Daily Energy Standup Episode #293 – EV Charger Boondoggle, Solar Mega-Project Activated, Copper Woes, and Market Insights

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$2 Billion in Subsidies, Only 2 EV Stations Opened, the Holdup is Social Justice

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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Michael Tanner: [00:00:14] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome in to the Wednesday, January 24th, 2024 edition of the Daily Energy News Beat stand up. Here are today’s top headlines. First up, 2 billion in subsidies and only two EV stations has opened. Even still, can do the math on that one. Next up on the menu. Latest solar and storage project in the U.S.. Activated. Then we’ve got an opinion piece. Up next, Kevin Mooney. The Biden administration’s new climate rules could mean big payday for his buddies and burden for American business, just as we like it. Next up, TotalEnergies eyes. March 2024 restart. date for Denmark’s largest offshore natural gas field. And then finally, pay attention to copper before it derails the energy transition. After that, stew will toss it over to me, and I will quickly cover what’s going on in the oil and gas finance market. We saw a lot of Non-energy earnings happen today. That’s really caused markets to skyrocket. Oil prices up about two percentage points and natural gas also up a little bit. And then we will let you guys get on out of here. Finish up your gorgeous Wednesday. As always I’m Michael Tanner joined by Stuart Turley. Go ahead and kick us off Stu. [00:01:31][76.1]

Staurt Turley: [00:01:31] Hey let’s get rolling to my favored discussion. $2 billion in subsidies and only two EV station to open. Holy smokes Batman. Michael, you know, I still can’t believe all these years ago, you and I were going, hey, man, that’s a couple million dollars deal. That’s a big deal. And then we went to, hey, what’s a few billion between friends? Now we can’t even get a charger installed. This insane billion, this poll. This is unbelievable. The government rollout of EV chargers has been a slow motion affair. And, 7.5 billion in funding from the 2021 Infrastructure Particulates bill. Transportation. Secretary Pete Buttigieg said we have a chance to lead the world in the EV revolution. Let’s go through some of the numbers. Half the money will be spent where no one work can be afford it. Let’s see. EV sales 1.1 million. Actually, 1.2. The the number down here, there’s 1.7 million EVs in the total U.S out of 292 million vehicles. That’s a percentage rate of point five a percent. Wow. Yikes. Yeah. Only 6% in the US. One EV for their next vehicle. It’s not going to happen. [00:03:06][95.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:07] That’s. I mean, what’s the. It just goes to show you, any time the government is investing, there will be overruns. But 2 billion for an EV station. [00:03:16][9.3]

Staurt Turley: [00:03:17] Oh, yeah. I got a hammer. This is a $2, $2 billion pen right here, right now. And it’s the insurance that is absolutely going nuts. It goes. What about repairs? What about insurance? We started the insurance thing, several months ago when it started really going nuts in, Europe. But how fast is eventually? I love that quote. Never. [00:03:43][26.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:03:45] Never. Let’s move to the next one here. [00:03:47][1.9]

Staurt Turley: [00:03:47] The largest solar and storage project in the US is now activated. Let’s go here. If you could imagine this one. It is 1.3 Jigawa gigawatts of interconnection capacity. Guess what state it’s in. [00:04:04][17.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:04:05] I read the article. California. [00:04:07][1.1]

Staurt Turley: [00:04:09] The energy storage is made up of LG chem, Samsung and B wide batteries. This is a feat of engineering requiring 98 miles of M V wire, over 361 miles of DC wiring, and 120,000 batteries. This is seven by seven mile square area of solar panels. It added, unbelievable amount of cost. So the cost per kilowatt hour on this thing total $1.7 billion in kilowatt hour. No, for the whole thing. Oh 107 $1.7 billion if you bring it in to kilowatt per hour. I haven’t gotten in. Couldn’t figure it out out of this. I think they hit that number in here. [00:05:05][56.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:06] Yeah. No kidding. [00:05:07][0.4]

Staurt Turley: [00:05:08] No. So total, it’s just unbelievable. What a boondoggle. [00:05:12][4.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:05:13] Yeah. Just remember. What’s hilarious is you have to remember this was all debt financing, but they’ve also got. They’ve also got JP. I mean, they’ve got multiple rounds of secured credit facilities, a tax equity bridge facility, a construction and revolving credit facility with JP Morgan with more tax equity. I mean, it’s insane. This will never pay off. [00:05:36][22.9]

Staurt Turley: [00:05:37] No. And it as soon as you, the guess who’s going to get it in the drive through again, it is the consumers. Okay, let’s go to the next one. Biden’s admin climate rules could mean new, big payday for his buddies. Burden American for American businesses. This one just drives me nuts. This is with the SEC. Let me get down into this one. Pennsylvania is the second largest net supplier of energy to the other states and the largest exporter of electricity. Tom said, let’s see, Gordon. Tom, senior fellow with Commonwealth Foundation, a free market think tank. As such, private companies supporting enterprises that emit carbon dioxide in the production of energy, that number in the hundreds and their employees and many thousands imposing costs artificially constructed to advance quasi religious climate ideology in creative ways. For the politically connected, to make money without producing benefit is viciously economically destructive. [00:06:47][70.2]

Michael Tanner: [00:06:49] Well, it’s hard because what they’re referring to is the idea of scope three emissions, and it’s really the difference of what’s considered downstream and upstream of a company’s activity. And if this rule from the SEC is finalized, it would put them in the driver’s seat for handing out and legislating amongst the private companies and how they transact with other public firms. [00:07:12][22.3]

Staurt Turley: [00:07:13] And this is the worst part. Markel the SEC. It will cost between 460,000 to 640,000 for companies to comply with the new rules. During the first year they’re in operation, the scope three emissions. Michael, nobody if you’re an MP operator and they want to start, Mickey Mouse and around and saying, hey, wait a minute, you got to be a little more, aware of the scope one. I can buy that. Okay, we’re starting to get into this, but an MP operator drilling a well is going to get in the scope three operations and be responsible for it when he doesn’t make the car. You got to be kidding me. [00:07:55][42.4]

Michael Tanner: [00:07:56] And what’s hilarious is, is part of what they talk about in this article is how there’s this software that’s been built, this carbon accounting software that’s now poised to come. I see you, you are you Bollinger. It’s poised to come in and provide the solution to manage. Well guess what. It’s full of all ex SEC regulators. It’s literally a revolving door for people to get money. [00:08:21][25.6]

Staurt Turley: [00:08:22] It’s exact. And they. And not only is it going to be a I it’s going to be a I program by the SEC crooks. I mean this is got graft and corruption written all over it. [00:08:35][13.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:08:36] We just got to we got to get, grok on it. What is that? Is that, Elon Musk’s. We got to just make sure grok gets installed. What’s next? [00:08:43][7.7]

Staurt Turley: [00:08:44] Oh, man, I got a word. You can tell I was starting to get foamed up on this one. Total energy, more eyes. March 2024 A restart date for Denmark’s largest offshore natural gas field. My. Oh, this is kind of funny because two years ago, Denmark was shutting this down. You and I were sitting there, and I remember it when we were. You were up in Denver, I think, or we were sitting there talking one, I don’t know. [00:09:11][27.5]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:12] Do what I was just say, Denver greatest place in the world. [00:09:14][2.3]

Staurt Turley: [00:09:15] Maybe it was at one time. And when you sit back and think and then all the people from California moved in. Now when we we sit back and think, Total Energy’s confirmed its remit notification, let’s go here. Blue Nord’s Q3 report, on the tier two facilities has been executed, leak testing and everything else. They’re getting ready to rumble on this. This is because, it is incredibly important. This field is huge for the UK and Europe in all these interconnects. Right now, there’s 1400 offshore employees. That’s a that’s a lot in that gas field. [00:09:57][42.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:09:58] Well, and Europe just needs more cheap fuel. And so where else are you going to go get it. You know you’re going to go burn coal and go buy it from the Russians. You know you going to go buy oil from China. No. You might as well just go get it out your backyard. I mean, this is an obvious. Obvious move in order to help maintain what some low levels of of energy costs. [00:10:19][21.4]

Staurt Turley: [00:10:20] Oh, it’s it’s absolutely the only way that we’re going to get to low, low carbon, is through natural gas. And this is true. This is a smart move. I’m you. And I did not understand why they were taking this off line, but they’re not having to reopen it up. All right. Let’s go to the last one here. I think I know a good guy that knows some things about mines. I believe there’s a school in Colorado. Oh, yeah? Colorado School of Mines. Pay attention to copper before it derails the energy transition. I don’t think there’s going to be a transition. It’s going to take a revolution. But the problem is the copper is going to be needed for just electrification of everything. There is a huge. The CEO of Glencore, Gary Nagle, has warned about an impending massive copper desert fit deficit. This if it disappeared. Boy, that’s a, Oklahoma way to talk and stress that the world is not fully prepared for it. The Blanca to expansion in Chile, experienced significant cost overruns and construction delays. We’re not going to have it. Construction you have. South America is not going to be the resources where we we’re going to need it. [00:11:49][88.3]

Michael Tanner: [00:11:49] You’re just the problem is this. And this is why I think it’s important for somebody to hear this from somebody like Gary Nagle. I mean, I’m no fan of Glencore. They’re probably one of the more corrupt, large traders in the world. You know, there are physical commodities trader and you guys just go look up how much they’ve paid in fines. I think you can we can all look we can all Google Glencore fines. You know, they used to you know, they used to be you know fill in rich you know rich and co and we all know what happened there. But my point is these guys do have their pulse on the physical commodities market and how they. [00:12:25][36.6]

Staurt Turley: [00:12:26] Their, their, orders were stolen, all their copper. [00:12:30][3.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:12:31] That was in interest. That’s a different that that’s a story we covered a few months ago, but yes. So what what what things like Glencore, Trafigura, a vital they’re physical commodities trader. So what do they do? They take the commodity from somewhere and they bring it somewhere else. Well, what companies like Glencore have now gone out and done is they’ve gone out and bought the source production. Glencore is really big in the minerals and mining space. Trafigura is a little bit bigger, when it comes to oil. So along with the total, Glencore also does a lot of coal. So they know. But what he’s saying is even if we wanted more coal, more copper, we can’t get it because these projects can’t get approved. All of the projects that we’re currently investing in, overruns, meaning they’re Neville, they’re they won’t necessarily pay out, which means you’re never going to get financing, you know, and, you know, with on a six and a half on a six, you know, there’s recent study Zesco. They found that these large scale projects are delayed by an average of 4.3 to 6.3 years. That’s on top of a seven year production site. So you’re talking over a over I mean, it’s incredible how long this is. It’s a decade and a half to get something like this done. And yet we think we’re just going to increase the amount of copper supply by three times. Do I mean you want to talk about getting me worked up right? [00:13:57][86.6]

Staurt Turley: [00:13:59] I kind of threw that in there intentionally, isn’t he? Let’s see. School of mines got his master’s. [00:14:04][5.1]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:05] But he’s got nothing to do with that. More so than that one. [00:14:08][2.8]

Staurt Turley: [00:14:09] You don’t like incompetent boobs trying to make an energy transition using copper when they can’t even do it, right? Well, no, I’m all for. [00:14:18][8.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:14:18] I’m all for using copper. I think we just have to be very clear specifically about, okay, if we’re going to move into a post fossil fuel world, what does that actually look like? You know, I, I, we were on a call with a client today staring at crack me up because you get to sell the dream. You’re the politician. You know, I actually have to live in reality and make things happen. So that’s where my focus is. If you want to fight because it’s true, you know, there are people that are allowed to sell the dream. Sell the dream of a rooster. I’m all for the dream. But now we have to come back and live in reality and figure out, okay, what can we actually do today? And then what are the the cool steps one foot in front of another. They’re going to get us to the end. [00:14:59][40.5]

Staurt Turley: [00:15:00] You’re the old, boots on the ground kind of guy. [00:15:02][2.6]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:03] Yes. I’m the I am the boots on the ground I am, I am infantry. [00:15:06][3.1]

Staurt Turley: [00:15:09] Attack that hill back to you. [00:15:11][1.8]

Michael Tanner: [00:15:12] All right, well, we’ll go ahead and. Move over to finance guys we did see overall markets have a pretty decent day. Really based off the back of earnings coming down S&P 500 up about a half percentage point. Nasdaq up about another half a percentage point mainly off the back of Netflix. coming in and then having over 260 million subscribers. It’s kind of crazy at some point out, right, people to buy Netflix. But that’s a that’s a whole another point. We will dive into that, oil and gas or dollar index up a quarter of a percentage point, crude oil, actually up about two percentage points relative. I mean, it was kind of choppy all day. At one point we were up two and a half percentage points in one day. We were a little below. We ended up the day about three quarters of a percentage point, up 7453 as we record this about 530 central time. Brant oil doing a little bit worse. That’s down about 2/10 of a percentage point. Mainly what we saw was some supply disruptions going on in Russia. Did that necessarily have anything to do with what what happened on on today’s front month curve? A little bit, you know, Ukraine, Ukraine’s hitting a little drone strike, on Russia fuel terminal, which, you know, they man, they want to stay there trying to get us to enlist so bad. It’s unbelievable. John. Kid. Cliff, partner over at again Capitol. These are finally concerns in the market that are, about genuine supply disruptions after this, terminal from Novatek. So, as you remember, we’re also dealing with, severe cold weather across the United States, specifically in North Dakota, and is hampering other states as well. But over 20% of the production in North Dakota is still shut down, due to, operational cold weather. That’s according to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority. We also saw the API’s crude oil inventory guesstimate that will come out as you listen to this. On Wednesday, they’re forecasting a 6.67 million barrel draw in the petroleum reserves. That’s a beat the forecast of a 3 million barrel draw. So very bullish. API is on the crude oil inventory stocks. On Thursday. We will get natural gas stocks to about all I saw. Still we did see Talos come out and up their, proposed offering to 1 billion of their second priority. Senior secured notes love out a second priority. Senior secured notes. So you’re still senior secure, but your second priority. You’re not the first priority. Your second priority. So. [00:17:29][137.4]

Staurt Turley: [00:17:30] I’m not quite dead yet either. [00:17:31][1.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:17:32] Yeah. You’re not. You’re not quite dead yet. We are going to be starting a lot of earnings roll out, guys, so we are really excited for that. What what else you got to do? What should you be worried about? [00:17:42][10.0]

Staurt Turley: [00:17:42] Oh, I’m just glad it’s another year before Davos again. [00:17:45][3.0]

Michael Tanner: [00:17:46] It’s it’s going to be good. Again before we let you guys go. We’ll go pay the bills here real quick. Check us out. Best way to support the show WWW.Energy News Beat.com the best place. for all your energy and oil and gas news. All the news and analysis you just heard via that website. dashboard.energynewsbeat.com. [email protected]. Great places to, get Ahold of us or check out our data news combo. We are going to be at Nape February 7th through the ninth. Check us out booth 1957. We’ll be doing a lot of cool stuff with World Database live dealer valuations, Pecos Country operating. Our friends over there are going to be selling dope stew. You’re going to be there with the three podcasters. RT, David Blackmon we got a lot of fun going on. We’re going to have a lot of good guests swinging by the lineups. Looking great. Stay tuned if you can get down there. 1957 if you cannot, well guess what we will be that we you’ll be able to see all of the content. You will not feel left out at all. It’s going to be fun, Stu. [00:18:43][56.9]

Staurt Turley: [00:18:44] I mean, absolute blast. [00:18:44][0.7]

Michael Tanner: [00:18:45] All right, well, with that, guys, we’ll let you get out of here, get back to work, finish up your day. Appreciate you checking us out. World’s greatest podcast energy news beat for Stuart Turley I’m Michael Tanner. We’ll see you tomorrow, folks. [00:18:45][0.0][1074.4]

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