In the episode of This Week In Energy for May 25, 2024 sponsored in part by Shepherd VR:
This Week In Energy’s Newsmaker Interview sponsored by The Industrial Forest:
Joe Sinnott, Witting Partners, and host of The Energy Detox Podcast, breaks down the ConocoPhillips Marathon merger for $17.1 billion dollars. Sinnott was part of one of largest mergers in history, at the time, and explains what some of the employees, shareholders and company executives might be thinking.
First off, a few of the numbers. ConocoPhillips is buying Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $17.1 billion as energy prices rise and big oil companies reap massive profits.
The deal is valued at $22.5 billion when including $5.4 billion in debt.
“Pretty easy math on paper to say when you have some complimentary assets and you have resources,” Sinnott said. “Obviously, you know, quite often from the human side of things that you can really manage more.”
Crude prices have jumped more than 12% this year and the cost for a barrel rose above $80 this week. Oil majors put up record profits after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and while those numbers have slipped, there has been a surge in mergers between energy companies flush with cash.
When asked whether this was a “Merger” or “Acquisition”, Sinnott explained why he disagreed with many of the headlines that said “merger”.
“Well, my perspective is this definitely checks the acquisition box, so all things will be ConocoPhillips,” Sinnott said. “They're taking these assets, they are clearly the big player in all this.
Click here for the full interview
THROWBACK TALKS sponsored by The Crude Life: Brad Crabtree, current US Department of Energy Carbon Management and formerly with the Great Plains Institute, talks about how Carbon Management and Energy are working together.
Crabtree talks about how in 2014, the energy sector will be bringing much more carbon management projects into areas soon.
In times past there has been some difficulty with ag producers getting their hands on the fertilizers at the right time during their planting cycles. This issue created a demand that allowed more synergistic Bakken opportunity.
"We've been going through a boom phase in the Bakken and that's starting to mature now and people are starting to look longer term," said Brad Crabtree, then-VP Fossil Energy, Great Plains Institute. "There are a couple places I could see the ag economy and the Bakken economy come together in profound ways. One is urea fertilizer production. We have all this shale gas, thirty percent which is being flared. One of the major feed stocks for producing commercial fertilizer all over the world is natural gas. They take natural gas and basically turn it into ammonia which becomes commercial fertilizer and our entire ag industry depends on that type of fertilizer. So to the extent we can take some of our Bakken natural gas production and produce fertilizer here."
Crabtree continued saying fertilizer can become expensive for farmers and producing the product in the market and would theoretically lower the price while adding jobs and revenue to the local economy.
"Producing an energy ag economy in the state would be very exiting," Crabtree said. "The other thing is when you produce fertilizer from natural gas one of the bi-products is carbon dioxide. And we can take that carbon dioxide and turn it around and use it to produce more oil. So you get this virtuous circle right. And that's an example of an absolute connection between ag and the energy economy."
Energy Influencer sponsored by BCK9 Services: Robert Bryce says Vaclav Smil Calls Bull$#!t On Net Zero
In a 2019 interview, Vaclav Smil described himself as “just an old-fashioned scientist describing the world and the lay of the land as it is. That’s all there is to it. It’s not good enough just to say life is better or the trains are faster. You have to bring in the numbers.” (Emphasis added.)
Smil has been bringing the numbers for a long time.
A polymath who has written about 50 books, Smil has gained renowned for his unflinching analysis of the world in which we live. I own a dozen of his books. My favorite is Creating the Twentieth Century. His influence on my work has been profound. Along with Jesse Ausubel, Smil made me understand the importance of power density, which has become a mainstay of my writing and analysis. (Smil wrote a book on the subject, aptly titled: Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses, published in 2015.)
Click here for Robert Bryce Substack
Clint Kling of Shepherd VR joins multimedia journalist Jason Spiess to discuss some news changes happening in the world of Virtual Reality, specifically in the training areas of the Marines and Army.
The idea of VR dates back to the mid-20th century, with early inspirations stemming from science fiction. The first tangible step towards VR was Morton Heilig's Sensorama in the 1960s, a mechanical device aimed at immersing users in an interactive environment.
The 1980s saw VR gaining momentum with the development of the first VR headset by Jaron Lanier, who also coined the term "virtual reality."
“With training, over the long haul, you can save time and money,” Kling said. “Mining we were able to put somebody in a more hazardous situation without actually hurting them, allowing their mind to adapt to the environment rather than shock it in realtime.”
Click here for the full interview
Warren Martin, executive director, Kansas Strong, talks about the industry’s newest awareness and education campaign “Do Your Own Research”.
“Kansas Strong encourages people to do their own research on oil and natural gas before making informed decisions,” Martin said. “The campaign title is Do Your Own Research. And the idea behind it is we're trying to encourage people to really investigate energy issues more thoroughly rather than just taking what the news media says, taking what the clickbait social media posts and all that that's sent out. Really do some research and learn.”
Energy poverty refers to the condition where households are unable to access essential modern energy services and products. This includes access to electricity, clean cooking facilities, and sustainable energy solutions.
It affects both urban and rural areas, where poor households often consume lower amounts of energy due to limited availability or high costs.
The concept encompasses not only the lack of access but also the economic burden of high energy prices relative to income and the inefficiency of energy use in homes.
Addressing energy poverty involves improving energy access, affordability, and efficiency to ensure that all households can meet their basic energy needs without undue hardship
Martin began citing facts and statistics that lay the foundational context for the research.
The ESG Show with Michael Baxter and guests talk about how technology is impacting energy and ESG. Today’s topic is Technology and ESG and today’s guests are:
Sue Bonney, an innovative and forward thinking leader with nearly 4 decades of experience in the corporate world. Until recently as a Vice Chair of KPMG UK and its Head of ESG, and now as an independent adviser, Sue works with the Boards of companies large and small on their strategic response to the responsible business agenda and ESG.
Chandi Jain, the founder and CEO of Auquan, which transforms the way organisations extract meaning and insight from noise. They leverage ML and NLP to collect unstructured data and give it structure, so they can generate clean, curated and impactful insights significantly faster. Lauded as the hottest Fintech startup in Europe, by the Europas Awards.
Asad Ansari, Founder and Managing Partner at Mayfair IT Consultancy, a data transformation specialist organisation, helping private and public sector clients solve challenges. In 2023 under Asad’s continuous leadership, Mayfair IT Consultancy partnered with IBM and Accenture to strengthen their client offerings.
Steve Stobo, the founder of CCS, a provider of ISO Consultancy, Cyber Security Consultancy, and Risk Management solutions. His expertise in enhancing security postures and operational effectiveness aligns seamlessly with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles.
Together, they help us figure out how technology and data can help manage our ESG.
Click here for entire The ESG Show
Duane Sand, entrepreneur, graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and was a U.S. Navy officer during the Iraq War joined Townsquare Media’s Talk of the Town hosted by Steve Bakken.
Sand is a former inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and advocates for nuclear energy and establishing nuclear power facilities.
“I’ve been a proponent of nuclear energy for decades, in fact recently I testified in a joint committee in the (North Dakota) legislature, it was about a month ago, an interim committee, about why we need to bring nuclear here,” Duane Sand told Steve Bakken. “And I laid it all out because I've, and these are the same things I've said for 12 years. We need nuclear because everyone's going to need nuclear, and everyone in the Midwest has or had nuclear power already.”
Click here for the full interview
Jodi Johnson, CEO, Red Trail Energy, discusses their pioneering project involving carbon capture and storage. Red Trail Energy, LLC (RTE), an ethanol producer near Richardton, North Dakota, is currently operating a CO2 capture facility adjacent to the RTE ethanol facility, to ultimately inject about 180,000 tonnes CO2 annually more than a mile below RTE property for permanent storage.
The first carbon capture and storage project allowed under state primacy in the U.S. has commenced operations.
Red Trail Energy LLC announces it officially began carbon capture and storage (CCS) at its ethanol facility located near Richardton, North Dakota, on June 16.
Music heard on This Week In Energy by singer songwriter Alma Cook and independent funk fusion group known as The Moody River Band.
Click here for Alma Cook’s music page
Click here to support Alma Cook’s Energy Career
Cook Compliance Co is a boutique compliance management & consulting firm that believes in doing more than just checking the right boxes. With special emphasis on education & planning, Cook helps contractors get ahead of their competition by making sure their crews are work-ready even before the next MSA is signed.
Click here for the Moody River Band’s website
For over a decade, Moody River Band's unique brand of blues/folk rock has rocked and rolled all over the Upper Midwest and Rocky Mountain region.
You can download their two records absolutely free by clicking here!
For booking and dates click here.
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This Week In Energy for June 1, 2024`