[[{“value”:”

Natural Gas – The Power to Change

The world faces a fiscal and energy crisis due to the global efforts to force an energy transition. Natural Gas has the potential to help the environment, reduce energy costs, and even save some regime changes from happening. You won’t want to miss the team from Bulgaria, Canada, EU, and Texas talking about this important global topic. – We have Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth, David Blackmon, and Stu Turley discussing this and how it could impact your lives.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:10 – Introduction & Opening Remarks

03:58 – Natural Gas Discussion

07:04 – Political Instability in Bulgaria

08:04 – Ukraine’s Pipeline

09:09 – Biden Administration’s Offshore Drilling Policies

16:00 – Turkey’s Gas Hub Ambitions

18:47 – Europe’s Energy Crisis

20:04 – Russia and China LNG Tensions

22:33 – Cheap Energy and Government Stability

25:23 – Hidden Causes of High Energy Prices

30:01 – Energy Prices and Industrial Relocation

33:21 – Reinvestment in Oil and Gas Wells

37:36 – Fossil Fuels in Renewable Energy Production

41:22 – Why the IEA Should Be Put on Trump’s Target List

48:57 – Wall Street’s Top Banks Just Quit a Once Popular Alliance

49:16 – Sustainability Shakedown: How a Climate Cartel of Money Managers Colluded to Take Over the Board of America’s Largest Energy Company

51:56 – Italy calls for EU gas price cap at 60 euros per megawatt hour

53:49 – UK vies with Germany to be European EV champion

56:30 – The German MP calls for NordStream to be reactivated

57:03 – German purchases of Russian uranium surge

57:38 – NY’s Fracking Ban Ignores $1 Trillion In Gas Reserves, While Green Hysteria Stifles State’s Economy

59:22 – Closing thoughts

Irina Slav

International Author writing about energy, mining, and geopolitical issues. Bulgaria

David Blackmon

Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.Principal at DB Energy Advisors, energy author, and podcast host.

Tammy Nemeth

Energy Consulting Specialist

Stuart Turley

President, and CEO, Sandstone Group, Podcast Host

Natural Gas – The Power to Change

Stuart Turley [00:00:10] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Realities podcast. My name’s Stu Turley president of the Sandstone Group. We have a line up today that you would not believe. We have Tammy Nemeth coming around the corner. She is the head honcho over there at the Nemeth Report and we’re not sure if she’s she’s I think she’s in the UK this morning instead of Canada. How are you this morning?

Tammy Nemeth [00:00:36] I’m doing well, thank you. Yes, I’m in the UK suffering like cold and apparently snow, which we haven’t received yet and lots of rain.

Stuart Turley [00:00:46] And I had a funny thing on Twitter or X excuse me that said that they’re going to start coming after the United States. People that put out mean tweets and show up on our doorsteps. That will not be a lot of fun. So,

Tammy Nemeth [00:01:02] Yeah. That would be fun.

Stuart Turley [00:01:03] All right. Absolutely. I can’t wait to see some baby on my porch. And then we have Irina Slav. Irina Slav is in Bulgaria this morning. And how are you? You have got Irina Slav dot substack.com. How is everything in your world?

Irina Slav [00:01:22] Everything is just great, thank you Stu. We have a really warm winter this year

Stuart Turley [00:01:31] Well, it makes it easier for your solar panels to kick in. And

Irina Slav [00:01:38] Absolutely they’re working great because it’s cold but sunny.

Stuart Turley [00:01:44] Cold, but sunny works. It’s that 15 pounds of snow on the roof. That makes it a little tough.

Irina Slav [00:01:50] Yeah, Yeah, We have our.

Stuart Turley [00:01:53] Are you, are you ready for a fantastic 2025?

Irina Slav [00:01:57] Absolutely. Yeah, it’s looking good. If that news about Trudeau turns out to be right. And after all the news reports, I think he’s out of options. I think everything is through the air.

Stuart Turley [00:02:12] And and I think that President Trump is a troll master. Did I just call him a troll or a troll? My my master. And then we have David Blackmon coming around the corner. David Blackmon is not just a David Blackmon. He is the David Blackmon and you can find him on Blackmon dot substack.com on, let’s see. Forbes, Daily Caller I believe that Elon has his mama speed dial. Welcome, David. How are you today?

David Blackmon [00:02:43] I wish I could use a little support from Elon. I hope everyone will excuse me. My voice is all raspy today. I spent the weekend up in Stu’s part of the world in Oklahoma. Well, not exactly, but in Oklahoma City, not exactly. Stu’s part of the world. And then naturally, every time I go to Oklahoma City, I get caught in the snowstorm. And that here last night as the volleyball tournament we were attending for our beautiful little 12 year old granddaughter was concluding. And so it was a very interesting long drive back to Mansfield, Texas. I kind of tell you. Anyway, we got in about midnight.

Stuart Turley [00:03:23] Well.

David Blackmon [00:03:23] Four hour of sleep

Stuart Turley [00:03:28] I would rather work on my backhoe and work on digging up retaining walls, putting in new pipes, diverting all of the water off of my land, and put it into my neighbor’s left wing Democrat yard rather than deal with an in-law.

David Blackmon [00:03:51] In case I want to say, I love you, kid, you played great and I was happy to be there.

Irina Slav [00:03:56] That’s the important thing.

David Blackmon [00:03:57] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:03:58] Well, all right. Well, today’s topic is natural gas. It has the power to change. I mean, natural gas is cleaner. The EIA has even said that the United States has lowered its CO2 output over the last five years by over 20%. And when you consider why, it’s because we replace coal plants with natural gas plants, it’s pretty clean. And you take a look at a pipeline. I’d rather look at a buried pipeline than look at a windmill. And what are your thoughts on net gas there, Tammy?

Tammy Nemeth [00:04:41] Well, I mean, it’s really interesting because when they started to get rid of coal in the United States and closing down coal power, they built up natural gas power plants. And you saw the emissions in the United States go, you know, nosedive. But then in the next breath, once that had been taken care of kind of thing, then all of a sudden these studies might put that in scare quotes, come out saying that natural gas actually has more emissions than coal. So it’s a matter of don’t believe your lying eyes, believe these experts who have an ax to grind against hydrocarbon companies. And you know that the facts kind of speak for themselves, that once coal was removed and natural gas was built up, the emissions went down. So I think that the future going forward will be very interesting, especially in Europe, because as Irene is probably going to talk about in her stories there, the the price cap on natural gas is due to expire. They’re talking about different ways to come up with a price for Europe. In the UK, it’s ridiculous. And they’re shutting down the North Sea, which makes no sense. And then importing gas. But that’s okay because apparently they’re going to build enough wind and solar and batteries and flywheels that they won’t need as much natural gas as people think they will. So the government is in the UK is living in in in fantasy land. The EU is trying to struggle with reality. Canada has this massive potential that that the activists have been litigating left, right and center. So it takes forever to build anything. So there’s potential with a new American administration to turn that all around.

Stuart Turley [00:06:32] Wow. And Bulgaria cannot seem to get their government to move, can they? That is in line with the problems coming around in the EU right now. Irina, Holy smokes.

Irina Slav [00:06:46] We can get. When I say we, I mean the people revolt into Parliament. They can get together to form a government. We will be voting again this year, people for the eighth time. I don’t know.

Stuart Turley [00:07:04] Wow.

Irina Slav [00:07:05] Yeah. All right.

Stuart Turley [00:07:08] Well, what do you think the EU and net gas is going on? Because right now we had several huge things go on last week with the Ukraine pass through on their pipeline there when they stopped it. That is actually going to turn Ukraine into a fourth world state of being at the bottom of the food chain. You have the Slavic countries around there now having to get their gas from LNG imports. You now have President Trump who is now. There are rumors that a U.S. company may be buying Nord Stream. And if that happens, you have instant cash flow because you could turn on from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. One of the pipelines is still functional. They only destroyed three. Whoever whoever threw destroyed it will.

Irina Slav [00:08:04] Never.

Stuart Turley [00:08:06] Yeah, we never know. We know that it was not a Ukrainian on a on a three day cruise on the USS Minnow. So we know that it was not that. And so when we sit back and we look at the paradigm shift, Turkey is looking to be a natural gas hub. And you take a look at Germany’s green policies. I’m throwing all this out here for the team to talk about because deindustrialization has happened in the UK and in Germany. Germany has then turned around and gotten rid of their nuclear fleet. They’re now buying nuclear energy from France and now they have just purchased a substantial chunk of uranium from Russia. You can’t buy this kind of entertainment. This is entertainment. And we are only on January 6th. I’m my head’s exploding. David, what do you think?

David Blackmon [00:09:09] Well, there’s. What do I think? Gosh, there’s so many things, I think. So, yes, there’s no explaining the energy policies in Germany or England other than they are intentional efforts by left wing politicians to be industrialize their societies and destroy their own national economies, to make their populations poorer and easier to control. I mean, I just think that it’s so obvious on its face now. Even a lot of liberals in the United States are recognizing it and more and more will as time goes on. I think I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that our podcast today is being recorded on a day when President Joe Biden’s evil minions will have their titular leader, supposed president, read a statement setting aside 625 million acres of the US offshore, off limits to leasing and drilling for oil and gas. Now that’s the Atlantic coast. The Pacific coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico are all going to be set aside and off limits to leasing and producing oil and natural gas for the future under the US Lands Act. It’s going to be difficult for the Trump administration to reverse that order, and I know they will try. But unfortunately, the way the OCS is written, Section 12 for anyone who wants to review it, Section 12, this is a portion of the act that was clearly intended for use only during times of war and national emergencies. But just as Biden’s raid of the petroleum the National Petroleum Reserve showed us, these Democrats do not care about national security and don’t care what the law actually says, They’re going to distort it any way they can to meet their energy goals. So the good news for us in today’s discussion is that there’s barely any natural gas being produced at all. I was not on the Atlantic coast. Very little on the Pacific Coast. Very little in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. So this is not going to have any major detrimental impact on current production of the U.S. What it does, though, is set off limits, massive reserves that we know exist beneath those waters for future use. And it’s it’s clearly an effort similar to what’s been happening in Germany and England to start the industrializing the US economy and harming our energy security or forcing us to become increasingly dependent on foreign sources of energy. All that said, and I know that was a long wind up to the pitch. The United States has the most massive by far and most massive natural gas resources on the face of the planet. What’s in the Eagle Ford Shale. Eastern third of the Eagle Ford Shale alone is enough to power this country for 100 years, and everybody knows it. We think it’s just an almost inexhaustible supply of natural gas. And so the Trump administration is going to come in there everything it can to support the oil and natural gas industry and the continued growth, virology, export capability for those countries in Europe and Asia who value both energy security and reduction of their emissions from their energy sector sector by using natural gas to displace coal. And, you know, it’s a very bright future for natural gas. I think as we look at the global landscape, the future is really, really bright given the new American administration and hopefully a change in government coming in Canada, which also has some very, very big reserves of natural gas. And that’s just what we know in Canada. The other thing I think we ought to also mention here is that there’s so much undiscovered resources yet to be found. I mean, barely a 10th of Canada has even been explored for natural gas, Greenland. There’s no telling what’s underneath Greenland. This is part of why Donald Trump is very serious about wanting to buy Greenland because of all the known mineral resource that’s beneath the ground there and all that might be there if people are allowed to explore for the other parts of the world, we’re barely we’re just getting started finding natural gas on this planet. And there’s just a lot more to go. Anyway.

Stuart Turley [00:13:43] I love the the prime minister of Greenland saying to Denmark, it’s kind of like I can tell he’d been following Trump’s experts because he said, okay, I’m in.

David Blackmon [00:13:57] Yeah. No, you. Know, that’s the thing. Greenland is owned by Denmark. They don’t want to be owned by Denmark. And, you know, Denmark probably has a price they take.

Irina Slav [00:14:07] going by a country or, you know, whatever.

David Blackmon [00:14:11] I mean, we’ve done it before. We bought Alaska from Russia $5 million.

Irina Slav [00:14:16] It’s well settled precedent. It could be a dangerous precedent.

David Blackmon [00:14:20] But we bought Alaska for $5 million from Russia.

Irina Slav [00:14:23] Yeah, but that was a very long time ago.

David Blackmon [00:14:25] We did the Louisiana Purchase from France.

David Blackmon [00:14:30] I mean. That’s how the United States was built in large part. So, I mean, it wouldn’t the precedents already been set? It hasn’t been done really in modern times. But, you know.

Irina Slav [00:14:42] I think yeah, I think the Chinese are already in Greenland exploring for minerals.

David Blackmon [00:14:48] Part of the problem too.

Stuart Turley [00:14:49] That is a huge problem. Tom puts out a very good point here. The assault against coal is opening up a window where natural gas can step in for dispatchable resource need. The build for providing adequate supply and transportation is a huge question. Removing coal is happening with the expectation of gas replacement, but I fear I will end up naked renewables and dying in the cold. Our starting point and I don’t want to see you naked in the Coal Gazette. It puts up a frightening thought.

David Blackmon [00:15:21] I was really interested to know where you live. I don’t know if he’s in the United States or another country. It would be interesting to know. But in the United States, you know, we we already have so much infrastructure. It really hasn’t been a problem. But in other countries, I know that would be an issue.

Stuart Turley [00:15:36] In except in the West Coast and East Coast where you have the Democrats running, we have the Jones Act that could help out with LNG because most of the LNG coming into the U.S. is from Trinidad and Tobago. And it would be he’s in Minnesota.

David Blackmon [00:15:57] In Minnesota. That is a foreign country. Okay. Thank you, Tom.

Stuart Turley [00:16:00] It is a foreign country. You and and so sit back and take a look. If President Trump could get rid of that, this is this is the world’s view of this President Trump could be controlling the use of natural gas. How fast that Germany could be restored again to cheap Russian natural gas, I believe we will see an end to the war very quickly. However, if you see a US company come in and buy Nord Stream for pennies on the dollar, kind of like buying Greenland, this could actually be President Trump standing there. Go no gas for you. Holy smokes, we just turned into Putin. Now I’m like, this is weird.

Irina Slav [00:16:53] Yeah, but even if they buy it, was the gas going to come from They’ll have to build the side branch or something to. Reach Turkey to get. A guest from Azerbaijan because the bribe goes to Russia. And if Russia doesn’t want to send gas into Europe, it just won’t.

David Blackmon [00:17:13] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:17:16] Russia is President Putin is playing chess at a level that there’s no way that I could compete with him. And Irina, you know, my imitation and Putin is horrible. I do not do a very good imitation.

Irina Slav [00:17:30] You just try.

Stuart Turley [00:17:31] Need to practice. I’ve got his walk down. I practice because he always holds his right hand close to his hip. But I study him. And so when you sit back and take a look at where Russia is going, they are moving their neck gas to China and they are selling theirs to the Asia area. And you take a look at Turkey. Turkey is trying to become Syria was just taken down with net gas because Assad did not put the pipeline in. That is why he was taken down. Read between the lines. Who controls the U.S. dollar? And how did he leave?

Irina Slav [00:18:14] Yeah. Turkey wants to be a really big player in natural gas. And it’s funny because Europe used to consider him Erdogan. That is a reliable partner. He’s anything but reliable if you. He has ever dealt with.

David Blackmon [00:18:30] He’s a wild dude.

Irina Slav [00:18:32] Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:18:32] Well, he wants to restore the caliphate. He wants to restore the caliphate in Turkey.

Irina Slav [00:18:37] And that is one big reason why I respect him so much. You know, if your very positive feelings towards him being in southern Bulgaria.

David Blackmon [00:18:47] Yes.

Irina Slav [00:18:49] But yet Europe. Just to mention Europe is a little bit out of options. You know, it was supposed to buy more U.S. LNG because it’s cheaper, but it’s not cheaper, which is why the record imports of Russian LNG this year is going to be fun because Bloomberg’s have you have last year, you’ve probably seen it. He just published a column about how gas prices in Europe are going to be higher for longer because the moment that winter ends, they need to start with filling their storage.

David Blackmon [00:19:26] Right.

Irina Slav [00:19:27] And they will be starting from a much lower point than in the past couple of years. And they don’t have the Ukrainian gas stranded because Zelensky said they will not renew the contract with Gazprom. So, yeah, we’re going to be cold here.

Tammy Nemeth [00:19:47] Well, what’s interesting is that Norway I read an article this morning that Norway is increasing their oil and gas investment budget.

Irina Slav [00:19:56] Interesting thing in has absolutely no relation to what’s happening to gas in Europe. I’m sure.

Tammy Nemeth [00:20:02] I’m sure.

David Blackmon [00:20:03] Certainly not. Yes.

Tammy Nemeth [00:20:04] And and if I could point out about Russia and its LNG or its natural gas, my understanding I read an article last week that there is a bit of a dispute going on with China because China knows that there’s Russia has limited markets in which it can sell and it’s demanding extremely low prices because of course. Of course. Right. And so now it’s creating this friction between Russia and China. And China knows they have Russia over a barrel. And it’s unclear how how that will resolve going forward because it’s like I said. So if Ukraine and Russia come to some kind of a peace and there’s been all of these, you know, demonization of Russia and saying you can’t buy Russian gas, even though on X today there was a chart showing the amount of Russian natural gas that was still flowing into the EU. And then how how does that relationship get rationalized after the peace? Because it’s been they’ve been so demonized. Are they going to do like post-World War two Marshall Plan between Ukraine and Russia, or are they going to exert reparations from Russia? Like, you know.

Irina Slav [00:21:22] totally worked to exert reparations, which Russia has to lose, which I think is going to happen. And we’ll just try to pretend this didn’t happen. They will try to, you know, demonize every single Russian living in Europe or in Russia.

Tammy Nemeth [00:21:39] Except they’ve taken the assets and they’ve been selling them.

Irina Slav [00:21:42] I know it will be. I think it was just that exactly like the there will do with the energy transition.

Stuart Turley [00:21:52] You bring up some fabulous points, and I apologize for complimenting you today, Tammy, but wow, the the the whole thing is, if you don’t if world leaders do not provide cheap energy to their people. Regimes change. And Germany, the EU, New York, New Jersey, in California and Canada have failed. Is that a fair statement?

Tammy Nemeth [00:22:33] Can you repeat that?

David Blackmon [00:22:34] Say that again.

Stuart Turley [00:22:36] If leaders do not supply cheap energy to their constituents or their citizens, regimes change. They either get voted out or they get taken down. Take a look at Syria today. It was energy related. Everybody thought it was not energy related. It was over pipelines. I’ve been talking to people around the world about it and it is about pipelines and the why is the U.S. military still in Syria in the oil fields? Oops.

Tammy Nemeth [00:23:12] Well, okay, so to your point about cheap energy, without it, if you increase the price too quickly perhaps, or whatever, then governments will fall and people get upset. But if you look at, say, for example, the first energy crisis where you had the prices increase absolutely dramatically and people were told, well, this is just the kind of way it is. And and well, we’ll do our best to try and lower the prices. And sometimes there are subsidies, sometimes sometimes not. And then when the prices plummeted, they kept the taxes on. They increased taxes because they said, hey, people, you’ll waste the energy if it’s not expensive. So we’re going to keep it at a relatively expensive level so that you don’t waste it. So on the one hand, I, I think that people will get very upset if they don’t necessarily have cheap energy. But it’s like what Tony Blair said, where you keep increasing the tax rate until the point of people revolting and then you pull it back. So it’s like this incremental increase to see how much they can force people to pay. Then you pull it back and then you increase it up again and then you pull it back. And until I don’t know what that breaking point is where people will actually revolt. But I think it’s not just the expense, it’s also reliability. So if you’re suffering through blackouts and you’re paying a fortune and being told that you have to pay a lot so we can make it more reliable and it’s not more reliable, then people will get upset. But I don’t know. I don’t know what it will take for Western people to actually be so upset to force real change, getting involved in their local, local politics, political communities and so on to effect real change. I don’t know what it will take because they went out and they complained and conservatives in the UK gave them the same crap as Labor and then they voted Labor. So now the only alternative is reform. But they haven’t really thought out what their policies are and it’s another five years. So I don’t know. I don’t know what it will take for people to be upset enough. And I don’t think higher prices alone are enough to do that.

David Blackmon [00:25:23] Right. Because because people are so ignorant. Right? They don’t understand what’s causing the high prices, because the media is complicit with the government in ensuring that the public remains angry. So, you know, people say, well, my electric bills are too high. And the Labor government says, well, you know, you just need another subsidy, but we have to have higher taxes and our rights for the subsidies. And people just throw up their hands and go on about their daily lives because they don’t understand any of it. The BBC and it’s not true. And same thing in the United States. 80% of the people walking the streets in the United States couldn’t tell you in any way whatsoever where their electricity comes from. When they flip the switch, they just think you flipped the switch and there it is. And it’s because our education system doesn’t tell people either. So it’s you know, it’s a wonderful if you’re if you’re a authoritarian person in a in an authoritarian, aspiring totalitarian government like we have in Canada and Germany and some of these other countries in the United States, to thankfully a lesser extent. I mean, you’ve created a hell of a racket for yourself. I mean, it’s a self-perpetuating deal even in the Trump administration that’s going to be really hard to weed out all these scumbags out of all these agencies who have been destroying the country from within the past four years and 12 of the last 16 years. And that’s because, you know, the Congress made up of largely the same kinds of individuals as enacted all these laws that make it difficult to fire anybody in the federal government. So Trump talked a big game about doing that, but that the nuts and bolts of the situation are extremely complex and difficult. Same thing with this with this offshore ban that Biden’s announcing today. You know, Trump has said, well, you know, I’ll I’ll reverse that. Well, it’s not that simple. As we found out in the past, and it’s going to be years of court cases that are going to have to be resolved ultimately by the Supreme Court and by then Trump’s term in office probably going to be over. And that’s the whole strategy behind what Biden is doing today. And so, you know, the United States, the situation, the United States is probably not nearly as complex and awful as it is in some of these other countries where the governments have gone further down these roads to authoritarianism. And it’s just a really hard thing if you can’t even win conservative interests win elections in Europe. The other parties conspire to deny them the ability to exercise power. I mean, we’ve seen that in France. We saw it in the Netherlands, where builders had a really hard time. It took them a year to form a government in the Netherlands, Austria and Austria. And then you have Romania where the Supreme Court just cancels the election and throws the winning candidate in prison. Right. Which is what the Democrats tried to do, by the way, with Donald Trump after the 2020 election in the United States. So it’s this is you know, I mean, it’s a real big fight coming fro for all of our societies. And we are either going to, as citizens just say, okay, we’re just going to sit back and take whatever they bring or we’re going to have to continue upping the pressure steadily. And hopefully it doesn’t come to any, you know, real armed conflicts in any of these countries. But that’s what this is all leading to in the coming years. And I really fear for the future of my children and grandchildren.

Irina Slav [00:29:04] There’s another point, by the way, what Tammy said about. Raising the pressure on people by raising their electricity bills, but they’re also raising the bills for industrial consumers and industrial consumers. Businesses are employers. Just look at what happened with the Volkswagen and the strike that workers were planning. So when you screw households over, you can screw them over for a longer time. But when you screw their employers over the employer, the employers are just going to up and leave and they’re going to lay off people and that becomes a serious problem. Yeah, great. We’ll see where the tolerance ends. And that’s risky, by the way. Tony Blair should be in prison. I just wanted to say that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:30:01] With with the industry position. I think when when the war with Ukraine first broke out, they were telling industry it’ll be temporary, these high prices will be temporary. We’ll sort it out. Just stick with us, you know? And then it turns out it’s not temporary. It’s part of the net zero transition. To have the high prices to reconfigure how industry operates to offshore it, whatever. And so you’re right, the industry said, well, I think we’ll just move to China or America or someplace else. That that’s reasonable. But can can you put up. Whose is it there? Friedrich Dallas’s comment Stu.

Stuart Turley [00:30:45] Yes. Well, look here. We’ve had a lot of great comments. Richard

Irina Slav [00:30:51] Norway. Yeah, that’s about.

Tammy Nemeth [00:30:53] About Norway.

Irina Slav [00:30:54] Yeah

Tammy Nemeth [00:31:00] because. It’s 5 or 6 up.

Stuart Turley [00:31:05] Okay. Let’s see here. Red. Yeah. Fredrick.

Tammy Nemeth [00:31:09] Right. So Fredrick said. I just read an article saying Norway wants to double its investment in oil and gas. And that’s the article I was talking about, too. It may be a silly question, but does that automatically mean they can double production? I would say no. But what it does do because if you read their earlier reports where the I think it’s the Norway Offshore Department or something released a report back in August where they had their different scenarios for what’s required to either phase down production or maintain it at its current levels and in order to maintain it at current levels for the next 10 to 15 years would require a significant amount of investment, not just to with technological developments and so on, in order to maintain production from existing fields. But a lot of those fields are starting to run dry and they need to also explore and bring new ones into production to maintain that current level because they’ve been increasing to some extent in order to offset what Russia was providing to the European Union. And so a lot of this doubling of investment is in order to maintain the current levels of both oil and gas production. Irina, do you think. Is that right?

Irina Slav [00:32:23] Yes, that’s right. And I’ve been following Norway for years since I started writing for oil price and new discoveries have been very few and far between in the North Sea and the Barents Sea, wherever Norway explores. It doesn’t have Texas in Oklahoma. And no, it doesn’t have this place. So they’ll have to invest a lot in that as well.

Stuart Turley [00:32:52] You know, his point is very. Well, his question is outstanding, especially because you have to sit back and realize wells when they are drilled, oil and gas wells have decline curves and each well is different in how much and how fast they will decline. And so, A, it is a if you don’t invest in re drill, you will lose the oil and gas coming out of that eventually.

Tammy Nemeth [00:33:21] Yeah, exactly.

Stuart Turley [00:33:25] So great question. Mr. Underhill says by.

David Blackmon [00:33:35] Ops Stu froze.

Stuart Turley [00:33:36] Who disagree.

Tammy Nemeth [00:33:39] We lost you for a second there Stu.

David Blackmon [00:33:41] We lost you there.

Stuart Turley [00:33:42] I disagree with Mr. Underhill. I think I’m. Yeah. Mr.. Underhill Bio gas might be, but if you keep sucking the the planet. I think he’s he’s kind of a nice guy, but I don’t agree. Here’s one from Brian. Good morning. Brian Trudeau is making an announcement when in an hour he could be quitting or calling an election or. I think that’s Canadian. Thank you.

Tammy Nemeth [00:34:06] Prorogue parliament is where you basically shut Parliament down and no business can be undertaken. And that’s a very strong possibility because if he resigns then they need to hold a leadership. But if Parliament is still sitting, they can collapse the government and they’d have to go to an election without a leader. So it could be that he prorogue Parliament until a leadership convention can be undertaken to find a new leader. Or maybe he’ll just pilloried it. Yeah, well, I mean, when when they did the polling, Mark Carney polled pretty low. You’re like Chrystia Freeland.

David Blackmon [00:34:46] That’s wonderful. Behind Chrystia Freeland. Wait, wait. Behind Chrystia Freeland. Really? My God. You destroyed my Faith in humanity. Holy cow. That’s the most transparently phony individual I’ve ever seen in my whole life.

Irina Slav [00:35:04] Yeah. That’s an informant.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:08] From Sagar.

Irina Slav [00:35:10] Yeah. And. Yeah. Why? Why is Norway investing in more oil if they’re doing so well on renewables? What renewables? They have hydro and possibly wind, but when.

Stuart Turley [00:35:23] They sell.

Irina Slav [00:35:24] Solar. Yeah. I was amazed to learn that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:28] Similar in Norway.

Irina Slav [00:35:29] It’s always. Yeah. Yeah.

Tammy Nemeth [00:35:34] Well, I mean it’s their hydro, right. And then that that’s what increase the cost to the Norwegian population because they had to send a bunch of electricity through the interconnects to mainland Europe and probably the UK as well. I think the UK has a new interconnect with Norway. And the public was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, We’re paying for all this and now we have to pay the this increase in price. The social contract was that the Norwegian people would not have to pay such significant prices for electricity because they’ve been making these investments in their hydro and oil and gas. And, you know, I think that’s an interesting idea about social contract because one could make the case that all of these EU countries and and a German made this case earlier in the year and back in 2024 that the people were promised that the transition would lower prices, they would have reliable electricity, they’d be saving the planet, and that all the migrants that were coming in would assimilate to the culture, have jobs and and all would be well. And the politicians have betrayed the people on every single point of that social contract. And so what happens then? What happens in

Stuart Turley [00:36:54] regime change. I have to go back. We have had so many great comments today that we might want to take a second and go through some of those. I just want to make sure that I flash them up. And if you guys see one, you want to talk. This was from Sanger. Why Renewables, Fossil free? Why oil companies don’t state this clear fact of supply chain of renewables are not including the fossil fuels burn to make concrete and steel. I think that’s an excellent point. And it’s mainstream media is choking that story down. We talk about it all the time. Do what?

Tammy Nemeth [00:37:36] Apparently, according to the EU, that all concrete and steel will be made. Greenly.

Stuart Turley [00:37:43] Yeah, right.

Tammy Nemeth [00:37:45] Great., Greenly. Whatever

Irina Slav [00:37:48] Admitting that just kill the narrative. It will kill any idea, any argument that there could be a transition because.

Stuart Turley [00:37:54] California for.

Irina Slav [00:37:55] All.

Stuart Turley [00:37:56] California.

Irina Slav [00:37:57] And coal. Lots and lots and lots of Chinese coal.

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:00] Yeah. There’s still

Stuart Turley [00:38:02] California as an example. California is an example of this. For the last five years, I’ve been tracking the coal use in California, coal use in California. They have zero coal plants in California. Their coal use has gone up. Why cement, coal? Coking coal and. And then they have one power plant in Nevada that goes across. So come on. I agree. Okay, let’s keep going. This is fun. You guys are rock stars today.

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:32] What about. The. The key Lac project in Alaska? That was like one of the first comments.

Stuart Turley [00:38:40] Okay.

David Blackmon [00:38:42] That is an export project proposed for the North Slope of Alaska.

Tammy Nemeth [00:38:47] That’s right. And it’s Lloyd’s Energy, which is a Dubai company where they would be buying the natural gas from Exxon and then shipping it over to Asia. Now, I’m guessing that that’s natural gas that has been been stranded onshore. Is that right, David?

David Blackmon [00:39:07] Yeah. So from the Pinto Bay operation in other North Slope projects, there’s no pipeline to carry the natural gas, you know, down to ports in southern Alaska or across the border into Canada. There’s never been a gas pipeline built. The trans Alaska line was crude oil only. So what’s been happening in those projects is the gas gets produced and it’s either used a tiny portion of it by the local communities because they’re very small population up there or it’s re-injected into the ground. And so, you know, there’s a lot of that. I mean, there’s an enormous amount of natural gas produced up there that just doesn’t have any way to get out of there. And so this LNG export project wants to go forward and create at least the means for taking some of it away and exporting mainly to Asian markets, obviously from Alaska. So, you know, hopefully that will get done at some point. It’ll probably have to be during a Republican administration. I’m shocked, frankly. That the Biden White House hasn’t moved to cancel that project. There must be money trading here somewhere with the Biden family to keep everyone out. I don’t know if.

Stuart Turley [00:40:24] I want to bring this point up here. Joshua D James on I believe this is David’s LinkedIn. Would is a renewable Petro is a renewable methane is a renewable. Solar and wind. Hydro are not renewables. I’d like to add though, why is it the United States is cutting our trees down, putting them into wood pellets, putting them on a ship and then selling them to the UK is renewable? Sorry, I just I know that I just thought I mean.

David Blackmon [00:40:54] It’s all crony politics. I mean, it just is the the wind. Solar industries have become cronies of the Democratic Party, United States and liberal parties and European countries and Canada. And, you know, it’s all the money thing.

Stuart Turley [00:41:09] Yeah. I want to see the you know, we this has been a van tastic discussion and I think we’ve covered a lot of our stories here. But David, you also had talked about why the IEA should be put on Trump’s target list.

David Blackmon [00:41:27] Yeah. Mainly the New York thing is just another. Anyway. Bit of stupidity from New York’s government. Ah, yeah, I think the you know, the United States is one of the subscribing countries. IEA was created in 1974 during one of the Arab arms right after the Arab oil embargoes to provide accurate information about oil trading and and supply and demand globally. Okay. That’s what its original mission was. The United States was one of the original countries, the 17 countries, I believe, funded it. Now, there’s I don’t remember how many subscribing countries now, but it’s something over 100. United States provides most of its budget, just like the United Nations. And so, you know, I think that in I know that in 2020, they expanded the scope of the mission of the IEA to now become just a booster for the energy transition. And and unfortunately, that had the impact of changing the way it conducts its studies from a sterile statistical scientific, you know, pursuit of real information to to convey to its supporting countries to now being a group that produces these reports that nobody trusts because they’re clearly politically motivated. I mean, it produced the one in May of 2021 in which they said that we don’t need any further investments. Everybody should immediately stop investing in finding new oil and gas resources. And within three months, Fatih Birol, the director of IEA, was out there begging oil companies to drill more wells to produce more oil because prices have gone up. For me, it’s just it’s it’s a useless agency now. It’s just like the United Nations is just like the World Economic Forum. It is something that the United States government should not be funding and should cut off all money to. And stop sending delegates to whatever meetings it holds or to the conferences that the UN sponsors, because IEA is is, you know, just hand in glove works with the United Nations on these are IPCC reports. And that was the point of me writing. That was just to say, you know, look, if Trump has a target list for cutting the budget, you know, and Elon Musk and Vivica Rama Swamy and their Doge operation want to cut out a big chunk of money that’s going to useless enterprise. But the IEA at the top of the list, that would be a really good start to restoring some honesty and sanity to information related to energy in our country and around the world. So that’s that’s why I wrote that story.

Tammy Nemeth [00:44:15] Yeah, I agree. I think the IEA has perhaps outlived its usefulness unless it goes back to its original mandate, which is to be a sort of neutral place where all countries from around the world, especially the consuming countries, could have accurate data on which to base decisions, particularly energy policy decisions for stockpiling and trading in times of emergency and that sort of thing. But what it’s evolved into is, is it even necessary anymore? It seems like with the development of information technology, countries can come up with that data on their own where it’s not overly expensive the way it was in 1974, for example. So I think, you know, it’s outlived its usefulness and it certainly hasn’t. It’s given up whatever bit of neutrality you could say it may have had, although that’s arguable in some quarters. Some people say that it was always a tool of the United States government and it takes its direction from whatever the the administration of the day wants. And so clearly, the Biden administration wanted a certain narrative to be pushed forward with the good, you know, good reputation that the IEA had, the International Energy Agency, which I think it’s totally blown its reputation now and and is is an unreliable source. And one of the LinkedIn users said do remember that it’s the International Energy Agency, not the U.S. EIA which Energy Information Administration which is really good.

David Blackmon [00:45:54] And that you just answered the next question from Frederick below that, don’t you think are you still useful for statistics and provides? No, I don’t because you can’t trust the statistics and provides an EIA duplicates really most of what they publish and other more trustworthy sources who use sterile analytics, not motivated by politics to produce that information. There’s a wealth of other resources now that didn’t exist in 1974.

Stuart Turley [00:46:26] Can I make this one comment on the EIA? There. It is hard. It is over the last several years has been hard for me to try to predict oil prices. If you take oil demand, you take production. And they used to come up within a few dollars of being able to say, hey, here is a decent price range for for oil and gas supply and demand. That is gone and is because the EIA has been false falsely putting reports out and I’ll say that the EIA has been politicized. So who draws any government numbers anymore? And I apologize for saying that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:11] Yeah, but how a price is determined nowadays it seems to be through an algorithm on the on the markets. Right. And so.

Stuart Turley [00:47:18] Exactly.

Tammy Nemeth [00:47:19] Based on confidence and announcements and all this, it it’s rather divorced from what the reality is and yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:47:27] So yeah. Yes and so there’s a lot of oil traders that I talk with around the world and when we’re we’re working on things and deals and stuff and it’s kind of like you sit back and go, How do you make projections based on false numbers of any government anymore? It is tough. And you have some great stories here, too, Tim.

David Blackmon [00:47:51] I want to add one thing just and I’ll shut up is is no, don’t you remarkable to me. And I think they should be complimented for the fact that the EIA has somehow managed to remain pretty notably non politicized even with Jennifer Granholm running the Department of Energy and Joe Biden sitting in the White House pretending to be president. It is a really remarkable achievement that I don’t see a lot of people out there, you know, pointing fingers at the EIA and saying, we can’t trust your data. Their data has remained pretty sterile and fact based and reliable despite the pressures they had to be under from Granholm and Biden and others in this administration. That’s all I want to say.

Stuart Turley [00:48:39] Kind of like the jobs report, David.

David Blackmon [00:48:42] Come on. I mean, everything that comes out of the Bureau of Labor is worthless. Completely boring.

Tammy Nemeth [00:48:49] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:48:51] Tammy, what are your thoughts? You’ve got some great stories here.

Tammy Nemeth [00:48:55] So a number of the American banks and financial institutions are quitting the Glasgow Financial Alliance for net zero net zero Banking alliance and some of their other alliances that they have. And part of the reason could be the second story there, which is the the Judiciary Committee released a report about a week before Christmas where it talks about the climate cartel and the collusion that was done in order to pressure the changing of boards in order to put forward the net zero agenda. And they use as the as the big example what happened to Exxon with the little red engine number one or whatever, that where they were forced to replace their board with activists basically and how they they use that as as a trial run. And the report goes on to describe how Climate Action 100 and the Net-zero Banking Alliance people defense, which is Mark Carney and Mary Shapiro, who were interviewed in April 2024, where they say they’re quoted throughout this this this report on how to leverage what was done to Exxon to do it to every company that wouldn’t cooperate with the net zero transition idea and how transition plans, climate accounting, climate disclosures were absolutely central in order to phase these companies out of business. And so it’s interesting that that report comes out and then a couple of weeks later, a bunch of banks pull out of the of the Defense Net-zero Banking Alliance, probably because they’re going to be targeted with antitrust. Behavior issues. So I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s forthcoming under the Trump administration is various antitrust cases brought against certain activist groups who have been, you know, blackmailing you could almost say or extorting companies to force them to do a certain to embrace the net zero transition. So I highly recommend people taking a look at the report. It’s it’s stunning what they what what they’ve uncovered.

Stuart Turley [00:51:25] Yep. I’ll put that link in there. The in the show notes. It’s. Thank you. And your substack is the Nemeth Report. Substack. It’s very good stuff on there.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:40] Yes, sir. Thank you.

Stuart Turley [00:51:42] All right. We got to the Irina.

Tammy Nemeth [00:51:45] Irina.

Irina Slav [00:51:50] Well, I have two funny stories, as usual. One is, I already mentioned I think it’s a Lake Oswego gas price cap. It’s €60 per megawatt hour. But why you can just buy cheap LNG from America was the problem. But yes, I think this headline summarizes the gas situation in Europe and how all those celebrations two years ago, how we got rid of natural gas. We got rid of Russian gas. Yeah. Didn’t happen. And the other story.

David Blackmon [00:52:25] Irina before you move on. Yeah. How does it work? I mean, what happens if if if every LNG provider wants €75 per megawatt hour?

Irina Slav [00:52:35] Well, I expect governments will be covering the difference, David, because that’s the only way it could happen. would happen.

David Blackmon [00:52:45] Okay.

Tammy Nemeth [00:52:46] Or pressuring the providers to fall in line.

Irina Slav [00:52:49] Yeah, because they don’t have alternatives.

David Blackmon [00:52:54] I mean, all the U.S. cargoes could just start going to Asia.

Irina Slav [00:52:58] Exactly.

David Blackmon [00:52:59] You know, I mean, there’s there’s a real need for all this LNG all over the world. And and these providers have they’re in the catbird seat.

Irina Slav [00:53:09] Yeah. Yeah. Well, Europe doesn’t realize that it’s a seller’s market. It’s not a buyer’s market.

David Blackmon [00:53:17] They better figure it out quick.

Irina Slav [00:53:20] I doubt that.

Tammy Nemeth [00:53:22] I doubt it.

Irina Slav [00:53:24] I know they’re stuck in the denial phase, and the longer they stay stuck there, the harder it will be to stop them.

Stuart Turley [00:53:33] If they don’t figure it out, that’s when regimes change. Is that what I heard?

Tammy Nemeth [00:53:37] I don’t know

Irina Slav [00:53:38] what you said in your chat this. Now, the second story is kind of related because EVs need electricity. The UK vies with Germany to be European EV champion champion. People change their doing so well on every sales bull. The UK and Germany that they are now neck and neck on eBay sales. But the UK actually almost made its target. I suspect they may have added electric vans to the total, but they made it to 21% of all new car sales. And that’s absolutely great. Do you know how much carmakers spend to make that happen? 4.5 billion pounds. Yep. They’re EPS people and sellable. So yeah, that championship is going great. Yet another final between England or UK in this case and Germany. I wonder how and which one will industrialize first? Yeah.

David Blackmon [00:54:57] Race to the bottom.

Tammy Nemeth [00:54:58] Bloomberg said that one of the reasons why those numbers came up in the UK is that in order to meet the quota that the national government has instituted in the UK to avoid the fines, they slashed the prices.

Irina Slav [00:55:14] Yeah. Yeah. 4.5 billion pounds. But they would have had to pay more than that if they hadn’t. So they saved some money because it’s either you spend billions, it’s really absurd. You either spend a few billions on discounts to sell these cars that nobody wants, or you pay billions in fines for failing to, say, sell these cars that nobody wants.

Stuart Turley [00:55:43] If countries this is a real question. If countries print money to subsidize things, why do they taxes.

Irina Slav [00:55:53] That’s a very good question.

Stuart Turley [00:55:55] And I’m sorry. Did I just say that out loud? I’m probably going to have.

Tammy Nemeth [00:56:00] Out loud.

Stuart Turley [00:56:04] Irina. I want everybody to follow and subscribe to Irina on her substack. It is an outstanding publication. You had a great story, just that you went out just before the show. Well done, Irina. You are a rock star, and I apologize for being nice today. We you know, I put these here. We’ve already covered. The German minister calls for Nord Stream to be reactivated. Over the last several weeks, we’ve been kind of laughing at Chancellor Schultz, not Sergeant Schultz. But I see nothing. But he knows nothing. And that’s a better imitation than my Putin imitation. But when we sit back and take a look at German calling for natural gas, he has been the industrial advisor. And so they are looking at that. We’ve already talked about that German purchases Russian uranium. I can’t find anything that says they’ve actually filed to reopen their nuclear plants again, but they’re buying Russian uranium. You can’t make this kind of fun stuff up. And we’ve already talked about Biden traitorous behavior. And I really want to ask a question. If you’re a oil company in the United States, wouldn’t you want to leave New York if she is put in the climate reparations to big oil and then she’s now trying to ban fracking, ignores the 1 trillion in gas reserves in New York, which is just north of the Marcellus. Like David said, they’re tough to try to get to. Why would you want to do business in New York if you’re an oil company? I just want to throw that out there.

David Blackmon [00:58:05] And then you got to add the the new fee, what do they call it? The congestion.

Tammy Nemeth [00:58:11] Like it’s like the the Ulez fee in London. Right.

David Blackmon [00:58:14] And what’s similar and it’s $20 to get across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan now.

Stuart Turley [00:58:21] And then that’s.

David Blackmon [00:58:22] What you and that’s the additional charge you’re going to pay to your cabbie to bring in from the airport folks. So think twice before visiting New York to hit you, coming and going.

Stuart Turley [00:58:31] And then my energy news beat is the energy news beat. And I’ve been talking to George Mcmillan. He has been living abroad for. Decades. And he is a sharp cat. I’ve probably spent 30 hours. I’m not talking to him about the world geopolitical pipeline situations and I’ve got maybe ten hours recorded. The man is amazing. And it’s just it’s really, truly frightening what governments do in the name of pipelines.

David Blackmon [00:59:08] Yeah.

Stuart Turley [00:59:09] And I say that out loud again.

Irina Slav [00:59:12] You’re saying

Stuart Turley [00:59:17] So it is now 9:00 and let’s go around the horn real quick and have closing thoughts. Tammy, what are your first closing thoughts?

Tammy Nemeth [00:59:26] Well, my closing thought would be that Biden’s not done yet because he also put in new regulations regarding the most efficient natural gas, water heaters and furnaces that are like on demand. And it created these regulations with the emissions that make it so you wouldn’t you couldn’t buy it. And it’s it’s ridiculous. Anyway, so he’s not done. It’s got 15 more days still not done. We’re 14 days.

Stuart Turley [00:59:55] He. I almost want to pull a lurch. David, how about you? Last thoughts?

David Blackmon [01:00:05] I probably shouldn’t say what’s really at the top of my mind, but thanks, everybody. It’s been a wonderful discussion. I hope you all have a great week. Burn your natural gas. It’s 23 degrees in Texas and we’re going to be using a lot of gas this week.

Tammy Nemeth [01:00:19] Keep warm and keep safe, right?

Stuart Turley [01:00:21] Yeah. And Irina, how are your last thoughts?

Irina Slav [01:00:26] My last thoughts is personal experience. I love my gas, so I’m going using it for as long as I can. Thank you.

Tammy Nemeth [01:00:37] And natural gas. Good. Keeps our farm warm in Canada. And without it, you know, in -40 in Saskatchewan.

Irina Slav [01:00:45] Yeah. And nobody has asthma. Right.

Tammy Nemeth [01:00:49] Well, no.

Stuart Turley [01:00:52] With that, listen to us and follow all of us and have an absolutely wonderful week. And let’s all go out and hug your family, hug your pets and read this to your pets, too. Transcripts will be coming out. We’ll see you guys next week.

Irina Slav [01:01:10] See you.

Tammy Nemeth [01:01:11] Thank you bye bye.

Irina Slav [01:01:13] Bye.