Shale Mag's Robert Rapier

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix Radio Show, produced
by the Energy Network Media Group. The Energy Mix Radio
Show will give you an inside look at the energy
industry and how it affects you by talking with industry leaders, experts,
and government officials on the Energy Mix Radio Show.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
And Welcome to the Energy Mix Radio Show. I'm your host,
Kimbalatto if today I'm joined by Robert Ramier, who is
the editor of Show magazine, co host of the Energy
Mix Radio Show, and a senior contributor with Forbes. Robert,
Welcome back to the Energy Mix Radi Show.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Nice Kim.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
You know it's been a busy time, very very busy time.
There's a lot of things changing on a global scale.
There's also a lot of changes here back home in
the US. But you have been busy traveling. You just
returned from Las Vegas, where you presented at the Money Show,
and so I want to discuss what you discussed there
about what's going on with energy. But before we discuss that,

(00:59):
we're all so I hope to cover in this show.
I want to talk a little bit about hydrogen as
a clean energy source. I want to cover the oil
and gas and some significant trends that you've been discussing
in some of your articles with Forbes, policies that are
driving clean energy adoption. You recently put out an issue

(01:20):
of Shell magazine that had Trump versus Biden, and now
we want to know Trump versus Harris. What do you
think these energy policies look like? And last, let's cover
a little bit about energy investment here in the US.
So we've got a lot to cover, Roberts, So let's
get started. You just returned from Las Vegas, and I

(01:40):
covered the show as well. I found it very interesting
since it was my first Money show, but you presented
on behalf of being the editor of Shell magazine. Tell
me a little bit about what you covered and how
you thought the show went. When we talk about there
was a lot of energy coverage in that Money show,
right yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Energy is a hot topic right now. So when they
asked me to present, I said, what would you like
for me to talk about? Because I could talk about
a pretty wide range of topics, and they said, let's
talk about the energy transition, and so that was the
thrust of my talk, and I guess the executive summary
would be, we're not having as much an energy transition.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
As an energy expansion, and.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
What I mean by that is, yes, renewables are growing,
but overall energy demand is growing even faster, so that
means fossil fuels are also having to grow.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
So I view a transition.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
As more we're moving from fossil fuels to renewables, and
that's not happening. Overall demand is growing and renewables are
supplying some of that and fossil fuels are supplying the rest,
so that to me, is not a transition. We're not
moving from one to the other. They're both growing, and
until we actually can start to displace fossil fuels with renewables,

(02:59):
it's not really a transition.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
I think that's a misnomer.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
I also covered electric vehicles and especially the experiment in Norway,
which I think is very interesting because Norway's had the
most aggressive electric vehicle policies in the world, and if
you look over the last fifteen years a big chunk
of that, they had triple digit growth in electric vehicle
sales over there. They got the largest penetration of anywhere
in the world, and yet their oil demand is about the.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Same as it was fifteen years ago.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
So my point there is people who are counting on
electric vehicles to drastically cut our oil consumption. There's no
evidence of that. That hasn't happened anywhere else, and it
hasn't happened in Norway, so we can't expect a quick
drop in our old demand there. And the bottom line

(03:48):
is we cannot try to phase out fossil fuels too
quickly if renewables are not ready to meet the demand
gap that will ensue. And so that was really the
take home point that you know, we are still going
to require possil fuels for a long time unless we
want to start creating energy shortages and spiking prices.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
You know, you talk about the and we're going to
talk about this a little bit later on in the show,
but when you specifically talk about the renewables and how
you know we're not moving I had a guest on
maybe about six seven months ago, and he was discussing
that very same thing. I wish I remembered what guest
it was, but it was more or less, we keep
adding into the grid, we're not removing because we're not

(04:31):
solidifying one effective energy source to replace soiling guests. So
ultimately we're going to talk about climate change, and how
do we address these issues? I think we need to
start with we continue, like you said, to keep adding
into the grid. We have a lot of people fighting
every single alternative fuel source we come up with, rather
it's solar, hydrogen, wind, whatever. And you know, for me,

(04:55):
I'm just how do we get there to some degree
if we never let any thing evolve. We're just too
busy fighting everything. But you want to get off of
fossil fuels, It just does it quite make sense to me.
But in the meantime, while they're doing this arguing activism
against every single potential alternative, they're just continuing to add

(05:17):
to the grid.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Right.

Speaker 4 (05:18):
And I've got a friend who touts China all the time,
and he's always sending me information on China's massive investments
in renewables, and I keep telling him China's overall demand
growth way outstrips what they're adding in renewables, and so
their coal demand was at an all time high last year,
and it continues to grow, and so China's carbon emissions

(05:40):
continue to grow. And he is convinced, oh, well, let's
just we're right on the cusp here. And I keep
pointing out year after year China set another record record
CO consumption record CO two emissions. But he's kind of
focused on the renewables without looking at the whole picture.
And I think that's what we do a lot in
the US. We look at renals are being added rapidly,

(06:01):
and they see us being running totally on renewables in
ten or twenty years, and that's we're not even displacing
any fossil fuels yet with renewables.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, let's talk about a recent article that you wrote
for Forbes where you were discussing the potential of hydrogen
as a clean energy source. Can you elaborate on some
of the key challenges and the opportunities you see for
hydrogen and the current energy landscape. But I also want
to say real quick, you know, next week, which is

(06:31):
the fourteenth, we will be having an energy lunch in
here in Corpus Christy to discuss the safety of hydrogen
in this area. There's a lot of mixed feelings about
is this good or not? But I want to get
your thoughts on hydrogen as a clean energy source.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
So I worked with hydrogen my entire career and it's
it's kind of unique in a lot of ways. If
you burn hydrogen, the only product of that burning is water,
so hydrogen burns extremely clean. You know, a hydro carbon
like oil, is made of carbon and hydrogen, and the
carbon piece of it burns and forms carbon oxide. That's

(07:12):
the problem with emissions, but the hydrogen piece of hydrocarbons
form water. So when you burn oil, the products of
combustion are carbonoxide and water. So with hydrogen, it's just water.
The problem is we don't have vast deposits of hydrogen
anywhere in the world because it is most it's pretty reactive,

(07:32):
so you know, we have to produce hydrogen, and the
way most hydrogen is produced is from natural gas. Probably
ninety nine percent or more of the world's hydrogen comes
from steam reforming of natural gas, and so that means
the natural gas is reacted, you get hydrogen out, which

(07:52):
you also get sealed two out that has to be
dealt with. So some of the challenges with hydrogen. It's
not very energy, which means if you put it in
a vehicle, your range is somewhat limited. It doesn't transport
very easily. You know, there are some very limited hydrogen pipelines,

(08:13):
but hydrogen is very reactive with metals so you have
to have special kind of pipelines to ship hydrogen around.
But you know, hydrogen storage, hydrogen transport, you know, there
are a lot of challenges.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
But the real intriguing part.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
About hydrogen is imagine a US in the future that
has everybody has solar panels on their house and during
the daytime, you've got more energy production than there is demand.
So you could use that to Another way to produce
hydrogen is to electrolyize water. So you run an electric
current through water and it forms hydrogen and oxygen because

(08:51):
that's what water is H two oh, So it breaks
down to hydrogen and oxygen. So if you had an
excess source of energy you could dump into water, you
could make hydrogen, which could then be stored and used later.
That's that's really sort of the future of a clean
hydrogen economy would be not using like you wouldn't want

(09:15):
to use grid electricity produce hydrogen because that's an energy
losing proposition. I mean, laws of thromodynamics say you're going
to put more energy into creating hydrogen from water, then
you will get back out of burning the hydrogen. But
if the energy is cheap or the energy is free,
like excess energy during the day, or you know, nuclear power.
You got really cheap nuclear power, you could use that

(09:38):
to produce hyders and then use that hydrogen to either
power fuel selling the home, or going to fuel cell
vehicle or even a combustion vehicle based on hydrogen. So
there's a lot of things that make hydrogen interesting, but
the costs are still pretty high and there are challenges
with hydrogen.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
In another article you wrote, you were discussing the future
of oil and gas and you highlighted some significant trends.
What do you think the most critical factors will be
to shape the oil and gas industry in the years
to come, And let's not get into the political side
of it, because we're going to cover that a little
bit later on in the show.

Speaker 4 (10:14):
Yeah, I think the most important thing always in the
oil and gas industry is having a stable regulatory regime
because it takes a long time to do oil and
gas projects. And you know, I worked for Chronicle Phillips
back when Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska, and it
was very difficult to do a project because so one

(10:40):
regime would come in and have certain rules, and then
when she came in, she wanted different rules, and she
wanted to negotiate something different, and it became very hard
for us because we said, you know, we'd like a
stable regime. We want to understand the rules. We want
stable regulations for ten or twenty years, and they would say, well,
we can't guarantee that, and so we say, well, then

(11:00):
we can't do the economics of our project because you know,
if you tell us you're going to raise our taxes
in the future, that factors into project economics.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
So stability of.

Speaker 4 (11:10):
Regulations is very important in the only gas industry and
always has been.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
And that's why it becomes difficult.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
And I know we'll get into this later, but it
becomes difficult when you know we've got a Republican in that,
we've got a democrat in and each each one has
very different priorities and they're changing the rules, and all
companies are just saying, you know, just tell us what
the rules are so we can run our project economics
and we can know, you know, for the next twenty years,
because these projects take many, many years to pay out

(11:38):
billions of dollars investment, and you don't want to invest
if your taxes are going to change radically in the
next you know, five or ten years. And that's been
the biggest problem always with toil and gas. It's just
the length of the projects, amount of money invested, and
just trying to understand there's so much uncertainty. The political
uncertainty is there, and that has to be factored into

(11:59):
the project economics.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
I think that's been a big discussion when we as
we get into the show later Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris,
the Democrat versus Republican period. The energy sector needs policy
reform because these projects, like you said, you just take
a look at the Willow Project and Alaska how long
it has taken for them to get through roadblocks. We

(12:22):
look at Keystone pipeline that eventually got killed after you know,
millions and millions of dollars being spent time to try
to get these projects through and then here comes a
government that just comes in and guts the project. It's
impossible to set new projects on the horizon if you
have this uncertainty. So I do hope that our legislators
will look at energy reform to some degree, at least

(12:44):
they know what game they're playing, versus changing the rules
as they go. Let's take a quick break. When we return,
I want to talk about policies that are driving the
clean energy adoption and how you see that working out.
You're listening to the Energy Mix radio show. Will be
right back and we're back. You're listening to in the
Old Pat radio show. My guest is Robert Rapier, the

(13:05):
editor of Shell magazine and my co host that sometimes
hosts the show for me. Robert, we were talking about
the uncertainty in when we talk about energy policies. We
did not too long ago, we did a cover on
the Willow Project, which was or is a project that's
happening in Alaska, and it showed as we did the research,

(13:29):
what was reflecting was just the uncertainty of how projects
have such a hard time getting to its final stages
because every four years we potentially have a different person
in the White House in Congress and it just changes
the rules. And also when we look at the Biden administration,
you came in on day one doing an executive order,

(13:51):
killed the pipe Pea Stone pipeline. Everybody knows that name.
It's been for years trying to get developed. It starts
processing fine Ailee. When Biden came in, he killed it
and he killed it for the last time. The companies
just gave up. Tell me what your thoughts are on this.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, this is a good example.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
So to be clear, there is a Keystone pipeline that
exists and is running and moving hundreds of thousands of
barrels of oil a day. But they wanted to expand
that pipeline to bring oil down from Canada. So that
was the Keystone Excel expansion. And it was going to
take many years to do this project, and you know
Obama's in there. He made it difficult. He threw some

(14:32):
wrenches in the plans. His own State department came out
and said, lives are going to be saved if this
pipeline is built because if that oil gets transported by
rail because of rail accidents. They I think they estimated
that six lives per year would be saved from that pipeline.

(14:54):
But the optics of it are, oh well, this just
increases our oil and gas infrastructure and keep keeps us
hooked on oil. So Obama threw some monkey wrenches in plans.
When Trump was elected, he signed an executive order trying
to speak things up, and then Biden comes in and
kills it. So you know, trans Canada at the time,

(15:16):
they were just you know, they just wanted to know.
Just tell us the rules.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
You know, if this is what's going to happen, we
won't do the project. But this on again, off again.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
It's really difficult then to do projects when you can't
be sure what the rules are going to be long term.
And that's what a little and gas companies struggle with.
You know, they want consistent rules. They want to know,
you know, just tell us what the rules are and
then we'll figure out whether or not we're going to
do this project.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Makes the argument so important. Let's look at some energy reform.
You recently wrote a piece on the role of policy
in driving clean energy adoption. So what specific policies do
you believe are the most effect in accelerating the transition
to renewable energy so we can start getting off of

(16:04):
fossil pills.

Speaker 4 (16:06):
So all my career I have favored incentives over mandates,
and in the ethanol So when I first started writing,
it was because of ethanol mandates and they were forcing
us to put ethanol in our vehicles and so forth.
And I always said, you know, when you mandate something,

(16:26):
you're really saying the cost doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
We're going to do it anyway.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
But when you provided sinus for something, you can get
a better idea. You know, in the beginning, there was
like a fifty one a gallon credit for ethanol producers
to be able to put you know, ethanol into the gasoline.
If that is not doing it, then you know the
cost delta is more than you know, fifty one cents
or whatever it was. But if you mandate it, and

(16:51):
that's what the ethanol industry really wanted, they wanted to mandate.
They did not want the incentives. Well, in the beginning,
they got both. They got a mandate and incentive. And
I kept arguing Gains that if you have a mandate,
you don't need incentives. But if you have just the incentives,
then you can say, okay, we can see we can.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Kind of get an idea how much this is costing people.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
If fifty one centi gallon credit is not offsetting the
price enough for people to put this in their vehicles,
then you know the cost is greater than that. So
I like incentives. I like incentives for you know, if
you want people to drive electric vehicles, I like rebates.
I like things like that. I don't like mandates to say, okay,
twenty percent of the vehicle sold have to be electric vehicles.

(17:33):
I really dislike those kinds of programs. So that's kind
of my philosophy is incentives over mandates. It gives you
a better idea of costs, and you know, that's that's
what I've always felt. I always thought that a good
program for trying to move people away from fossil fuels,

(17:53):
away from gasoline would be raising the price of gasoline,
but then rebate you can get back to people as
a tax credit. Now that might not make sense at first.
You might say, well, why would you Why would you
raise the price just to rebate it back, Because if
you raise the price, some people are gonna go, you
know what, I can I can go do something else
and I can still collect that rebate. So you know,

(18:17):
if they raise the price of gasoline fifty cents, for example,
and they say, okay, but every family at the end
of the year, that's gonna cost them a thousand dollars,
We're gonna give a one thousand dollars tax rebate regardless
of whether they use gasoline or not.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
Then people would go Some people would go, okay, well,
maybe an electric vehicle.

Speaker 4 (18:32):
Doesn't make more sense to me now because I was
gonna pay fifty cents more on gasoline. I'll go with
electric vehicle. But I'm gonna collect my thousand dollars tax
credit that they gave me for the increased price of gasoline,
or I'm not gonna drive as much, or I'm gonna
get a more fuelfficient vehicle. So I like those kinds
of incentives. I don't like higher taxes. So the point

(18:52):
wouldn't be to raise revenue. It would be to provide
an incentive for people to go, Okay, maybe I can
cut back on my usage here. And I've seen you know,
I wrote an article about that years ago, and I
saw politician in North Carolina or South Carolina or somewhere
like that actually pick up that idea and say, hey,
this is a good idea. And I don't think it

(19:13):
ever went anywhere because at the end of the day
that we're going to go, oh, higher taxes. No, that
would have been the point, though, point would have bandage
to try to incentivize moving away from fossil fuels.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Show magazine recently cover prior to the announcement that Biden
was going to step down, your team went to work
hard work. By the way, on evaluating you did specifically,
what did Trump do he was in office. We saw
his energy policy, the way he was going to kind
of rule and control and his vision for energy, and

(19:46):
then of course we saw four years of Biden. So
you wrote a really great article show magazine that is out,
and you recently wrote a little bit of a change
in the way of you're looking and trying to see
Kamala Harris. But we didn't know the VP. Now we
know who the VP is, and so I want to
come back from break and I want to ask you
the Kamala Harris Donald Trump energy policies. What do you

(20:09):
see and specifically with her new VP, pick his information.
You know, what does his policies look like? Because he
has some interesting challenges when we look at energy with
him too. So let's take a quick break. When we return,
I want to talk about Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump's
energy policies. You're listening to the Energy Mixed radio show.
We'll be right back.

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Speaker 2 (21:31):
And we're back. You're listening to the Energy Mix Radio Show.
My guest is editor SHEW Magazine and a host here
at the Energy Mixed Radio Show, Robert Rapier. Robert. Before
the break, I was discussing how SHEW Magazine had recently
released a cover in which it evaluated Biden administration's policies
and the Trump administration's energy policies. Can you give us

(21:53):
a brief description of what that cover looked like that article,
and then we'll move into Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump
said VIERGI policies.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
So, as I pointed out in that article, we have
a unique opportunity here because instead of just relying on
campaign promises, we can look at the actual energy policies
of two guys who were in office and what they did.
And I'll tell listeners a funny story here. I told Kim,
we better get that article out because I'm not sure
Biden's going to make it to the election.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
So we need to go ahead and get that.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
Out, and so readers can look at that because I,
you know, I wasn't sure that he'd make it, and
he didn't. And so but I will say this, that
article looked at what actually happened under Trump and under Biden,
and you know, very high level overview is Trump was
more pro fossil fuels, Biden was more pro renewables, and

(22:46):
you know, his cancelation of the Keyston XL pipeline shows
hostility toward oil and gas.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
But what were the results?

Speaker 4 (22:54):
And I always tell people what a president does, how
they affect the oil and gas into street. It happens
over a much longer period of time than one presidential term.
So you usually don't see a president doing something that
immediately impacts the oil and gas industry. And you can
see that in the terms of Trump and Biden. We

(23:15):
are now producing more oil under Biden than we did
under Trump, and we're producing more oil than we ever
produced in history.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
That wasn't a result of Biden's policies.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
That was a result of the shale bone continuing to
expand production, expand oil and gas production. And so if
you look at the policies and you try to look
at the results, you go, well, those things don't seem
to correlate. If Biden is hostile fossil fuels, how are
we making more fossil fuels. Because what happens in the industry,
the macro factors, the prices, that's more important than anything else.

(23:47):
That's more important than Biden at one time said he
was going to ban fracking. He can't ban fracking. That's
not a promise, that's not something that he could actually do.
So what actually happened is take a company like x
On Mobile. If you look at how much money ex
On Mobil made under Biden versus Trump, it's night and day.
They made tremendously, a tremendous amount more money under Biden.

(24:10):
Now that doesn't mean they rather see Biden as president,
because it is true that you know, his policies are
not going to be as favorable to Exon Mobile. But
the bottom line is, and again because of micro factors,
mainly because Russian Baya, Ukraine and world wide prices skyrocketed,
the oil and gas companies profited enormously while during Biden's term.

(24:33):
So now we pivot to you know, Biden drops out
and Kamala Harris comes on and you know, has Tim
Watz now is for a VP pick. What are the
policies going to be. They're going to be very similar
to what Biden's policies were.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
It's going to be a continuation of that.

Speaker 4 (24:48):
It's going to be a continuation of talking about energy
transition and climate change. And uh, you know Pamalo at
one time, you know, she sued the world companies in California,
she prom us to ban fracking again, she can't band fracking.
So we have to look at some of this as
these are things that they will say to appease their base.

(25:08):
I don't even think she believes she can band fracking.
I think it's something that might excite, you know, the
far left to think, oh okay, she's gonna come in
a band practice that's never going to happen. So the
bottom line, I expect to see us continue to expand
oil and gas production, was particularly gas production. I think
oil production may be showing some signs of leveling out here.

(25:30):
We did, you know, based on the last week's patroleum
Status report from the Energy Information Industration, it looks like
we may have set a new weekly record at thirteen
point four million barrels a day.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
But it's been pretty.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
Flat for quite a few months now. So we're not
seeing the big up move like we did the year
before or the year before that, And so it may
be that we're reaching the limits of you know, all
the sweet spots have been drilled, and you know, we
may not see an expansion in all action in twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Regardles so who's the president?

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Interesting? Very interesting? Well, we're not done with this topic
by far. There's still a lot more questions. I want
to ask on Harris versus truck, but we got to
take a quick break. You're listening to the Energy Mix
radio show. We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
At the Port of Corpus Christi.

Speaker 6 (26:19):
We maintain a clear pathway for waterway commerce so that
our customers can deliver goods and energy products to the
communities who depend on them around the world. We work
diligently to build and enhance critical maritime infrastructure and manage
traffic twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty

(26:39):
five days a year. Thank you, Coastal Band Region for
entrusting us with your most precious asset.

Speaker 7 (26:46):
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eleven am for the twenty twenty four Coastal Band Energy
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the ex Pecuative Director of the Center for Hydrogen Safety.
Topics to be covered include carbon capture, assessing and managing

(27:06):
safety risk in the hydrogen value chain, and the emerging
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Speaker 2 (27:33):
And we're back here listening to the Energy Mixed radio show.
My guest is Robert Rapier, editor of show magazine. Robert,
it's a pretty important election in my opinion. There's a
lot of things that are on the table between this
specific administration. Harris and Trumpe. They are miles apart in
how they look at energy and a lot of other

(27:55):
things too. But our show is on energy, so I'll
stick to energy with them. While I am a fan
of trying to remove energy and finding solutions, I am
not really a fan of getting off of oil and
gas too soon. I see it as a bad thing
for US. I see it as US not having enough energy.

(28:17):
I see it potentially as a matter of national security
when we don't have a strong energy policy here in
the United States. I see a lot of problems with
this if we go too fast, and it's going to
have some pretty strong consequences for the consumers too. That
being said, I'm kind of favoring the candidate is going
to have a better energy policy to continue with oil

(28:37):
and natural gas until we can transition in an orderly manner.
And that's not what I see happening. There's a lot
of scare tactics activists, and I just don't like this
whole field. But I want to talk a little bit
about Donald Trump's energy policies. They've been characterized as a
strong focus on fossil fuels. What are the long term

(28:57):
implications if he is a and his approach of how
he will change the US ergy landscape, Well.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
I mean he's taken to saying lately, you know, to
every question, drill, drill, drill or drill baby drill. It's
hard to imagine that. I don't know what he could
do to incentivize more drilling. I mean, maybe he could
pass some tax breaks or something. But we're producing more
oil than we ever had before, so the policies that

(29:26):
are in place right now are still incentivizing higher production.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Does he have the ability to come in and drill
baby drill and then drive down the prices because we
are drilling, drilling, drilling, drilling.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
Well, I mean, ultimately, the companies are making those decisions.
The companies are looking out and they're looking at prices,
and they're looking at projections, and they're making the decision.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
To drill or not to drill. So all Trump could
do is come.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
In and say, maybe, okay, we're going to give a
drilling allowance, a greater drilling allowance, or we're going to
give you a better tax break or something.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
But the thing he is that is going to take years.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
I mean, if drilling ramped up immediately, it's going to
be years before you see an impact on actual production.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
And you know, it's not like they're not drilling.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
I mean, the drilling rate right now is higher than
it was when Trump left office. And the reason is,
you know, it collapsed during COVID.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
I mean, it was.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
Coming back, but by the time Trump left office it's
still it's higher today than it was then. We've never
gotten close to the pre COVID numbers. The pre COVID
numbers were very high, and since then, I think oil
producers have said, hey, we need to be a little
more disciplined here and not over drill because that's the
other thing, you know, Trump might say, you know, drill, drill, drill,

(30:44):
and all companies are saying, hey, we don't want to
overdo it here because we don't want to collapse the price.
We want a nice price for oil and gas. So
you know, there may be some conflicts of interest here between.
You know, Trump might like to have cheap energy for people.
That doesn't benefit the ol and gas people. Oil and
gas people benefit from a little bit higher price. And
which is one reason I say they've done so well

(31:07):
on Biden, because he's done some things. There are some
things he did to drive up prices and he didn't
do that for the oil companies, but the oil companies
benefited from that.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
So you know, the Trump policies will be friendly, fossil
fueled friendly.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
Now what are the risks of that, Well, I think
coal is on the way out. Coal is the biggest
polluting you know, I talked earlier about hyder carbons being
made of carbon and hydrogen. Coal has the largest concentration
of carbon, so it produces a lot more CO two
per unit of energy than oil or natural gas. And

(31:45):
we don't want to be too We don't want to
have an infrastructure too dependent on coal. In the future,
I think we do want to be looking beyond coal.
I think natural gas and oil. There is not a
good replacement for oil. We don't have anything that would
allow us the kind of mobility, you know, to hop
on a plane and fly halfway across the country. We

(32:06):
don't have a replacement for oil there. We don't have
a replacement that would, you know, allow us to make
a cross country trip. That's that's convenient. I mean, I
know people have done it in electric vehicle. It's not convenient.
It's you know, you may have long stretches where you know,
you're worried about range and so forth. So you know,
fossil fuels are gonna still be important. I'm a realist.

(32:27):
I think we'd all like absolutely clean energy, you know,
we'd like to not pollute at all. But the reality
is there isn't anything out there that will easily replace
oil in the mix. And so we have to be
realistic and we have to have policies that continue to
encourage oil and gas expiration and production.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
That's absolutely correct. Let's talk about Trump versus Harris on
influencing the future of energy investments in the US, because
I think that's important. Tootments are strong and they're growing
great in the energy sector, which one of the two
candidates to you see gravitating or allowing more energy investments

(33:10):
in the US.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
Well, so again back to you know, we've got thousands
of old companies in America, each one making decisions based
on their crystal ball, and they're looking at what's the
price of oil going to be? And that's the most
important factor that all these guys are looking at. They're saying,
what's the price of oil going to be? And if
they have an incentive to drill. I mean, if you know,
if let's say Trump came in and he said, I'm

(33:34):
going to give you.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
You know, a five million dollar credit for.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
Every will well you drill, Okay, that makes a difference.
That's going to influence and you know, cause people to
go out and drill more. So that's a that's an
actual policy that you could put in place. It would
encourage more drilling. But you know, that's so that's the
two factors all come is.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
Going to look at that.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
They're going to say, what what can we get from drilling?
And what do we expect to get for the price
of oil in the future. And those are the things
that are important.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Now.

Speaker 4 (34:06):
From famaala hair standpoint, you may say, Okay, she's gonna
be a little more hostile, so we might not get
we might not get incentives for drilling. But on the
other side, that's probably gonna drive all prices up. I'm
going to get a higher oil price. So I say,
again and again, it's always the macro factors are always
more important than what a president does. You know, I

(34:28):
make the case of Obama many times. You know, we
had the largest expansion of oil and gas production in
history under Obama, and it had nothing to do with
Obama's policies. It had to do with fracking, the marriage
of fracking horizontal drilling that was taking place under Bush,
who actually saw oil production decline all eight years he
was in office.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
So these things take many years.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
You know, we're coming up on twenty years since the
fracking boom actually started to influence natural gas production and
it's still increasing production in the US. That macro factor,
that technology development, had more influence than any presidential policy.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
You know, it's kind of strange, and I don't necessarily
know if I want to say this or not, but
it's kind of like Carrid to me because when I
look at Obama and he actually they wanted it so
badly to push their policies through that they would have
had an agree to remove the export band that we had,
and everything just exploded for the energy sector, and you

(35:28):
shale was just now exploding, the shelf revolution, and that
of course is an anti oil and gas president kind
of sorta or not friendly two of those policies, and
then when we talk about buying the same thing. He's
going to exit as the highest president of drilling underneath
his election or being in office. And it's just it's

(35:49):
strange that they're so anti energy in the oil and
gas and pro green, but they both are going to
exit with these major accomplishments for the gas industry.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
Isn't that big picture matters the most, That's the thing.
Big picture matters more than their policies.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, let's take a quick break. When we return,
I want to cover the Money show and I want
to talk a little bit about investments in the oil
and gas sector specifically, since you also write for Investing Daily.
You're listening to the Energy Mixed radio show. We'll be
right back, and we're back. You're listening to the Energy
Mix radio show. My guest is Robert Rapier, the editor

(36:28):
in chief of Show magazine. Robert, I want to switch
gears because while you do a lot of things, you're
our editor in chief for Show Magazine, you write for Forbes.
You also write for another company which is called Investing Daily,
in which you write about potential stocks, but specifically in
the energy sector. So because of this role, you were

(36:50):
asked to speak at the Money Show in Las Vegas.
I want to start off with explain the Money Show
of what their purpose is because this was my first
year to attend in covering you being on stage and
what you were talking about, but I had not heard
of the Money Show, and so I didn't even realize
that there are these types of events that are going

(37:13):
on when we talk about investing, and this seems to
be a whole other category of things that you're doing.
So let's start with the Money Show. What is the
Money Show, what's its purpose and how does it connect
into the energy sector.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
So Money Show is a pretty big event that happens
multiple times a year. They have conferences around the country.
I've been asked to do it a bunch of times,
and the last time I did it, funny enough, was
just before COVID did. I spoke at Money Show in
Orlando in February. In the first of February two thousand

(37:49):
and I can remember I was asked about potential threats
to the market, and I warned about this pandemic that
was starting to rise up in China, and I said,
I think this is going to be a pretty big deal,
and I think it's going to be pretty disruptive to
the market. And I was on a panel session, you know,
I did a panel session this time. I did a
panel session that time, and one of the guys on
the panel said, Oh, no, that's it's not going to

(38:12):
be a big deal. We've seen these we've seen these
concerns before with bird flu and so forth, and it's
going to be a flashing pan I said. I said,
I don't think so. I think that's going to be
a big deal. And it was a big deal. Six
months six weeks later, the markets were crashing and I
hadn't given another talk publicly since then until this. They've
asked me a couple of times in the last few years.

(38:33):
So Money Show brings together investors with people who speak
about investments and there's a lot of big names there
and you'll see that. And you did see that, and
they liked me for the you know, talking about energy,
because I've talked and written about energy investments for a
very long time. I have two real big passions, and

(38:56):
that is talking about energy and talking about investing. I've
been an investor since I was in high school when
my algebra teacher showed us the power of compound interest.
You know, I grew up poor in Southeastron, Oklahoma. My
grandparents none of them had any money, and I always
thought I'm gonna make money someday, but I don't know how.
And the day he showed us the power of compounding,

(39:19):
I just looked at that and I said, I'm going
to be rich someday. It's gonna take a long time,
and I'm gonna have to be steady and I'm gonna
have to invest. But you know, over time, any person
in America can become a millionaire. And I have invested
since I was seventeen years old, so that's been forty
years now.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
Forty years I've been an investor.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
And about out twelve years ago, Investing Daily came to
me and they said, Hey, we we have a magazine
that has devoted energy investing. We'd like for you to
come in and take over the helm of that, and
so I did. So I we manage portfolios. I have
several paper portfolios where i' people buy and sell. So

(40:02):
let me break down energy investments on a big scale.
There are several different segments of the energy sector, and
I'll give you an example from each one. There are
upstream producers, and upstream is where the oil and gas
is produced, and that is a Conical Phillips who I
used to work for.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
That is Devon, that.

Speaker 4 (40:21):
Is EOG, that is some of those companies. They produce
the oil and gas. And for an investor, those are
more volatile.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Growth sort of picks. They have a lot more volatility.
They may.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
In fact, at money Show in February of two thousand,
I recommended Conical Phillips and it got slammed pretty hard
in the COVID crash. But then it was like seventy
seven percent or something the next year, So it came
out of the COVID crash and did very very well.
So there's upstream producers. That's for people with a little
bit more risk tolerance. Then there's midstream. Midstream transports oil

(40:57):
and gas and they store oil and gas, and.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
They've often been called like toll collectors.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
They're collecting, you know, five dollars a barrel to move
the oil from the Permium basin down to the Gulf
Coast or to.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
Cushing in Oklahoma.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
They collect a toll, and their prices are generally a
lot more stable than the oil producers, and their yields
are high. You can find a lot of eight percent
yielding companies in that space. So for somebody primarily interested
in income and not growth, the midstream sector is where

(41:30):
they want to be. And some important companies, they're Enterprise
Products partners that to me is the most important midstream
company that is in our portfolio for investing daily. Energy
transfer is in portfolio and we've done very very well
with energy transfer planes all American. Those are really important companies.

(41:51):
And these are specifically our Master limited partnerships. And though
that's a different sort of category of a stock, but
for an investor, you know, it looks just like a stock.
There are tax advantages from Master limited partnerships, but they're
not all Master limited partnerships. Like Nbridge is a midstream
company that is not a master limited partnership. Transcendata now

(42:14):
TC Energy. They are a midstream company that's not a
master limited partnership, but master limited partnerships have some tax advantages.
Then you move into the refiners. So you got the
upstream companies, you got midstream that is moving the oil
and gas, and then you've got downstream the refiners. That's
a Valero at Phillip sixty six. Those are the companies

(42:35):
that are refining the oil, converting into finished products and
selling it into the marketplace. Now, the refiners over the
last fifteen years have done very very well with the
boom in shelle production in the US. Kind of depressed
oil prices in the US, and you talked about.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
The export ban earlier.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
Before the export ban was in place, the only way
that oil could get out to the market was for
US finers to refine it and sell the finished products
into the market. So they were benefiting from depressed prices
oil oil prices in the US. They couldn't get to
the market, and they were arbitraging that with their refining
and then selling at global market prices. So the refiners,

(43:16):
it's called the Golden Asia refining. A lot of refiners
did not want that export band to happen because that
was going to help the oil producers get to the
global market and start to increase prices in the US,
and it did happen.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
So you've got the refiners. They're they're not as volatile
as the upstream companies, but they're more volatifle than the
down the midstream, and their yields are you know, three
four percent range, where midstream is up in the eight
percent range.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
And some of the upstream companies don't even pay a dividend.
I mean, they're they're growth companies, are piling all the
money back into the back end of the company. And
then you've got integrated super majors like Exxon Mobile, they
do it all. They got upstream, midstream, downstream. They are
the integrated companies, and they are also you know, for

(44:07):
income investors, they're pretty good bet because you know, when
upstream's doing well, sometimes downstream is not doing well, or
vice versa. But since they own it all, they're a
lot more protected from the volatility of oil and gas prices.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
So that's kind of at a high level.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
You know, we recommend companies in all those different areas,
and I've been an investor in the energy sector for
a long long time, and you know it's a it's
absolute passion of mine.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
So if more people want are people listening to the
show want to follow you on Investing Daily, where do
they go?

Speaker 4 (44:41):
All you have to do is google my name, Robert
ray Pier Investing Daily and I'll take you right there,
or just go to Investing Daily dot com. And I
have a free I have free article every Tuesday that's
kind of a personal finance article, and then there are
links to my archives and my publications and so forth.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
So I'm pretty easy to find.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
You're very busy, and we're glad that we we have
you as our editor in chief. But Robert, that's all
the time we have for this show, and I look
forward to having you back on in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Thanks Kim.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
The Energy Mix Radio show is where we explore topics
that affect us all in the oil and gas industry.
Every week, our host will interview the movers and shakers
in this fast paced industry. You'll hear from industry experts,
elected officials, and many more on The Energy Mix Radio Show.