Week Recap: Fink AI Power, Turkmenistan Gas and China-Iran Deal

The Mansuriya field, holds an estimated 4.5 trillion standard cubic feet of gas and is expected to produce around 300 million scf per day of gas at its peak. For China, the location of the […]

Stuart Turley: [00:00:15] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News Beat Daily stand up. This is the weekly recap. It has been an absolutely crazy week. Michael and I have had an awful lot of fun, and there are some great stories that the staff have got teed up for you. We have had, three days in a row of 50,000 people on the site a day. We appreciate everybody, listening to all of our podcast making comments on our Substack. Please like, subscribe, share, listen to the podcast. And if you are an energy expert, I want to talk to you. If you want to talk about anything in the energy and energy poverty, if you want to talk about it, bring it on. We want to hear, thanks and enjoy the show. With that, I’ll turn it off the show. Have a great day. [00:01:03][48.1]

Stuart Turley: [00:01:04] Let’s start with our buddy over there at, Blackrock. Larry Fink jumps on next I trade morning. World will be short power. This is absolutely a hoot. He’s the CEO over there. And I’m going to start real quickly. Do you remember in, last year they lost $1.7 trillion in the first half of the year because of their ESG investments in wind and solar. Now this comes out to a quote. This is a quote out of the article. I do believe properly, build out I we’re talking about brilliance in investing. So data centers can be as much as 200MHz. And they’re now talking about data centers being one gigawatt that power to city. He told the say the amount of power that’s needed to use AI has a huge impact on society. Well, you need dispatchable power because they can’t turn off. And on these data centers, wind and solar is not an option. [00:02:08][64.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:02:10] Well, it’s the same stuff we said last week and in my opinion with this article shows and everyone should take away from this article, is that Larry Fink is a capitalist. He is going to let the winds of money dictate what he believes in. When when everybody was pouring money into ESG, he was all for ESG. Now that everybody has sort of the ship has turned a little bit. We’re all talking about AI. Well, all talking about the necessary power needed to build out these data centers. Oh, well, guess what? Now he’s talking about Dispatchable Park. If you believe anything that comes out of Larry Fink’s mouth, do it at your own peril. Because I promise you, he’s only looking out for himself and Blackrock and how they make money. He’s right. In this case. I agree with him. You need the dispatchable power because these data centers can’t just be flipped on and off. We’re going to need to build out a grid system that can handle the amount. As we talked about, you can’t catch sleep at night because the wind’s not blowing. But what this clearly shows. And everybody who’s listening to the show knows this. This is just another example of Larry Fink doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about whether he he he cares about where he believes the money is going to be. And right or wrong, it’s his job is he’s beholden to the shareholder. So there’s maybe a larger conversation to have here about that. But he’s just about the money. And that’s really all it is. [00:03:22][72.4]

Stuart Turley: [00:03:23] It is, you know, and, dispatchable power is critical. Vermont becomes the first state to require oil companies to pay for climate change damages. Michael, I added lawfare as a category on energy news beat today, he I was like this. Yes. We gotta start have we’re going to have a whole theory of things that are funded by the Soros family, attorneys, lawfare. It is just gonna go nuts from here on out. And and so that’s how all this is tying together. Vermont has become the first state to enact a law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay their share of damage caused by climate change, after the state suffered catastrophic summer flooding and damage from other extreme weather. Michael, I have a real question here and I’m like, I want your opinion on this. Kim trails are they real or are they weather modification? Weather modification has been going on by the government for years and call anybody you want. Yeah. How are you going to prove that it’s fossil fuel damage versus Kim trails or weather induced by the government? I’m just have no clue if anybody’s listening. There’s. This is this is disgusting. [00:04:40][76.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:41] Yeah, I mean, I have no, I have I have no idea. I don’t know anything about chem trails. So I’m going to leave that up to, to to you. What’s going on in Vermont? [00:04:48][7.2]

Stuart Turley: [00:04:49] Well, Republican Governor Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law with a signature late, saying he will be very concerned about the cost and outcome of the small state taking on Big Oil along what will be a grueling legal fight. Well, I understand the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in many ways. How in the world are you going to prove? The only winners out of warfare are the attorneys. And then the climate narrative. That’s it. [00:05:20][30.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:20] Yeah. So what they’re going to do is they’re going to basically the the Vermont State Treasurer, along with the agency of natural resources within their state, is going to provide a report by beginning of 2026 on the, quote, the total cost that Vermont and the state paid relative to the emissions of greenhouse gases from 1995 all the way to 2024. There’s a weird little two year gap in there, so I wonder who’s going to do that. That assessment will look on the effects of public health, natural resources, agriculture, economic development. And then they’re going and a bunch and a host of other stuff, and they’re going to use some federal data to determine the amount of covered greenhouse gas emissions attributed to a fossil fuel company. And it’s basically a polluter pays model, which says, you know, if you’ve traded or refined or extracted crude oil, in the court or in the, in the volumes, more than a billion metric tons. Then you’re going to be liable to pay. The funny part is there are no oil companies based in Vermont. So what are you going to do, go after cross state? It gets back to, again the stuff that you touched on in your speech, with Ted Cruz, with legislation to regulation. This is how it comes down. Exact regulation through legislation, whatever it’s. [00:06:26][66.3]

Stuart Turley: [00:06:27] Called legislation through regulatory action. 12 billion shares sold out shortly after the deal opened. Isn’t that kind of cool? I mean, what’s a few billion between friends? The books were covered within the range of 26 rifles to 29 rifles. What, how much the how much? They’re not telling us where the demand came from. But, you can’t go wrong with it. Aramco shares fell 1.9% on Sunday. Evaluating the company, about 1.8 trillion. The stock dropped about 14% since the start of the year. Since Bloomberg, first put out the report. Saudi government. Michael owns 82% of Aramco, while the kingdom’s, wealth fund holds a further 16%. Wow. [00:07:17][50.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:18] Yeah. You have to realize, though, one of the reasons why this could be an attractive offer, you know, for foreign investors is the fact that, you know, you’re talking about the dividend over the course of a year, like $124 billion dividend payout, which means their dividend yields about 6.6%, which is pretty good. Now let’s see. Foreign investment attraction hasn’t been much. We’ve a lot of it is local purchasers. And how much of this is leaving Saudi relative to how much is staying between, you know, the Saudi government and their wealth fund, which you can kind of consider the same thing. So I think this is obviously a quick play to raise some money. They’re going to use this money to kind of diversify again away from oil and gas funds, some of their other economic progress, and projects specifically, but there’s a bunch of different, banks working on them. You know, we it’s it’s super interesting. You know, it’s I. [00:08:14][55.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:15] I would do this in a heartbeat in order to get out of other, financial markets with the US oil dollar, I would get out of the US oil dollar. And this is. [00:08:25][10.9]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:26] I went from advising Putin to now he’s advising MBS. So it’s a miracle. The world traveler you. [00:08:32][5.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:08:32] Are I am and you know, I wasn’t you know just kidding. But no, I love it. The renewable green energy disaster off the northeast. Your U.S. is getting worse. This is out of the Telegraph by David Blackman. This is a quote, wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa announced even bigger layoffs, saying it would cut 15% of its global staff to adjust for the slowing market. Well, our current situation demands adjustments that go beyond organizational changes. We will have to adapt to lower business volumes, reduced activity in non-core markets and streamline portfolio, said outgoing CEO Jack in AQR in a letter to the staff. In other words. Oops. [00:09:22][50.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:23] Yeah. Yikes. Oops. You know, talk about a big oops. I mean, again, it’s the problem with, again, the the renewables market has been hit by the fact that they are highly, highly subsidized. And when you start layering off those subsidies, you then all of a sudden have to deal with the underlying economics of the business, which as we’re seeing, is not great, you. [00:09:45][22.0]

Stuart Turley: [00:09:45] Know, and, as we talked about it on the energy realities with Bloomberg, with David Blackman and Tammy Nimet this morning, the wind farms, have really pulled a fast one on the public by using the Inflation Reduction Act in, double and triple billing folks by pulling in their turbines even before they were end of life. So the public ought to be glad that. They’re laying people off and it’s not doing well. Your electricity bills are going to go higher. Turkmenistan. Erdogan says, Turkmenistan could soon begin gas exports to Turkey and Europe. I can’t be I would be remiss without mentioning Turkmenistan without mentioning Toby Keith. Toby Keith has one of the greatest songs in the world, and he’s singing the song and he’s going out by Palestine and Turkmenistan. Let’s flip the finger to the Taliban anyway. You cannot buy that kind of entertainment. But let’s jump back to Turkmenistan. Mr. Producer, if you could bring this poster, the posters up and and, Michael, look in the dead center of the, the, map, and you’ll see the Caspian Sea. Turkmenistan is right there in the lower center of the right hand of the picture. That orange, pipeline coming across is critical because it is going through a my sources are saying there’s things going through. What that means is you can roll right on through to Club Med, and now you can start pumping some natural gas in there to the EU, and it’s going to bypass Russia. And this is you. [00:11:36][110.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:37] Know, this is. [00:11:37][0.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:38] Unbelievably huge. [00:11:39][1.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:40] It is huge. And hey, it’s the rebalancing of the world’s energy economy. We’re seeing it live happen right now. So and we love we love love more than a little club man that I love that the club man club man. [00:11:53][12.8]

Stuart Turley: [00:11:53] And slip a finger to the Taliban I when you we have Turkey primarily interested. This is a quote interested in Turkmenistan gas because it has to diversify sources of gas imports. And part of this is because of, the geopolitical crap that’s going on in the EU. It’s unbelievable. You can’t buy stupid between the U.S. government and the EU government. I’m happy for the Turkmenistan folks now. [00:12:22][28.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:22] We’re always nation first here. [00:12:24][1.5]

Stuart Turley: [00:12:24] China, Iran secure key strategic Iraqi gas field. Michael, this one has gas three bullet points on. And this is really pretty pretty frightening. The man Syria feel holds 4.5 trillion standard cubic feet of gas and expected to produce around 300 million SDF, gas per day at its peak. For China, the location of the Manchuria field fits perfectly into the vast network of oil and gas sites in Iraq. And this is going into Asia first, because this goes into our conversation yesterday with Turkmenistan and then feeding in, this feeds in through the Caspian Sea. Do the EU, club med club. Matt, this gets really bonkers that China is now usurping and going around Russia for their natural gas and geopolitical. [00:13:25][60.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:13:26] So why would China is realizing is that if they’re at least this is my opinion. I think what they’re watching happen to Russia in terms of how the world reacted to the invasion of Ukraine, is how they’re planning on the reaction being when they eventually invade Taiwan. One they’re seeing it’s possible they’re seeing that Russia’s now actually, nothing crazy has really happened to them. The key is energy, though, is the key is securing multiple ports of and multiple import and export sources for energy, which is the key and underpins most global trade. So I think that this has everything to do, in my opinion with Taiwan. [00:14:02][36.6]

Stuart Turley: [00:14:03] Oh, absolutely it does. And but you notice Taiwan is not mentioned in this article, but it’s a second order magnitude. [00:14:10][6.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:10] I always like to think second order effect. [00:14:10][0.0][819.6]