An Oil & Gas Revolution Is Underway That Will Change Everything | Doomberg
Summary
AI-Driven Power: Explosive growth in AI data centers is set to materially lift electricity demand and favor off-grid power built at the molecule source.
US Natural Gas: The US sits on effectively vast low-cost gas; models suggest demand could potentially double over the next decade as AI and industrial loads surge.
LNG Exports: US LNG capacity is projected to roughly double, reshaping global gas pricing toward a narrower band while putting Europe on structurally higher-cost supply.
Europe LNG Dependence: Europe’s pivot from Russian pipeline gas to LNG raises costs and volatility; risks include potential US export curbs during domestic shortages.
Western Hemisphere Oil: Mexico, Venezuela, Guyana, Brazil, and Argentina’s Vaca Muerta could unlock up to ~10 mbpd of incremental supply, pressuring long-term oil prices.
Midstream Buildout: Bullish stance on midstream operators as pipelines, LNG logistics, and bespoke data-center power infrastructure scale rapidly.
Company Highlight: Bloom Energy (BE) seen as a beneficiary of off-grid, gas-fed data centers via solid oxide fuel cells; example of solutions validated by recent market interest.
Transcript
The great change of the shell revolution is not just reestablishing us as a global energy gigap power. It's the coupling of oil and gas production on a massive scale which makes those two commodities you know classic co-production economics and AI has holds out the potential to put a big enough bid under natural gas. that plus the historic unbelievable wave of LG export facilities coming online along the US Gulf Coast and in Mexico. Um there's there's a world where the cleanest burning hydrocarbon on the board natural gas is not any longer the cheapest and the consequences of that world are pretty profound. >> Welcome to thoughtful money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Tagert. In today's discussion, we look at the allimportant energy market. Remember, without energy, there's no economy. As we look to the future, where are global energy trends headed? How is the AI race and its voracious need for cheap electrons changing the game? And where are the best opportunities for investors likely to lie? To discuss in depth, we're fortunate to sit down again with the green chicken himself, the energy expert, Duneberg. Duneberg, it's wonderful to see you again. Thanks so much for joining us today, >> Adam, my friend. Great to be back with you. It's been too long. >> It has been too long and we will remedy that more in 2026. Um, but as long as it's been, I get the sense that things are going no less amazingly for you and the Doomberg team. Kudos to you guys for not only continuing to put out such a consistently great product, but just for the success and the business metrics. I follow uh your number of subscribers on the Substack top 100. You guys remain one of the top financial substs in the entire world. >> Yeah. No, it's been great. It's unbelievable. It's it's thrilling. It's humbling. It's bizarre. It's not what I ever imagined I'd be doing, but we couldn't be more grateful to our subscribers, especially the paying ones. Um although all subscribers are precious, of course, and uh to people like you for giving us a platform to grow our business. >> Well, it is a it is a privilege to be able to do so. And you know, I got to say, I I as you know, couple couple companies ago, um I worked for a company that wrote a lot about the the global energy situation. And um you know there were there were times where you know there were debates in the company about um whether to write about more about energy or less about energy and sort of the internal uh you know perspective was ah you know nobody really wants to hear it right it's important to talk about but they they just don't do as well as the the pieces around economics and it's really hard to make a a business especially a newsletter business uh uh talking about energy, you guys have completely destroyed that myth. >> Oh, no. I appreciate it. It's It's been a great journey and you know, we did come of age during the European energy crisis, of course, and that was um good timing, I suppose, from the raw growth prospects uh perspective, but at the same time, you know, we we pour so much into the quality of the work. Live and die by every typo, as you can imagine, um rare as they as they have become. and um that attention to detail, mixing a bit of humor, and I think we've had a pretty good track record of of success when it comes to using our knowledge and internal expertise uh about energy to make some pretty far out there predictions that that came to pass. Not all of them, of course, nobody bats a thousand, but we have a pretty good hit rate and um pretty proud of our work. And most importantly, of course, we're not afraid to be wrong. And when we're wrong, we admit it. And then we write about why we were wrong and what we learn from it. And last point I'll say is we've grown to such a scale over 300,000 subscribers that it's kind of got like a network effect going. We have inbound suggestions for articles and we have outbound sources of expertise to bounce things off of on virtually any topic. And since we come from industry and we speak industry's language, you know, we have scores and scores of industry executives who talk to us off the record um but could never say the things that we write uh in public. And so that's a pretty unique uh advantage for us. And so it's been a great ride. Absolutely great ride. And same with Thoughtful Money. You know, I remember when you put your own flag out and to watch you grow as fast and and as consequentially as you have has been pretty amazing. >> Well, that that that is very kind and um I I it's been a great ride for for Duneberg. Been a great ride for both our country companies so far. And hopefully this comment applies to both of ours as well, but particularly for Duneberg. It's been a great ride so far, but I get the sense you're still in very early innings. Well, let's hope so. From your um from your lips to my bank account. >> All right. [laughter] All right. Well, enough of the mutual appreciation society for now. Let's uh let's dive in. I'm almost wondering where to start. Um you know, the world continues to consume uh more fossil fuel than ever. Um uh the new administration, meanwhile, is working really hard, uh to roll back, uh the investments being made in the Green New Deal. Nuclear energy continues to be a darling energy source. Um, a little little non plus on where to dive in, but so maybe maybe I should just ask a general question. What are currently the most significant energy trends that you're watching as we look to enter into the new year of 2026? >> Yeah, it's a great question. Um, the big one on the board of course is um is AIdriven demand for natural gas globally. natural gas is the bridging fuel for AI needs. Um, and this is triggering a boom in drilling um in the US in particular. The US continues to just be a wash in natural gas and um there's long-term consequences for this which we think are actually pretty bearish for oil which we can talk about. Obviously, the geopolitical tensions are top of mind. the bifurcation of the world between the westernled G7 type financial block and the BRICS countries led by Russia and China uh in India and Brazil to a sort of lesser extent but still very important ones and then the refocus towards the western hemisphere where we have argued that there's probably 10 million incremental barrels of oil per day waiting to be developed um if those resources were in the types of hands that could marshall the capital and infrastructure needed to do that. Happy to walk through that calculation as well. But the big driver AI, natural gas, second and third order market effects from that. Um geopolitical tensions or lack thereof. Um and the uh the ongoing uh you know Monroe doctrine uh under the Trump administration focusing on the Western Hemisphere. >> All right. Do you mind if we just sort of peel each of those layers off the end? >> Sure. Go for it. So where would you like me to start? >> Well, why don't we just start on on the first one? um the AI demand. >> Yeah, there's obviously we've had a bit of back and forth with our mutual friends over at at GNR and a few others um about the prospect of US shale gas turning over. Um and uh we just we just wholeheartedly reject that view. Obviously, we we think peak cheap oil is a myth. Peak cheap gas is an even bigger myth. Uh there's just effectively an infinite supply of natural gas in the US. This is how we model it. Um, people don't like it when we use that phrase, but as lateral thinkers, we spend a lot of time thinking about infinity and zero as philosoph philosophical constructs. They can teach you a lot. Great inputs into your mental model. There's so much gas in the US that if we, you know, if the US decided to put a $5 per million BTU permanent bid under natural gas, production would explode from current levels. Just so much of it, especially in the Peran basin. Peran basins, you know, 0 to 20 BCF per day without even trying. It's a nuisance byproduct today that um can't be given away in the spot markets, negative prices today, and yet it's still growing leaps and bounds. um in a world where AI demand materializes and a glut of gas turbines eventually arrives and you know um soloxide fuel cells from companies like Bloom Energy um are made at scale and natural gas demand does tick up to the point where all these data centers grow up in the per basin and the midstream players build out enough pipelines [snorts] to make maximum use of of all the wellheads. Um, in a world where natural gas becomes expensive again,56 $7 a million BTU in the Peran basin, don't forget it's co-produced with oil. And so in a world today where natural gas is the throwaway byproduct, um, that could flip and tomorrow or some point in the near future, natural gas becomes the prize commodity and any oil produced in the shale regions where co-production occurs is given away. um that could be a real headwind for the price of oil. Having competed, this is where industrial experience is relevant. You know, in certain parts of the commodity world, products are co-produced and there's nothing worse than owning a pure play factory and competing against a co-producer because dynamics in the second market can spill into yours, >> right? >> And and so this is what we're seeing like the great change of the shell revolution. It's not just reestablishing US as a global energy gigap power. It's the coupling of oil and gas production on a massive scale which makes those two commodities you know classic co-production economics and AI has holds out the potential to put a big enough bid under natural gas. That plus the historic unbelievable wave of LG export facilities coming online along the US Gulf Coast and in Mexico. Um there's there's a world where the cleanest burning hydrocarbon on the board, natural gas, is not any longer the cheapest. And the consequences of that world are pretty profound. >> Okay. And and natural gas is currently trading at what? Somewhere in the twos. >> Uh depends where. You know, Henry Hub is foreign change because looks like it's going to be a cold winter. At least that's what the weather models are spinning out. So $4 a million BTU. Henry Hub. The 12-month strip price, which is kind of more stable than spot prices in the Perium Basin, is like I think the basis is minus2. So, it's two bucks cheaper and was minus2 in Alberta, British Columbia, last time I checked. Now, $4 a million BTU is $25 a barrel of oil. $20 a barrel of oil in that range. Two is obviously 12 hydro, you know, it's it's a very cheap hydrocarbon. Um, and clean, right? you you you use it in your home, you burn it on your stove top and you don't really have special ventilation when you do it. It's a super clean burning fuel. Um and so, you know, again, the co-production part of it is a massive change. So, when people ask what is the break even production price, sorry, what is the break even price of oil for production in a perium basin? Let's say our answer is it depends on the price of natural gas. >> Yeah. >> Right. because you're producing both and you got to sell both. Um producers aren't owners, they're price takers. And so that's the big sea change and AI could really flip the oil markets on its head. >> That's really super interesting. So um okay, in terms of sort of future incremental material sources of demand for natural gas, we have the AI data centers. And real quick, um, let me just pull up this chart, which I'm sure you've seen before, which is a chart of, um, electricity generation capacity, >> um, China versus Europe and the US and whatnot. >> And, and for those that are listening on the podcast and not seeing the visual, um, Europe and the United States, uh, are relatively flat. Um, I this is going back to 1985. Um, I mean, United States has some growth here, but but they're relatively flat, especially in in recent decades. Meanwhile, China has it's almost a vertical line. Um, and it now dwarfs the electricity generation capacity of uh Europe and the United States. So, you know, we we've I I think from what I can tell, the Trump administration has seen this. they've gotten the message, hey, if we want to win in AI, uh that race is going to be largely determined by who's got not just the best software, but who's got the best um source of supply of of cheap, dependable electrons. And China seems to have all the momentum there right now. So, apparently, we're going to be playing catch-up like nobody's business over the next decade plus, uh trying to to meet maybe even exceed China eventually. I is that indeed kind of the the the big driver here of of uh natural gas demand from the AI world? >> Yeah. So, I mean it's a fascinating chart. It's a stunning chart. Um by the way um we look at that chart and we see that China doesn't care about global warming um or climate climate change because 55% of that electricity is produced by coal today. >> Um coal is like $5 a million BTU today. So um and dirtier. So the the cost to use coal without damaging your environment is much higher than natural gas. And so the US advantage in natural gas is profound. And this is you know this chart also you know because the US hasn't really expanded grid production that much. Um we believe that this is going to drive um you know off-grid AI data centers um where the electricity is made on demand just for the data center. Maybe it's connected to the grid for backup um or feeds a little excess electricity production into the grid. Um but by and large the bottleneck that is US grid expansion will be swept aside by um made to order custom power plants for data centers uh specifically. >> Okay. But will we be doing both at scale and fast? >> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I this is um you know there's lots of talk about an AI bubble and there's unquestionably massive valuation bubbles in the public and the private uh markets. We're seeing it in the private markets. I'm personally uh early stage investor in an exciting AI startup. So I see it. I see the valuations. I see how relatively easy it is to raise money. Um and yet um yes yes the the.com bubble burst and the internet was still an amazing thing that totally reshaped society or to bring it back to energy directly. Sure, shale gas was a bubble. Shell oil and shell gas, the development of US shell was a bubble in the in the 2010s and much equity was wiped out, but what was left behind is just amazing infrastructure, amazing technology, amazing resource, um reshaping geopolitics historically, you know, on a historic scale. And this is this is our sort of balanced view of AI. It is a unbelievably game-changing technology. It scares me actually what I see how quickly it's evolving. One of the challenges with investing in the private markets is just how quickly what you think your moat is could be obsolete. Um so there will be massive amounts of equity wiped out for sure. But yet what remains is is a mega trend of epic proportions. Our one of our operating mental models is that the human endeavor is infinite compute. And if you just have that as an operating mental model, it explains a lot and predicts a lot quite effectively. And uh we see this this massive demand on you know it is it is in a way a bubble on a scale that is unimaginable but all sort of exponential functions eventually behave that way. It's called the the knee of the exponential or as we call it internally the the Kriswellian inflection point. um you know when doubling times are shrinking, they'll eventually become a day. Um in other words, it'll double every day. Um and when we're seeing this just massive buildout of computing um infrastructure, technology advances and so on. It truly is mindboggling. That's not to say that this is different this time. You know, the famous uh it's the same as all the other bubbles, including what's left when the bubble bursts. Wow. Okay. So, a tremendous opportunity um I mean for humanity um in society but obviously um going to place a tremendous amount of demand on uh for for for electron production. Natural gas is going to be a key part of that. H h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h like if if if if we have today's demand for natural gas as a baseline, how how how material is the oncoming demand over say the next five years? Is is it is it 20% of what we're using right now? Is it is it twice like what's the order of magnitude you you peg it at here? >> Yeah, it's I mean it it could be huge. I mean I we run models internally where we could see demand doubling in 10 years. >> Okay. Um, >> that's pretty darn big. >> Um, now there's lots of constraints to that, but markets tend to work their magic when, again, you have the you have the cleanest burning hydrocarbon on the board also being in infinite supply and the cheapest one, >> right? >> How of how often does that happen? Right. Right. >> Um, not very. >> So, it it's going to be amazing to watch for sure. >> Okay. So, that's that's just AI. Um, and this will also be AI related. Um, but uh we've had the Trump administration going around the world, you know, since Trump uh shook up the trade board and said, look, I want to negotiate better deals for America. And as I understand it, a pretty big um, you know, element of those deals is, hey, we want to ship you cheap, clean natural gas. Um, and, uh, you know, we don't want you buying, you know, energy from some other places we don't like, like Russia and whatnot. Um and and we know that Europe, you know, has been super dependent upon natural gas from Russia. Um a how big of a gamecher is natural gas as a sort of a geopolitical trade tool here and how much incremental demand is that going to bring for US natural gas from these new deals being struck with other countries? >> Yeah, I mean the projections are pretty substantial. So by the way like export of natural gas via LG is not cheap. Um it trades in lock step with Brent crude today which one of the one of the chart pairs that we watch very closely here. Um basically if you take landed LG in Europe and multiply it by six um you get roughly the price of Brent crude which is no accident. Um, and when that chart deviates, something weird is a miss, which is why we like to watch it. It usually foretells geopolitical risk. Um, but the US, you know, let's just put some numbers. The US averaged about 100 BCF per day production in 24 of natural gas. Um, according to the statistical review of world energy, it's currently producing at about 107. Um I want to say the LG export capacity is around 13 BCF per day in the US but projections peg it as high as 30 BCF in the next decade or less. Um so the the US DOE is projecting a doubling of US LG export capacity in a very short period of time. if if the projects that have already reached FID um get built on the time frame that is envisioned um we're going to see a massive wave of new LG export capacity coming online in the US there's undoubtedly [snorts] going to be a glut of LG as other major projects come online as well and in the long run natural gas will trade for a narrow band um uh roughly the same price all over the world corrected for logistics and And as the US builds out its national natural gas pipeline network, we'll see these basis trades go to zero. All basis trades go to zero eventually. Um not quite zero, but you know, arbitrage is close. >> And and so um those are sort of the big mega trends uh of physics that you can bet on as an investor uh in our view. Now, the LG trade, you know, Trump is using that to sort of um really destroy the European economy. Whether he's doing it on purpose or not is is an interesting question. Um but Europe just can't compete. So, in this world, because Europe doesn't produce its own hydrocarbons, it's it's really the big loser in all geopolitical scenarios. Um they are being hooked on expensive LG. the rest of the world, the rest of the big manufacturing societies, um you usually have access to natural gas via land pipeline. LG is a luxury in a way or a necessity um where you don't really have other choices like Japan for example and Japan has cured its LG exposure by basically owning every aspect of the LG supply chain that it can. It's always investing in these companies and therefore the profits sort of come home. Europe's not doing the same thing, at least not on that scale. And so Europe is um cutting itself off from cheap Russian energy and hooking itself on to expensive Qatari and US energy and uh its heavy industry is is suffering as a consequence. >> Okay. And so on the um so generally from the Russia pipelines um uh Europe was getting gas, right? >> Yeah. >> Gaseous natural gas. And just to let folks know, so when Dubberg says LG, he means liqufied natural gas. And you we do is we we compress it to turn it into a liquid. That makes it much easier to ship across oceans and things like that. Um but it's more expensive because you have to expend energy to liquefy the natural gas. So Duneberg, roughly what was what's the price delta between the cheap gaseous Russian gas and US's liqufied natural gas? Well, I mean today if natural gas at Henry Hub is $4 a million BTU, a landed LNG in Europe is 11. >> Okay. >> Um so that's you know almost triple the price and pipeline from Russia. I don't know the numbers because these were mostly private contracts but I hear it was around five 550 six in that range. >> Okay. So it's about a doubling for them. >> It's about a doubling for them. um but on a sustained basis and oftentimes goes much higher. So you know LG prices are much more volatile than pipeline. Pipeline contracts are typically signed for many years, decades. Um these pipelines tend to be immortal unless they're you know destroyed. Um and just to give you a benchmark before >> Yeah. Unless they're blown up, right? >> Yeah. Unless the the crew of Gil Gilggins Island gets on its boat and um and blows up Nordstream 2. Yeah. Um before Nordstream 2 was completed, um rough math, Europe was getting about 15 BCF per day from Russia via pipelines. Um and if they're going to cut themselves off completely from that and you look at how much excess LG the USQar are bringing on, you could see where that trade is being made. um Russia is redirecting some of that gas to China and using more of it internally to don't forget I mean people think that oh let's cut off Russian gas or Russian crude or Russian diesel all that does is make uh Russia stop exporting it still has a huge amount of excess capacity for its internal markets >> and so if we make you know Russia stop selling natural gas to Europe through sanctions and other activities um it just makes natural gas that much cheaper for the Russian military-industrial complex. And last I checked, you need hydrocarbons to make bombs. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um I'm just trying to think here. So, in the in the in the next 5 10 years as the US goes hog wild in um exporting natural gas. Um, do you expect prices to come down at all during this, you know, kind of at least near-term natural gas collect that you expect or is is 11 kind of the best Europe can hope for? >> I mean, there comes a point where, you know, our equilibrium price for oil is $55 a barrel because in our view, um, $10 per million BTU landed LNG, 5.6 times that number, six times that number gets you crude. um is the price where everybody can earn their cost of capital. Um especially since drilling in the US has become so cheap. You know the break even price for pure gas drillers again back to the whole associated production dilemma. Um in Appalachia for example um Marcela Shale and and so on um the the break even price is like two bucks a million BTU in change which is pretty incredible. It's like Saudi Arabia price of oil for US natural gas producers, right? Like the cost to produce. >> Um, and so by the time you, you know, you get it to your liquef you, you you know, pressurize it, you put it on a boat, and then that boat sails across the ocean and it gets to a regation facility and the midstream player that operates the pipeline from the regification facility to your power plant get catches their vague. And you know, when you add it all up, 10 bucks a million BTU starting with a $2 per million BTU and change production cost in the US is roughly the price at which everybody makes money. If there's a glut of LG, then you would expect that that could close. And in the commodity world, everybody knows that sometimes commodity players lose a lot of money. There's an enormous amount of LG export capacity going up. This is driven by the fact that the US and Qatar Qatar is sitting on the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Um so cheap to produce it. And so if they could, you know, take something that costs a buck and flip it for four, you it makes good money. And who cares if it's 350? >> Okay. Um All right. So anyways, um uh Europe not going to get out of that bind anytime soon. Um obviously they are weaning themselves off of the Russian gas because of you know national security issues uh continental security issues. Um and the US is making you know a big investment to say hey you know we're going to we're going to be your supplier along with the Qataris there. What would be the impact of peace in Ukraine? Will will will Russia ever get back in the good graces of Europe enough for them to relight up these pipelines or are these pipelines just going to rust in the ground there? Do you think? >> Let me uh invert your question. Will Russia ever do Europe the favor of selling it cheap natural gas ever again? >> I mean there's there's this false narrative that somehow Russia benefited more than Europe from these gas sales. Um, you know, without energy there is no economy. You you said it yourself. Okay, you don't want energy and now we have an abundance of it. Fine. I mean, who loses in that trade? It it's you have to think about, you know, possession is 90% of the law, right? I would much rather be a country in possession of enormous natural gas reserves and producing more than our domestic economy needs >> than to be a country that has wired its entire economy around a continuing access to that cheap commodity and having it suddenly turned off. >> Yeah. So, I understand that that Europe's in a real bind here, but again, we're making kind of, you know, big plans to be shipping all this liqufied natural gas to to Europe. Is there is there a a material chance that if there's peace in Ukraine in a year or two that Europe might go back and say, you know what, US, forget it. We don't need your liqufied natural gas because we can get the cheap stuff directly from Russia. >> No, I just don't see it. Look, the current leadership of both Europe and Russia have basically parted ways. Um, and and I just don't I don't see it. In fact, the bigger risk to to Europe, which nobody talks about, you know, the potential blood and allergy notwithstanding, if demand for natural gas in the US spikes because of AI and the US gets a cold winter, don't think for a a second that Trump isn't going to turn off LG exports, keep the gas home. >> I mean, there's a world where, you know, further punishing Europe indirectly for like, let's put it this way. If natural gas spiked to $10 a million BTU tomorrow, Trump would halt LG exports in a in a heartbeat. >> Okay, >> of course he would. Um, but that's the analogy that explains Russia's relative advantage over Europe. Essentially, that's the same scenario. Russia is no longer exporting mountains of natural gas to Europe, so it has an even bigger mountain of natural gas to gorge upon in its domestic economy. And and then so that that's what would happen in the US if prices got too too high. Okay. Well, look, if I took if I took my notes correctly, and correct me if I didn't, um, you said that the AIdriven demand for natural gas could potentially double the demand for natural gas, today's demand, you know, within about 10 years or so. If I heard you right, I think you said with these new deals that we're striking, they could also potentially double. Um I is is there a potential for the AI domestic demand to get so great that it actually would force us to constrain what we then export? >> That's that's the point I point I exactly made. And the second doubling is just the doubling of LG exports, not the doubling of total production. And the only thing I would add >> Okay. >> Yeah. The only thing I would add to your comment is when I say the US, I kind of envision Alberta and British Columbia being part of that. They have an enormous amount of natural gas up there. They're building their own LG export capacity. there is pipeline infrastructure to the US. Um you could think of Alberta, British Columbia as a mini perian basin so to speak when it comes to gas growth. Um really exploded there too. Now do I is is a doubling of of US natural gas production our base case? No. Um it is not but it is it is in the uh you know Monte Carlo assimilation of possibilities. It's on the board. >> Okay. All right. Um All right. All right. Well, look, is there anything on the geopolitical side that we haven't talked about um that's not related to the Western Hemisphere Monroe Doctrine? Point number three you mentioned earlier that that's important to get on the the board here. >> I just think the ever closing relationship between Russia and China, the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline has been approved, which is a new development um since you and I last spoke. That routes about a third of what used to go to Europe directly to China. That of course will impact the LG markets because China, which is a major importer of LG, will no longer need to do so at the scale that it has done >> historically. Um, that's a pretty important project. We'll see how quickly that gets built. Um, there's still significant pipelines from Russia to Turkey that feed Europe. Um, whether those become the target of uh sabotage operations uh is is a risk on the board for sure. Turkstream and Blue Stream, I believe, are the two major pipelines. So that those are sort of the hot spots that we're watching. Um but overall I think we've covered it pretty comprehensively. >> Okay. All right. Um let me just ask you this real quick before you move uh to the South America part of it. Um when you look at the board and you said hey I I much would rather prefer to be a country sitting on you know vast amounts of of plentiful cheap natural gas. Um, who is best positioned right now energy-wise in your your point of view, at least in terms of the major powers? >> Sure. Well, obviously the US and Russia are very well positioned. China's pretty well positioned because of its reliance on coal. It produces an enormous amount of coal. Um, it burns 55% of all the world's coal. It's actually using an enormous amount of coal to make oil products. Um, cold to chemicals. I think heavier blast was out with an interesting article in Bloomberg saying that if China's coal to chemicals industry were a country, it'd be the second biggest coal consuming country in the world. They just do things on scales that you just can't imagine. >> Can't imagine. >> Yeah. But like there's some smaller players that are very well positioned as well. We call them, you know, um countries that p punch above their weight geopolitically. Um obviously we mentioned Qatar >> um um but Malaysia uh another country is sneaky sneaky strong um we noted with interest u when um Oracle decided to to cut a deal with uh with Malaysia. So all these LG exporters are great places to build data centers and you just skip the whole you know uh liqufation regification cycle and just put them at the source. So why build an LG export terminal when you can just build a data center right there? And so we're seeing that in the Middle East. >> I was gonna say we're seeing that in the that's a big part of the Middle East plan, right? >> Yeah. Uh United Arab Emirates, huge AI center. Um if we just take a step back, this is often uh not fully articulated in the sort of traditional energy press. Um the Middle East punches well below its weight in natural gas. then its resource base would imply. Why? Well, for decades, the valuable commodity was oil and they would just burn the natural gas or flare it or just vent it. It's a nuisance. It takes infrastructure, >> right, >> to to make use of natural gas. Much like in the US, which has the world's largest, most sophisticated, most awesome natural gas engine, we we model the US natural gas infrastructure as one sort of beating engine. Um, with each investment, the Middle East is becoming more and more and more of a gas player. And, um, Saudi Arabia, for example, burns, I don't know, 500 600,000 barrels a day, I think I saw, of oil to produce electricity when it's sitting on a mountain of natural gas. That's all going to >> that's all going to get turned off, right, and switched. And so, um, you're going to see as isolated data centers, um, go to where the molecules are and it's a lot cheaper to send data around the world than it is to send natural gas. Right now, >> absolutely. >> The the Middle East has a challenge. It's hot, right? And and half of the energy used in a data center is for cooling. And that makes places like Canada and Russia, Siberia, um, excellent places for data centers. Russia is, uh, soon to punch above its weight uh, or at least what Western analysts give it credit for being able to do in the AI data data center world. Um, but so too British Columbia, Alberta is an attractive place. Um, you know, weather does matter. But countries like Malaysia, even Trinidad and Tobago, an early LG exporter. We saw Exxon now is is is investing in exploration because they're right next door in Guyana. We note with a smirk that the US military Armada is using Trinidad and Tobago basically as a stationary um you know uh military base right off of Venezuela's coast. And I'm jumping ahead to the Monroe Doctrine section of our talk, but um there's lots of if you just go to the statistical review of world energy >> and download their their handy spreadsheet that they give out every June, which is a core input into our work, and click over to LG Exporter tab and sort the countries by volume. You'll see a handy guide to where um AI data centers are likely to start popping up. Okay, that's that's actually it's a really great methodology to to use to figure out that question. Um, all right. So, real quick before we get to the third point, um, you were on this channel, I think over a year ago now, um, and and had a a really fascinating debate with Adam Rosenwag about um, peak oil or at least cheap peak oil or peak cheap oil, I'm sorry. Um, and uh, two questions for you. One, I' I'd love to just very quickly get from you an update as to how well you feel your argument has aged since then. Um, with oil trading, you know, 60 and below recently, I think probably pretty well. Um and also from that discussion and some other ones that we've had on this channel, Duneberg, you've talked a lot about the fact that um uh when we're drilling for oil and gas um we get a lot of other hydrocarbons um out of that process that increasingly uh can be used uh for key uses like transport or can be converted into other forms of liquid hydrocarbons. to be used for those purposes. Um, how h how has that developed since you and I last talked on that? Is that trend continuing? >> Yeah, of course. This is the forever trend. Um, I think our debate was actually in January of 24, almost two years ago. >> Wow. Almost two years ago now. >> Yeah. And you know, obviously, um, we we believed everything we said then and we haven't changed our views. Um, and it's not like we're blind to the evidence. We see the evidence pouring in. I I think um the market is not pricing in that we are uh anywhere close to running out of oil as will become clear when we talk about the Dunro doctrine I guess they're calling it um in the western hemisphere as you mentioned oil is much cheaper than it was um the world is consuming more of it um and the chart that we used back then I I wish I had it um is the the number of barrels of oil um an ounce of gold buys you or Maybe the chart I used was the fraction of an ounce of a gold you uh that you would need to buy a barrel of oil. They're both the same chart. They're just different directions. >> That number has skyrocketed, of course, because gold is appreciated. But if you think gold is is sort of um fixed and the other prices of the world um revolve around it as we do to a to a degree um you know you can buy well it's an enormous bounty of oil for an ounce of gold far higher than it was when we had that debate for example. Um, and you know the it's just I don't know. I just don't see it right. I mean I it's so counter to everything our industry sources tell us um that it it's it's hard to articulate. Now there's always a risk and one of the big risks of an analyst is that you um give higher priority to private data than you should. Um that's a risk we're aware of. But in this case, we don't think we're susceptible to that risk. Um because so many people are saying it so consistently from positions where they would have every reason to say the opposite story. Oil companies don't like the fact that there's an infinite supply of oil. They would like for the world to believe that this is scarce and that we're about to run out of it. Um and yet to a person um we're just drowning in this stuff. I again if there were evidence in the markets anywhere that would point to it we would certainly be open to changing our minds but there's just so much of it Adam um and again long before geology becomes a constraint politics um is a constraining factor everywhere um if the world if oil went to $300 a barrel today the political obstacles to production growth would be wiped away and we'd be right back to $50 $60 a barrel Yeah, I have I've mentioned your comment that a political constraint can be removed vastly easier than a geological constraint. I've quoted that many times uh >> over well just look at look at Venezuela which we'll talk about. I mean that >> used to produce four now produces 1 million barrel a day and there's there's nothing about the geology that caused that. >> All right. Well, let's let's head down to there that that that topic in just a second. But to the second part of my question about the ability to convert >> Yeah. >> um other different types of hydrocarbons to ones that can be used just like you know the the gasoline we put in our car. Um how what's happening there? >> Sure. And this reps back into Europe. So just as an example, there's many such examples, but um what we're talking about really is natural gas liquids. that array of light hydrocarbons that isn't natural gas but isn't quite oil in traditional sense. Um, one of the things you can do with it is um turn it into chemicals. Um, all across Europe there are known there are these facilities known as crackers. Um, and they make the core chemicals that make plastics and milk jugs and garbage bags and tarps and you know uh all the various things that um that make society uh work >> work that are petroleum derived. Yeah. Um, they have been historically mostly been fed with an oil product, NAFTA oily product comes from a barrel of oil and they would crack it and they would make ethylene and propyline and a commission of other things. And what we're seeing instead is, you know, ethylene onpurpose crackers. Um, these are fed using ethane, which is the most bountiful of the natural gas liquids, even though it it is itself a gas. the C2 molecule uh uh from an oily mixture in in a shell patch, for example. And we're seeing a rise of these giant ethane only crackers and a wave of NAFTA crackers shutting down. Um well the NAFTA that fed those crackers has other uses and would go and compete against the other parts of a barrel of oil and that sort of creates a supply glut of part of a barrel of oil that you know um refiners have to get rid of and an outlet for um NGL production say uh in the US and in fact one of the largest exports um from the US to China that's been caught up in all this tariff wars is is uh you know ethane and LP LPG, all of these light hydrocarbons that China has built, overbuilt really, these chemical factories to convert um that fuel into into useful products. And so we see this everywhere we look. We did a whole presentation on this um for our doom zoom, our our pro tier. We did a couple of these. Um, uh, you the amount of NGL's in the major storage facilities in the US, um, is becoming close to on par with how much crude oil is in the strategic petroleum reserve. >> Wow. >> Yeah. Uh, it it's actually pretty and all this has been sort of built under the radar, right? I mean, obviously people in the industry know it and they see it. Um, but it it is truly staggering. Like 350 million barrels in storage. Um, I'm just pulling up um the the dooms presentation to get you the the numbers as they were in February. The presentation was called trend lightly natural gas liquids in the future of hydrocarbons. >> Um, not that I fed you this as a topic. Um, and and so like it's just there's just so much of it and it's so cheap, you know, as a general rule, as a rule of thumb. Um, gas is cheap. Natural gas liquids is slightly more expensive, but still cheaper than crude oil. And then crude oil is is more expensive. Um, so the there's this huge hub in in Mont Belleview, Texas. Um, and at the time of that presentation, it had 250 million barrels of of storage. Uh, and it it oscillates as high as 300 million barrels um in in early 2020, of course, because of CO. This is huge amount of these are these are in salt domes, right? holds and they pump them down in these salt domes and they, you know, the they have the C1s, sorry, the C2s, the C3s, C4, C5, and they they write their position for export, you know, uh Houston Channel. It's just an enormous facility. There's another one in in uh Kansas, I believe, not quite on that scale, but like when you hear Mont Belleview NGL pricing, that's like the Henry hub of natural gas kind of benchmark. >> Okay. Okay. So, am I correct in just just taking this as this will be sort of another headwind um against the price of oil appreciating too much for too long because this is increasingly bringing on a kind of an alternative supply of things that can be used that oil would otherwise be used for. >> Yeah, OPEC has done this to itself of course because as we said earlier the Middle East is not really a major natural gas producer and by extension not really a major NGL producer. They have worked to keep the price of crude oil artificially high. It's a cartel. Oil is a managed market. Um, and in so doing, they have inspired this competition from below who are co-producing expensive oil and all of this cheap stuff. And guess what? Energy arbitrage is always close. And so this tsunami of cheap stuff that the shale revolution has on court um is going to undercut OPEC. there is a a molecular semantic shift going on in the very definition of what oil is, which is what I was trying to argue during the debate and what you and I have talked about before, but it's worth reminding people. >> Um, the engines that we have in society today are tuned to burn the hydrocarbons that were available when they became standard. Those standards can shift, especially if the price of the fuel is very cheap. So, yes, diesel is great for long haul trucking and delivery trucking, but natural gas is better if you're China because it burns so much cleaner and you worry about pollution in the cities. And if it's going to be cheaper and comes with less pollution issues, guess what? We'll switch the engines. Mhm. >> And so, [clears throat] um, as the infrastructure gets built out and as the engines get switched, all of these hydrocarbons will sell for the same price on an energy content basis, corrected for logistics. >> Okay. So, makes makes sense. Made sense to me when you made it the first time I heard it, but it sounds like you're just saying, "Yep, time is proving out that this is indeed the way things are going." >> Correct. >> Um, all right. So last but not least, um let's get to uh the Western Hemisphere where essentially we've mentioned the term Monero doctrine. Um but the certainly seems the new administration is is saying that sounds, you know, we think that old idea is is is a good one and we we want to update it for the new millennium and uh let's make sure that we make the most of the geographic region that we have the most control influence over. And for the most part, you know, they're almost all allies with a couple of few exceptions, >> couple of big ones. [laughter] >> But, uh, you know, on Trump's inauguration day, January 20th, we wrote a piece called Misreading the Room. And I I believe the social preview for it was something along the lines of if Greenland was the appetizer, might Venezuela be the main course. >> Mhm. >> And um, that was quite easy to see. is it never ceases to amaze us how few geopolitical analysts start their analysis with energy because if you do it it just explains so much. It doesn't explain everything but it does explain a whole lot of the variance. >> Look as sorry to interrupt but there's that old saying that you know at the end in the end when it really comes down to it all wars are resource wars. >> Yeah% almost all resource wars are kind of about energy. >> Correct. Right. or or or derivatives of it like food or or fresh water which is nothing more than an embodiment of energy. So look I said at the top of the show in the right hands with the right resources there's 10 million barrels per day of incremental oil production waiting to be developed in the you know the South America. Um >> and is and is that is that like the easy stuff or is that the whole >> No that's just let me walk you through the numbers. All right. Yeah. >> So, you know, Mexico south, right, in the Western Hemisphere, south of the US, Mexico used to produce four, it produces two now, riddled with corruption and narco uh gang influence. Venezuela used to produce four, produces one now. Um, could easily do five. We we think Venezuela is like Canada, but with much poorer contract law. >> Yeah. >> Um, so there's five without even trying. You have Guyana going from zero to one on the way to two. Um, Brazil just smashed through 4 million barrels a day. Tack another one there. Um, and Vakama is every bit as good as the Peran basin. Um, the issue with Vak Merta is that it's in Argentina, right? And so we followed up the misreading the room piece with a piece we wrote a couple of months ago called Mosaic theory where we walk through each of these countries and made some predictions like for example that the US would have to bail out Argentina and lo and behold they did. It's not because Melee looks good with the chainsaw and he sweet talks Trump. I mean it's because Vakam is there. If Vakam wasn't there there Scott Bessant would not be back stopping Malay. So you pretty sure when when Bessant made the bailout there that part of the terms were we're going to get a pretty sweet deal in accessing >> I mean we quoted the CEO of Chevron in the piece who who [snorts] stands ready to help Argentina develop its VA resources. I mean Chevron's kneedeep in Venezuela. Um the super majors have assembled in Guyana. We wrote a piece called Blooming Flower. You know, once you have enough super majors in one area, they start looking around because they've got this critical mass of midstreamers and supply providers and services providers all there too and they've reached critical mass. They don't want to leave because they're all there. So, you just stick a pin in the map around Guyana and then, you know, tie a string to a pencil and draw a circle around Guyana. Surinum all of a sudden, Trinidad and Tobago. Venezuela's right there. Venezuela claims Guyana as its own, of course, at least the oil producing parts of it. So, you could see, as we said in the piece, you know, misreading the room, the the the history of strongman dictators who get in the way of oil development is not a glorious one. >> Mhm. >> And uh we suggested that perhaps Maduro should avoid flying on a private jet uh anytime soon >> or walking by any windows. >> Or walking by any windows. And look, it it's it's cynical and we shouldn't be making light of it because actually I think much of it is illegal. Um, but it's reality like you just can't deny the reality. And so as an analyst trying to get something right, um, not trying to advocate for something, it's quite clear that there's 10 million barrels a day. Uh, look, the Western Hemisphere already outproduces the Middle East in oil and vastly outproduces it in natural gas. There's plenty to do in the Western Hemisphere. you know, in a world of spheres of influence where, you know, Trump cuts a grand bargain with China and Russia, um there's huge opportunity for manufacturing revitalization in the US powered by an abundant supply of cheap hydrocarbons. >> Okay. So, um couple things off of this. Uh now, obviously from an American perspective, America would like to get as much of a piece of that action as it could. Um uh and I guess first too just to my earlier question I I think you the answer is yes which is this is this this incremental 10 million barrels a day. It's kind of the easy stuff right? You're saying you know we already get kind of half of the way there just by returning Mexico and Venezuela to kind of where they were previously. Right. So this doesn't require us having to >> go out and and tap a whole bunch of offshore oil deposits that have never been uh tapped yet. It's really just making use of kind of known existing resources. Correct. >> Yeah. I mean, not to say that that's easy, of course. I mean, these are political quagmires for a reason, >> right? But it's not like you're betting on like we think there's a bunch of oil. >> No, no, no, no. Venezuela has the world's largest hydrocarbon resource base, but bigger than Saudi Arabia. >> Okay. Which is amazing. So, so if you're America and you are looking to really unite the Western Hemisphere, right, under say a new Pax Americana and and you know, haven't heard much about it lately, but Trump has talked about the Golden Dome kind of protecting, you know, hey, you you play with us, you get free protection under this this defense network that we're building. Um, so, you know, obviously, I guess he'd love to use the carrot as much as possible. Hey, Argentina will bail you out, but then you got to let Chevron come in and help you build out this stuff. Right. Um, and a lot of these countries probably are happy to see that. They don't have the technology at scale that that the US companies do now. Obviously, you've got Maduro, a very unfriendly regime to the US um in uh in Venezuela. I know you made the joke you did, but but Trump has portrayed himself as the peace president, right? And and he and his his cabinet have said, "Look, we are putting an end to American adventurism." Um, we don't we're not we're getting out of the business of regime regime change. Do you think that statement has an asterisk by it? You know, except for Venezuela. >> I mean, come on. You know, the peace president renames the Department of Defense the Department of War. >> Yep. >> Um, and um, last night I checked, Marco Rubio was a charter member of the Uni Party Forever War Neil Conwing of the Washington DC establishment. Um my cynical interpretation is sure we're not going to do the Ukraine thing anymore. But you know when you're in the bomb making business pieces of working capital problem and so let's have this war over here instead u pick on somebody your own size kind of thing where a war that um Trump can win in theory and um and the military-industrial complex doesn't need to doesn't need to panic about peace. Um there's always a war somewhere. There's always bombs being dropped somewhere and u it's hard not to be cynical. Um but um we we can't send more arms to Ukraine, but we're going to go ahead and do Venezuela. I I who knows, maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. I I'm seeing all kinds of conflicting stories and interesting story in the Atlantic today, which is not always a bastion of truth about Maduro offering to leave as long as he's taken care of and he gets to, you know, have a nice uh condo somewhere on a beach. >> Yeah. >> Um who knows? >> Let's just let's let's assume for a moment that happens, right? One way or another, Maduro's gone. But let's assume it's it's the most bloodless way, right? And he's out and let's say that that woman who um forgetting her name, but the one that just won the Nobel Peace Prize, right? [laughter] >> Yeah. >> There's opponent there from Venezuela. She gets in assuming she's more America friendly. >> Like what happens if if if it's like kind of game on for for how we want to play the game there? What what what what actually gets unlocked quickly? I mean she's she and again her name escapes me too but I I do find quite humorous that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee selected the regime change candidate in waiting um to give the this year's award to seemed like the fix might have been in the old consol consolation prize for Trump you know >> [clears throat] >> um I I think what happens is everybody knows where the oil is and the the aging infrastructure gets upgraded and very generous contracts are signed by the new Venice Venezuelan government with uh outside uh oil super majors. The Chinese probably will play a role in it as well. They're pretty big into Guyana. They own I think a third of of Exxon's joint venture there. >> Okay. So, sorry to interject. I want you to keep answering, but you know, I think part of Trump's strategy is to get Chinese influence out of the Western Hemisphere. How successful will do you think the US be in that? >> The you know, Exxon and the Chinese have a very good working relationship. um what we see again one of the comments I was going to say to your sort of your question was you you have to separate countries from the particular leaders of countries in the moment >> Mhm. >> they're often two very different things. >> Y >> um China has significant claims in Venezuela and one of the things that would probably have to happen is a resolution of those claims in an equitable way. Probably part of some larger trade negotiation where the details are not released. Um and so you know um in the end business is business. The Chinese are, you know, minority owners in all kinds of uh American strategic energy projects. Well, energy projects that are strategic to America abroad. Let's put it that way. And I don't think that that that they would be wiped out of Venezuela. There's just that there'd be too much friction in doing that. Um a deal would be cut. There'd be some concession somewhere else and um and the party would go on. But you'd see a wave of of investment. Um and you know in a in a way if it's done correctly um in the way that Guyana seems to be doing mostly um it could be quite beneficial to the people of Venezuela who Lord knows have suffered greatly um uh in the last couple of decades through a massive and nasty bout of hyperinflation for one thing. Um they might have to peg their currency, you know, to the dollar. >> To the dollar. Sure. >> Yeah. Um this is all sort of known kind of what Guyana is doing. And so there's that. Um and so yeah, it would just be a a wave of concessions and investments and you know they would pretend to have an auction for various blocks and you know certainly the threat to Guyana would go away. Um which you know kind of a catalyst for all this I think. Um but who knows? Yeah it would be a um it would be a bonanza of investment on par with you know a big shale patch in the US. >> Okay. So in the the doomberg base case outlook, how bullish are you on the opportunity here in the western southern hemisphere getting unlocked? >> I mean I I think quite bullish on the resources getting developed faster than people anticipate on a scale that few are measuring today. That's bearish for oil prices. It's bullish is bullish for any company that makes money on volume, not price. >> Um, and so we would see, you know, I think be particularly good for, you know, the um the the the rig providers and the, you know, the the the services providers and the engineering, >> midstream operators we hear about. >> Yeah. Midstream, you know, um, royalty plays and things like that. it it you know it would be bullish for construction and when construction is booming you don't necessarily want to own the buildings. >> Okay. You want to kind of you want to kind of find the Nvidia of this space right that's just all all the capex is flowing into it. Yeah, that's well that's a whole other can of worms, but um yeah, you you want to find the picks and shovels that that this is the sort of classic u cliche almost business school case study, right? Gold miners don't make money. People who sell shovels to gold miners do. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. Um well, look, I'm looking at the time, Duneberg, I have to start wrapping it up, but this, as usual, has just been a fascinating uh discussion. Uh thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. Uh just to get down to where the rubber meets the road. Um uh I'm going to ask you because this is a investing platform. Um you know what what specific investment opportunities in the energy space have your attention at the most right now? I know it's in in the past it's been you know either kind of these midstream players or it's been um you know those who can make an arbitrage off of getting access to things like cheap natural gas and then using that to you create a more higher value product that can sell at a greater profit on the global market. Um, have your views changed? Uh, what's what's got your attention most right now? >> Yeah, I'm still very bullish on the prospects for, you know, midstream operators. Uh, anybody who is enabling the data center constructions to go faster. You saw, you know, Bloom Energy stock just skyrocket because its solution seems to be validated. not a not a recommendation to get long a stock that's already had an icorous print like this, but um that's just an example of things you should be looking for. Um beyond energy, but to the derivatives of energy, anything that China supplies to the US military industrial complex today is going to see a wave of investment. these Trump deals which we didn't talk about but we're publishing on tomorrow um is is you know at risk because of the tariff case at the US Supreme Court but hundreds of billions of dollars we're going to be flowing into the US in order to close those gaps um in the private markets we're just seeing a bonanza of opportunities in this space um enormous sums of money being invested always means that there's going to be some winners and some big losers and so trying to >> separate those two is is an interesting challenge so but mostly unchanged. I mean, not much has happened in the energy market since that infamous debate that we had. Um, oil prices keeps keep going down and, you know, demand for gas continues to creep up and production's there to meet it. >> Okay. Um, and you know, I I've been mentioning just to be transparent on this channel that, you know, oil um, world still runs on it. Demand for it keeps going up year after year. um oil, you know, the oil sector, um from a stock perspective has really been one of the more underperforming sectors for a good while now. Um and it tends to be a boom bust industry. Um if we're in the bust, will we go back into a boom? I know I know in the long term you think um oil prices are going to be contained. Will there still be a business cycle in there? you know, are there opportunities to invest in oil and the oil majors? Or do you think given your outlook? There's just so much of this stuff and the potential for so much more of it to come that it's going to remain depressed. >> Look, I mean, the long-term real price of all commodities is lower, which is why we don't buy commodity producers or the commodities themselves. We we analogize it to buying the VIX. Do you occasionally see a spike? Sure. Um much better to fade that spike than it is to try to time it. >> Mhm. >> Um that's just our view. We wouldn't be long uranium. We wouldn't be long uranium miners. We wouldn't be long oil, gas, oil or gas producers, coal or coal producers. You plot all those things in ounces of gold, right? The only thing that beats ounces of gold these days is, you know, high technology. Um the commodity players are deflationary machines who participate in a price taking market. It it's just not a great market. Are there times where they make windfall profits? Sure. And then the government of Great Britain comes and taxes it at a 78% marginal rate. Right? You mentioned Nvidia, they're allowed to make 85% margins, but um you know, refiners making 3% margins are gouging the consumers. You know, it's just we we have it all backwards. But it's fine. That's the political landscape, but we're we generally wouldn't be inspired to buy any commodity or any commodity producer. >> All right. Um well I I will say that we've got some people who appear on this channel who have differences a different outlook but again when we're you know that's what makes a market right smart people who look at data and trends differently and uh you make an extremely compelling uh case for um not just your final statements there but for everything you've told us about today. So, uh, in just wrapping things up here, for folks that very much enjoyed this discussion and would like to get greater access to you and your work, where should they go? >> Yeah, uh, duneberg.com for everything. And I I think I mentioned to you before we started, we have a a sister publication we've launched I'd like to plug as well. There nothing to do with energy, of course, but um, classics readaloud.substack.com is the um, new publication that the Doom Dune team is putting out. It's a passion project of one of Duneberg's co-founders and its editor-inchief. And as the name implies, it's it's the mission of classics read aloud is to go find and resuscitate and bring back to life some of the great literature from a century ago or longer. And um launched that in September. It's off to a great start. Something like 14 hours of audio already recorded and um subscriber growth has been strong. And then the reception's been good. So if you're into great literature read uh read brilliantly and and in in sort of the Duneberg brand production quality head over to classics readad aloud.subsect.com or if you just want to read the Duneberg stuff duneberg.com as well. Adam always a pleasure. Uh much congratulations on your success and um may you continue to enjoy it. >> Thank you so much Duneberg. I I really uh I can't tell you how much I I value not just coming on today but our partnership and our friendship. So thank you so much for that. A couple quick concluding questions for you before I let you go. Um, first I just have to ask out of personal interest as somebody who read a lot of the classics and enjoyed them uh in my youth, can you just name a title or two that uh uh have been read so far to give readers a sense of the the the titles that you're guys are dealing with? >> Sure. Let me pull up the latest and I'll just give you the actual ones. Um, it's, you know, the classic stuff that you would expect. Um, hang on, let me just pull it up real quick. >> Right. >> And you talking sort of like the the Weathering Heights of the world. Um the these are mostly short stories that are actually um a little different. So it's a curated set of short stories that are truly classics that you may not know about, which is why I'm pulling up. So like The Willows uh from Blackwood or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, of course. >> Sure. >> Um and um Shadows on the Wall, The Turn of the Screw is a big one. Um and so just really great short stories. Novels are kind of hard. Um as we're finding out, a lot of work goes into reading. take a long time. Yeah. You have a lot more than 14 hours. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, like Alice's Adventures of Wonderland, you know, was was put out in midepptember uh in uh seven chapters, you know, but Big TwoHearted River was was the one we launched. Hemingway uh where we we we launched that through the a Doomberg piece just to bring it to the attention of our audience. And so, um that that's the kind of uh the kind of work that that's been put up. But just go give it a try. I think you'll love it. It's really really well produced. Um great reading voice, great audio. uh editing it it's tight and there's an essay and an etc at the end of it and you know it's sort of produced in the Duneberg style just a wildly different topic we like to say it shows the uh breadth and depth of the Doomberg team as you you your team uses both hemispheres of the brain there [laughter] um and it is a team of very powerful brains and I know from from firsthand from having spent time with you guys in in the real world uh but no that's that's fantastic and it really warms my heart like I said as somebody who grew up reading a a lot of that material and and read precious little of it now right now sadly and and uh not just our our you know world with all the digital content but just you know being a content producer like you we're we're so busy just doing what we do but that when I get a chance to do that in the rare time I got a you know weekend off or a vacation wherever um I'm just so glad you guys are keeping those candles lit in the world of of of the great authors. The motto is you're never too young or too old to enjoy being read to. And so, um, if you're having a road trip and you want to kill some time, grab one of those short stories and see what you think. >> All right. Well, Duneberg, when I edit this, I will put up the links both to dune.com and to classics read aloud so folks know exactly where to go. Folks, the links will be in the description below this video as well. Um just quickly in wrapping up um please uh show your your appreciation for Doomberg sharing so much of his intellect uh and his expertise with us uh in this discussion by hitting the like button and then clicking on the subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it. Um Duneberg did give us a lot of things to think about in terms of ways in which um you know we may be able to take advantage of some of the investing opportunities from some of these trends. uh if you would like to get some help from a professional financial adviser in thinking through how uh those you which opportunities might be best fits for your own personal portfolio and goals. Consider scheduling a free consultation with one of the financial adviserss that thoughtful money endorses. To do that, just fill out the very short form at thoughtfulmoney.com. Dune, again, can't thank you enough. Let's do this again early in 2026. >> You bet. >> All right. All right, in the interim, have a great uh great uh winter holiday season and everybody else, thanks so much for watching.
An Oil & Gas Revolution Is Underway That Will Change Everything | Doomberg
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The great change of the shell revolution is not just reestablishing us as a global energy gigap power. It's the coupling of oil and gas production on a massive scale which makes those two commodities you know classic co-production economics and AI has holds out the potential to put a big enough bid under natural gas. that plus the historic unbelievable wave of LG export facilities coming online along the US Gulf Coast and in Mexico. Um there's there's a world where the cleanest burning hydrocarbon on the board natural gas is not any longer the cheapest and the consequences of that world are pretty profound. >> Welcome to thoughtful money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Tagert. In today's discussion, we look at the allimportant energy market. Remember, without energy, there's no economy. As we look to the future, where are global energy trends headed? How is the AI race and its voracious need for cheap electrons changing the game? And where are the best opportunities for investors likely to lie? To discuss in depth, we're fortunate to sit down again with the green chicken himself, the energy expert, Duneberg. Duneberg, it's wonderful to see you again. Thanks so much for joining us today, >> Adam, my friend. Great to be back with you. It's been too long. >> It has been too long and we will remedy that more in 2026. Um, but as long as it's been, I get the sense that things are going no less amazingly for you and the Doomberg team. Kudos to you guys for not only continuing to put out such a consistently great product, but just for the success and the business metrics. I follow uh your number of subscribers on the Substack top 100. You guys remain one of the top financial substs in the entire world. >> Yeah. No, it's been great. It's unbelievable. It's it's thrilling. It's humbling. It's bizarre. It's not what I ever imagined I'd be doing, but we couldn't be more grateful to our subscribers, especially the paying ones. Um although all subscribers are precious, of course, and uh to people like you for giving us a platform to grow our business. >> Well, it is a it is a privilege to be able to do so. And you know, I got to say, I I as you know, couple couple companies ago, um I worked for a company that wrote a lot about the the global energy situation. And um you know there were there were times where you know there were debates in the company about um whether to write about more about energy or less about energy and sort of the internal uh you know perspective was ah you know nobody really wants to hear it right it's important to talk about but they they just don't do as well as the the pieces around economics and it's really hard to make a a business especially a newsletter business uh uh talking about energy, you guys have completely destroyed that myth. >> Oh, no. I appreciate it. It's It's been a great journey and you know, we did come of age during the European energy crisis, of course, and that was um good timing, I suppose, from the raw growth prospects uh perspective, but at the same time, you know, we we pour so much into the quality of the work. Live and die by every typo, as you can imagine, um rare as they as they have become. and um that attention to detail, mixing a bit of humor, and I think we've had a pretty good track record of of success when it comes to using our knowledge and internal expertise uh about energy to make some pretty far out there predictions that that came to pass. Not all of them, of course, nobody bats a thousand, but we have a pretty good hit rate and um pretty proud of our work. And most importantly, of course, we're not afraid to be wrong. And when we're wrong, we admit it. And then we write about why we were wrong and what we learn from it. And last point I'll say is we've grown to such a scale over 300,000 subscribers that it's kind of got like a network effect going. We have inbound suggestions for articles and we have outbound sources of expertise to bounce things off of on virtually any topic. And since we come from industry and we speak industry's language, you know, we have scores and scores of industry executives who talk to us off the record um but could never say the things that we write uh in public. And so that's a pretty unique uh advantage for us. And so it's been a great ride. Absolutely great ride. And same with Thoughtful Money. You know, I remember when you put your own flag out and to watch you grow as fast and and as consequentially as you have has been pretty amazing. >> Well, that that that is very kind and um I I it's been a great ride for for Duneberg. Been a great ride for both our country companies so far. And hopefully this comment applies to both of ours as well, but particularly for Duneberg. It's been a great ride so far, but I get the sense you're still in very early innings. Well, let's hope so. From your um from your lips to my bank account. >> All right. [laughter] All right. Well, enough of the mutual appreciation society for now. Let's uh let's dive in. I'm almost wondering where to start. Um you know, the world continues to consume uh more fossil fuel than ever. Um uh the new administration, meanwhile, is working really hard, uh to roll back, uh the investments being made in the Green New Deal. Nuclear energy continues to be a darling energy source. Um, a little little non plus on where to dive in, but so maybe maybe I should just ask a general question. What are currently the most significant energy trends that you're watching as we look to enter into the new year of 2026? >> Yeah, it's a great question. Um, the big one on the board of course is um is AIdriven demand for natural gas globally. natural gas is the bridging fuel for AI needs. Um, and this is triggering a boom in drilling um in the US in particular. The US continues to just be a wash in natural gas and um there's long-term consequences for this which we think are actually pretty bearish for oil which we can talk about. Obviously, the geopolitical tensions are top of mind. the bifurcation of the world between the westernled G7 type financial block and the BRICS countries led by Russia and China uh in India and Brazil to a sort of lesser extent but still very important ones and then the refocus towards the western hemisphere where we have argued that there's probably 10 million incremental barrels of oil per day waiting to be developed um if those resources were in the types of hands that could marshall the capital and infrastructure needed to do that. Happy to walk through that calculation as well. But the big driver AI, natural gas, second and third order market effects from that. Um geopolitical tensions or lack thereof. Um and the uh the ongoing uh you know Monroe doctrine uh under the Trump administration focusing on the Western Hemisphere. >> All right. Do you mind if we just sort of peel each of those layers off the end? >> Sure. Go for it. So where would you like me to start? >> Well, why don't we just start on on the first one? um the AI demand. >> Yeah, there's obviously we've had a bit of back and forth with our mutual friends over at at GNR and a few others um about the prospect of US shale gas turning over. Um and uh we just we just wholeheartedly reject that view. Obviously, we we think peak cheap oil is a myth. Peak cheap gas is an even bigger myth. Uh there's just effectively an infinite supply of natural gas in the US. This is how we model it. Um, people don't like it when we use that phrase, but as lateral thinkers, we spend a lot of time thinking about infinity and zero as philosoph philosophical constructs. They can teach you a lot. Great inputs into your mental model. There's so much gas in the US that if we, you know, if the US decided to put a $5 per million BTU permanent bid under natural gas, production would explode from current levels. Just so much of it, especially in the Peran basin. Peran basins, you know, 0 to 20 BCF per day without even trying. It's a nuisance byproduct today that um can't be given away in the spot markets, negative prices today, and yet it's still growing leaps and bounds. um in a world where AI demand materializes and a glut of gas turbines eventually arrives and you know um soloxide fuel cells from companies like Bloom Energy um are made at scale and natural gas demand does tick up to the point where all these data centers grow up in the per basin and the midstream players build out enough pipelines [snorts] to make maximum use of of all the wellheads. Um, in a world where natural gas becomes expensive again,56 $7 a million BTU in the Peran basin, don't forget it's co-produced with oil. And so in a world today where natural gas is the throwaway byproduct, um, that could flip and tomorrow or some point in the near future, natural gas becomes the prize commodity and any oil produced in the shale regions where co-production occurs is given away. um that could be a real headwind for the price of oil. Having competed, this is where industrial experience is relevant. You know, in certain parts of the commodity world, products are co-produced and there's nothing worse than owning a pure play factory and competing against a co-producer because dynamics in the second market can spill into yours, >> right? >> And and so this is what we're seeing like the great change of the shell revolution. It's not just reestablishing US as a global energy gigap power. It's the coupling of oil and gas production on a massive scale which makes those two commodities you know classic co-production economics and AI has holds out the potential to put a big enough bid under natural gas. That plus the historic unbelievable wave of LG export facilities coming online along the US Gulf Coast and in Mexico. Um there's there's a world where the cleanest burning hydrocarbon on the board, natural gas, is not any longer the cheapest. And the consequences of that world are pretty profound. >> Okay. And and natural gas is currently trading at what? Somewhere in the twos. >> Uh depends where. You know, Henry Hub is foreign change because looks like it's going to be a cold winter. At least that's what the weather models are spinning out. So $4 a million BTU. Henry Hub. The 12-month strip price, which is kind of more stable than spot prices in the Perium Basin, is like I think the basis is minus2. So, it's two bucks cheaper and was minus2 in Alberta, British Columbia, last time I checked. Now, $4 a million BTU is $25 a barrel of oil. $20 a barrel of oil in that range. Two is obviously 12 hydro, you know, it's it's a very cheap hydrocarbon. Um, and clean, right? you you you use it in your home, you burn it on your stove top and you don't really have special ventilation when you do it. It's a super clean burning fuel. Um and so, you know, again, the co-production part of it is a massive change. So, when people ask what is the break even production price, sorry, what is the break even price of oil for production in a perium basin? Let's say our answer is it depends on the price of natural gas. >> Yeah. >> Right. because you're producing both and you got to sell both. Um producers aren't owners, they're price takers. And so that's the big sea change and AI could really flip the oil markets on its head. >> That's really super interesting. So um okay, in terms of sort of future incremental material sources of demand for natural gas, we have the AI data centers. And real quick, um, let me just pull up this chart, which I'm sure you've seen before, which is a chart of, um, electricity generation capacity, >> um, China versus Europe and the US and whatnot. >> And, and for those that are listening on the podcast and not seeing the visual, um, Europe and the United States, uh, are relatively flat. Um, I this is going back to 1985. Um, I mean, United States has some growth here, but but they're relatively flat, especially in in recent decades. Meanwhile, China has it's almost a vertical line. Um, and it now dwarfs the electricity generation capacity of uh Europe and the United States. So, you know, we we've I I think from what I can tell, the Trump administration has seen this. they've gotten the message, hey, if we want to win in AI, uh that race is going to be largely determined by who's got not just the best software, but who's got the best um source of supply of of cheap, dependable electrons. And China seems to have all the momentum there right now. So, apparently, we're going to be playing catch-up like nobody's business over the next decade plus, uh trying to to meet maybe even exceed China eventually. I is that indeed kind of the the the big driver here of of uh natural gas demand from the AI world? >> Yeah. So, I mean it's a fascinating chart. It's a stunning chart. Um by the way um we look at that chart and we see that China doesn't care about global warming um or climate climate change because 55% of that electricity is produced by coal today. >> Um coal is like $5 a million BTU today. So um and dirtier. So the the cost to use coal without damaging your environment is much higher than natural gas. And so the US advantage in natural gas is profound. And this is you know this chart also you know because the US hasn't really expanded grid production that much. Um we believe that this is going to drive um you know off-grid AI data centers um where the electricity is made on demand just for the data center. Maybe it's connected to the grid for backup um or feeds a little excess electricity production into the grid. Um but by and large the bottleneck that is US grid expansion will be swept aside by um made to order custom power plants for data centers uh specifically. >> Okay. But will we be doing both at scale and fast? >> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I this is um you know there's lots of talk about an AI bubble and there's unquestionably massive valuation bubbles in the public and the private uh markets. We're seeing it in the private markets. I'm personally uh early stage investor in an exciting AI startup. So I see it. I see the valuations. I see how relatively easy it is to raise money. Um and yet um yes yes the the.com bubble burst and the internet was still an amazing thing that totally reshaped society or to bring it back to energy directly. Sure, shale gas was a bubble. Shell oil and shell gas, the development of US shell was a bubble in the in the 2010s and much equity was wiped out, but what was left behind is just amazing infrastructure, amazing technology, amazing resource, um reshaping geopolitics historically, you know, on a historic scale. And this is this is our sort of balanced view of AI. It is a unbelievably game-changing technology. It scares me actually what I see how quickly it's evolving. One of the challenges with investing in the private markets is just how quickly what you think your moat is could be obsolete. Um so there will be massive amounts of equity wiped out for sure. But yet what remains is is a mega trend of epic proportions. Our one of our operating mental models is that the human endeavor is infinite compute. And if you just have that as an operating mental model, it explains a lot and predicts a lot quite effectively. And uh we see this this massive demand on you know it is it is in a way a bubble on a scale that is unimaginable but all sort of exponential functions eventually behave that way. It's called the the knee of the exponential or as we call it internally the the Kriswellian inflection point. um you know when doubling times are shrinking, they'll eventually become a day. Um in other words, it'll double every day. Um and when we're seeing this just massive buildout of computing um infrastructure, technology advances and so on. It truly is mindboggling. That's not to say that this is different this time. You know, the famous uh it's the same as all the other bubbles, including what's left when the bubble bursts. Wow. Okay. So, a tremendous opportunity um I mean for humanity um in society but obviously um going to place a tremendous amount of demand on uh for for for electron production. Natural gas is going to be a key part of that. H h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h like if if if if we have today's demand for natural gas as a baseline, how how how material is the oncoming demand over say the next five years? Is is it is it 20% of what we're using right now? Is it is it twice like what's the order of magnitude you you peg it at here? >> Yeah, it's I mean it it could be huge. I mean I we run models internally where we could see demand doubling in 10 years. >> Okay. Um, >> that's pretty darn big. >> Um, now there's lots of constraints to that, but markets tend to work their magic when, again, you have the you have the cleanest burning hydrocarbon on the board also being in infinite supply and the cheapest one, >> right? >> How of how often does that happen? Right. Right. >> Um, not very. >> So, it it's going to be amazing to watch for sure. >> Okay. So, that's that's just AI. Um, and this will also be AI related. Um, but uh we've had the Trump administration going around the world, you know, since Trump uh shook up the trade board and said, look, I want to negotiate better deals for America. And as I understand it, a pretty big um, you know, element of those deals is, hey, we want to ship you cheap, clean natural gas. Um, and, uh, you know, we don't want you buying, you know, energy from some other places we don't like, like Russia and whatnot. Um and and we know that Europe, you know, has been super dependent upon natural gas from Russia. Um a how big of a gamecher is natural gas as a sort of a geopolitical trade tool here and how much incremental demand is that going to bring for US natural gas from these new deals being struck with other countries? >> Yeah, I mean the projections are pretty substantial. So by the way like export of natural gas via LG is not cheap. Um it trades in lock step with Brent crude today which one of the one of the chart pairs that we watch very closely here. Um basically if you take landed LG in Europe and multiply it by six um you get roughly the price of Brent crude which is no accident. Um, and when that chart deviates, something weird is a miss, which is why we like to watch it. It usually foretells geopolitical risk. Um, but the US, you know, let's just put some numbers. The US averaged about 100 BCF per day production in 24 of natural gas. Um, according to the statistical review of world energy, it's currently producing at about 107. Um I want to say the LG export capacity is around 13 BCF per day in the US but projections peg it as high as 30 BCF in the next decade or less. Um so the the US DOE is projecting a doubling of US LG export capacity in a very short period of time. if if the projects that have already reached FID um get built on the time frame that is envisioned um we're going to see a massive wave of new LG export capacity coming online in the US there's undoubtedly [snorts] going to be a glut of LG as other major projects come online as well and in the long run natural gas will trade for a narrow band um uh roughly the same price all over the world corrected for logistics and And as the US builds out its national natural gas pipeline network, we'll see these basis trades go to zero. All basis trades go to zero eventually. Um not quite zero, but you know, arbitrage is close. >> And and so um those are sort of the big mega trends uh of physics that you can bet on as an investor uh in our view. Now, the LG trade, you know, Trump is using that to sort of um really destroy the European economy. Whether he's doing it on purpose or not is is an interesting question. Um but Europe just can't compete. So, in this world, because Europe doesn't produce its own hydrocarbons, it's it's really the big loser in all geopolitical scenarios. Um they are being hooked on expensive LG. the rest of the world, the rest of the big manufacturing societies, um you usually have access to natural gas via land pipeline. LG is a luxury in a way or a necessity um where you don't really have other choices like Japan for example and Japan has cured its LG exposure by basically owning every aspect of the LG supply chain that it can. It's always investing in these companies and therefore the profits sort of come home. Europe's not doing the same thing, at least not on that scale. And so Europe is um cutting itself off from cheap Russian energy and hooking itself on to expensive Qatari and US energy and uh its heavy industry is is suffering as a consequence. >> Okay. And so on the um so generally from the Russia pipelines um uh Europe was getting gas, right? >> Yeah. >> Gaseous natural gas. And just to let folks know, so when Dubberg says LG, he means liqufied natural gas. And you we do is we we compress it to turn it into a liquid. That makes it much easier to ship across oceans and things like that. Um but it's more expensive because you have to expend energy to liquefy the natural gas. So Duneberg, roughly what was what's the price delta between the cheap gaseous Russian gas and US's liqufied natural gas? Well, I mean today if natural gas at Henry Hub is $4 a million BTU, a landed LNG in Europe is 11. >> Okay. >> Um so that's you know almost triple the price and pipeline from Russia. I don't know the numbers because these were mostly private contracts but I hear it was around five 550 six in that range. >> Okay. So it's about a doubling for them. >> It's about a doubling for them. um but on a sustained basis and oftentimes goes much higher. So you know LG prices are much more volatile than pipeline. Pipeline contracts are typically signed for many years, decades. Um these pipelines tend to be immortal unless they're you know destroyed. Um and just to give you a benchmark before >> Yeah. Unless they're blown up, right? >> Yeah. Unless the the crew of Gil Gilggins Island gets on its boat and um and blows up Nordstream 2. Yeah. Um before Nordstream 2 was completed, um rough math, Europe was getting about 15 BCF per day from Russia via pipelines. Um and if they're going to cut themselves off completely from that and you look at how much excess LG the USQar are bringing on, you could see where that trade is being made. um Russia is redirecting some of that gas to China and using more of it internally to don't forget I mean people think that oh let's cut off Russian gas or Russian crude or Russian diesel all that does is make uh Russia stop exporting it still has a huge amount of excess capacity for its internal markets >> and so if we make you know Russia stop selling natural gas to Europe through sanctions and other activities um it just makes natural gas that much cheaper for the Russian military-industrial complex. And last I checked, you need hydrocarbons to make bombs. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, um I'm just trying to think here. So, in the in the in the next 5 10 years as the US goes hog wild in um exporting natural gas. Um, do you expect prices to come down at all during this, you know, kind of at least near-term natural gas collect that you expect or is is 11 kind of the best Europe can hope for? >> I mean, there comes a point where, you know, our equilibrium price for oil is $55 a barrel because in our view, um, $10 per million BTU landed LNG, 5.6 times that number, six times that number gets you crude. um is the price where everybody can earn their cost of capital. Um especially since drilling in the US has become so cheap. You know the break even price for pure gas drillers again back to the whole associated production dilemma. Um in Appalachia for example um Marcela Shale and and so on um the the break even price is like two bucks a million BTU in change which is pretty incredible. It's like Saudi Arabia price of oil for US natural gas producers, right? Like the cost to produce. >> Um, and so by the time you, you know, you get it to your liquef you, you you know, pressurize it, you put it on a boat, and then that boat sails across the ocean and it gets to a regation facility and the midstream player that operates the pipeline from the regification facility to your power plant get catches their vague. And you know, when you add it all up, 10 bucks a million BTU starting with a $2 per million BTU and change production cost in the US is roughly the price at which everybody makes money. If there's a glut of LG, then you would expect that that could close. And in the commodity world, everybody knows that sometimes commodity players lose a lot of money. There's an enormous amount of LG export capacity going up. This is driven by the fact that the US and Qatar Qatar is sitting on the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Um so cheap to produce it. And so if they could, you know, take something that costs a buck and flip it for four, you it makes good money. And who cares if it's 350? >> Okay. Um All right. So anyways, um uh Europe not going to get out of that bind anytime soon. Um obviously they are weaning themselves off of the Russian gas because of you know national security issues uh continental security issues. Um and the US is making you know a big investment to say hey you know we're going to we're going to be your supplier along with the Qataris there. What would be the impact of peace in Ukraine? Will will will Russia ever get back in the good graces of Europe enough for them to relight up these pipelines or are these pipelines just going to rust in the ground there? Do you think? >> Let me uh invert your question. Will Russia ever do Europe the favor of selling it cheap natural gas ever again? >> I mean there's there's this false narrative that somehow Russia benefited more than Europe from these gas sales. Um, you know, without energy there is no economy. You you said it yourself. Okay, you don't want energy and now we have an abundance of it. Fine. I mean, who loses in that trade? It it's you have to think about, you know, possession is 90% of the law, right? I would much rather be a country in possession of enormous natural gas reserves and producing more than our domestic economy needs >> than to be a country that has wired its entire economy around a continuing access to that cheap commodity and having it suddenly turned off. >> Yeah. So, I understand that that Europe's in a real bind here, but again, we're making kind of, you know, big plans to be shipping all this liqufied natural gas to to Europe. Is there is there a a material chance that if there's peace in Ukraine in a year or two that Europe might go back and say, you know what, US, forget it. We don't need your liqufied natural gas because we can get the cheap stuff directly from Russia. >> No, I just don't see it. Look, the current leadership of both Europe and Russia have basically parted ways. Um, and and I just don't I don't see it. In fact, the bigger risk to to Europe, which nobody talks about, you know, the potential blood and allergy notwithstanding, if demand for natural gas in the US spikes because of AI and the US gets a cold winter, don't think for a a second that Trump isn't going to turn off LG exports, keep the gas home. >> I mean, there's a world where, you know, further punishing Europe indirectly for like, let's put it this way. If natural gas spiked to $10 a million BTU tomorrow, Trump would halt LG exports in a in a heartbeat. >> Okay, >> of course he would. Um, but that's the analogy that explains Russia's relative advantage over Europe. Essentially, that's the same scenario. Russia is no longer exporting mountains of natural gas to Europe, so it has an even bigger mountain of natural gas to gorge upon in its domestic economy. And and then so that that's what would happen in the US if prices got too too high. Okay. Well, look, if I took if I took my notes correctly, and correct me if I didn't, um, you said that the AIdriven demand for natural gas could potentially double the demand for natural gas, today's demand, you know, within about 10 years or so. If I heard you right, I think you said with these new deals that we're striking, they could also potentially double. Um I is is there a potential for the AI domestic demand to get so great that it actually would force us to constrain what we then export? >> That's that's the point I point I exactly made. And the second doubling is just the doubling of LG exports, not the doubling of total production. And the only thing I would add >> Okay. >> Yeah. The only thing I would add to your comment is when I say the US, I kind of envision Alberta and British Columbia being part of that. They have an enormous amount of natural gas up there. They're building their own LG export capacity. there is pipeline infrastructure to the US. Um you could think of Alberta, British Columbia as a mini perian basin so to speak when it comes to gas growth. Um really exploded there too. Now do I is is a doubling of of US natural gas production our base case? No. Um it is not but it is it is in the uh you know Monte Carlo assimilation of possibilities. It's on the board. >> Okay. All right. Um All right. All right. Well, look, is there anything on the geopolitical side that we haven't talked about um that's not related to the Western Hemisphere Monroe Doctrine? Point number three you mentioned earlier that that's important to get on the the board here. >> I just think the ever closing relationship between Russia and China, the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline has been approved, which is a new development um since you and I last spoke. That routes about a third of what used to go to Europe directly to China. That of course will impact the LG markets because China, which is a major importer of LG, will no longer need to do so at the scale that it has done >> historically. Um, that's a pretty important project. We'll see how quickly that gets built. Um, there's still significant pipelines from Russia to Turkey that feed Europe. Um, whether those become the target of uh sabotage operations uh is is a risk on the board for sure. Turkstream and Blue Stream, I believe, are the two major pipelines. So that those are sort of the hot spots that we're watching. Um but overall I think we've covered it pretty comprehensively. >> Okay. All right. Um let me just ask you this real quick before you move uh to the South America part of it. Um when you look at the board and you said hey I I much would rather prefer to be a country sitting on you know vast amounts of of plentiful cheap natural gas. Um, who is best positioned right now energy-wise in your your point of view, at least in terms of the major powers? >> Sure. Well, obviously the US and Russia are very well positioned. China's pretty well positioned because of its reliance on coal. It produces an enormous amount of coal. Um, it burns 55% of all the world's coal. It's actually using an enormous amount of coal to make oil products. Um, cold to chemicals. I think heavier blast was out with an interesting article in Bloomberg saying that if China's coal to chemicals industry were a country, it'd be the second biggest coal consuming country in the world. They just do things on scales that you just can't imagine. >> Can't imagine. >> Yeah. But like there's some smaller players that are very well positioned as well. We call them, you know, um countries that p punch above their weight geopolitically. Um obviously we mentioned Qatar >> um um but Malaysia uh another country is sneaky sneaky strong um we noted with interest u when um Oracle decided to to cut a deal with uh with Malaysia. So all these LG exporters are great places to build data centers and you just skip the whole you know uh liqufation regification cycle and just put them at the source. So why build an LG export terminal when you can just build a data center right there? And so we're seeing that in the Middle East. >> I was gonna say we're seeing that in the that's a big part of the Middle East plan, right? >> Yeah. Uh United Arab Emirates, huge AI center. Um if we just take a step back, this is often uh not fully articulated in the sort of traditional energy press. Um the Middle East punches well below its weight in natural gas. then its resource base would imply. Why? Well, for decades, the valuable commodity was oil and they would just burn the natural gas or flare it or just vent it. It's a nuisance. It takes infrastructure, >> right, >> to to make use of natural gas. Much like in the US, which has the world's largest, most sophisticated, most awesome natural gas engine, we we model the US natural gas infrastructure as one sort of beating engine. Um, with each investment, the Middle East is becoming more and more and more of a gas player. And, um, Saudi Arabia, for example, burns, I don't know, 500 600,000 barrels a day, I think I saw, of oil to produce electricity when it's sitting on a mountain of natural gas. That's all going to >> that's all going to get turned off, right, and switched. And so, um, you're going to see as isolated data centers, um, go to where the molecules are and it's a lot cheaper to send data around the world than it is to send natural gas. Right now, >> absolutely. >> The the Middle East has a challenge. It's hot, right? And and half of the energy used in a data center is for cooling. And that makes places like Canada and Russia, Siberia, um, excellent places for data centers. Russia is, uh, soon to punch above its weight uh, or at least what Western analysts give it credit for being able to do in the AI data data center world. Um, but so too British Columbia, Alberta is an attractive place. Um, you know, weather does matter. But countries like Malaysia, even Trinidad and Tobago, an early LG exporter. We saw Exxon now is is is investing in exploration because they're right next door in Guyana. We note with a smirk that the US military Armada is using Trinidad and Tobago basically as a stationary um you know uh military base right off of Venezuela's coast. And I'm jumping ahead to the Monroe Doctrine section of our talk, but um there's lots of if you just go to the statistical review of world energy >> and download their their handy spreadsheet that they give out every June, which is a core input into our work, and click over to LG Exporter tab and sort the countries by volume. You'll see a handy guide to where um AI data centers are likely to start popping up. Okay, that's that's actually it's a really great methodology to to use to figure out that question. Um, all right. So, real quick before we get to the third point, um, you were on this channel, I think over a year ago now, um, and and had a a really fascinating debate with Adam Rosenwag about um, peak oil or at least cheap peak oil or peak cheap oil, I'm sorry. Um, and uh, two questions for you. One, I' I'd love to just very quickly get from you an update as to how well you feel your argument has aged since then. Um, with oil trading, you know, 60 and below recently, I think probably pretty well. Um and also from that discussion and some other ones that we've had on this channel, Duneberg, you've talked a lot about the fact that um uh when we're drilling for oil and gas um we get a lot of other hydrocarbons um out of that process that increasingly uh can be used uh for key uses like transport or can be converted into other forms of liquid hydrocarbons. to be used for those purposes. Um, how h how has that developed since you and I last talked on that? Is that trend continuing? >> Yeah, of course. This is the forever trend. Um, I think our debate was actually in January of 24, almost two years ago. >> Wow. Almost two years ago now. >> Yeah. And you know, obviously, um, we we believed everything we said then and we haven't changed our views. Um, and it's not like we're blind to the evidence. We see the evidence pouring in. I I think um the market is not pricing in that we are uh anywhere close to running out of oil as will become clear when we talk about the Dunro doctrine I guess they're calling it um in the western hemisphere as you mentioned oil is much cheaper than it was um the world is consuming more of it um and the chart that we used back then I I wish I had it um is the the number of barrels of oil um an ounce of gold buys you or Maybe the chart I used was the fraction of an ounce of a gold you uh that you would need to buy a barrel of oil. They're both the same chart. They're just different directions. >> That number has skyrocketed, of course, because gold is appreciated. But if you think gold is is sort of um fixed and the other prices of the world um revolve around it as we do to a to a degree um you know you can buy well it's an enormous bounty of oil for an ounce of gold far higher than it was when we had that debate for example. Um, and you know the it's just I don't know. I just don't see it right. I mean I it's so counter to everything our industry sources tell us um that it it's it's hard to articulate. Now there's always a risk and one of the big risks of an analyst is that you um give higher priority to private data than you should. Um that's a risk we're aware of. But in this case, we don't think we're susceptible to that risk. Um because so many people are saying it so consistently from positions where they would have every reason to say the opposite story. Oil companies don't like the fact that there's an infinite supply of oil. They would like for the world to believe that this is scarce and that we're about to run out of it. Um and yet to a person um we're just drowning in this stuff. I again if there were evidence in the markets anywhere that would point to it we would certainly be open to changing our minds but there's just so much of it Adam um and again long before geology becomes a constraint politics um is a constraining factor everywhere um if the world if oil went to $300 a barrel today the political obstacles to production growth would be wiped away and we'd be right back to $50 $60 a barrel Yeah, I have I've mentioned your comment that a political constraint can be removed vastly easier than a geological constraint. I've quoted that many times uh >> over well just look at look at Venezuela which we'll talk about. I mean that >> used to produce four now produces 1 million barrel a day and there's there's nothing about the geology that caused that. >> All right. Well, let's let's head down to there that that that topic in just a second. But to the second part of my question about the ability to convert >> Yeah. >> um other different types of hydrocarbons to ones that can be used just like you know the the gasoline we put in our car. Um how what's happening there? >> Sure. And this reps back into Europe. So just as an example, there's many such examples, but um what we're talking about really is natural gas liquids. that array of light hydrocarbons that isn't natural gas but isn't quite oil in traditional sense. Um, one of the things you can do with it is um turn it into chemicals. Um, all across Europe there are known there are these facilities known as crackers. Um, and they make the core chemicals that make plastics and milk jugs and garbage bags and tarps and you know uh all the various things that um that make society uh work >> work that are petroleum derived. Yeah. Um, they have been historically mostly been fed with an oil product, NAFTA oily product comes from a barrel of oil and they would crack it and they would make ethylene and propyline and a commission of other things. And what we're seeing instead is, you know, ethylene onpurpose crackers. Um, these are fed using ethane, which is the most bountiful of the natural gas liquids, even though it it is itself a gas. the C2 molecule uh uh from an oily mixture in in a shell patch, for example. And we're seeing a rise of these giant ethane only crackers and a wave of NAFTA crackers shutting down. Um well the NAFTA that fed those crackers has other uses and would go and compete against the other parts of a barrel of oil and that sort of creates a supply glut of part of a barrel of oil that you know um refiners have to get rid of and an outlet for um NGL production say uh in the US and in fact one of the largest exports um from the US to China that's been caught up in all this tariff wars is is uh you know ethane and LP LPG, all of these light hydrocarbons that China has built, overbuilt really, these chemical factories to convert um that fuel into into useful products. And so we see this everywhere we look. We did a whole presentation on this um for our doom zoom, our our pro tier. We did a couple of these. Um, uh, you the amount of NGL's in the major storage facilities in the US, um, is becoming close to on par with how much crude oil is in the strategic petroleum reserve. >> Wow. >> Yeah. Uh, it it's actually pretty and all this has been sort of built under the radar, right? I mean, obviously people in the industry know it and they see it. Um, but it it is truly staggering. Like 350 million barrels in storage. Um, I'm just pulling up um the the dooms presentation to get you the the numbers as they were in February. The presentation was called trend lightly natural gas liquids in the future of hydrocarbons. >> Um, not that I fed you this as a topic. Um, and and so like it's just there's just so much of it and it's so cheap, you know, as a general rule, as a rule of thumb. Um, gas is cheap. Natural gas liquids is slightly more expensive, but still cheaper than crude oil. And then crude oil is is more expensive. Um, so the there's this huge hub in in Mont Belleview, Texas. Um, and at the time of that presentation, it had 250 million barrels of of storage. Uh, and it it oscillates as high as 300 million barrels um in in early 2020, of course, because of CO. This is huge amount of these are these are in salt domes, right? holds and they pump them down in these salt domes and they, you know, the they have the C1s, sorry, the C2s, the C3s, C4, C5, and they they write their position for export, you know, uh Houston Channel. It's just an enormous facility. There's another one in in uh Kansas, I believe, not quite on that scale, but like when you hear Mont Belleview NGL pricing, that's like the Henry hub of natural gas kind of benchmark. >> Okay. Okay. So, am I correct in just just taking this as this will be sort of another headwind um against the price of oil appreciating too much for too long because this is increasingly bringing on a kind of an alternative supply of things that can be used that oil would otherwise be used for. >> Yeah, OPEC has done this to itself of course because as we said earlier the Middle East is not really a major natural gas producer and by extension not really a major NGL producer. They have worked to keep the price of crude oil artificially high. It's a cartel. Oil is a managed market. Um, and in so doing, they have inspired this competition from below who are co-producing expensive oil and all of this cheap stuff. And guess what? Energy arbitrage is always close. And so this tsunami of cheap stuff that the shale revolution has on court um is going to undercut OPEC. there is a a molecular semantic shift going on in the very definition of what oil is, which is what I was trying to argue during the debate and what you and I have talked about before, but it's worth reminding people. >> Um, the engines that we have in society today are tuned to burn the hydrocarbons that were available when they became standard. Those standards can shift, especially if the price of the fuel is very cheap. So, yes, diesel is great for long haul trucking and delivery trucking, but natural gas is better if you're China because it burns so much cleaner and you worry about pollution in the cities. And if it's going to be cheaper and comes with less pollution issues, guess what? We'll switch the engines. Mhm. >> And so, [clears throat] um, as the infrastructure gets built out and as the engines get switched, all of these hydrocarbons will sell for the same price on an energy content basis, corrected for logistics. >> Okay. So, makes makes sense. Made sense to me when you made it the first time I heard it, but it sounds like you're just saying, "Yep, time is proving out that this is indeed the way things are going." >> Correct. >> Um, all right. So last but not least, um let's get to uh the Western Hemisphere where essentially we've mentioned the term Monero doctrine. Um but the certainly seems the new administration is is saying that sounds, you know, we think that old idea is is is a good one and we we want to update it for the new millennium and uh let's make sure that we make the most of the geographic region that we have the most control influence over. And for the most part, you know, they're almost all allies with a couple of few exceptions, >> couple of big ones. [laughter] >> But, uh, you know, on Trump's inauguration day, January 20th, we wrote a piece called Misreading the Room. And I I believe the social preview for it was something along the lines of if Greenland was the appetizer, might Venezuela be the main course. >> Mhm. >> And um, that was quite easy to see. is it never ceases to amaze us how few geopolitical analysts start their analysis with energy because if you do it it just explains so much. It doesn't explain everything but it does explain a whole lot of the variance. >> Look as sorry to interrupt but there's that old saying that you know at the end in the end when it really comes down to it all wars are resource wars. >> Yeah% almost all resource wars are kind of about energy. >> Correct. Right. or or or derivatives of it like food or or fresh water which is nothing more than an embodiment of energy. So look I said at the top of the show in the right hands with the right resources there's 10 million barrels per day of incremental oil production waiting to be developed in the you know the South America. Um >> and is and is that is that like the easy stuff or is that the whole >> No that's just let me walk you through the numbers. All right. Yeah. >> So, you know, Mexico south, right, in the Western Hemisphere, south of the US, Mexico used to produce four, it produces two now, riddled with corruption and narco uh gang influence. Venezuela used to produce four, produces one now. Um, could easily do five. We we think Venezuela is like Canada, but with much poorer contract law. >> Yeah. >> Um, so there's five without even trying. You have Guyana going from zero to one on the way to two. Um, Brazil just smashed through 4 million barrels a day. Tack another one there. Um, and Vakama is every bit as good as the Peran basin. Um, the issue with Vak Merta is that it's in Argentina, right? And so we followed up the misreading the room piece with a piece we wrote a couple of months ago called Mosaic theory where we walk through each of these countries and made some predictions like for example that the US would have to bail out Argentina and lo and behold they did. It's not because Melee looks good with the chainsaw and he sweet talks Trump. I mean it's because Vakam is there. If Vakam wasn't there there Scott Bessant would not be back stopping Malay. So you pretty sure when when Bessant made the bailout there that part of the terms were we're going to get a pretty sweet deal in accessing >> I mean we quoted the CEO of Chevron in the piece who who [snorts] stands ready to help Argentina develop its VA resources. I mean Chevron's kneedeep in Venezuela. Um the super majors have assembled in Guyana. We wrote a piece called Blooming Flower. You know, once you have enough super majors in one area, they start looking around because they've got this critical mass of midstreamers and supply providers and services providers all there too and they've reached critical mass. They don't want to leave because they're all there. So, you just stick a pin in the map around Guyana and then, you know, tie a string to a pencil and draw a circle around Guyana. Surinum all of a sudden, Trinidad and Tobago. Venezuela's right there. Venezuela claims Guyana as its own, of course, at least the oil producing parts of it. So, you could see, as we said in the piece, you know, misreading the room, the the the history of strongman dictators who get in the way of oil development is not a glorious one. >> Mhm. >> And uh we suggested that perhaps Maduro should avoid flying on a private jet uh anytime soon >> or walking by any windows. >> Or walking by any windows. And look, it it's it's cynical and we shouldn't be making light of it because actually I think much of it is illegal. Um, but it's reality like you just can't deny the reality. And so as an analyst trying to get something right, um, not trying to advocate for something, it's quite clear that there's 10 million barrels a day. Uh, look, the Western Hemisphere already outproduces the Middle East in oil and vastly outproduces it in natural gas. There's plenty to do in the Western Hemisphere. you know, in a world of spheres of influence where, you know, Trump cuts a grand bargain with China and Russia, um there's huge opportunity for manufacturing revitalization in the US powered by an abundant supply of cheap hydrocarbons. >> Okay. So, um couple things off of this. Uh now, obviously from an American perspective, America would like to get as much of a piece of that action as it could. Um uh and I guess first too just to my earlier question I I think you the answer is yes which is this is this this incremental 10 million barrels a day. It's kind of the easy stuff right? You're saying you know we already get kind of half of the way there just by returning Mexico and Venezuela to kind of where they were previously. Right. So this doesn't require us having to >> go out and and tap a whole bunch of offshore oil deposits that have never been uh tapped yet. It's really just making use of kind of known existing resources. Correct. >> Yeah. I mean, not to say that that's easy, of course. I mean, these are political quagmires for a reason, >> right? But it's not like you're betting on like we think there's a bunch of oil. >> No, no, no, no. Venezuela has the world's largest hydrocarbon resource base, but bigger than Saudi Arabia. >> Okay. Which is amazing. So, so if you're America and you are looking to really unite the Western Hemisphere, right, under say a new Pax Americana and and you know, haven't heard much about it lately, but Trump has talked about the Golden Dome kind of protecting, you know, hey, you you play with us, you get free protection under this this defense network that we're building. Um, so, you know, obviously, I guess he'd love to use the carrot as much as possible. Hey, Argentina will bail you out, but then you got to let Chevron come in and help you build out this stuff. Right. Um, and a lot of these countries probably are happy to see that. They don't have the technology at scale that that the US companies do now. Obviously, you've got Maduro, a very unfriendly regime to the US um in uh in Venezuela. I know you made the joke you did, but but Trump has portrayed himself as the peace president, right? And and he and his his cabinet have said, "Look, we are putting an end to American adventurism." Um, we don't we're not we're getting out of the business of regime regime change. Do you think that statement has an asterisk by it? You know, except for Venezuela. >> I mean, come on. You know, the peace president renames the Department of Defense the Department of War. >> Yep. >> Um, and um, last night I checked, Marco Rubio was a charter member of the Uni Party Forever War Neil Conwing of the Washington DC establishment. Um my cynical interpretation is sure we're not going to do the Ukraine thing anymore. But you know when you're in the bomb making business pieces of working capital problem and so let's have this war over here instead u pick on somebody your own size kind of thing where a war that um Trump can win in theory and um and the military-industrial complex doesn't need to doesn't need to panic about peace. Um there's always a war somewhere. There's always bombs being dropped somewhere and u it's hard not to be cynical. Um but um we we can't send more arms to Ukraine, but we're going to go ahead and do Venezuela. I I who knows, maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. I I'm seeing all kinds of conflicting stories and interesting story in the Atlantic today, which is not always a bastion of truth about Maduro offering to leave as long as he's taken care of and he gets to, you know, have a nice uh condo somewhere on a beach. >> Yeah. >> Um who knows? >> Let's just let's let's assume for a moment that happens, right? One way or another, Maduro's gone. But let's assume it's it's the most bloodless way, right? And he's out and let's say that that woman who um forgetting her name, but the one that just won the Nobel Peace Prize, right? [laughter] >> Yeah. >> There's opponent there from Venezuela. She gets in assuming she's more America friendly. >> Like what happens if if if it's like kind of game on for for how we want to play the game there? What what what what actually gets unlocked quickly? I mean she's she and again her name escapes me too but I I do find quite humorous that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee selected the regime change candidate in waiting um to give the this year's award to seemed like the fix might have been in the old consol consolation prize for Trump you know >> [clears throat] >> um I I think what happens is everybody knows where the oil is and the the aging infrastructure gets upgraded and very generous contracts are signed by the new Venice Venezuelan government with uh outside uh oil super majors. The Chinese probably will play a role in it as well. They're pretty big into Guyana. They own I think a third of of Exxon's joint venture there. >> Okay. So, sorry to interject. I want you to keep answering, but you know, I think part of Trump's strategy is to get Chinese influence out of the Western Hemisphere. How successful will do you think the US be in that? >> The you know, Exxon and the Chinese have a very good working relationship. um what we see again one of the comments I was going to say to your sort of your question was you you have to separate countries from the particular leaders of countries in the moment >> Mhm. >> they're often two very different things. >> Y >> um China has significant claims in Venezuela and one of the things that would probably have to happen is a resolution of those claims in an equitable way. Probably part of some larger trade negotiation where the details are not released. Um and so you know um in the end business is business. The Chinese are, you know, minority owners in all kinds of uh American strategic energy projects. Well, energy projects that are strategic to America abroad. Let's put it that way. And I don't think that that that they would be wiped out of Venezuela. There's just that there'd be too much friction in doing that. Um a deal would be cut. There'd be some concession somewhere else and um and the party would go on. But you'd see a wave of of investment. Um and you know in a in a way if it's done correctly um in the way that Guyana seems to be doing mostly um it could be quite beneficial to the people of Venezuela who Lord knows have suffered greatly um uh in the last couple of decades through a massive and nasty bout of hyperinflation for one thing. Um they might have to peg their currency, you know, to the dollar. >> To the dollar. Sure. >> Yeah. Um this is all sort of known kind of what Guyana is doing. And so there's that. Um and so yeah, it would just be a a wave of concessions and investments and you know they would pretend to have an auction for various blocks and you know certainly the threat to Guyana would go away. Um which you know kind of a catalyst for all this I think. Um but who knows? Yeah it would be a um it would be a bonanza of investment on par with you know a big shale patch in the US. >> Okay. So in the the doomberg base case outlook, how bullish are you on the opportunity here in the western southern hemisphere getting unlocked? >> I mean I I think quite bullish on the resources getting developed faster than people anticipate on a scale that few are measuring today. That's bearish for oil prices. It's bullish is bullish for any company that makes money on volume, not price. >> Um, and so we would see, you know, I think be particularly good for, you know, the um the the the rig providers and the, you know, the the the services providers and the engineering, >> midstream operators we hear about. >> Yeah. Midstream, you know, um, royalty plays and things like that. it it you know it would be bullish for construction and when construction is booming you don't necessarily want to own the buildings. >> Okay. You want to kind of you want to kind of find the Nvidia of this space right that's just all all the capex is flowing into it. Yeah, that's well that's a whole other can of worms, but um yeah, you you want to find the picks and shovels that that this is the sort of classic u cliche almost business school case study, right? Gold miners don't make money. People who sell shovels to gold miners do. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. Um well, look, I'm looking at the time, Duneberg, I have to start wrapping it up, but this, as usual, has just been a fascinating uh discussion. Uh thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. Uh just to get down to where the rubber meets the road. Um uh I'm going to ask you because this is a investing platform. Um you know what what specific investment opportunities in the energy space have your attention at the most right now? I know it's in in the past it's been you know either kind of these midstream players or it's been um you know those who can make an arbitrage off of getting access to things like cheap natural gas and then using that to you create a more higher value product that can sell at a greater profit on the global market. Um, have your views changed? Uh, what's what's got your attention most right now? >> Yeah, I'm still very bullish on the prospects for, you know, midstream operators. Uh, anybody who is enabling the data center constructions to go faster. You saw, you know, Bloom Energy stock just skyrocket because its solution seems to be validated. not a not a recommendation to get long a stock that's already had an icorous print like this, but um that's just an example of things you should be looking for. Um beyond energy, but to the derivatives of energy, anything that China supplies to the US military industrial complex today is going to see a wave of investment. these Trump deals which we didn't talk about but we're publishing on tomorrow um is is you know at risk because of the tariff case at the US Supreme Court but hundreds of billions of dollars we're going to be flowing into the US in order to close those gaps um in the private markets we're just seeing a bonanza of opportunities in this space um enormous sums of money being invested always means that there's going to be some winners and some big losers and so trying to >> separate those two is is an interesting challenge so but mostly unchanged. I mean, not much has happened in the energy market since that infamous debate that we had. Um, oil prices keeps keep going down and, you know, demand for gas continues to creep up and production's there to meet it. >> Okay. Um, and you know, I I've been mentioning just to be transparent on this channel that, you know, oil um, world still runs on it. Demand for it keeps going up year after year. um oil, you know, the oil sector, um from a stock perspective has really been one of the more underperforming sectors for a good while now. Um and it tends to be a boom bust industry. Um if we're in the bust, will we go back into a boom? I know I know in the long term you think um oil prices are going to be contained. Will there still be a business cycle in there? you know, are there opportunities to invest in oil and the oil majors? Or do you think given your outlook? There's just so much of this stuff and the potential for so much more of it to come that it's going to remain depressed. >> Look, I mean, the long-term real price of all commodities is lower, which is why we don't buy commodity producers or the commodities themselves. We we analogize it to buying the VIX. Do you occasionally see a spike? Sure. Um much better to fade that spike than it is to try to time it. >> Mhm. >> Um that's just our view. We wouldn't be long uranium. We wouldn't be long uranium miners. We wouldn't be long oil, gas, oil or gas producers, coal or coal producers. You plot all those things in ounces of gold, right? The only thing that beats ounces of gold these days is, you know, high technology. Um the commodity players are deflationary machines who participate in a price taking market. It it's just not a great market. Are there times where they make windfall profits? Sure. And then the government of Great Britain comes and taxes it at a 78% marginal rate. Right? You mentioned Nvidia, they're allowed to make 85% margins, but um you know, refiners making 3% margins are gouging the consumers. You know, it's just we we have it all backwards. But it's fine. That's the political landscape, but we're we generally wouldn't be inspired to buy any commodity or any commodity producer. >> All right. Um well I I will say that we've got some people who appear on this channel who have differences a different outlook but again when we're you know that's what makes a market right smart people who look at data and trends differently and uh you make an extremely compelling uh case for um not just your final statements there but for everything you've told us about today. So, uh, in just wrapping things up here, for folks that very much enjoyed this discussion and would like to get greater access to you and your work, where should they go? >> Yeah, uh, duneberg.com for everything. And I I think I mentioned to you before we started, we have a a sister publication we've launched I'd like to plug as well. There nothing to do with energy, of course, but um, classics readaloud.substack.com is the um, new publication that the Doom Dune team is putting out. It's a passion project of one of Duneberg's co-founders and its editor-inchief. And as the name implies, it's it's the mission of classics read aloud is to go find and resuscitate and bring back to life some of the great literature from a century ago or longer. And um launched that in September. It's off to a great start. Something like 14 hours of audio already recorded and um subscriber growth has been strong. And then the reception's been good. So if you're into great literature read uh read brilliantly and and in in sort of the Duneberg brand production quality head over to classics readad aloud.subsect.com or if you just want to read the Duneberg stuff duneberg.com as well. Adam always a pleasure. Uh much congratulations on your success and um may you continue to enjoy it. >> Thank you so much Duneberg. I I really uh I can't tell you how much I I value not just coming on today but our partnership and our friendship. So thank you so much for that. A couple quick concluding questions for you before I let you go. Um, first I just have to ask out of personal interest as somebody who read a lot of the classics and enjoyed them uh in my youth, can you just name a title or two that uh uh have been read so far to give readers a sense of the the the titles that you're guys are dealing with? >> Sure. Let me pull up the latest and I'll just give you the actual ones. Um, it's, you know, the classic stuff that you would expect. Um, hang on, let me just pull it up real quick. >> Right. >> And you talking sort of like the the Weathering Heights of the world. Um the these are mostly short stories that are actually um a little different. So it's a curated set of short stories that are truly classics that you may not know about, which is why I'm pulling up. So like The Willows uh from Blackwood or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, of course. >> Sure. >> Um and um Shadows on the Wall, The Turn of the Screw is a big one. Um and so just really great short stories. Novels are kind of hard. Um as we're finding out, a lot of work goes into reading. take a long time. Yeah. You have a lot more than 14 hours. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, like Alice's Adventures of Wonderland, you know, was was put out in midepptember uh in uh seven chapters, you know, but Big TwoHearted River was was the one we launched. Hemingway uh where we we we launched that through the a Doomberg piece just to bring it to the attention of our audience. And so, um that that's the kind of uh the kind of work that that's been put up. But just go give it a try. I think you'll love it. It's really really well produced. Um great reading voice, great audio. uh editing it it's tight and there's an essay and an etc at the end of it and you know it's sort of produced in the Duneberg style just a wildly different topic we like to say it shows the uh breadth and depth of the Doomberg team as you you your team uses both hemispheres of the brain there [laughter] um and it is a team of very powerful brains and I know from from firsthand from having spent time with you guys in in the real world uh but no that's that's fantastic and it really warms my heart like I said as somebody who grew up reading a a lot of that material and and read precious little of it now right now sadly and and uh not just our our you know world with all the digital content but just you know being a content producer like you we're we're so busy just doing what we do but that when I get a chance to do that in the rare time I got a you know weekend off or a vacation wherever um I'm just so glad you guys are keeping those candles lit in the world of of of the great authors. The motto is you're never too young or too old to enjoy being read to. And so, um, if you're having a road trip and you want to kill some time, grab one of those short stories and see what you think. >> All right. Well, Duneberg, when I edit this, I will put up the links both to dune.com and to classics read aloud so folks know exactly where to go. Folks, the links will be in the description below this video as well. Um just quickly in wrapping up um please uh show your your appreciation for Doomberg sharing so much of his intellect uh and his expertise with us uh in this discussion by hitting the like button and then clicking on the subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it. Um Duneberg did give us a lot of things to think about in terms of ways in which um you know we may be able to take advantage of some of the investing opportunities from some of these trends. uh if you would like to get some help from a professional financial adviser in thinking through how uh those you which opportunities might be best fits for your own personal portfolio and goals. Consider scheduling a free consultation with one of the financial adviserss that thoughtful money endorses. To do that, just fill out the very short form at thoughtfulmoney.com. Dune, again, can't thank you enough. Let's do this again early in 2026. >> You bet. >> All right. All right, in the interim, have a great uh great uh winter holiday season and everybody else, thanks so much for watching.