrels daily amid stronger, seasonally driven demand, which coincided with supply declines in Nigeria and Libya. The agency then added that supply during that month was still 1.9 million bpd higher than a year earlier. That sounds like all is well, yet the IEA also mentioned that OECD crude stocks dropped by 63.5 million barrels in December, with industry inventories specifically falling to 91.1 million below the five-year average. That does not really sound like all is well—and it may be one of the things keeping OPEC+ from opening those taps, because OPEC+ has seen its market share shrink over the past ten years, and that is not something to be taken lightly.
Per the EIA, OPEC+ had a combined market share of 53% in 2016, when the broader producer group was formed. In 2024, that share had fallen to 47% because of the cuts and growing competition. This year, the EIA sees OPEC+’s market share decline further by a percentage point. It’s a slow but steady erosion that the group might want to address at some point. It probably will, but options are limited—and risky.
OPEC has, in the past, reacted to competition by flooding the market with crude. It worked, too, until it didn’t, when Saudi Arabia and Russia last had a disagreement on production policies, and the Saudis launched the shortest oil price war in modern times, which led to a 65% drop in oil prices, helped significantly by pandemic demand destruction since it happened in spring 2020. That price war ended by setting the stage for the creation of OPEC+.
The Saudis’ price wars on U.S. shale were more successful due to the sensitivity of shale drillers to price swings and their generally higher production costs. This is certainly something to consider in future efforts to keep prices high enough for OPEC’s budgets—and stop the erosion of market share. Whether OPEC and OPEC+ would risk a price war, however, remains highly uncertain until they really have no other option.
The Trump administration is intensifying its crackdown on Iranian oil shipments to China.
Unlike his first term, Trump’s second presidency is actively using economic and geopolitical pressure.
The Trump administration is targeting tankers, brokers, financiers, and shipping hubs that facilitate Iranian oil exports to China.
The second presidency of Donald Trump has already demonstrated that a lot was learned from the first. Gone is the belief that a retreat into neo-isolationism is the best way to ‘Make America Great Again’ as he promised his supporters. After all, of the 14 different presidents (aside from Trump) since 1932, 10 achieved greater annual economic growth in the U.S. than Trump, with 3 doing worse, and 1 managing the same 2.3% rate. Trump’s first presidential term also marked the beginning of the accelerated surge in Chinese and Russian power into former geopolitical strongholds of the U.S., most notably the energy-rich Middle East. Consequently, this neo-isolation of his first presidency has been replaced with a full-on version of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, albeit one overlain with Trump’s own brand of business hustle. In essence, it boils down to piling pressure on potential rivals to keep them on the defensive, from which position the U.S. can conclude deals to its own advantage. As part of this ongoing strategy, Trump’s team has been stepping up a ‘double whammy’ tactic to further disable the key threat to its Middle Eastern objectives – Iran – and in the process add to the economic pressure on its only possible superpower rival, China.
Specifically in this regard, the U.S. in recent days has been targeting tankers and ports that have been instrumental in enabling the continued flow of Iranian oil out in the wide world and especially into its major buyer, China. Under the terms of the ‘Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement’, as first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article on the subject and also fully detailed in my latest book on the new global oil market order, Beijing receives extremely preferential pricing on Iranian oil and gas imports. As China is reliant on energy imports to power its economic growth, the more oil and gas it can secure at prices below the rest of the world, the greater the advantage it has in engineering growth at a lower cost than it could effect on its own. The more it can grow in such a fashion, the greater the funding it can offer to countries it is targeting in its geopolitical expansion programme that runs under the umbrella of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. And the greater this funding, the more leverage China has over these targets to secure key strategic tracts of land or sea in lieu of debts owed or investments made – including most notably, Iran and Iraq’s major airports and naval ports under long-term co-operation agreements, Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port, and Djibouti’s Doraleh Port, among others.
The U.S. has long been aware of this key link between Iran and China and Trump’s first presidential team tried to do something about it. Specifically, Washington imposed sanctions on various companies and individuals that were seen to be instrumental in the moving of Iranian oil to China with the express intention of reducing such flows to ‘zero’. Indeed, several high-profile reports in August 2020 cited data released on 26 July by China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) as clear evidence that China did not import any crude oil from Iran in June ‘for the first time since January 2007’. This was absolute nonsense or wishful thinking or some combination of the two. Not only was China continuing to import many millions of barrels of crude oil from Iran every single month, but plans remained in place to continue to do so. Specifically, as exclusively highlighted at the time by OilPrice.com, from 1 June to 21 July (51 days), China imported at least 8.1 million barrels of crude oil – 158,823 barrels per day (bpd) – from Iran in a number of relatively direct ways, a senior oil and gas industry source who worked closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry exclusively told us. The vast majority of these 8.1 million barrels were delivered by crude oil container ships.
The key element in this narrative that the U.S. appeared to be overlooking at the time was quite simply that any and all Iranian crude oil that went into ‘bonded storage’ was not put through Chinese Customs at all – and was not even recorded as having been ‘paid for’ – and consequently did not appear on any GAC documentation. This holds true to this day. That said, Washington’s latest moves to cut off this vital source of funding for Iran and this crucial source of cheap energy for China focus on identifying specific tankers associated with such shipments, including those used in the widespread Iranian practice of disguising it as being the supplier by doing ship-to-ship transfers to tankers flying the flag of another country. As also analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order, such ship-to-ship transfers have been commonplace in and around the waters of Malaysia (and to a lesser extent Indonesia) for years before the vessels then made their way to ports in China. So unashamedly proud was Iran of these and other efforts to outfox the U.S.’s sanctions on these oil exports that in December 2018 at the Doha Forum, Iran’s then-Foreign Minister, Mohammad Zarif, stated that: “If there is an art that we have perfected in Iran, [that] we can teach to others for a price, it is the art of evading sanctions.” Towards the end of 2020, Iran’s then-Petroleum Minister himself, Bijan Zangeneh, added a little detail to one such tried-and-trusted method: “What we export is not under Iran’s name. The documents are changed over and over, as well as [the] specifications.”
However, a senior legal source who works very closely with the U.S. agencies involved in such sanctions exclusively told OilPrice.com last week that a major new raft of sanctions targeting the key elements in these such ship-to-ship transfer hubs is in the offing. This would include not just the ships involved, but their companies, owners, brokers, financiers and bankers with any connections to these activities. Although the initial focus of such additional measures will be on the longtime Malaysian side of the operations, it may also be that the Chinese end is eventually targeted directly too, said the source. Although Beijing has already made some moves to be seen to be addressing Washington’s concerns – with Shandong Port Group notably banning ships sanctioned by the U.S. in January – much more remains to be done, according to the source. The recent extension of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s key regional ally – Iraq — flagged that the U.S. can and will go after the major financing centres that China uses in its dealings with Tehran if Washington thinks Beijing is consistently overstepping the line in challenging key areas of strategic interest for the U.S., the source added. With China’s finances failing, Russia’s dismal showing in Ukraine and Syria, and Iran and its proxies incapacitated by U.S. ally Israel, Trump’s second presidential term looks like a good time to reset the global power balance, he added. Consequently, it is highly likely that a quickly-scalable ladder of consequences – tariffs, sanctions, and other measures – will be used on Iran and China and its allies, for perceived breaches of what Trump’s new Presidential Administration deems acceptable policies with relation to the U.S. and its own allies. This will be an integral part of a broader new initiative to “put Beijing back in its box”, as the Washington source told OilPrice.com, and neutering the threat from its ‘Axis of Upheaval’ into the bargain.
Ukraine has rejected a bid by the US to own 50% of the country’s rare earth minerals, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy seeks to negotiate a better deal, the Financial Times reported.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent presented the proposal to Zelenskiy in a draft contract, which was brought to their meeting on Wednesday, NBC reported earlier, citing eight US officials it didn’t identify. Zelenskiy didn’t sign the document and said he needed to study and consult others on it, according to the US outlet.
Zelenskiy wants US and European security guarantees to be tied directly to any deal on the mineral reserves, the FT said, citing three unidentified people familiar with the negotiations. A senior Ukrainian official told the newspaper Kyiv was seeking a “better deal.”
The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington and a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council didn’t respond to NBC’s requests for comment Friday.
The Trump administration has signaled that it expects Kyiv to grant access to its natural resources including critical minerals, as well as pledge to purchase US energy exports, in return for its military and economic support against Russia, which invaded in 2022.
Like many critical minerals, rare earths are relatively abundant globally, but they don’t often exist in concentrations that allow for them to be extracted and refined economically. Outside of China, the largest reserves are found in Brazil, India, Australia, Russia, Vietnam, and the US itself, according to data from the US Geological Survey.
USGS data shows that Ukraine has no major known rare-earth reserves, although the country’s own geological agency has stated that they have been found in a handful of mineral deposits, primarily in areas in the east of the country that are partially under Russian control. It has also identified reserves of several other critical minerals including titanium, lithium, and graphite.
You do not want to miss this episode of the LIVE Energy Realities Podcast on LinkedIn, X, and YouTube. David Blackmon, Tammy Nemeth, Irina Slav, and Stu Turley host a wild topic that we secretly had on our Bingo Cards: “Is the War on Coal Dead?” With the world needing more power, we are seeing a shift toward more coal use worldwide. What kind of realignment is happening? – Make sure you stop by and ask the team questions as they are from the U.S., Bulgaria, Canada, or the UK.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:11 – Introduction
02:26 – Coal’s Resilience Amid Energy Transition
05:20 – Coal’s Role in Global Energy Supply
10:00 – Germany’s Energy Crisis & Global Coal Plant Expansion
13:40 – U.S. Power Grid & ERCOT’s Energy Shortfall
18:00 – China’s Record Coal Expansion in 2024
23:00 – Energy Transition: Myth vs. Reality
30:10 – U.S. LNG Exports & Trade Strategy
35:30 – DOGE: Reuters Paid Millions by DoD for ‘Large Scale Social Deception’
37:18 – Diamondback in Talks to Buy Permian Producer Double Eagle
38:02 – Exclusive: India’s NTPC plans to spend $62 billion on 30 GW of nuclear power, sources say
38:33 – Trump, Zeldin, Looking to Challenge the EPA’s Ability to Regulate Plant Food as a Pollutant
42:37 – Google says US is facing a power capacity crisis in AI race against China
44:07 – Why upstream companies might break their capital discipline rules
49:10 – ERCOT’s latest projections show potential problems for Texas power grid by 2027
53:11 – Trump to boost U.S. offshore oil and gas with new energy dominance council
55:00 – Final Thoughts: The Future of Energy Policy
Irina SlavInternational Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. BulgariaDavid BlackmonPrincipal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Tammy NemethEnergy Consulting SpecialistStuart TurleyPresident, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host
Is the war on coal over?
David Blackmon [00:00:11] Well, hello everyone. Welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. Today is February 17th, 2025. It is the four week anniversary of the inauguration of President Donald Trump, and the world is still reeling from the level of activity here in the United States. Before we came on Irina Slav, who is in Bulgaria? Hello. How are you? Irina?
Irina Slav [00:00:41] I’m good. Little bit cold because winter is back.
David Blackmon [00:00:45] Yes. Yes, it’s back everywhere. I’m afraid, Stu Turley in Oklahoma.
Stuart Turley [00:00:52] Hey, it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
David Blackmon [00:00:54] Yes. Before before we came out, we were talking about J.D. Vance, his speech at the Munich Security Conference last Friday. That was it was really gotten quite the reaction in Europe and the United States. And it’s it’s a wild and wooly world we’re in right now. But we’re here to talk about all today. It’s it’s very interesting what’s happening on the coal front. Even before President Trump took office, coal refused to cooperate with the narrative of this energy transition and just go away quietly as China and India have made certain that it continues to be burned at record pace across the globe all time records, despite the spending of trillions of dollars in subsidies for wind and solar and some other, quote, green energy forms like hydrogen, which of course, we all know is a pipe dream and carbon capture and all these other things. Coal continues to be the king of power generation all across the earth. And one notable thing in the United States last week was the fact that our energy secretary, Chris Wright the most qualified person to ever hold that job, said the United States is going to stop closing coal fired power plants in the Trump administration. That sets the stage for a renaissance of coal here, even in the United States. And we’re here to talk about it. Irina What is your perspective on what’s happening on the coal front?
Irina Slav [00:02:26] Well, let me start with a personal story. I told you guys before we went live that the weather forecast has -14°C for the weekend, which is really, really cold. But you know what we have? We have coal. We have the three biggest coal power plants in the country. I can see them from my window. And sorry I’m working. Yeah, I believe full capacity because that’s the only kind of reliable electricity we can get in addition to our nuclear power plant. So I understand there are problems with coal. If you don’t control the operators, they can get careless and spew dirt in the atmosphere. And when I say dirt, I mean particulate matter. I don’t mean carbon dioxide. So control is obviously necessary, but coal gives you reliable and cheap electricity. It stops being cheap when you start taxing these coal power plants for their carbon emissions, which is what the European Union does. And it has made coal more expensive relative to other sources of energy. And it has been one of the biggest mistakes that the European Union has made. And maybe they will realize it, maybe they won’t. But even Germany is cranking up the coal power plants because there’s no wind. And by the way, did you did you see the new study that says it’s climate change? That’s. Responsible for the low wind speeds in Europe. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:04:13] That’s never happened before, right?
Irina Slav [00:04:15] It has never happened before. It doesn’t happen in winter generally, because when it’s so cold, the wind doesn’t blow so strongly. But yeah, it’s. It’s climate change. And I’m sure the solution I didn’t read the whole study, but I’m sure the solution is build more wind turbines. You know, keep yourself into the hole while you keep your coal power plants. And I think I think I’ve said this before on some episode, what China and India are doing is what everybody should be doing, because I think dominant in this, they score pretty much everywhere. It’s really accessible, unlike oil and gas in many parts of the world. But this coal. Pretty much everywhere. And there’s a lot of go in India and China, which is why they’re building new coal power plants. And we should all be doing this or, you know, not closing the ones we have.
David Blackmon [00:05:20] So I think that’s right. And Stu has a wonderful illustration of what’s happening. Germany has done pretty much everything wrong in power generation over the past 20 years. But one thing they haven’t done wrong is shut down all their coal fired power plants like the U.K. has done. And Stu, that World Energy monitor has a great map that illustrates what’s happened, what’s happening. Number one, with operational coal plants all over the face of the earth. But let us take a look, Stu, at what’s happening in Germany.
Stuart Turley [00:05:51] All right. But when we take a look at this, I have to give them a shout out. This is the Global Energy Monitor, and it was in an article from Tanzania’s I Can’t. She’s from Oil Price and I cannot pronounce your name. I apologize. I’ll Irina, how would you pronounce your name here? It’s . Tes, That tes.
Irina Slav [00:06:14] Bestfriend so her name is Tsvetana Paraskova
Stuart Turley [00:06:19] okay thank you. I cannot say it and I apologize. But she has a great article and I added the map into this after pirating it and it’s on my site. But now when we come over here that I did, I say that I pirated it. Yes. But I gave her credit. These are the coal plants around the world that are announced. Notice we’re there. They’re taking a look. We’re in Mozambique. We’re in India. And look at the size of these rascals. This one, these are some huge ones. As we’re taking a look. Let’s go into the permitted ones. I don’t know that there’s a permitting issue in India or China going on right now. I don’t know that that’s a problem. And I think we know them. Yeah. Lee Zeldin, the United States is going to do that. You notice the United States is still like no permits. Let’s go under under construction. Okay. Drumroll. Look at this.
David Blackmon [00:07:19] Gosh.
Stuart Turley [00:07:21] This is under construction at this moment. There’s 437 of them with 4000MW. That is our power. Look at this one right here. So now let’s take a look at what’s operating right now. You have 6120MW around the world. And when you take a.
David Blackmon [00:07:50] Big cluster up in Germany. Let’s narrow in to Germany here
David Blackmon [00:07:58] Look at Germany.
Stuart Turley [00:07:58] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:08:00] With all those coal fired power plants.
Stuart Turley [00:08:04] And here’s Bulgaria down over here. So these. These are great. Which one?
Irina Slav [00:08:11] I’m right there. Near these. Them.
Stuart Turley [00:08:15] How fun. The.
David Blackmon [00:08:18] Well, you’re sure you’re going to have power going during this cold?
Irina Slav [00:08:21] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:08:22] But look at Germany. Operating
Irina Slav [00:08:29] Well, it closed them. You know, there was at least one person with some sense in their head. Who said we shouldn’t shut them down yet.
David Blackmon [00:08:40] Like they did with their nuclear Plants.
Stuart Turley [00:08:42] and.
David Blackmon [00:08:43] All their nuclear.
Stuart Turley [00:08:44] And look at Europe when you take a look at I added back in announced pre pre pre permit announced in operating and one of the biggest things that there’s another article that came out guys and that is that. Texas Ercot. I’ve been reviewing the grid in the United States and in the grid in the United States is not going to meet demand. I’m working on that article and it is going to not meet it. Ercot put out a report that we are going to see a little bit of a problem in 2020, 2026, 2026 and 2027. And so a little bit of a problem is, okay, that’s better than 90% of the rest of the United States. So Texas is at least doing better there. Let me go up here to this comment.
David Blackmon [00:09:44] That that is why I believe we’re going to be reactivating mothballed coal plants in Texas and eventually permitting new coal plants in Texas, because, I mean, you have to have the base load to keep up with our exploding economic and population growth.
Stuart Turley [00:10:00] Let’s go to Shell Mothball and cancel And so
Irina Slav [00:10:06] Its really really Stupid on the part of Romania’s government. They should rethink ocean.
David Blackmon [00:10:11] And yeah, that’s why you shouldn’t.
Irina Slav [00:10:13] Be around enough workers at coal power plants to protest because this is what we did. I mean, it’s still it’s still uncertain. I think they can still forces to do the same. But there are a lot of people employed in that industry.
Stuart Turley [00:10:31] David Absolutely, and that’s an excellent point from email. And take a look at the moth, canceled, shelved or mothballed. And how much of those have been shut down? There’s 170 mothballed. Now? I don’t know. I have to go look up the definition of mothballed and can they be turned back on? And in Germany, Bulgaria has several that are mothballed. Let’s take a look. Yeah, this is. 100MW. Germany. Yeah. So it started
David Blackmon [00:11:17] Supposedly renegotiating right now, also fighting off ONGs, which is what we call NGOs in the United States, trying to shut down hydro hydro, which is what Spain has done. It’s created so many floods in Spain, blown up dams.
Irina Slav [00:11:40] Romania has a lot of hydropower. If they want to start restoring rivers. And so putting a lot of people in danger and not just from unreliable energy supplies. Well, I hope you vote sensibly and we’ll add the next elections. I don’t know what to say. We can hope.
David Blackmon [00:12:03] Yeah. Well, but even if they do, you have to hope that the Deep State doesn’t come in and cancel the election. If it goes the wrong way.
Irina Slav [00:12:14] I think this is the second time. This will be really dangerous, I think.
David Blackmon [00:12:20] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:12:21] Really, really dangerous.
David Blackmon [00:12:25] So what is that? What is what are we showing here Stu?
Stuart Turley [00:12:30] These are retired. And I found this one very interesting. When you take a look at 1953, retired year was 2009. How much of the equipment has been removed versus how much is it going to cost to bring back on line? If the connections or grid connections are there? It should be fairly easy. It depends on how much equipment they removed. Right. Makes sense. Yep. But this is a very telling sign of how much has been been done. Let’s go back into Germany first so.
Irina Slav [00:13:07] UK look at this.
Stuart Turley [00:13:10] Isn’t that amazing? Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:13:12] And that’s all happened in this century.
Stuart Turley [00:13:16] Retired 2013 and their their energy prices have the UK and we’ve all talked about this about how the world. And their energy. Deindustrialization is ongoing right now.
David Blackmon [00:13:35] Yeah. Yeah. It’s just crazy. And that’s that’s part of what Chris Wright was saying. We’re not going to continue this deindustrialization effort the Biden administration had embarked upon and that we’re going to keep our coal plants open. And I suspect we’ll be reinvigorating some of these mothballed plants.
Stuart Turley [00:13:57] One of the key things that I think every all three of us understand, but I don’t know that all of our listeners really kind of have gotten it is. Let’s take a look again at this. Okay. That’s operating in under construction right now. The United States has reduced its CO2 output by 22% over the last five years, I believe. And it was because of natural gas coming online and coal plants shutting down. There is nothing that we can do. To stop or help this. When you take a look at how much CO2, the Great Wall of China rolls right around in somewhere around here viewable from space. It does not contain CO2 or particulate matter from coal plants as much as we would like to believe it. There’s nothing the United States can do to solve the problem.
Irina Slav [00:15:07] Just bomb them. How many look governments like this solution to problems? But I think there will be issues with emissions. I am looking.
Stuart Turley [00:15:24] Yes, I for this is for entertainment purposes only, but DOGE for DOGE. Discovering that USAID has been a corruption source for the three letter agencies disrupting governments around the world and more things. Can you imagine how much corruption that people are looking at right now? I’ve got a video of some U.S. politicians looking at the DOGE corruption report right now. Iryna, this is critical. And when you sit back and take a look, they are looking at this report, it is frightening to understand that they’re going, wait a minute. They’re more upset that Elon is looking at these reports. But here they are looking at these reports. So they’re not worried that they’re not that we’re funding trends, something or other parties in Afghanistan. That’s not the issue. The issue is that billions have been stolen from the. Billions of dollars and trillions of dollars have been stolen from the American people. And I believe that we are about to find out how bad that is. As it’s related to energy as well. Doge is now supposed to be auditing Fort Knox that hasn’t been audited since 1994. Oops. And there is a global shortage of gold going on right now.
Irina Slav [00:17:03] Not in China not in Russia. They have been buying gold very smartly over the past, well, at least five years.
David Blackmon [00:17:14] Yeah. And we’re supposed to have 6532 tons of gold at Fort Knox. And we’ll see how much we actually have. Maybe we do. I hope so. If not, that could create some fallout in the markets.
Stuart Turley [00:17:30] I believe in don’t. We’re going to find out.
David Blackmon [00:17:34] A belief here, but I don’t have any insight into that.
Stuart Turley [00:17:38] I don’t either.
Irina Slav [00:17:39] What does that include? Foreign reserves as in countries storing their gold at Fort Knox?
David Blackmon [00:17:46] How much physical gold we’re supposed to have at Fort Knox? That’s right. I think it’s 6542. I might be getting the numbers slightly wrong, but it’s it’s thousands of tons of coal supposed to be there.
Irina Slav [00:18:00] Yeah, but but, I mean, it’s not all US property.
David Blackmon [00:18:05] Right.
Irina Slav [00:18:06] It includes foreign storm.
David Blackmon [00:18:10] No, that’s just the physical gold that’s supposed to be at.
Irina Slav [00:18:14] Right? Yeah. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:18:15] That. I mean, there’s also, you know what you’re talking about to smuggle Copeland in Texas to get the $1.4 billion. I don’t know if it’s a loan or a grant from the USDA for solar and battery to place a coal plant. What a waste of our rural dollars. Yes, absolutely.
Irina Slav [00:18:33] They had the same idea about our coal plants. Exactly the same idea. Let’s put them into a solar power hub and green hydrogen. Let’s close the mines. Build the solar panels. Put in the batteries. And also put in some hydrolysis to produce green hydrogen. It is a horrifying idea. I hope this
David Blackmon [00:18:57] whole thing. All this
Irina Slav [00:18:57] Against global plans.
David Blackmon [00:18:59] Yeah, all those IRA incentives are under review right now. That may not mean we’ll see.
Irina Slav [00:19:06] Good.
David Blackmon [00:19:09] And that’s the objective, too.
Stuart Turley [00:19:11] Well, you know, Irina the hockey is a great is hockey a big thing in in Bulgaria?
Irina Slav [00:19:19] Well, not really. But I am a fan and it’s brutal and straightforward.
Stuart Turley [00:19:25] Yeah, the Canadians had a real fun booing of the United States. But I did find that after Trudeau went out and celebrated the loss by buying a new sports car. So this was pretty cool. This is a.
Stuart Turley [00:19:41] Yes, he he he did. Watch out.
David Blackmon [00:19:49] That really does look like.
Stuart Turley [00:19:51] It does look like him. I had the I had to show everybody that. Let’s watch that again. Watch this.
Stuart Turley [00:20:04] Okay. Sorry about that.
Irina Slav [00:20:05] It’s just him.
David Blackmon [00:20:06] I want one of those. By the way, I use wheelbarrows a lot. Man, I want one of those.
Stuart Turley [00:20:12] I do, too. I got my backhoe. I got it. My other thing. Other equipment around the place. So, you know, I got to have me one of them. That’s pretty darn cool.
David Blackmon [00:20:22] So a couple of of of little items of trivia that came out this week and couple of reports are new studies. One study found that China permitted more new coal plants in 2024 than in any year since 2015. Now, that’s directly contrary to the narrative that is being spun by the U.N. and the WB, that China is fully cooperating with the energy transition and over there leading the world in renewable energy and blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. They’re building more coal than they built in a decade. Why are they doing that? Because countries like the UK and Germany are de industrializing their economies, so all their heavy industries are moving offshore and many of them are moving to China, where if you’re going to make steel, you have to have coal. Yeah, you can do it with natural gas, but it’s more expensive. So they’re building coal plants to take in all these new heavy industries that the Western world is shipping over to them. What does that mean? It means that as China and the UK are industrializing their economies and bragging about their virtue, signaling about green energy and energy transition, their net reduction in global emissions is zero zero. They’re not doing anything. They’re not accomplishing a damn thing. And, you know, India is doing the same thing. India is also building a lot of nuclear, but they just continue to build more and more coal plants because they have to help them.
Stuart Turley [00:21:54] And and I want to bring this up. You mention that absolutely wonderful point. And that is, as the UK and Germany and the EU de industrialize India is industrializing and becoming one of the largest LNG importers in the world right now. And when you take a look at President Trump trying to do reverse tariffs, if you tariff something against the United States, he’s going to tariff your country the same rate. I love this. And I think it’s fantastic from the standpoint that the United, the UK, the EU tariffs, the United States unbelievably. And when you sit back and take a look at how much, you know, there’s a 200% Canadian tariff on U.S. farm goods. I’m all in. Let’s just do equal tariffs. You tariff us? We do if you have a great day. I like the way he’s thinking. But now LNG, David becomes Trump’s big thing because Europeans don’t want to buy Fords. And so what is what is the EU talking about right now, though? The EU is not at the table for the Russia Ukraine talks to be held in Saudi Arabia. So what is on the table right now for LNG? LNG? You’re going to have President Trump, you’re going to have Saudi Arabia and you’re going to have Russia, three of the biggest oil producers in the world. And a negotiation coming up next week for a wonderful end of the Ukraine war. And don’t tell me that LNG is not going to come up at this discussion. Well, sure. I think it’s going to be fabulous.
David Blackmon [00:23:56] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:23:57] Yeah. But first, they’ll they’ll close the deal between themselves and then they’ll invite the Europeans and maybe talk about LNG. And this could happen after the German election. So that will be interesting.
David Blackmon [00:24:10] That will be interesting. Although I think that German election is going to come out pretty status quo at the end of the day, after all. But after all the rhetoric around it.
Irina Slav [00:24:22] We’ll see. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:24:25] So LNG is going to be Trump’s hip pocket for tariffs and energy exports for the United States in balancing trade wars. That is the best thing that the United States has going for it right now. So now getting a long term contract is also tough, David. You and I have both talked about the Jones Act. We can’t build our own ships fast enough. We don’t have enough shipbuilding. And if I was a
David Blackmon [00:24:58] Do you know.
Stuart Turley [00:25:00] If I would want to be able to control the entire supply line? We don’t own ships.
David Blackmon [00:25:09] No, and we can’t because, I mean, all of our shipbuilding capability, United States is tied up by the U.S. Navy and even they’re going to need much more capability in the coming years. And so, you know, we have dramatically devastated our shipbuilding industry in the United States. And so most commercial ships and all commercial ships basically are built offshore. And that’s going to have to change to at some point. Hopefully, hopefully, all the changes Trump is making will encourage new shipbuilding capacity to come online here in the United States.
Stuart Turley [00:25:49] And boy, if President Trump, if you’re listening to this, please get rid of the Jones Act. Just thought I’d point that out.
David Blackmon [00:25:56] You know, that’s ideal and I agree with you in principle, but I doubt they’re going to invest a lot of political capital in that because it’s such a. I mean, it’s just it’s like one of the fourth rails of American politics. It’s just so tied up in in labor politics, union politics. And it just I’m my God. The first time I worked on an effort to modify the Jones Act. Was in 2001. I mean, people have been trying to modify or repeal the Jones Act for over a hundred years. You know, I mean, it just it’s never ending. It’s a terrible law. It’s it’s stupid and totally counterproductive. But it has an awful lot of very powerful political interests lined up behind it to keep it in place And. You know, maybe any nation that goes off into that. Is diverting a lot of political capital from from other things.
Stuart Turley [00:27:03] Well, maybe a fallout. We’ll see how the fallout goes around the world, because the world I loved. Vice President Vance telling the E.U. some interesting things that they did not like, that he was actually saying, by the way, you all are stifling free speech. And I loved what he had to say as a vice president. He was very well received and they did not like what he had to say. So I think America is a lot better now.
Irina Slav [00:27:35] They’re not used to hearing the truth, which is a big part of the problem.
David Blackmon [00:27:41] And I wonder, does McGarry have any guarantees of free speech similar to the First Amendment in the United States?
Irina Slav [00:27:49] Well, I think it’s in the Constitution, but whether it’s respected or not is an entirely different matter. Well, at least we’re not throwing people in jail for hate speech.
David Blackmon [00:27:59] Right. I mean, in Scotland and the U.K., they’re throwing people in prison for.
Irina Slav [00:28:04] Yeah. And besides, it will be more difficult next year because, you know, we have this totalitarian past and people are not touchy about anything.
David Blackmon [00:28:17] Yeah. Well. So I guess our bottom line here on coal is. I mean, it’s the same thing, same story. Every year we’re using record amount of coal. We haven’t reached peak coal yet, so don’t anybody talk to me about peak oil. Yeah, there is no energy transmission. I mean, right to transition the energy transition is a myth that isn’t happening. We have an energy addition and energy innovation out the wazoo, but there is no transition taking place. And everybody really ought to just stop talking about it in those terms, in my opinion. What do you think, Irina?
Irina Slav [00:29:01] I hope they will, but I doubt they will until they absolutely have to. Which is when they will start pretending they never pushed for this transition in the first place. I keep on saying this. It is my firm belief that this is what we’re going to see of the past over the next sorry few years. I think the bureaucrats, especially in Europe, they will fight to their last political breath to keep the narrative going in the face of all the evidence that it is not going as they hoped as they drain. It could never go this way because it’s impossible. And they will keep burning coal that will keep importing Russian gas even if they slap more sanctions. I mean,
David Blackmon [00:29:54] What is that? What does it say about the laws of physics and thermodynamics? Right. I mean, we talk about
Irina Slav [00:30:02] Yeah. Yeah. You can’t do anything about them. The laws.
David Blackmon [00:30:09] Stu, what do you think.
Stuart Turley [00:30:11] About the energy transition?
David Blackmon [00:30:15] Yeah. And about the law of physics and thermodynamics.
Stuart Turley [00:30:19] A great man once said, physics and fiscal responsibility matter to the grid. And I believe his name is David Blackmon. Did I call you a great name? I apologize. Sorry. Sorry about that. I did not mean to be nice. But when we sit back and take a look at the amount of corruption that is being discovered, the amount of Green New Deal energy policies coupled with corruption, people, regimes change when they don’t have low cost energy. And we are seeing that play out in Germany. We are about to see the amount of global corruption coming out, and I don’t think anybody is prepared to understand how corrupt the government mechanism around the world is, not only the United States government.
David Blackmon [00:31:16] That’s right.
Stuart Turley [00:31:17] It is The Green New Deal is not an energy transition. There is going to be no energy transition with the current technology. In my opinion, I think that Tesla, the inventor, Tesla had it right there. There is free energy machines that are popping up around the world, but anybody that invents a free energy energy machine is killed. I mean, it’s just one of those kind of things. So as those things come around.
David Blackmon [00:31:50] Well, okay.
Stuart Turley [00:31:53] That’s a whole different topic.
David Blackmon [00:31:55] You talk about the laws of physics. A free energy machine stands in complete defiance of the laws of physics.
Irina Slav [00:32:03] Right. Many have tried, but none have succeeded.
David Blackmon [00:32:06] Yeah. I mean, it’s just the perpetual motion machine, right?
Irina Slav [00:32:09] No.
David Blackmon [00:32:10] It’s just in a small scale. They just can’t work it.
Stuart Turley [00:32:14] They have. They have built several small ones, and they’ve got one that’s now in testing mode. And I’m watching these things because I’m trying to see how all this is going around the world. Building a microgrid. We are seeing microgrids come in to support natural gas is the only way the United States for the next five years is going to meet its demand is with natural gas. Period. I mean, it’s all the new plants coming in to coal.
David Blackmon [00:32:45] Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:32:46] Yes. And so what we are seeing, though, is perpetual based machines built on a small scale do work. They are very independent. But can they scale? Not yet. I don’t think so. That will be a time when the energy transition happens, when those kind of things can happen. Till then, it ain’t happening, in my opinion.
David Blackmon [00:33:14] Well, it’s all kind of like nuclear fusion, isn’t it? Cold fusion?
Stuart Turley [00:33:18] It is.
Irina Slav [00:33:19] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:33:20] I mean, we’ve been hearing about cold fusion just around the corner since the 1970s. It’s a lot of very wide corner folks. I mean, and you may never get around it. We all we all have to be aware that you just might not ever get around that corner. And and you have to make sensible investments and do the right things to maintain reliability in your energy space. On the possibility that you never get around that corner. And that means we have to take advantage of all of our resources, mineral resources and otherwise, to ensure this world remains powered properly. And we’ve lost sight of that the last four years. And at least in the executive branch of the United States government, we are refocusing on the right things, which is a good thing.
Stuart Turley [00:34:16] You bet. And we are seeing doge doing a lot of cutting. I’m not sure if I showed this one already, but this is pretty cool when you take a look at doge doing cutting again. Look at that. They’re being precise. They’re going to do some serious cutting here. Watch this. This is damage cutting. Sorry about that.
David Blackmon [00:34:42] All right. We have ended our cold discussion. Five minutes overtime. So now it’s time to go to our weekly feature, our favorite news articles of the week. Who’s first.
Stuart Turley [00:34:54] And we got to give a shout out to Tammy. She’s out running around, but follow her Substack. The Energy Report’s Nemeth Report Substack.
David Blackmon [00:35:07] I also got a big apology for not mentioning the fact that she wasn’t here. . We miss you, Tammy. Anyway.
Stuart Turley [00:35:15] You look nice, though, David.
David Blackmon [00:35:17] I do look great. No, no, man, that’s my favorite shirt. No, I knew no logo cap, so I don’t piss people off with my longhorn cap or my Dodgers cap. Anyway, since you’re here, we’ve got Reuters got paid millions of dollars by the Department of Defense for large scale social deception. This is one of the revelations here over the past week by. They went into the Department of Defense budget and found out it was paying Reuters $170,000 every month for the last nine years to engage in a campaign of large scale social deception. They don’t even mince words about it in the line item in the budget. That’s what Reuters has been getting paid for. And a lot of that large scale social deception has been related to climate alarmism and energy. And they’re not the only one. We’re going to find out that pretty much every major news organization in our country has been paid not just by the government, but by Soros funded and other billionaire funded foundations and NGOs to create climate propaganda over the past decade or two. The Washington Post is a great example. They employ more than 50 reporters who write about climate at one.
Irina Slav [00:36:43] Time and.
David Blackmon [00:36:44] Yes, just for climate. Now, do you think The Washington Post editorial staff decided to fund that out of its subscriber base budget? Please. That money is coming in from left wing interests funded by billionaires like Soares and the Rockefellers and the parks and the Hines’s and all the rest. So this is a tip of the iceberg scandal that is going to be I, I think the mainstream media is already dying. This is going to accelerate that process. The other one is Diamondback Energy, one of, well, the biggest independent producer now in the Permian Basin since Exxon-Mobil bought Pioneer Natural Resources is in talks to buy Double Eagle, another big independent producer, for $5 billion. You know, this is just going to give Diamondback an even bigger position of contiguous acreage in the Permian Basin. It’s going to allow it to become much more profitable and produce and drill more wells at lower cost. And, you know, it’s just another big deal. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s probably going to happen here in the coming days. So. And still there was that other one. What was it? The, the. Did you see my email about India Is that one company in India, as in NTPC, it has been $62 billion. 30GW of new nuclear power plants in India over the coming decade. That’s right. That’s a big deal. And that’s where I think we’re going to see a lot of announcements like this year over the next few years. Yeah. And this one I just wrote this morning. Trump Well, it his first day he actually signed an executive order, but they held a a media availability a week ago that most in the media didn’t even write about ordering Zeldin to produce by February 19th, which is this Wednesday. A reevaluation of EPA’s endangerment finding related to carbon dioxide and methane.
Stuart Turley [00:38:58] Wow.
David Blackmon [00:39:00] Us to regulate them as pollutants under the Clear Clean Air Act. Now carbon dioxide is plant food. Clearly, it’s not a pollutant. And no sane person or honest person would ever even attempt to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant. It’s the basis for all life on planet Earth. How can it be a pollutant? And the thing about this is that that endangerment finding in the 2007 case, Massachusetts versus EPA, that gave EPA the incentive to make that finding came about when the Chevron deference was still a legal doctrine in American law. Chevron deference orders all federal courts to give deference to bureaucrats and their internal lawyers on how they interpret the intent of federal statutes. Well, that doctrine was repealed by the Supreme Court last year, and it no longer exists. And it can no longer be used as a foundation for this endangerment finding. And I think Zeldin and Trump are going to make a real effort to reverse that endangerment finding. If they do, then every thing, every climate regulation invoked by both the Biden and Obama administrations will be subject to immediate repeal. And it’ll take a long time for all of this to work its way through the courts, regardless of what EPA does. There will be a million lawsuits challenging it, and all have to go back up to the Supreme Court again. But this is the foot in the door to begin that process.
Stuart Turley [00:40:43] David, a couple of things here. And Jeff Chestnut has a great point. Learn more about CO2, the carbon compounds. I’ve interviewed the folks over there at the CO2 coalition.org and they’re good People disagree, right? Right. Stone is absolutely a hoot. Love him. I’ve interviewed him I think, three times. Good. He is a good dude. And this brings up a really big point. I don’t know the answer to this, but carbon credits could be a thing of the past. Is that a fair statement? If the CO2 is no longer a pollutant. Why one. Car? It’s a whole carbon market.
Irina Slav [00:41:28] That is a very long way from that yet because now they’re talking about biodiversity credits.
David Blackmon [00:41:34] Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, those efforts aren’t going to ever end voluntarily. They will have to be forcibly stopped. That market would have to be and you’d have to have a global government consensus that it should be stopped, not just the United States. So, you know, those there’s trillions of dollars at stake in those things. Yeah. Okey doke.
Stuart Turley [00:42:01] And your substack.
David Blackmon [00:42:05] Well, that’s my political substack there. That’s not my. I’m sorry. It’s that. But yeah, my energy substack is called Energy transition Absurdities. It’s Blackmon dot Substack dot com also write about politics at the campaign update and keeps me busy. It’s what keeps me busy these days is writing about all this stuff. It’s a lot of fun.
Stuart Turley [00:42:26] Young and beautiful, right? And we have everything.
David Blackmon [00:42:30] Irina
Irina Slav [00:42:35] Relates to our discussion about coal. Google says US is facing a power capacity crisis in AI race against China. Well, now that we’ve seen the map of operating and permitted of being constructed and coal power plants in the U.S. and in China, I think it’s safe to say that Google has a point. But what anyone is going to do about it is a mystery. And it’s interesting that Google is the one saying it because Google was very big on wind and solar. Google was very big on carbon credits and Google thought it would be net zero by 2050, which is not going to happen if it was to stay in the AI race.
David Blackmon [00:43:22] Here’s a bit of irony about Google. Google is also the company that went to Nebraska and convinced regulators there to keep two major coal fired power plants operating for another 5 to 10 years to power. That was Google. Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:43:40] But they’re been carbon neutral since 20 209.
Irina Slav [00:43:45] Sure. Yeah, because by so many carbon credits. And I really think that it’s still lying that that carbon neutral.
Stuart Turley [00:43:53] Hogwash. I was. I was. We’re calling hoo ha on that one.
Irina Slav [00:44:01] They’re sounding an alarm and this is good. This is going to get even more hilarious than it already is. The other funny news of the week why upstream companies might break their capital discipline rules. Why you think that might happen? Because, you know, Wood Mackenzie have found out that oil demand growth may be stronger than they expected.
David Blackmon [00:44:24] No one could have seen that coming.
Irina Slav [00:44:26] Which is what happens when you sell out to the transition gang. You stop thinking. And then when you somehow, you know, regained the ability to think, you make such a stunning discovery that oil demand drop is not weakening. And you come out with, you know, reports like that.
David Blackmon [00:44:57] Irina. That’s such an awesome point. So many of these giant advisory firms. Over the last 5 to 7 years in the United States, but completely into this green energy transition nonsense. And they’ve been advising their clients like BP, Shell, big oil companies, to spend billions of dollars investing in wind and solar and batteries and all this stuff that is not within their company’s core competencies in order to burnish their ESG credentials and virtue signal about green energy. I wonder how they are all feeling and their clients are all feeling as we want your company like BP, you know, announced last week that they’re going to completely rejigger their entire corporate strategy to focus more on their core business. I just wonder how these firms, what their current status is, how comfortable they’re feeling about their contracts being renewed here in the near future by these clients.
Irina Slav [00:46:07] Honestly, if I were and I would drug them because they have. I have believed that the transition is happening. I have believed the hype and the unrealistic expectations and plans. And these are supposed to be professionals.
David Blackmon [00:46:23] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:46:23] I mean, I used to joke with Svetlana that we should set up a consultancy because we’re at least as good as any other consultancy, because we know how the energy system works. And these people know too, and yet they allow themselves to be misled. Or maybe they got paid off. I have no idea of knowing, but I think that to know they believe going on. About this transition. And it kind of is an echo chamber. The International Energy Agency says this is going to go like this. And if the IEA says it, then it must go like this. With all these government subsidies and all the shunning of oil and gas and peak oil demand because of the transition and because of subsidies and EVs and all these stranded assets. Remember, WoodMac was big on stranded assets.
David Blackmon [00:47:21] Right?
Irina Slav [00:47:22] Yeah. Now, upstream companies might raise their capital discipline as well. Callum is shocked.
David Blackmon [00:47:30] Well, I think that the advisory firms who resisted going down that road and I’ll just say embarrassed, resisted it as just one example, are probably going to you’re going to probably see them outgrow some of these other some of their eds in the coming years.
Irina Slav [00:47:48] Good.
David Blackmon [00:47:51] S&P Global another and S&P Global resisted going down that road and should be commended for that. I think Daniel Yergin, who’s their vice chairman, probably had a lot to do with that.
Stuart Turley [00:48:04] Is go get.
David Blackmon [00:48:06] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:48:06] Well, he’s one of the coolest in the business. Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:48:15] Can make you change those comments. I don’t care.
Irina Slav [00:48:21] Yeah. stuck.
Stuart Turley [00:48:23] His name’s David Blackmon.
David Blackmon [00:48:28] Like I said, anything that’s not true.
Stuart Turley [00:48:31] You did not. Anyway, here’s Irina. I love your Substack. And where can they find you?
Irina Slav [00:48:38] At Irina Slav on energy, dot Substack. And I should start putting some images of my thing. Looks kind of empty.
David Blackmon [00:48:48] Yes. But the content is so wonderful.
Stuart Turley [00:48:51] And the. Voice.
Stuart Turley [00:48:55] Well, there’s a couple of stories that I want to go over. And as I’ve been, like I mentioned earlier in the show, I’m not going to spend any time on this one, but I’ve been reviewing the United States grid versus demand expectations versus what’s in construction. And Ercot is projecting an 8% shortfall in 2027. The projection states large industry, cryptocurrency mining and large data centers. And what we’re seeing is like the data center in Abilene, Texas, also where I live is where you’re seeing a natural gas power plant coming in dedicated only to that data center. And it’s going to be able to power 97,000 homes. Except it’s not going to be powering 97,000 homes. To me, powering that data center. So microgrids are going to be all important. Texas Ercot, out of the three grids in the United States is the only one that is on track, even though they’re announcing they may have some trouble. Let’s see. A little bit of the trouble is means you’re aware of it and you’re able to fix it. The other folks, they are really got some problems. I want to share this story out. A year ago, I put out could China hack our electric grid in four words? Yes. The real question is secretary is in on it. And yes, I got whacked for this story, by the way, trying to say something bad against the Biden administration. And when I put this out, I put it out that there were 32 major grid interconnects that were connected and discovered to have been back doors into them from China. Let me say that again. There are 32 major interconnects that President Trump took out, President Biden put back in. And now they’re with it after four years of President Biden administration, because I don’t know that he knew he signed this. There are now confirmed 495 major grid interconnects in trend and transformers that have Chinese backdoors in our grid. After I put this story out, I had over 5000 denial of service attacks on my website. Tell me that did not strike a major heart attack in people by putting this story out. Just thought I’d put this out there. It’s a real issue.
David Blackmon [00:51:51] Yeah. And most of the the concern is with the Transformers. I mean, we don’t make them here in the United States. We have to get most of them from China. We we have a severe shortage inventory, shortage of them. It’s a crisis situation in our grid. And so these power companies have to take the transformers anywhere they can get them. It’s taking up to four years in some instances to source these things. So they have their in emergency crisis situation and it just creates this environment where it’s so easy and so easy. If China has that intent to do something like that.
Stuart Turley [00:52:31] At the 32 major grid interconnects I calculated at, about 9% of the U.S. grid could be shut down depending on where that 9% came out. Millions would die. So it is a big deal.
David Blackmon [00:52:46] Yep.
Irina Slav [00:52:48] Essentially. Potentially.
David Blackmon [00:52:50] Potentially.
Stuart Turley [00:52:51] No. We got to get him out initially. Okay. Absolutely. But you also have to look at the 32,000 military age Chinese men that came across the Darien Gap. Now let’s go to the next story here. Trump to Boost U.S. Offshore and New Energy Dominance Council. I absolutely love this. This is made up of a great group of men Lee Zeldin, Doug Burgum, and Chris wright. Holy smokes, Batman. This is the group to help deliver low cost energy for the United States. I think this is a phenomenal thing.
David Blackmon [00:53:36] It will also include some of the other cabinet officials as well. Secretary of Commerce and transportation. Right. But yeah, those are the three main.
Stuart Turley [00:53:46] And yes, he was up there as well, too. Duffy, I really like him. He is a cool cat. Duffy And then, yeah, there’s energy news beating the energy news beat and lots of fun stuff there. So.
David Blackmon [00:54:05] It is fun. There’s a wealth of information.
David Blackmon [00:54:10] A match. I’ll put out every day.
Irina Slav [00:54:12] You do or not?
Stuart Turley [00:54:14] Yeah. I don’t sleep very much, but, you know, I have to
David Blackmon [00:54:20] Yes, we do. Jeff. Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:54:23] This is the best point anyone’s ever made. Yes. Be like Russia. Be more self-sufficient because self-sufficiency is security.
David Blackmon [00:54:35] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:54:37] You know this.
David Blackmon [00:54:38] Ah, thank you for this. Yes. Demand has grown historically with world population growth. The slope has started to increase with all the new electricity electric energy demand. So all the efforts on transition is not significantly change the energy mix? That’s right. 80% of primary energy remains supplied by oil, gas and coal. Just as it was in the late 1990s, Nothing has changed.
Stuart Turley [00:55:04] You know, and I do want to say that Turley’s law is in effect and what I have been reporting for for years and, you know, on this thing, it’s been more than that. But when you sit back and take a look at the more money that is invested in renewable, in renewable, non sustainable energy,
David Blackmon [00:55:28] intermittent Energy.
Stuart Turley [00:55:29] the potential energy, the more fossil fuels will be used, Turley’s law, the more money invested in renewables,
Irina Slav [00:55:40] See, yeah, we can see it and really like it.
David Blackmon [00:55:44] So.
Stuart Turley [00:55:46] All right.
David Blackmon [00:55:49] Okay, folks, I think we have beaten this cohort.
Stuart Turley [00:55:56] And then we shall.
David Blackmon [00:55:56] Not. I’m proud of it. I’m really proud of it. I think we did a good job here with us. And I apologize again to Tammy for not mentioning that up front. But she will be back next week, thank goodness. And we’ll have another thrilling enthralling. Highly encouraging and no doubt conspiracy filled. Topic to cover. Yes.
Stuart Turley [00:56:24] I think she was with Justin Trudeau when when he was buying his thing. Maybe she was in Canada, though.
David Blackmon [00:56:35] That is just to be here. I think.
Stuart Turley [00:56:37] Be him and that’s.
David Blackmon [00:56:39] Not raising anything.
Stuart Turley [00:56:41] But I still love Doge. I want to play this for the last folks. This. yeah. Again, this is the last time I got to say. Maybe, maybe not. This is too funny, but doge is causing so many people looking at the reports. Imagine democrats and rhinos looking at doge reports. Okay, hang on. Here we go.
David Blackmon [00:57:07] I think that’s actually Margaret Brennan of CBS News.
Stuart Turley [00:57:12] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:57:15] You’re bad, you’re bad.
Stuart Turley [00:57:16] Or do you think it’s Politico because Politico got millions and millions of dollars from NASA and I think that’s them looking at their doge reports. There you go.
Irina Slav [00:57:27] With so many outlets and entities that are currently in death throes because of Trump and Doge.
Stuart Turley [00:57:38] Which is really fun.
Irina Slav [00:57:40] Yeah. It’s great fun.
Stuart Turley [00:57:42] All right. We’ll see you guys next week.
David Blackmon [00:57:45] All right, Everybody have a wonderful week.
Irina Slav [00:57:47] Comment
Stuart Turley [00:57:50] Have fun guys. See ya.
Sponsorships are available or get your own corporate brand produced by Sandstone Media.
How will the situation develop if the US president’s efforts to end the war fail?
‘Deal’ – it’s the key word in Donald Trump’s vocabulary and he’s built his career on striking them, but as he embarks on his second presidential term, he is about to face a challenge that will put his famed negotiation skills to the test. The Ukraine conflict, unlike trade deals or business arrangements, is deeply entrenched in geopolitical, military, and ideological complexities.
While Trump may initially push for a swift resolution — perhaps attempting to broker a ceasefire similar to his approach in the Middle East — he will soon realize that Ukraine is a far bigger challenge. The contradictions surrounding the conflict are not just regional but global, and a quick fix is unlikely. If Trump’s efforts fail, how will the situation evolve?
US-Western Europe: Conflict or Quiet Sabotage?
Trump’s worldview is centered around the idea that the US is losing its global dominance. Since he cannot prevent this decline, his strategy appears to be one of disruption — seizing the initiative and reshaping alliances. He has long considered NATO an outdated burden, and his demand for members to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP is, for many European countries, entirely unrealistic. Currently, only four NATO members — Poland, the US, Greece, and the UK — spend more than 2% of their GDP on defense.
Should Trump manage to overcome internal opposition and reshape US foreign policy, NATO may become his next target. The transatlantic alliance underpins many global institutions, and dismantling NATO — or significantly weakening it — would be a logical step in dismantling globalization itself. Supporting opposition parties in Europe, particularly nationalist and right-wing movements that align with his worldview, is one way he could advance this agenda.
In response, Western European elites have two options: openly confront Trump, which could lead to a transatlantic crisis, or verbally agree to his demands while quietly sabotaging them. The latter scenario is more likely. While they may nod along with Trump’s calls for increased defense spending and a tougher stance on China, in practice, European governments are unlikely to follow through. Under Trump’s leadership, NATO could lose both its political influence and its aura of invincibility.
Trump’s Ukraine Plan: Reality Check Incoming
Trump’s team is eager to pressure Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky into accepting a ceasefire. However, his vision for peace is simplistic and detached from reality. The war in Ukraine is not just a local conflict — it is a battleground for larger global struggles.
The first step for Trump will be to push Zelensky toward a truce, though it remains unclear whether the Ukrainian leader would agree. More likely, Trump will pressure Kiev into lowering the military conscription age to ensure a continued supply of soldiers — just as was done last year in exchange for Western military aid.
Zelensky, however, has his own concerns. He is desperately seeking security guarantees from the West, particularly from Trump. Without such assurances, he knows that if a ceasefire is reached, he will be left alone to face Russia. So far, there is no indication that Trump is willing to provide these guarantees. If he distances the US from Ukraine, Zelensky will be in an extremely vulnerable position.
Ukraine: Western Europe’s Unwanted Burden
If Trump gives up on Ukraine, Western Europe may be forced to take responsibility for the war effort. However, the European Union lacks both the military stockpiles and the industrial capacity to sustain the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Financially, the EU could seize frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine, but it is unclear how long that strategy could last.
Trump’s ideal scenario is simple: Western Europe buys weapons from the US and sends them to Ukraine. Whether this plan will work remains to be seen. The longer the conflict drags on, the more toxic the issue becomes within European politics, with public opposition growing. If Trump and EU bureaucrats clash, Ukraine may find itself abandoned.
Russia and the rest of Europe: No Grounds for Negotiation
Unlike with the US, Russia sees no potential for negotiation with the current Western European leadership. The EU has shown no willingness to engage in meaningful diplomacy, preferring to churn out endless sanctions. Moscow’s only real option is to build relationships with non-establishment political forces in Europe — leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán or Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who prioritize national interests over Brussels’ agenda. If the EU continues its current trajectory, more such leaders will emerge.
Russia and the US: The Only Negotiation That Matters
The most important diplomatic developments will take place between Moscow and Washington. Trump’s immediate goal will be to resolve the Ukraine conflict quickly, casting himself as the president who ended an unwinnable war. He can still blame Biden for the US failure in Ukraine, but the longer the conflict continues, the more responsibility he will bear.
For Russia, the time for serious negotiations has not yet arrived. Putin’s primary goal is a decisive military victory that dismantles Ukraine’s ability to resist. With Ukraine preparing for a last-ditch spring-summer offensive, the fighting will continue for at least a few more months. During that time, the war will become Trump’s problem, not Biden’s.
At that point, Washington will face a crucial decision: escalate further, potentially triggering a direct confrontation with Russia, or accept defeat. Trump, who is more focused on a potential conflict with China, seems unwilling to risk war with Moscow.
If this writer were preparing for negotiations with Trump, the message would be clear:
“Donald, your hand is weak. Ukraine will lose, and you know it. In six months, the failure will be on your shoulders, and you’ll have to decide whether to start a nuclear war — something you don’t want. You should cut your losses while you still can. No, we won’t trade Ukraine for China or anything else. We’re prepared to wait until you have nothing left to bargain with.”
Ukraine, NATO, and the Bigger Picture
The only real path to peace in Ukraine is its capitulation and the dismantling of anti-Russian nationalism. This requires a decisive military defeat, something the Russian army has been working toward for three years. If Ukraine’s military collapses, a coup in Kiev could become a real possibility.
Meanwhile, the NATO alliance faces a reckoning. Eastern European nations have long assumed that even informal NATO ties guarantee absolute protection from Russia. Ukraine’s fate will shatter this illusion. A Ukrainian defeat would mark the end of NATO expansion and shake Western influence in the region. Potential NATO candidates will see Ukraine as a cautionary tale.
Looking Ahead
If Trump’s efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict fail, he will have three options: escalate, withdraw, or shift the burden to Europe. None of these choices will resolve the underlying issues, but they will shape the future of NATO, the EU, and the broader international order. Meanwhile, Russia will remain patient, waiting for the moment when the West is forced to acknowledge the new geopolitical reality.
As for what happens next — whether the conflict expands, shifts to new regions like the Baltics, or fades into a prolonged stalemate — only time will tell. One thing is certain: Trump’s path to a ‘deal’ on Ukraine will be far more complicated than he initially thought.
It was truly an honor to be on the Crude Truth podcast with Rey Trevino, David Blackmon, and Dr. Ed Ireland. There are two videos below; the first is a short 7-minute part about the Russian/Ukraine war peace talks. The Second video is the full interview from Rey’s YouTube feed with the entire discussion. It is wonderful being around great energy experts.
• The discussion focuses on the geopolitical and economic implications of the Ukraine war and the sanctions imposed on Russia.
• It suggests that the sanctions have not been effective in hurting Russia’s economy, as Russia has found ways to sell its oil and gas to countries like China and India.
• The discussion also suggests that the U.S. Could potentially help Germany by purchasing the Nord Stream pipeline, which would allow the U.S. To control the flow of natural gas to Germany and help reenergize its economy.
• the experts argue that the key to winning the war and improving the U.S. economy is to increase domestic energy production, which would drive down oil prices and hurt Russia’s economy.
It was truly an honor to be on the @truth_crude podcast with Rey Trevino, @EnergyAbsurdity , and Dr. Ed Ireland.
• The discussion focuses on the geopolitical and economic implications of the Ukraine war and the sanctions imposed on Russia.
The Crude Truth Ep. 115 Dr. Ed Ireland, David Blackmon and Stuart Turley
Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Rey Treviño [00:00:00] And I quote, We need more natural gas. Bill Gates said that just the other day. We talk about that and much more on this episode of The Crude Truth.
Narrator [00:00:12] In 1901 at Spindle Top Hill near Beaumont. The future of Texas changed dramatically as like a fountain of fortune. Thousands of barrels of oil burst from the earth towards the sky. Soon Detroit would be cranking out Model T’s by the millions. And America was on the move thanks to the black gold being produced in Texas. Now, more than a century later, the vehicles are different, but nothing else has truly changed. Sure, there may be many other alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric, but let’s be honest, America depends on oil and entrepreneurs. And if the USA is truly going to be independent, it has to know The Crude Truth.
Narrator [00:00:55] This episode is brought to you by LFS Chemistry. We are committed to being good stewards of the environment. We are providing the tools so you can be to. Nape Expo, Where deals happen. Air Compressor Solutions, When everything is on the line, Air Compressor Solutions is the dependable choice to keep commercial business powered up. Sandstone Group. Exec Crue. Elevate your network. Elevate Your Knowledge. Texas Star Alliance. Pecos Country Operating, Fueling Our Future.
Rey Treviño [00:01:30] Well, hello and thank you, as always, for tuning in to another episode of The Crude Truth. As we all know, President Trump has now taken office in the White House and he has literally hit the ground running. And it is something that no one has ever seen before. And as we all know on our show, we always like to talk about the energy industry and everything that’s going on. And with everything that is going on in the energy industry right now, I can’t keep up with it. And it doesn’t take one energy expert. So to talk about it today. It took three and I have on three amazing guests today that all basically need all their own introductions because they’re just true energy experts, not only in the great state of Texas, but in America. And they are three people that people are always looking to to get the answers to the questions that they ask about the energy space. So I’m just so humbled and excited. Today I’ve got on Forbes contributing author, Reuters. Somebody that everybody knows wants somebody that definitely was in the ear of the great state of Texas. Great David Blackmon. David, how are you?
David Blackmon [00:02:42] I’m just happy to be here, appreciate the invitation.
Rey Treviño [00:02:45] Well, thank you so much for coming on and sit next to you as somebody that’s also somebody that’s been a part of Texas. As far as the Barnett Shale goes, the shell boom that we’ve seen. Another great person that I know, he’s also got to throw it out, a professor at the great TCU doctor Ed Ireland. How are you, sir?
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:03:05] I’m great Glad to be here.
Rey Treviño [00:03:08] Well, okay. Well, thank you for.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:03:10] Having me among some real experts.
Rey Treviño [00:03:13] And last and surely not least, but done on purpose, my good friend, the president and CEO of the Sandstone Group. Everybody probably that watches The Crude Truth. Listen to him and Michael Tanner every morning on the Energy News Beat Daily Show, my friend again, Stuart Turley. Stu, how you doing?
Stuart Turley [00:03:32] Doing Fantastic Rt, thank you so much. I’m not worthy to be with you in this great group of guys here. I’m dude, I’m just the guy here. I’m here all week.
Rey Treviño [00:03:40] Well, I can. I thank you all for coming. I know I definitely took a little bit to get all you all together on one schedule, but I can’t thank you enough for everything that is going on right now in the energy space is literally rolling heads in every way possible from heads rolling on on people losing their jobs to heads, rule on what policies are now and what regulations are go and what the heck is going on. And I think everybody only wants to know our energy price is going to be lower. I mean, that’s that’s probably everybody’s question right there at the beginning of this is before we dive in, our energy price is going to be lower. And, you know, Dr. Ireland, where do you see this going to take us off?
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:04:22] I think energy prices could be lower. But what if I was talking like an economist here? You know, supply and demand, you’ve got the supply and and we can drill more the drill, baby, drill. And I think that will happen. But the demand side is not being talked about. There’s a huge demand out there, LNG for starters. But then all of the natural gas fired electricity generation that’s going to be required for these data sets. Is a huge, huge demand for natural gas. So I would say in the end, you could say it’s hard to say Will the pressure natural gas go up or down? I think it could go either way.
Rey Treviño [00:05:14] David, what do you think?
David Blackmon [00:05:15] No, I agree with that. I think it’s possible they could go down somewhat because the you know, the market is is pretty oversupplied right now for crude oil. And crude oil drives gasoline prices, of course. But I don’t expect that oversupplied market to to last. You know, I think demand is going to rise, start rising again fairly quickly as the United States economy kicks back in and starts generating economic growth, not just domestically but overseas as well. So you could have somewhat higher prices at the end of this year than than we currently have in gasoline on natural gas. You know, it’s we we have this compressed natural gas price in the United States for so long. And we I look the other day, we only have 78 active natural gas rigs drilling in the United States for gas wells today. Okay. And we’re continuing to increase overall national production with 78 active rigs. Well, I mean, what’s going to happen when you activate 5 or 10 more? Because Trump is going to free up regulations and, you know, encourage that. You’re going to have to find markets for it. And that’s why the LNG expansion so, so critical. You know, gas prices in America could hardly be lower than they are today. I don’t know how they get much lower. So I know Trump wants to to save everybody money on energy prices, but it’s going to be difficult.
Rey Treviño [00:06:48] You know, you mentioned how the price of gasoline, because that’s the question I’ve been getting a lot lately, is like, where’s the price of gasoline going to say, guys? We’re about where we are. And I think a lot of that also has to do with inflation and where we’re at. I was talking to a service company that we do work with that, you know, provides us service when we’re drill. Our wells are producing and I’ve said this before, is when we hit that hundred dollar oil briefly, what, two years ago in two and a half years ago, all the service company prices went up. Yeah. We drop back down to $70 oil. Their prices stay the same. And it’s and they’re going to go back up. They’re hoping that we’ve you know, that the price of oil goes up. And so it’s like, guys, I just don’t see it as well that we’re we’re going to see that. But, you know, with liquid natural gas. And that’s really interesting that we only have 78 wells of rigs, drilling rigs that are producing straight natural gas. And now when you figure we’ve got hundreds of wells and we’re flaring here in Texas like there’s no tomorrow, right now, you don’t see. What are your thoughts?
Stuart Turley [00:07:49] Well, there’s about 16 billion thoughts through my cricketing little head here. Well, let’s start with the new Kinder Morgan pipe. $7.5 billion pipeline they’re putting in for extra take away in Texas. The Emergency Powers Act by that President Trump just signed in is going to be pipelines everywhere. And you’re going to have more natural gas coming online, as you alluded to in your great statement in the beginning, when you get Bill Gates saying, we’re going to need natural gas, it is finally all hands on deck realize, wait a minute, we’re not going to get to data centers any time soon without natural gas. Let’s take Abilene, for example. You have Stargate with the Trump Project in Abilene, Texas. They have a microgrid going in and there is one natural gas that’s going to be a plant in there that is going to be, I believe it’s enough for 90,000 homes, one natural gas power plant dedicated to that data center. Brand new coming online. And I did in the analyzation of what Texas has in in the works for new natural gas power power plants. What they have budgeted. What’s coming around the corner. And when you have Ercot saying that they’re going to have demand double in the next five years. Wait a minute. The Texas legislature actually did a good thing and has a plan. And they’re actually implementing power and it’s all natural gas and it looks like it’s going to be happening. Guess where the other states are? Nowhere near this. All right. I did an analyzation of the rest of the United States grid, and it is not looking like Ercot. So this is huge. And we need to talk about how well Ercot did. David brought it up in our brief meeting here. How good did Ercot do in this last storm? Yeah. And so. When we have natural gas, you’re going to have Lee Zeldin with the EPA get rid of regulations, but it’s not going to be drill, baby, drill. It’s going to be drill, baby when fiscally responsible because the ESG movement did one good thing for oil and gas companies. Both private and privately held and publicly held. And that is they’re giving money back to their shareholders and having oil and gas investment. I love having a 32% return on my investment in my line gas investment. But that’s just me. And I’ll tell you what, I love my investment. I just thought I’d share that with you. But when you take a look at what ESG investing is, the MP operators are going to give back to their their thing. Now, can Doug Burgum, who is the secretary, going to be the secretary of interior? You have Chris, right, who is one of the coolest man in the planet. I mean, I absolutely love Chris Wright, if I am his cheerleader over here going, yeah, you guys, right. And I guarantee you that man, you have Lisa O, Doug Burgum and Chris Wright, you have a team that can reduce prices if at all possible. And I think I like you the way you phrase that, sir. Yes. If possible. I like the way that you think.
Rey Treviño [00:11:28] Well, you know, David and Dr. Ireland, you two have been boots on the ground in the state of Texas for 1 or 2 years, and it’s really more than that. You know that ground for people that know you are boots on the ground with the Barnett show boomed. And David, you were there in Austin fighting for the for the shale at one time as well. And what do you guys see in natural gas? And I’m going to start with this and we can lean into it. You know, does Texas truly have 100 years worth of natural gas ready to go like that? That can’t go. You know, Trump, we’ll start there with natural gas and what what all we can do with it.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:12:10] Sure. Texas is loaded with shales. Yeah. And of course, there’s oil and natural gas shales. Some both like the Eagle Ford. But there’s a lot of shale. And that’s one side of it. The other side is even on the oil shale Permian Basin. Those wells, they drill for oil, but they produce oil and natural gas associated natural gas. And if they are producing so much right now that there are oil wells, they can’t drill because they can’t get the permit to flare the gas and they don’t have the pipeline capacity to take it away. So there is plenty of gas, natural gas that will come online that is just waiting in part for more pipelines. Some new pipeline capacity out of the Permian came on recently and that really helped. But it’s full already. You know, the latest one. So in that growth. Yeah, I mean, there’s there’s plenty of natural gas and I mean, there’s gas left in the Barnett Shale that we’re standing on top of almost or a little bit down the road. But close to here that that was never tapped. Yeah. At least half of the reserves that were in the Barnett Shale are still there. Yeah. So there’s plenty of gas. We have the pipelines even. I mean, talk about some people say you’re crazy. Talk about a resurgence of the Barnett Shale. I think it’s possible that crazy. That’s possible. And because, you know, the gas is here, the pipelines are here. But. And I don’t get off too much on the shale, but the wells don’t produce as much as some of the other areas. That’s why the Barnett Shale kind of petered out was that the wells just weren’t producing enough and it was hard to justify the drilling cost. Yeah, but that could change. But there’s a lot of natural gas and I don’t that’s not going to be any problem, you know.
David Blackmon [00:14:08] Yeah, A hundred years of natural gas is an unfortunate talking point that we came up with in the America’s Natural Gas Alliance about 13 years ago. Then that alliance did a lot of good stuff. But that talking point was archaic when we made it up. The reality is there’s so much gas in the Eagle Ford Shale that could be produced with current technology. It could supply the whole country for a hundred years. Just in the Eagle Ford Shale and the Permian basins got ten times that much.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:14:36] right?
David Blackmon [00:14:37] I mean, we’ve got in the United States because technology is going to keep advancing. It always does in this industry. We’re Ten generations of Americans are going to have this incredible abundance of natural gas that nobody needs to worry about a lack of supply here in the United States. And it just unfortunately, that hundred years of gas talking point just won’t go away and it’s.
Stuart Turley [00:15:06] And I firmly believe that what we are going to see is if we have if we would, let’s take a look at what caused or how did the United States reduce its CO2 output in the last five years. It’s replacing coal plants with natural gas plants. We’ve reduced our age by 24%. China has increased theirs by 220%. They currently have more coal plants than anybody else in the United States. And I mean in the entire world and the Great Wall of China, even though that was great technology back then, does not keep coal plant fumes in China. So even though that was built to keep the homes in or out, I’m not sure. Depends on which way you’re looking at the Great Wall of China. It does not keep all that coal pollution in there. So the United States really does keep our coal plants operating that are currently operating. Yeah, we’re going to need them for baseline. And then if we do nothing but natural gas. Yeah. But I firmly believe and Dr. Allen, you may know more about this, and I think that there’s going to be the next generation of energy technology in battery storage that is yet to be fully implemented. And I think that at that point, yes, solar panels will make a difference and things like that is going to make a difference. But right now in California, all of the Tesla battery walls are now toxic in the fires that all happened, all the homes and testing sites in Palisades. They’re just history. And now you can’t get insurance if you’ve got a Tesla electric car and you put in a Tesla powerbank in your house. You’ve got a mini disaster waiting to happen when you have a house fire and a house fire and electric insurance insurances is not going to take care of everything. So I think we have the time to develop the next generation and reduce the population. This is not about CO2. This is about pollution. How do we cut pollution out of the environment? And the United States delivers the lowest cost kilowatt with the least amount of pollution anywhere on the planet.
David Blackmon [00:17:43] Speaking of that. Speaking of that. Yeah. And I don’t want to get us off topic, but you just talked about real pollution, not carbon dioxide.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:17:50] Right.
David Blackmon [00:17:51] And people need to understand that one of the things the Trump Trump ordered last week was for the secretaries of the EPA and their staff or his staff, the secretary of EPA, to reevaluate the endangerment finding.
Stuart Turley [00:18:06] In that.
David Blackmon [00:18:06] Carbon dioxide that that is enabled the EPA to treat plant food, carbon dioxide as a pollutant since 2009, and the George W Bush administration didn’t find it. And in light of the fact that the Chevron deference was repealed last year, yes, we could be done with that here over the next couple of years. But the endangerment finding could go away. And if that goes away, then 15 years worth of carbon dioxide regulation is going to go away with it.
Stuart Turley [00:18:41] And you know what happened to energy prices in this conversation? They all went down.
David Blackmon [00:18:47] Big time.
Stuart Turley [00:18:48] Yeah, We didn’t solve the energy crisis.
David Blackmon [00:18:53] And by the way. Everybody watching this year, electricity bill just got cut in half. Yeah, because that’s what’s driving it. Is all these insane obsession about carbon dioxide.
Stuart Turley [00:19:03] David, real quick, you bring up the point that we talk about new natural gas power plants. Do you know what they have to include in every natural gas power plant coming online? Do they have to be hydrogen ready? Sure I am. I am not kidding. The only way that you can get a natural gas power plant is to make it hydrogen. Ready. What are gods, guys? All those in favor of having a hydrogen or a power company named Hindenburg. No. Molecules are so different. It is. It is. What a waste of money.
Rey Treviño [00:19:38] Well, you know, you guys, as we talk about natural gas and where we’re headed, the real question is, with all this natural gas and this oil, you know, one of the other things Trump mentioned was filling up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which, as we all know, has been nothing but a political pong, unfortunately, since its creation. Yeah. Great idea. Right. You know, I get it. An emergency. We got oil there. Is there a way that you think the majors can work with the Trump administration to actually refill that petroleum reserve?
Stuart Turley [00:20:13] I’ll give you my opinion.
David Blackmon [00:20:15] I mean, slowly, I think is the real answer. Right.
Stuart Turley [00:20:19] But, you.
David Blackmon [00:20:19] Know, mean it’s going to take a.
Stuart Turley [00:20:21] There’s also a technological issue. The salt caverns are eroding. When they are, you cannot leave them that way and they may not be able to be reused. So there is a geological issue that is a we may not be able to ever get it back that way.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:20:40] And an important point on that is that those caverns were designed for about 5 or 6 roundtrips.
Stuart Turley [00:20:47] Exactly.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:20:48] And that’s it. And so they were conceived as long term storage. And then Congress got the idea that they could use it as a borrowing tool. You know, they could borrow that revenue and maybe pay it back someday, which they never got around to doing. But that’s when they started cycling. Well, every time they pump water, salt water in to push the oil out, the salt goes with it. And so those walls get thinner. So it a technical caverns are in real trouble. I mean, they can get another round trip or two and that’s it. Yeah.
Rey Treviño [00:21:23] Well, you know, Sue mentioned it earlier. Is that how the Trump or also has done that declaration of energy emergency? Right. And you know, David, when you heard that, you know, what did you first think and what do you see that really going?
David Blackmon [00:21:38] Well, I mean, it gives him pretty extraordinary powers if he wants to exercise them. Right. Because he did declare a real emergency, a national emergency. It wasn’t just verbiage in in an executive order. It’s it’s a real national emergency. And so it gives him increased authority to do a lot of things, including, for example, repurposing a lot of this subsidy money in the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. You know, because we all and I fell into this trap, too, before the election of saying, well, you know, they can do a lot of things, but they’re not going to be able to do away with those subsidies or repurpose that money. Well, in a national emergency, he has enhanced authorities to repurpose unspent funds. And so there’s like $300 billion of unspent subsidy money sitting out there that the Biden administration just couldn’t show, shove out the door fast enough. And I and so he’s going to have some some real enhanced powers to repurpose some of those funds. But it’s just a political equation of if he wants to spend the political capital to do it.
Rey Treviño [00:22:47] You know, like you mentioned, Biden and his administration, they truly did things on the last administration. You know, okay, I just checked on the record. But he was president, whether, you know, whether or not. But he was definitely president of the United States. And one of the things he did before he left office was add those sanctions on Russia, on the Russian companies that have tankers that move oil. Do you see the Trump for being able to kind of, on the world view, get things back in a way to where Russia’s actually feeling the hurt on the sanctions that have been put in place over the last four years?
Stuart Turley [00:23:30] I think that whoever is I have spent maybe 30, 40 hours interviewing people from around the world working on this. And I firmly believe that General Kellogg is not been given the correct information on dealing with ending the Ukraine war. And so when you talk about whether or not President Trump is President Trump believe that when he was coming in, he was going to be dealing from a position of strength and with a position of strength. He’s able to say to Putin and he and Putin have a great relationship and I have a lousy Putin image imitation. And that’s a I sound like, you know, Putin and I sound like fuzzy, fuzzy or whatever. But where I’m going with this is that, no, the sanctions actually don’t matter to the Dark Fleet. There are roughly 800 dark fleet tankers out there of the 800 Dark fleet tankers. There is LNG, Arctic, LNG, one and two. And yes, some of those sanctions are starting to hurt a little bit. But we’ve seen the Russian export to their GDP was 35% and under the Biden administration, it is approaching 39%. India and China have been buying all of the oil that they possibly can get. And they’ve also been. Guess who’s buying the LNG? The EU is buying Russian LNG. So no matter what happens right now, the administration, the Iranians, the Venezuelans and Russia, Irina Slav says as wonderfully sanctions don’t work as intended. Now, if Putin does nothing, he wins. That means if Putin does not have to do anything, that means President Trump does not have any strength for negotiation. The only thing President Trump can do is totally pull off all sanctions and really help the EU economy come back, because right now Germany is totally failing, right? So goes the Germany economy. So goes the EU. The EU failed the Green New Deal. Folks in Germany have won. They have totally decimated. And the industrialized Germany Nord Stream two pipeline is still got one pipeline available. If President Trump, I’m going to go on record here on the crude truth. This is the crude truth. If President Trump wanted to actually help Germany and control Russia because this is about sea power and land power from George Macmillan, who I’ve been interviewing a lot on, and that is if the U.S. bought the Nord Stream pipeline, there’s one of them that you could cash flow immediately and bring low cost natural gas right into Germany and start re-energising their their process. And then the U.S. could control how fast those other ones could come online. Suddenly you’re the good guy. But right now, if Trump tries to go in, he’s the bad guy and the Democrats are going to pin the loss of the Ukraine war and everything on him, and they’re going to try to take the midterms and they’re going to try to impeach him again. So right now, you your question is about a 15 different polite circle going on right now that I’ve been working through. Yeah. And you’re going to see a gigantic issue for President Trump because his people don’t have the accurate information. How’s that for an answer?
David Blackmon [00:27:31] I don’t understand any of that.
Stuart Turley [00:27:36] I mean, does it make sense from a standpoint there are so many plates spinning in. And President Trump is about to walk into a buzzsaw and the Democrats are going to take advantage of it. Is basically the bottom line.
Rey Treviño [00:27:51] You know, from an economic standpoint, Dr. Ireland, with what’s going on is where you’re going. I don’t know. You know what with that being said, with everything Stu just said, but I want to keep it. So on a global level that we still have Iran that was producing a lot more and an OPEC has not been producing a lot more. From an economic standpoint, do you see that staying where it is, or do you think that needs to change in order for us to do more better here economically in America?
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:28:22] Well, I think unleashing US energy is going to unleash everybody else’s energy. We can say OPEC is no longer in control. They really haven’t been for a while. But whatever control they think they have, they will no longer have. So it’s just it’s it’s produce, produce, produce, produce. And that’s that’s how these other country and that’s also you push the price of crude oil down. That also hurts. But I think the sanctions just helped. Exactly. Carving out a special market in China and India. And that was the stupidest move ever.
Rey Treviño [00:28:59] You know, if I may, before you say anything else, David, what I’m hearing these gentlemen say, and correct me if I’m wrong, because, again, I cannot think of enough again for my listeners out there. I’ve got, you know, treat this like, you know, David Blackmon, Dr. Ed Ireland, Stuart Turley, all energy experts, all energy analysts here today. So thank you, guys. But what I’m hearing and David, I’ll call you up and for people out there that don’t know if I ever do see me do those radio interviews or anything like that are the TV ones. These are the guys that I talk to. I want to say that before I ask this question. So sometimes they will correct me beforehand that you.
Stuart Turley [00:29:37] Don’t use my jokes because my jokes are so bad.
Rey Treviño [00:29:41] But what I’m hearing these guys say is if we really want to win this war and get back on top, the price of oil is going to have to drop. And that’s the crude truth.
David Blackmon [00:29:53] Well, that’s what will happen if if everybody starts producing fallout. That certainly will happen. I mean, OPEC plus is already. I mean, when were they? It was last March, I think when they first plan to start releasing volumes back on to the market. Right. But they have withheld to keep the price propped up. They still haven’t done that and they’re not going to do it for the rest of this year. They’ve already said, you know, we’re not going to try to put any more of that oil back on the market in 2025. Well, if the United States production starts increasing even more rapidly than it has the last three years, with this low rig count, we’re still increasing production to new records almost every month. You know, something’s going to have to give, and that’s the way it could give, would be if Trump decides to start reinforcing the sanctions on Iran. I mean, Venezuela doesn’t matter because Maduro has just turned that country into a basket case. But but Iran is putting two and a half to 3 million barrels of oil every day, more than it was just a few years ago because Biden stopped enforcing the U.S. sanctions. Right. And so if Trump decides to start reinforcing those sanctions on Iran, which I don’t expect because he wants prices to go down. Then that could, you know, serve the purpose of firming up the price and curing the oversupplied market. But if he doesn’t do that, I think we’re going to be in a pretty chronically oversupplied market. You know, so it’s just it’s a it’s a tough deal for the industry. Right? Right. Because we want less regulation on the industry because it impedes so many other things other than just drilling wells. So you want less regulation from Washington. But at the same time, that could have the impact of creating a dramatically oversupplied market and crashing the price. So we’ve been here before, guys.
Rey Treviño [00:31:51] Yeah, we’re been you know, I want to ask the question. It really has nothing to do with oil or gas, but more about the Trump administration. And that people I don’t understand don’t want to highlight that Biden left a good mess on. Purpose for. Trump. Okay. It may be not all purpose, but it’s a mess.
Stuart Turley [00:32:12] In the words of Biden. It depends. And he left a full defense.
David Blackmon [00:32:17] Okay, Now. Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:32:19] That was a polite way.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:32:23] That was very polite.
Rey Treviño [00:32:24] Very polite. Yes. That being said, we mentioned Chris Wright. We mentioned Doug Burgum. I’ll even go out there on a limb and say Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem. Tom.
Stuart Turley [00:32:37] That great
Rey Treviño [00:32:39] Right. All these guys are almost individuals that know their craft. Right. Okay. And I added Pete Dixon because he’s a military man. And I’ll just say we got to get the numbers back up. And that’s probably the guy to get our numbers back up. But, you know, Doug Burgum being in North Dakota, the Department of Interior deals with all the minerals. Okay. Chris Wright. Department of Energy does deal with nuclear. Oil and gas, the top side of the oil and gas sector. These guys are not politicians talking about what you said right now face value. When we want to shut down Iran and go, hey, we’re hurting them again. But now it’s like our so do we have the right people in place, which I do believe we do, to be able to go and balance all those plates that are on the on
David Blackmon [00:33:33] The only thing I’d say is there’s plenty of ways to hurt Iran besides, you know, sanctioning their oil.
Rey Treviño [00:33:38] Okay.
Stuart Turley [00:33:39] I think you just nailed a gigantic thing that I said earlier, and that is that President Trump’s people, General Kellogg, don’t have the information they need. He spun up a all star cast. But what the Biden administration done in the in academic world, in the war colleges and everything else, they stripped out all of the land power, sea power, all of the other geopolitical reasons why the deep state and why the the Biden administration was doing things. They’ve stripped all that information out are. So once you have all that information out of academia, out of the war colleges, out of everything else, why did they do these things? Why did Assad get thrown out of power? It was because he did not put in a pipeline that we wanted. So who actually removed him?
Rey Treviño [00:34:36] Look at that.
Stuart Turley [00:34:38] Think about that. I’m just saying.
Rey Treviño [00:34:41] There he is Stu Turley.
Stuart Turley [00:34:44] I’m just Saying in the Trump administration, because if you take a look at the Petro dollar, what is going to happen to the better dollar and how all this is going on, that information is not there for him to be using.
Rey Treviño [00:34:58] You know, I’m glad you brought up the word Petro dollar, because in the last 2 or 3 months, I have not heard the word BRICs and all, you know, which is, you know, that little consortium of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and then you got all these other people out much more, much more. Now, when it comes to Saudi Arabia, including Saudi Arabia. I haven’t heard much about that since the Trump you know, since the election. Is that still brewing over there, guys?
David Blackmon [00:35:28] Yes, It’s just Trump sucking all the air out.
Rey Treviño [00:35:31] Okay. Okay. Okay. No. Can’t keep up.
David Blackmon [00:35:34] With what Trump’s doing, much less bridge.
Stuart Turley [00:35:36] It is still there. And and where BRICs is actually going to do where President Trump is not aware of these things is that Russia is doing good things in Africa and Russia is actually gaining ground where we should be gaining ground. And BRICs is going to help that through extra trade mechanisms. And so you have a strengthening of China and Russia. You have a strengthening of Russia and North Korea, South Korea. You have new pipelines coming in from Russia to Japan. All this is going to be through the BRICs organization and trade funding in Counter Swift. So your answer is yes, it is still there, but the media is not around it because I think David said it correctly.
Rey Treviño [00:36:33] You know, with all these things and again, kind of following what David just said about how Trump is taking all the he’s seeking all the attention. And so you mentioned BRICs or asked about BRICs. And then you talk about I do feel like it’s look over here while we do something else over here. And even under the Trump administration, I feel like that’s something that’s going on. But that being said, yeah. But that being said, you know, again, you know, kind of get back to it with everything that’s going on, you know, Dr. Harlan, as as we we we kind of continue here, you know, what are you excited about and where do you see things going here over the next four years?
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:37:16] Well, natural gas, I mean, back to where we started. Yeah, that is the most exciting part for me because I really was always in the natural gas industry. Yes. And starting with pipelines and then into exploration production. But that’s just where the action is. We have so much gas in all of this. Electricity generation capacity that’s coming on that air is demanding is is going to come from natural gas. It just is. You know, that’s that’s what we have readily at hand. The infrastructure is there to do it. We don’t have to. I mean, nuclear plants will come along eventually. You know, it’s always been the the pathway is natural gas to nuclear and to end Robert Bryce said that in 2010 in his book then he was right on He still is right. And this is just highlighting that once again that that it’s natural gas is going to drive this IBM and improve all the grids eventually nuclear will. But it’s still a that’s a long term solution. But he nailed natural gas. That’s where the action is.
Stuart Turley [00:38:24] Let me add this. Nixon the created the nuclear regulatory agency in what killed the nuclear industry was regulatory issues. And so by Nixon doing that, we we were it just put a nail in the hole. Nuclear plant.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:38:42] Design was designed to kill it.
Stuart Turley [00:38:44] Right.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:38:45] Its conspiracy theory.
Stuart Turley [00:38:47] it was.
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:38:48] Its whole purpose in life was to not issue any permits. And they did it for 45 years.
Stuart Turley [00:38:54] And if we can get to that point, Dr. Ireland is right on the money. I mean, it is, yeah.
David Blackmon [00:39:01] The only thing I’d add to that is Three Mile Island happening the week after the China Syndrome movie opened at the box office. Didn’t help things. No big. Deal.
Rey Treviño [00:39:11] And Dr. Ireland, real quick, from people out there, you do have a great substack that you do. How can people find you in your substack there?
Dr. Ed Ireland [00:39:19] Ed Ireland Dot substack.com. Okay. And and sure I still enjoy writing. I don’t write near as much as David does, but and he has a bigger audience. But but I do enjoy it. It’s good so I appreciate you.
Rey Treviño [00:39:34] Well well, thank you so much. Stu, let me ask you this. I think it’s a no brainer that you’re excited about this. But you know, what is it that you’re the most excited about from our industry? And then also, you know, how do people get a hold of you guys, Michael Tanner, and what are you all up to over there?
Stuart Turley [00:39:50] Well, Thank you, Rt Thank you this was such a blast. I just I really feel honored. But you can find us on the energy news beat dot substack.com and or energy news beat dot co You can find us on the podcast. Our numbers have been nuts and I am just so grateful for everybody that listens and puts up with my jokes. But it’s because people are tired of not understanding or wanting to know the truth, and that’s why they’re listening to podcasts. That’s why they’re listening to David. That’s why they’re following Doctor Ed Ireland Substack and that’s why they want to find out the Crude Truth.
Rey Treviño [00:40:27] Well, and also, I do want to say that, you know, obviously we do shoot a lot of these episodes of the crude truth here. But also, you are a producer of every episode as well. You as a group of Sandstone group. So so thank you, as always for that. And then I’m going to leave you for the last, because first of all, I can’t thank you so much for getting that deal. I know. But I joke, you know, we joke about Stu being in a bunker and I’ll give you a hard time. And I know you’ve been in one yourself, So to get you out here, get all your. I can’t thank you enough, David, Forbes, Reuters. I mean, you were still getting calls from people in Texas at the Texas Federal. Are you’re still getting calls from people at the state capitol on what’s going on and how they should write things to get things done? Okay. So he’s still getting those calls.
David Blackmon [00:41:14] Not near as much as of you. Yeah.
Rey Treviño [00:41:18] With the Trump for years. You know, you’re you’re the guy in the middle. You’ve always been even keel. You know, what are you excited about right now? And you know, obviously, you know, I threw out Forbes the rules, but how people get a hold of you.
David Blackmon [00:41:29] Well, I’m easy. I’m at blackmon.substack.com. We’re all on Substack. Yes. I mean, it’s the place to be. The Legacy media’s dad. Yeah, This is where you get your information. Blackmon.substack.com is where I post everything I write that gets published anywhere else at Forbes or The Daily Caller or wherever. And so it’s one stop shopping and it’s the easiest platform. And the Energy Realities is absolutely right. Please watch the Energy Realities Podcast. It’s the international perspective on that is really valuable,
Rey Treviño [00:42:02] Very valuable. And that is something I’m sorry, I should have definitely mentioned this to you guys. Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth and you’ve got a heck of a deal and it just goes on. And it’s awesome that you have that global perspective because, you know, I do like I say, as Texas energy goes, America goes. And the truth is, as American energy goes, the rest of the world’s good. Go, Gentlemen, I cannot thank you all enough for this. Thank you all so much. And to all our listeners out there, if you ever got any questions for any of these individuals, please reach out to them. Reach out to me. They actually do respond and get people back, you know, good answers. So we’ll see you again on another episode of The Crude Truth.
Narrator [00:42:42] Again, The Crude Truth would like to think today’s sponsors LFS Chemistry, Nape Expo, Air Compressor Solutions, Sandstone Group, Exec Crue, Texas Star Alliance. Pecos Country Operating and Real News Communication Network.
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China has significantly increased its nuclear energy capacity in the last decade, positioning it to become the world’s largest nuclear energy producer.
China is actively developing and deploying advanced nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors and thorium-fueled reactors, outpacing Western development in these areas.
The cost and time required to build nuclear reactors in China are substantially lower than in the United States, giving China a competitive edge in both domestic and international markets.
China has lapped the rest of the world in terms of nuclear energy deployment, and now it has its gaze set on dominating the nuclear export sector as well. Though the United States has been the biggest nuclear power generator in the world for decades, the American market has significantly slowed in recent decades, with much of its ageing fleet facing terminal decline. Over the same period, China has doubled down on nuclear energy buildout, adding a staggering 34 gigawatts of capacity over the last ten years. As a result, China is now set to overtake the United States (and France) to become the world’s single biggest producer of nuclear energy within the next ten years.
At the same time that China has been rapidly building out its nuclear power capacity, it has also been experimenting with many novel technologies. China has busily rolled out small modular reactors and high-temperature gas-cooled units while similar U.S. designs have languished in regulation limbo. And Beijing has even more ambitious nuclear energy prototypes in mind, including reactor models fueled by thorium instead of uranium.
All of this is to say that the Chinese nuclear sector has definitively cornered global expertise on nuclear technologies and development. Though U.S. scientists have developed similar prototypes in theory, and often before Chinese markets began to consider them, China actually managed to build them and now boast a wealth of experiential knowledge that the West cannot seem to keep pace with.
While the West is aware that it is losing the nuclear energy race, there’s little that the United States or European Union countries can do to close the gap. China is able to build nuclear reactors in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost compared to its Western would-be competitors. “The country’s reactor developers are state-owned enterprises, and receive preferential loans with low interest rates,” the Huffington Post recently reported. “That’s a stark contrast from U.S. and European projects, which can overrun their budgets by billions of dollars each time a regulatory delay holds them up, sending interest on their loans soaring.”
The United States’ newest nuclear reactor, Georgia’s Plant Vogtle, finally fully came online on April 29, 2024, seven years late and $17 billion over budget. This makes it, by some accounts, the most expensive infrastructure project of any kind in U.S. history at a whopping $35 billion. And now that Vogtle is finally finished, there are currently zero nuclear reactors under construction in the United States.
Moreover, electricity provided by Plant Vogtle is estimated to cost the “astoundingly high” sum of $170–$180/MWh. This, too, is a huge issue for the nuclear sector in the United States, where different energy sources have to be cost competitive. In China, where the electricity market is not divvied up in the same way, nuclear plants can “count on steady electricity rates from industrial buyers to help pay off the cost of a multibillion-dollar investment in new reactors” according to the Huffington Post.
Now, Chinese nuclear power is ready to make a mark on international energy markets as well. Beijing is rapidly expanding its presence in emerging markets from Asia to Africa by financing and building nuclear reactors in countries that desperately need reliable and carbon-neutral energy buildout. While Russia currently dominates global nuclear supply chains, China may be on track to overtake that superlative as well.
“We continue to advance comprehensive cooperation with ‘old friends’ such as Russia and France, expand in-depth cooperation with ‘new partners’ such as other key European countries,” Lu Tiezhong, a China National Nuclear Company (CNNC) official, told the Chinese nationalist propaganda outlet the Global Times last year. “We plan to establish a research and development center in Eastern Europe, seize the opportunity of accelerated global innovation resource flow and reshuffling, continuously increase the participation of international scientific and technological talents in CNNC’s scientific research tasks and engineering implementation, coordinate with international development strategies, expand international influence, open up international markets and help CNNC’s full industry chain ‘go global.’”
Chevron Corp. plans to ratchet up oil exports from Venezuela to a seven-year high as a reset of the country’s relationship with the US eases concerns that trade restrictions will increase.
Exports of synthetic oil from Chevron’s Petropiar project are expected to rise about 50% to about 143,000 barrels a day this month, the highest since March 2018, according to preliminary port schedules compiled by Bloomberg. Petropiar’s output has grown 37% in the past year to 110,000 barrels a day in January, said a person with knowledge of the operations, who asked not to be named because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.
President Nicolas Maduro is benefiting from the slow revival of Venezuela’s oil industry, the regime’s top revenue producer, after his release of US prisoners and decision to accept immigrants deported from the US — after a meeting with Trump envoy Richard Grenell — calmed fears of additional sanctions. Chevron Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said earlier this month that Venezuelan oil could be more important for the US if it imposes tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which produce crude similar to Venezuela’s grades.
“The Trump administration’s immediate priority is immigration, not Venezuela’s re-democratization,” said Fernando Ferreira, Rapidan Energy Group’s director of geopolitical risk. “The Maduro-Grenell meeting is promising for Petroleos de Venezuela SA and Western oil companies operating in Venezuela, and supportive for Venezuelan production.”
Chevron’s ability to expand in Venezuela is still limited by sanctions, which allow the company to boost drilling and operations only within the bounds of contracts it had in 2019. The Houston-based company has bolstered operations by securing electricity supply to drilling pads and replacing equipment such as coiled tubing, a person with knowledge of the situation said.
Chevron said in a statement it continues to carry out business in Venezuela in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
The oil major boosted production at another project, the Petroboscan, by 40% in the past year to 101,000 barrels a day in January, according to a person with knowledge of the situation and PDVSA data seen by Bloomberg. Electricity and gas supply failures that slowed production during previous years have been partially ameliorated, according to the person.
California is home to 9 International airports, 41 Military airports, 3 of the largest shipping ports in America, as well as more than 30 million registered vehicles, all of which cannot operate without imported foreign oil from other nations like Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Iraq, Columbia, and Russia. Thus, California is a serious national security risk for America.
In his nearly six years in office, Governor Newsom has aggressively moved to shut down oil production in California. Statewide production has fallen by more than one-third under his watch.
Because California is an isolated energy island market with no incoming oil pipeline connections from other states, Newsom’s shutdown agenda has increased dependence on waterborne crude imports – sourced primarily from foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Iraq, Columbia, and Russia.
The West Coast gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuels market is isolated from other supply/demand centers as California is an energy island isolated from the States East of the Sierra Mountains. The Sierra Mountains are a natural barrier that prevents the state from pipeline access to any of that excess oil from fracking. As such, the West Coast is susceptible to unexpected outages of West Coast refineries as it is unable to backfill an unexpected loss in supply by quickly supplying additional products from outside of the region.
Newsom’s policies continue to force California, the 5th largest economy in the world, to be the only state in contiguous America that imports most of its crude oil demands from foreign countries. That dependence has increased imported crude oil from foreign countries from 5 percent in 1992 to 60 percent today of total consumption.
Newsom’s administration policies and combative approach have led California to a precarious position as the world’s fifth largest economy now exists in a perpetual supply crunch for crude oil, aviation, gasoline, and diesel fuels, leading to high costs, price volatility, and an increased risk of shortages.
California’s aggressive shift towards unreliable solar and wind for electricity, coupled with its move away from fossil fuels, has made the state more vulnerable to fuel shortages and blackouts. This not only affects the daily lives of Californians but also impacts critical infrastructure and industries that are essential for national security.
California uses 1.45 million barrels of oil each day, or well over 520 million barrels of oil per year, for the aviation, gasoline, and diesel fuels manufactured from crude oil, as well as the oil derivatives manufactured from oil that are the basis of more than 6,000 products in our society.
California transportation fuel demands have staggering numbers:
· With all its airports, California is the largest consumer of jet fuel in America.
· For its 30 million vehicles, California is the second-largest consumer of motor gasoline among the 50 states, just behind Texas. · Diesel fuel is the second largest transportation fuel used in California, representing 17 percent of total fuel sales behind gasoline.
California continues to reduce in-state oil production, which grows its dependency on other nations for crude oil for its shrinking in-state refinery capabilities to meet the in-state demands for aviation and vehicle transportation fuels. With a reduction of California refinery capabilities, the State is heading in the direction of growing its importation of manufactured aviation fuels, diesel, and gasoline, and for the oil derivatives that are the basis of virtually every one of the more than 6,000 products in our society.
Governor Newsom continues his personal mission to have renewables of wind turbines and solar panels to replace fossil fuels. Newsom remains oblivious to the fact that renewables ONLY generate electricity, as they are incapable of making any products or manufacturing any aviation, gasoline, or diesel fuels, or making any of the oil derivatives that are the basis of virtually all the products being used by humanity.
· Renewables are incapable of making aviation fuel for commercial, military, and private planes.
· Renewables are incapable of making any gasoline for the States’ 30 million vehicles.
· Renewables are incapable of making diesel fuel, the second largest fuel used in California.
· Shockingly, renewables themselves cannot exist without the parts and components that are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
In October 2024, Phillips 66 announced that it would close its Wilmington-area refining complex this year, which will further reduce the state’s gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuels production capacity, wiping out more than 8% of the state’s crude oil processing capacity. Losing another 1.3 billion gallons in annual gasoline output will only worsen the state’s supply challenges. With the upcoming closure of the Phillips 66 Refinery in California in 2025, the state will obviously be importing less crude oil, but instead, will be importing fuels manufactured in China.
Asia is the region with the greatest number of future petroleum refineries. As of 2021, there were 88 new refinery facilities in planning or under construction in Asia for manufactured gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuels used by every transportation infrastructure, and the military, as well as the manufactured oil derivatives that are the basis of most every product being used by mankind.
Importantly however, California may not have the necessary port capacity, coastal storage, pipelines, or refinery facilities to support a continued shift in the gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel supply chain toward imports, and that would exacerbate California’s port pollution problems. Herein lies a massive flaw in Newsom’s crusade to shut down in-state oil production: California may not have the infrastructure to meet demand with imported fuels. Californians should be alarmed. After all, Newsom is demanding a dramatic shift in the fuels supply chain, but we may not have the necessary port capacity, coastal storage, pipelines, or refinery facilities to execute it.
Fuel prices in California are quickly getting out of control. The California Energy Commission warned in August 2024 that the state lacked the refining capacity necessary to meet fuel demand. When you restrict supply and prices go up, the people who are hurt the most are low-income.
At the end of December 2024, a gallon of gas in California cost $4.46 on average. Of that total, Californians paid $1.20 in state and local taxes and fees.
In 2025, amendments to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) approved by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) come into effect. The LCFS amendments will increase gas prices by 47 cents next year. By 2040, the added cost to the price per gallon could be $1.80.
California Governor Newsom remains unavailable to participate in conversations about Energy Literacy and the educational points to remember that crude oil (products and fuels), renewables (weather dependent generation of electricity), and nuclear power (generation of continuous and uninterruptable electricity) do different things.
If continued, Newsom’s shutdown agenda toward oil production and refinery capacity could leave California with no way to process adequate amounts of crude to meet in-state demands for Saudi aviation fuels, gasoline, and diesel– leading to more supply shocks and price spikes that Californians can’t afford.
California is a crucial and dynamic part of the United States with immense contributions to the nation, but its current trajectory in energy policy to eliminate fossil fuels, without a replacement to support the supply chain demand for products and fuels made from oil, and focus on “renewables” that only generate electricity, could pose risks that impact not just the state but potentially the broader national security landscape.
Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
The bloc imported nearly $2 billion worth of the fuel in December, according to data
Russian gas purchases by EU member states jumped to nearly €2 billion in the final month of last year, their highest point since early 2023, TASS reported on Monday, citing Eurostat data. The surge occurred ahead of Kiev’s suspension of pipeline gas transit through Ukraine to the bloc.
Kiev refused to extend a five-year transit contract with Russia’s energy giant Gazprom at the end of 2024, effectively cutting off EU states including Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Italy, as well as Moldova, from the flow of natural gas from the country.
In December, EU nations reportedly spent €927.4 million on Russian pipeline gas. Meanwhile, the value of the bloc’s imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) amounted to €917 million. Both figures were at their highest since the beginning of 2023.
The news agency noted that imports of Russian LNG surged by 52% versus the previous month and 38% compared to the same period a year ago.
France and Belgium reportedly imported €402.9 million and €137.9 million worth of Russian liquified natural gas, respectively, emerging as the biggest buyers of the super-chilled fuel. Meanwhile, the Netherlands imported €98.5 million worth of LNG form Russia, marking a drop of 15.5% month-over-month.
In 2024, the EU paid €7.6 billion for Russian pipeline gas, compared to €7.9 billion recorded in the previous year, TASS reported, adding that the bloc’s purchases of LNG from Russia amounted to €7.2 billion, down from €8.1 billion in 2023.
France (€3.1 billion), Spain (€2 billion) and Belgium (€1.1 billion) were ranked among the biggest importers of Russian LNG among EU nations. The Netherlands reportedly purchased €749 million worth of the chilled gas.
EU nations continued to purchase both the piped fuel and LNG despite pledging to eliminate their energy reliance on Moscow. Although imports of pipeline gas from Russia saw a significant reduction due to the Ukraine conflict and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022, the bloc’s members kept purchasing it.
The chilled fuel has only partially been targeted by EU sanctions. In June, Brussels banned re-loading operations, ship-to-ship transfers, and ship-to-shore transfers with the purpose of re-exporting to third nations via the bloc. The restrictions have a nine-month transition period.
The remaining shipments of piped natural gas from Russia are currently coming to the bloc through the TurkStream pipeline, which runs from Russia to Türkiye via the Black Sea and then to the border with EU member Greece. One of the lines of the route provides gas for the Turkish domestic market and the other supplies customers in southern and central Europe.
