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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Odd Loss Podcast.

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Speaker 3: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.

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Speaker 2: Tracy Quoy. A start to the year.

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Speaker 4: Yes, I mean actually, at this point I wasn't even perject.

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Speaker 4: I wasn't even holding out hope that it might be

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Speaker 4: a little bit quiet, at least for the first week

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Speaker 4: of the year. I've given up on that particular ambition.

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Speaker 4: But you're right, we had some huge news breaking over

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Speaker 4: the weekend.

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Speaker 2: It's not just that it happened on a Saturday, and

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Speaker 2: of course we're talking about the arrest of Maduro. It's

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Speaker 2: not just that happened on a Saturday. It happened at

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Speaker 2: five in the morning or something. Got a Saturday. So

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Speaker 2: I woke up and already had dms. They're like, are

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Speaker 2: you guys goett to do an episode on this and

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Speaker 2: an episode on what what are you talking about? And

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Speaker 2: then it's sort of five in what he's a see

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Speaker 2: what happened? I don't understand that at all, But yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's sort of a genuine earthquake. I would say, that's

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Speaker 2: sort of clear. It's a cliche that gets overused, but

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Speaker 2: this feels like an earthquake.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a lot of firsts involved here.

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Speaker 4: So like the first major US intervention in South America

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Speaker 4: since like I guess, the eighties, the first time the

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Speaker 4: US seems to have been this explicit about going into

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Speaker 4: a country because of its oil reserves.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that was surprising.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's this super interesting thing. It's like it's not

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Speaker 2: clear that you know in the past at least, like, oh,

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Speaker 2: it's about spreading democracy. And I think one of the

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Speaker 2: I guess funnier and I'm putting that in quotes because

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Speaker 2: none of this is like particularly funny per se. But

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Speaker 2: it's like there's no pretense of like, oh, this opposition

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Speaker 2: leader who just won the Nobel Prize that she's going

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Speaker 2: to get a shot or anything like that. It's a

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Speaker 2: very strange. It's so face value. My interpretation is Trump

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Speaker 2: wanted Maduro gone and got Maduro gone. In the idea

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Speaker 2: that they're going to dress it up in some obvious

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Speaker 2: ideology or principle other than maybe dominating the hemisphere does

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Speaker 2: not seem to have entered the equation.

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Speaker 4: But but but it might not be face value. And

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Speaker 4: this is right, this is not what we're going to

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Speaker 4: talk about today. But there is a theory going round

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Speaker 4: that it's not really because of the oil reserves, it's

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Speaker 4: because of rare earth mining in Venezuela, much of which

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Speaker 4: was making its way to China through various means.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the thing, there's like no leg Yes, you

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Speaker 2: can imagine that.

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Speaker 4: Telling Americans, you know, we've we've kidnapped a dictator and

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Speaker 4: arrested him for drug trafficking, and the bonus is you're

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Speaker 4: going to get cheaper gas prices. That probably resonates a

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Speaker 4: little bit more than like, well we really needed you know,

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Speaker 4: some rare earth like tantalum or something like that that

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Speaker 4: you've never heard of.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I have like a million questions. I'm just trying

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Speaker 2: to ramize. So many people have a million questions also,

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Speaker 2: Like I don't know, like is this totally unprecedented in

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Speaker 2: terms of just snatch a foreign leader. I'm amazed at

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Speaker 2: this like happen. It seems like a possible, like almost

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Speaker 2: uneventful in the way like they just went in and

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Speaker 2: took a foreign leader. You think that they'd be fortified

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Speaker 2: with thousands and thousands of guards and some impenetrable palace.

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Speaker 2: Evidently not all just sort of still a complete mystery,

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Speaker 2: like what exactly happened and what exactly it means, where

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Speaker 2: it's going and all this stuff, all right.

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Speaker 4: The immediate reaction, though, in markets and the global economy

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Speaker 4: was what does this mean for the oil market, because

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Speaker 4: supposedly Venezuela is the holder of the biggest reserve of

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Speaker 4: crude oil at something like three hundred billion barrels is

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Speaker 4: the number that you see, which again places it above

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Speaker 4: noted exporters like Saudi Arabia, right, But the issue is

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Speaker 4: it hasn't actually been pulling much of that out of

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Speaker 4: the ground for many, many years. It's been producing I

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Speaker 4: think like a million barrels per.

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Speaker 2: Day, right. The numbers that people are talking about to

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Speaker 2: actually improve the Venezuelan and oil infrastructure are staggering. So

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Speaker 2: reserves I mean nothing if you can't pull it out

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Speaker 2: of the ground, if you don't have the infrastructure to

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Speaker 2: do that, And then who's going to pay for a

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Speaker 2: time when oil's below sixty dollars? I don't know how

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Speaker 2: economical that. So many questions anyway, we don't need to

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Speaker 2: just keep restating amongst.

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Speaker 3: Each other all the questions ask each other.

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Speaker 2: That's that's why we have guests on the show because

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Speaker 2: we'd like to ask them questions. Anyway, really excited to say,

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Speaker 2: we really do have the perfect guest, someone we've talked

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Speaker 2: to in the past, including an episode about the oil

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Speaker 2: reserves in Guyana, which of course is also part of

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Speaker 2: this story because their neighbors. Some of the reserves are

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Speaker 2: contested between the two countries. We're going to be speaking,

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Speaker 2: of course, to Gregory Brew, senior analyst at the Eurasire Group. So, greg,

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Speaker 2: thank you so much.

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Speaker 5: For coming on Outlaws, Thank you so much for having

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Speaker 5: me back.

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Speaker 2: How did you fund out? What was your Saturday morning like?

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Speaker 4: So?

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Speaker 5: My Saturday morning started very early, as all my mornings

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Speaker 5: do now because I have a fifteen month old at home.

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Speaker 5: So I was making coffee and I was doing what

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Speaker 5: I always do. She is checking Twitter or x whatever

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Speaker 5: you call it, and I immediately saw cryptic, vague tweets

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Speaker 5: about something that had happened and that was shocking, that

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Speaker 5: had to do with Venezuela. And after about five minutes

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Speaker 5: I saw that, oh no, we went in and kidnapped

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Speaker 5: the president, seized him, apprehended him. You know, rockets were fired,

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Speaker 5: helicopters flew over Carocaus. It was all very dramatic, and

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Speaker 5: my immediate thought was, you know, what does this mean

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Speaker 5: for oil markets? Then I remembered that it was Saturday

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Speaker 5: morning and that there wasn't going to be a market reaction.

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Speaker 2: You couldn't get an oil cloth.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, for thirty six hours until Asian markets open. I thought,

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Speaker 5: that's interesting. You know these things always seem to happen

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Speaker 5: on weekends now because whoever is pulling the trigger wants

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Speaker 5: to make sure they put some space between themselves and

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Speaker 5: the market reaction.

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Speaker 4: Can I just say I had a blissful four hours

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Speaker 4: between this actually happening and me finding out on Saturday

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Speaker 4: morning because I had a friend over. We had an

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Speaker 4: old fashioned sleepover, which was kind of fun, and I

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Speaker 4: was serving her coffee and we were just talking and

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Speaker 4: then like I showed her the door, immediately looked at

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Speaker 4: my phone, and I was like, okay, well that's the

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Speaker 4: end of my nice, relaxing weekend.

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Speaker 2: Wait wait, I'm sorry more about that. It's an incredible

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Speaker 2: restraint to like spend a morning with a friend without

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Speaker 2: like half paying attention to the phone, because.

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Speaker 3: I know it's unusual for you.

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Speaker 4: It would be very hard, all right, let's start with like,

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Speaker 4: let's let's look at some of our priors here. So

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Speaker 4: Venezuelan oil reserves. I have seen some debate around that

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Speaker 4: three hundred billion number, particularly from John Arnold, the hedgepunk guy.

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Speaker 4: He was saying that this was a reserve figure that

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Speaker 4: seemed to be magically produced by Shabbas, the previous Venezuelan leader,

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Speaker 4: and before that the proven reserves number, the one that

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Speaker 4: had actually been audited.

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Speaker 3: Was a lot lower.

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Speaker 4: So do we actually know that Venezuela has a lot

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Speaker 4: of oil?

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Speaker 5: Well, this conversation could get very technical very quickly, please,

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Speaker 5: but we can. Yeah, let's let's dive in. What are

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Speaker 5: oil reserves? So first you start with the technically recoverable reserves,

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Speaker 5: i e. You know what is the oil in the ground,

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Speaker 5: what have you discovered through geological surveys, through drilling, test wells,

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Speaker 5: et cetera. From that point of Venezuela could have as

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Speaker 5: much as a trillion barrels oil within its territory in

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Speaker 5: the Maracaybo basin to the west, but also most significantly

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Speaker 5: in the Orinoco basin in the east and southeast of

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Speaker 5: the country, which is where this very heavy, extra heavy

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Speaker 5: sour crud is located. It's probably the largest continuous reserve

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Speaker 5: of oil in the world. Its rivals would be the

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Speaker 5: Tarcans of Alberta and the Gavar field in eastern Saudi Arabia.

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Speaker 5: So technically there is maybe a trillion barrels of oil there.

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Speaker 5: But when we get down to what is recoverable, you know,

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Speaker 5: the US Geological Survey did a report on this in

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Speaker 5: I think two thousand and nine, and the figure they

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Speaker 5: landed on was between four hundred and five hundred billion

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Speaker 5: barrels of what you could pull out of the ground,

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Speaker 5: not counting on price, not counting on how much money

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Speaker 5: you were willing to spend. Then we get to proven reserves,

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Speaker 5: and proven reserves are a function of price, profitability, available,

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Speaker 5: investment security, you know, assessing risks, how much you need

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Speaker 5: to pay if you're an international oil company, how much

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Speaker 5: you need to split with the national government, all of that,

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Speaker 5: and that's where we get a much more fuzzy figure.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 5: OPEK they have figures on proven reserves. The Energy Information

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Speaker 5: Administration of the United States puts out proven reserve figures

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Speaker 5: on various countries. When it comes to Venezuela, there is

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Speaker 5: that incident of the Hugo Chavez government radically upgrading the

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Speaker 5: amount of oil that they said was recoverable in I

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Speaker 5: think it was two thousand and seven. The thing about that, though,

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Speaker 5: is that at the time Brent crude prices were upwards

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Speaker 5: of one hundred dollars a barrel, so the price of

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Speaker 5: oil was very high. Cut to today, where you know,

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Speaker 5: adjusting for inflation, the price is very low. It's sixty

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Speaker 5: dollars a barrel, but you know, compared to the price

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Speaker 5: in two thousand and seven, it's even lower than that.

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Speaker 5: So saying that Venezuela has three hundred billion barrels of

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Speaker 5: oil that you could pull out of the ground right

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Speaker 5: now just isn't accurate. Their oil is there, but trying

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Speaker 5: to get it out in the current market conditions, given

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Speaker 5: all the risks involved, the security concerns, the upheaval in Venezuela,

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Speaker 5: and then just the amount of money you would need

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Speaker 5: to upgrade the infrastructure and to drill the wells, the

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Speaker 5: figure is much lower than three hundred billion. It's a lot.

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Speaker 5: Neighboring Guyana has proven reserves of around twenty billion barrels,

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Speaker 5: and there's at least twice that in the Maricaya basin

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Speaker 5: in the west of Venezuela, so there is a lot

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Speaker 5: of oil there, but whether it approaches three hundred billion

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Speaker 5: barrels is the subject of much debate.

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Speaker 2: When the oil market open on Sunday night, there really

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Speaker 2: hasn't been much of a reaction. And I think it's

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Speaker 2: sort of intuitive, which is that you could come up

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Speaker 2: with any number you want, one hundred trillion, three hundred billion,

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Speaker 2: one hundred billion. In the medium and short term. What matters,

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Speaker 2: I presume, is capacity to pump barrels and sell them.

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Speaker 2: And one of the things that we've seen, we've seen

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Speaker 2: these charts of how Venezuelan oil production over the years

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Speaker 2: has dropped off quite precipitously, and they are various sort

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Speaker 2: of potential drivers, including maybe price, maybe sanctions, but also

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Speaker 2: the story that the the socialist government that nationalized a

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Speaker 2: lot of the oil infrastructure has let the oil infrastructure deteriorate.

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Speaker 2: Give us your read like I know where you don't

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Speaker 2: literally have a chart here, but if you could like

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Speaker 2: have that chart in your mind.

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Speaker 4: Everyone, imagine a chart of a line going down.

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Speaker 2: Mostly down. Why don't you like tell us the story

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Speaker 2: of that chart?

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Speaker 5: Sure? Sure, I love describing charts, and I'm also you know,

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Speaker 5: as Joe Well knows that Tracy you probably know as well.

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Speaker 5: I'm a historian by training, so I love to go

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Speaker 5: back in time and start at the beginning. And the

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Speaker 5: beginning for Venezuela oil is over one hundred years ago.

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Speaker 5: Venezuela is one of the oldest oil producers in the world.

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Speaker 5: First began to commercially produce crude in the nineteen twenties

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Speaker 5: nineteen thirties. For a while, you know, close to thirty years,

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Speaker 5: it was arguably the second most important oil producer in

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Speaker 5: the world and in the Western hemisphere. Because it was

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Speaker 5: so close to the United States, it was sending a

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Speaker 5: lot of its crew to the US. This was before

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Speaker 5: the Middle East became a major concern in the fifties

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Speaker 5: and sixties. You know, Venezuela has been around for a

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Speaker 5: long time. It's pumped a lot of crude. When we

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Speaker 5: think about the chart for Venezuela oil production, it's actually,

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Speaker 5: you know, it's it's less of a collapse in the

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Speaker 5: last twenty years if you look at it, it's more

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Speaker 5: of a do w Venezuela crude output goes up and

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Speaker 5: up and up from the twenties all the way up

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Speaker 5: to the early seventies where it exceeds three million barrels

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Speaker 5: a day. That is, I believe the historic peak for

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Speaker 5: Venezuela output. In the mid nineteen seventies, Venezuela production starts

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Speaker 5: to fall. It falls quite sharply. There are a lot

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Speaker 5: of reasons for that, one of which is the Middle East.

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Speaker 5: You know, they were facing much differ competition cheaper producers.

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Speaker 5: The investment was being cut. They had to drop production.

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Speaker 5: So production falls from the seventies into the eighties. In

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Speaker 5: the nineties it starts to climb again. And this has

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Speaker 5: to do with Petevesa, the Venezuelan national oil company. For

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Speaker 5: a long time, Petavesa was kind of unique when it

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Speaker 5: comes to national oil companies. You know, we talk about

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Speaker 5: a Ramco in Saudi Arabia, the Iraqi Petroleum Company, the

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Speaker 5: Kuwaiti Petroleum Company. You know, almost every big oil producer

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Speaker 5: in the world has a national oil company. Venezuela's Petevesa,

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Speaker 5: for a long time time was run like a capitalist enterprise.

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Speaker 5: It was run on the basis of securing profit. In

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Speaker 5: the nineties, it was very good at making deals with

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Speaker 5: the international oil companies, both from the West and elsewhere.

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Speaker 5: So in the nineties, you know, about thirty thirty five

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Speaker 5: years ago, Venezuela output starts to climb again, and in

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Speaker 5: the early two thousands it gets close to three million

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Speaker 5: barrels a day, just as prices are peaking. You know,

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Speaker 5: Venezuela is making a tremendous amount of money. In the

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Speaker 5: early two thousands, it's i think, got the highest per

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Speaker 5: capita income of any South American country at the time.

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Speaker 5: It's extremely wealthy. It's making a lot of money incomes.

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Speaker 5: Hugo shaves and Chavismo, you know, this political ideology built

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Speaker 5: around a very large socialist welfare state, lots of public enterprise,

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Speaker 5: national companies, but also a lot of authoritarianism, a lot

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Speaker 5: of corruption, a lot of kleptocracy, and Chavez pushes further

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Speaker 5: nationalizations of the oil industry. The oil industry had already

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Speaker 5: been nationalized. We could go down another rabbit hole and

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Speaker 5: talk about the history of resource nationalism in Venezuela. But

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Speaker 5: the industry had been nationalized in the seventies. What had

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Speaker 5: been done in the nineties was more joint deals with

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Speaker 5: international companies, bringing in an international capital. Chavez closes that

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Speaker 5: door and demands that all companies operating in Venezuela give

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Speaker 5: Peavesa a sixty percent share. He demands much higher royalties,

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Speaker 5: pulling much more money out of the existing deals, and

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Speaker 5: as a result, production starts to fall because suddenly the

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Speaker 5: investment is drying up. International firms aren't as interested in

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Speaker 5: operating in Venezuela. They're pulling back. In the meantime, Petavesa

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Speaker 5: is turning from a pretty well run oil company into

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Speaker 5: basically a piggybank for Chavez and his government. When it

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Speaker 5: turns over to Maduro, it gets even worse. There's more

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Speaker 5: mint management, more corruption. Meanwhile, Venezuela's oil fields, which are

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Speaker 5: tricky to manage given the nature of the crude, the

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Speaker 5: technical problems that you encounter, the industry falls into disrepair.

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Speaker 5: In the two thousands, the price collapses. The oil price

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Speaker 5: collapses in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen. This coincides with lots

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Speaker 5: of protests against the Maduro government, street uprisings, violent repression.

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Speaker 5: Moduro is cracking down and Venezuela oil production just tanks,

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Speaker 5: and at the same time, the US is putting sanctions

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Speaker 5: on Venezuela. Considerable sanctions in connection to Moduro's repression. So

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Speaker 5: all of this coalesces into a story that has its peaks,

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Speaker 5: that has its valleys. But when we get to twenty

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Speaker 5: twenty five, Venezuela is sitting on this giant oil industry

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Speaker 5: that has fallen into disrepair. It's producing a little bit

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Speaker 5: less than a million barrels a day. It ostensibly has

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Speaker 5: this massive reserve of crude oil that American companies actually

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Speaker 5: have a lot of experience with dealing with Chevron, Exxon,

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Speaker 5: the oil services companies, smaller US midcaps, all of them

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Speaker 5: have been involved or many of them have been involved

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Speaker 5: in Venezuela over the Last Tree, So they know what's

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Speaker 5: at stake down there, but they also know the risks,

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Speaker 5: the costs, and I think they're going to be very

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Speaker 5: wary of getting involved again, particularly as the situation remains

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Speaker 5: so uncertain.

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Speaker 4: Joe, I'm going to start a rival band called Heavy

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Speaker 4: Sour Crude.

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Speaker 3: It's going to be the complete opposite.

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Speaker 4: I don't know, Pop, No, I don't. I don't really

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Speaker 4: want to do that, but I'm going to think about it.

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Speaker 2: My side project.

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Speaker 3: You could be in it, Yeah, I could be a

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Speaker 3: spin off. Heavy Voice by the way, Thank you. I

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Speaker 3: really don't as you do.

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Speaker 2: I've done karaoke with you several times, a very good voice.

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Speaker 4: Okay, off topic, Greg, Okay, here's a basic question. Given

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Speaker 4: all the risks involved in Venezuela, and I remember my

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Speaker 4: husband actually went to Venezuela once when he was a teenager,

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Speaker 4: and the stories he told me were a little bit

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Speaker 4: hair raising, including as soon as he landed, someone tried

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Speaker 4: to steal his bag. And then he remembers going to

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Speaker 4: a movie theater and they were selling life insurance alongside

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Speaker 4: the ticket to the movie theater. Again, all anecdotal. I

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Speaker 4: can't exactly vouch for those, but given the risks of

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Speaker 4: operating in Venezuela and the fact that you do have

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Speaker 4: this heavy sour crud, that's difficult to refine. One question

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Speaker 4: I always wondered, why is Chevron even still there?

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Speaker 5: So I'll start by saying that the oil industry, it

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Speaker 5: has a pretty expansive approach to time. Things take a

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Speaker 5: long time. When you discover a field, when it's in

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Speaker 5: greenfield stage where you drill test wells, where you expand

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Speaker 5: and explore how big the reserve is. From that point

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Speaker 5: to actually producing oil and commercial quantities, it can be

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Speaker 5: a decade plus, particularly if it's maybe like an offshore

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Speaker 5: field like in Gayana or elsewhere. Then if you're a big,

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Speaker 5: relatively integrated, vertically integrated international oil company, you're going to

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Speaker 5: have places that you want to send that crew. You're

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Speaker 5: going to have refineries and downstream assets that you're going

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Speaker 5: to send the crew too. And when it comes to

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Speaker 5: heavy sour from Venezuela or from Canada, refineries need to

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Speaker 5: be built and optimized to take that crude because otherwise

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Speaker 5: it's not going to be efficient. Your refinery utilization isn't

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Speaker 5: going to be where you want it to be, your

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Speaker 5: margins are going to be tighter. So Chevron spent a

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Speaker 5: long time developing their position in Venezuela, which from various

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Speaker 5: points of view does go back I think to the

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Speaker 5: nineteen forties is where Chevron first began to expand its

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Speaker 5: operations in the western base in the Marichivo basin. They've

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Speaker 5: built refineries in the US Gulf Coast that are optimized

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Speaker 5: to take Venezuelan crude. So the cost, the sunken cost

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Speaker 5: for them is considerable. And that's where it kind of

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Speaker 5: always comes down to, right, other IOCs were willing to

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Speaker 5: pull out of Venezuela, cut their losses go elsewhere. Chevron wasn't.

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Speaker 5: And part of that was due to how much money

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Speaker 5: they had spent. Part of that was due to their

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Speaker 5: success at convincing the US government to allow them to

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Speaker 5: remain right, granting them sanctions waivers, granting them special licenses

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Speaker 5: to continue to operate. At the same time, they were

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Speaker 5: able to leverage their position with the Venezuelan governments and say,

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Speaker 5: you need us, you need us to stay because at

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Speaker 5: some point things are going to get better and you

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Speaker 5: are going to get increased international interest and investments, and

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Speaker 5: we were here first, and you know, we want to

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Speaker 5: maintain this privileged position. So all of that has combined

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Speaker 5: to keep Chevron in Venezuela when other companies were willing

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Speaker 5: to pull back. And there's already been i think a

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Speaker 5: response from Chevron following the ADUA operation. They're talking about

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Speaker 5: sending their teams back in, They're talking about expanding their

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Speaker 5: profile there. They're still very conscious of the security risks

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Speaker 5: and the risks to personnel that exist, but they want

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Speaker 5: to hold on to what they have and they want

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Speaker 5: to expand it. And you know, considering the costs. Putting

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Speaker 5: that to one side, Venezuela is still geographically a very

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Speaker 5: attractive place to operate if you have lots of US

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Speaker 5: downstream assets. If you have refineries in the Gulf coast

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Speaker 5: and you want to get heavy sour crud to them,

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Speaker 5: Venezuela is a great place to get that crud.

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Speaker 2: Well, give us your read on the political situation, I guess,

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Speaker 2: because I don't know exactly what the sort of political

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Speaker 2: science definition of the term regime change is. We went

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Speaker 2: in and took out the president, but the party it

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Speaker 2: looks like, at least for now, his vice president, Elsie Rodriguez,

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Speaker 2: has assumed at least on an interim based as the presidency,

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Speaker 2: there's no I mean, I thought it was really remarkable

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Speaker 2: Trump didn't events sort of like make a nod to like, oh,

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Speaker 2: the democratically elected leader in exile or whatever. And yet

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Speaker 2: the administration seems cool with like his people still being there,

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Speaker 2: and as you just mentioned, the company is like, all right,

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Speaker 2: we're already ready to send people back in to get

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Speaker 2: back to work. I assume everything is so fluid, I suppose,

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Speaker 2: But what's your read on like this sort of short

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Speaker 2: to medium political situation now in Venezuelz.

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Speaker 5: So I think it's become very clear that from the

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Speaker 5: US point of view, getting Maduro out was the goal,

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Speaker 5: overtaking the government, knocking the government down, having it replaced

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Speaker 5: by a completely new power apparatus, completely new regime, bringing

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Speaker 5: in the opposition, the democratic opposition that I don't think

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Speaker 5: was ever on the cards. This was about removing Maduro.

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Speaker 5: And I think you could make the argument that some

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Speaker 5: of it was personal for President Trump. He didn't like Maduro.

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Speaker 5: Maduro had been driving a hard bargain because they've been

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Speaker 5: negotiating for months about what the US can get from

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Speaker 5: Venezuela and what kinds of concessions that Madurea could offer,

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Speaker 5: and Trump apparently lost his patients and decided to do

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Speaker 5: something pretty risky. But it turns out was very successful.

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Speaker 5: The government that Maduro led, which incidentally he inherited from Hugosheves,

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Speaker 5: is still there. It's led by Delsi Rodriguez and others.

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Speaker 5: It still controls the military, it still manages most of

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Speaker 5: the country. Parts of the country are slightly out of

403
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Speaker 5: its control on our run by essentially drug cartels and

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Speaker 5: militias further inland, but the capital, the major cities, the

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Speaker 5: oil fields are still under control of the government that

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Speaker 5: used to be led by Maduro. What happens next, I

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Speaker 5: think depends on what kind of modus vivendi has reached

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Speaker 5: between Washington and Caracas, and some of that comes down

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Speaker 5: to what it is that Trump actually wants out of this.

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Speaker 5: I think the first goal was demonstrating US power, and

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Speaker 5: I think they've done that, signaling to the rest of

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Speaker 5: the worlds, but particularly the Western hemisphere, that the US

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Speaker 5: is now willing to use its power much more assertively

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Speaker 5: and aggressively than it has in the past. But that's

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Speaker 5: not much. What else could the US gain from having

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Speaker 5: done this, And obviously now it's all talk about gaining

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Speaker 5: access to the oil reserves and bringing in US companies,

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Speaker 5: but that's going to be very, very difficult to do,

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Speaker 5: so I think in the short term, the first thing

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Speaker 5: that Caracas is going to want to see from the

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Speaker 5: US is lifting the oil blockade and allowing tankers to move.

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Speaker 5: Most of those tankers are going to want to go

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Speaker 5: to China because that's who's been taking most of Venezuela

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Speaker 5: and oil. That might not be too difficult for Trump

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Speaker 5: to accept because Trump also wants to reach to Vendi

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Speaker 5: with Fijing. He wants to have a better relationship with Jujuenping.

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Speaker 5: That's also something that the administration has been trying to prioritize.

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Speaker 5: But this political situation in Venezuela absent Maduro doesn't appear

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Speaker 5: to have changed at all. The regime is still there.

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Speaker 5: It's not regime change. It isn't even regime decapitation, because

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Speaker 5: Maduro was replaceable and they filled his shoes with somebody else,

432
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 5: and the administration seems perfectly fine with that.

433
00:22:27,119 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 4: What kind of chatter are you actually hearing from the

434
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:33,239
Speaker 4: oil major setting Chevron aside? What would it take to

435
00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 4: get like an exon, who I understand is still owed

436
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:40,920
Speaker 4: money by the Venezuelan government back into the country.

437
00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 3: What are they looking for?

438
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 2: So?

439
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:44,479
Speaker 5: I think you can think of it in stages. So

440
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 5: the first would be lifting the blockade. They would have

441
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 5: to see that, they would have to see the US

442
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,080
Speaker 5: saying publicly Venezuela can export oil again, because no one's

443
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:53,440
Speaker 5: going to want to go in and spend money in

444
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 5: Venezuela if they can't be guaranteed access to foreign markets.

445
00:22:57,400 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 1: Right.

446
00:22:58,119 --> 00:23:00,119
Speaker 5: I think the US has been trying to signal that

447
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 5: the blockade is about stopping sanctioned tankers, but it's been

448
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 5: indiscriminate in the sense that it hasn't been specifically connected

449
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:10,400
Speaker 5: to what the US is clearly trying to do in Venezuela,

450
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 5: which is remove Maduro and exert more pressure on the government.

451
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 5: So the blockade would have to be lifted, and then

452
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 5: sanctions would have to be lifted. Right, Venezuela remains under

453
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 5: heavy sanction, the Maduro government remains under sanction, and international

454
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:25,399
Speaker 5: oil companies, Western companies aren't going to want to go

455
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:28,440
Speaker 5: into a country where they're exposed to sanctions risk. They're

456
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:30,000
Speaker 5: just not going to be interested. Even if the price

457
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:32,200
Speaker 5: were to go up, And even if the numbers started

458
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 5: to make a little bit more sense, that's still too

459
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 5: great of a risk to take on at this time.

460
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 5: The price coming up would also have to happen. Yeah, Right,

461
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 5: the current market condition just doesn't justify spending billions of

462
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,639
Speaker 5: dollars developing fields. When the price is at sixty dollars barrel,

463
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 5: it's likely to fall even more in the first half

464
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:50,640
Speaker 5: of this year.

465
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you look at like the new rig chart, right,

466
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 4: it's going down even in the US at sixty dollars

467
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,160
Speaker 4: a barrel. I can't imagine that people are like, well,

468
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 4: now we'll just open some in Venezuela.

469
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 5: Exactly, and yeah, compared to I mean again, we bring

470
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 5: it up a couple of times, but Gayana next door

471
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 5: has been a tremendously profitable place for Exxon to operate.

472
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 5: The US Onshore is still very attractive. It's safe. You're

473
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 5: not going to have Delta force coming in and pulling

474
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 5: off covert operations in the Permian or you know, in

475
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 5: North Dakota. You know, no one's going to have to

476
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 5: worry about that. So if you've got capital and you

477
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 5: want to find somewhere to invest it, there are better

478
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 5: places to do so than in Venezuela. Add to all that,

479
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 5: you know, the infrastructural problems, the technical problems, the heavy

480
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:37,640
Speaker 5: sour being. It needs to go through upgraders, it needs

481
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 5: to be passed through diluents, It needs to be treated

482
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 5: in a certain way for it even to be viable. Right,

483
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 5: there's a lot of money and a lot of time

484
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:46,919
Speaker 5: and a lot of effort that would have to go

485
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 5: in on top of all the geopolitical risks and the

486
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 5: uncertainty and the market conditions.

487
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 2: Talk to us more though about Guyana, because the first

488
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 2: time we had you on, I think that's what we

489
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:58,919
Speaker 2: talked about, and how much oil they have there. But

490
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,439
Speaker 2: I know that the vent and the government had claimed at

491
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,119
Speaker 2: least some are part or all of their oil was

492
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 2: actually there. Was there ever any legitimacy to this. Tell

493
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 2: us about the backstory there and whether this changes anything

494
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 2: with that.

495
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 5: Well, I think you know, upshot is we're probably not

496
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 5: going to hear anymore from Venezuela about threatening Guayana. Given

497
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 5: the tenuous position of the Delsa Rodriguez government if it lasts,

498
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 5: I think they're going to want to make friends rather

499
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 5: than enemies. Even though there was some pretty boisterous rhetoric initially,

500
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 5: now the attitude seems to be much more we want

501
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 5: to work with the US. We want sanctions really if

502
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 5: we want to lift the blockade. Pulling back from threatening

503
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 5: Gayana is going to be a part of that. The

504
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 5: historical claim, you know, South America territorial disputes are actually

505
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 5: pretty wide ranging. Everybody seems to have a claim on

506
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 5: everybody else if they want to dredge them up, which

507
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 5: the Motheroral government decided to do last year. And the

508
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 5: year before. I don't think anybody took them seriously. Gayana

509
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:54,719
Speaker 5: is not in a position to defend itself unfortunately, it's

510
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 5: very small country. But at the same time, I think

511
00:25:57,560 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 5: they were confident that the US would back them up.

512
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:04,440
Speaker 5: China is also involved in the Guyana offshore developments through

513
00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 5: Chinese national oil companies. They hold a minority share, And

514
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 5: at the same time, Brazil was willing to back up

515
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 5: Guyana and was pushing back very hard on Venezuela when

516
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 5: Madua was making those claims. So the territorial claim is historical,

517
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 5: but there's not a whole lot to it. I don't

518
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 5: think now that Madua is gone, I don't think we're

519
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 5: going to hear much more about it, but it's still

520
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 5: going to sort of float in the ether. The other

521
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 5: point that I would make is, you know, the market,

522
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 5: as you noted, didn't care too much when this happened, right,

523
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 5: Oil prices didn't really change the whole attitude to this

524
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:37,719
Speaker 5: drama with the blockade and everything like, it hasn't really

525
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 5: affected prices. Part of that is because there really wasn't

526
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 5: a sense that there was much risk to other sources.

527
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 5: But Guyana is right there and were things to get

528
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 5: really bad in Venezuela internal instability, continuation of the blockade,

529
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 5: the US could threaten to seize assets if it wanted

530
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 5: to exert even more leverage over Caracas. That would increase

531
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 5: the risk of escalation to effect neighboring oil producing entries,

532
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:01,880
Speaker 5: with Guiana being first on the list.

533
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 4: Can I ask a very basic question, which is, given

534
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 4: all the hurdles that we've talked about to developing Venezuela's

535
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 4: oil industry and the vast amounts of capital and time

536
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 4: that this will seem to need to take, is this

537
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 4: really about oil?

538
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 5: I don't think so, but I think for the president

539
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 5: it might be explain Yeah, So President Donald Trump does

540
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 5: seem to think about oil a lot. He talks about

541
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 5: it a lot and always has done. I mean this

542
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 5: is you can go back and see his public record.

543
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 5: He's someone who's been in the public eye for decades,

544
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 5: and he talks about gasoline and oil quite a lot.

545
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 5: It seems to be quite central to his view of

546
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 5: the world, the global economy and domestic politics. And I

547
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,959
Speaker 5: think to some extent his viewpoint is kind of locked

548
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 5: in the nineteen eighties, maybe the early nineteen nineties. He

549
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:59,360
Speaker 5: sees oil as being sensitive to geopolitical action. He sees

550
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 5: it as being a real source that is coveted that

551
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 5: is important to have in large quantities, and he sees

552
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 5: the price as being crucial. You have to keep the

553
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 5: price of oil low, so you need as much oil

554
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 5: on the market as you can so that gasoline prices

555
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 5: don't go up. That view is a little outdated at

556
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 5: this point, particularly from the point of view of the

557
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 5: United States. The US is now the world's largest oil producer.

558
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 5: It produces more oil than any nation has done in history,

559
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,640
Speaker 5: and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

560
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 5: The US doesn't import nearly as much crude as it

561
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 5: used to. Also, most of its crude imports now come

562
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 5: from relatively safe places, Canada being first among them. Putting

563
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 5: aside any risk of disruption of the US Canada bilateral relationship,

564
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 5: the US can get a lot of it's crewed from

565
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 5: very safe, secure places. It doesn't need oil from Venezuela,

566
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 5: and quite frankly, neither does anybody else. There's quite a

567
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 5: lot of supply slashing around. There's available supply from other

568
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 5: sources that are cheaper, that are safer, that are more

569
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 5: competitive so framing this as a movie move to seize

570
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 5: oil has always been a little bit hard for me

571
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 5: to accept, except from the point of view of the

572
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 5: president specifically, what does the US want the official mind

573
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 5: of the United States right as a policy making bureaucracy,

574
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 5: as a great power. I think this was first and

575
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 5: foremost about demonstrating US primacy in the Western hemisphere. I

576
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 5: do think there is a brain trust now that sees

577
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 5: a resurgent Monroe doctrine or Donro doctrine, whatever you want

578
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 5: to call it, as being a priority. You know that

579
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 5: the US should shift its viewpoint away from places like

580
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 5: Europe in the Middle East and should concentrate its attention

581
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 5: on the Western hemisphere. And doing this putting a lot

582
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 5: of pressure on a state that has been a US adversary,

583
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 5: Putting aside the fact that it's an oil producer. You know,

584
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 5: Venezuela has been kind of anti US for a long time.

585
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 5: Putting a lot of pressure on this state, Erecting an

586
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 5: oil blockade, putting a bounty on the head of its president,

587
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 5: and then flying in Delta force to kidnap the president,

588
00:29:57,920 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 5: take him out and put him on trial in the

589
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 5: US sends a very strong signal to everyone that the

590
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 5: US is now going to be exercising its primacy in

591
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 5: a much more aggressive way. And I think for Trump,

592
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 5: I think there's an allure in making this about you know, materials,

593
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 5: and making it about energy and making it about energy security.

594
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 5: But at the end of the day, as we've been saying,

595
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 5: I don't think companies are going to get interested or

596
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 5: involved anytime soon, and gasoline prices are going to remain

597
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 5: low for reasons that have nothing to do with what

598
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 5: the US is doing.

599
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 2: With Eric Levitz, who writes for Vox, had a good

600
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 2: tweets like, when we were younger, you know, we do

601
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 2: these wars and they would say this is about democracy,

602
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 2: and people say, no, there's really about oil. This is

603
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 2: like the first time we're something like this is about oil.

604
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 2: It's like, actually, we don't really believe you. This is

605
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 2: about like someone It's very surreal as a you know,

606
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 2: you work for a geopolitical analyst shop, what is the

607
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 2: thinking on Greenland now in the wake of this, because like,

608
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 2: what if there's one thing that the events of the

609
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 2: past week have shown is that extraordinary unilateral actions of

610
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 2: any sort suddenly on the table. And so look if

611
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 2: we could just go in and snatch a foreign leader.

612
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 2: Then who knows, maybe one day we land over Greenland

613
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 2: and say this is all ours. Do you have like

614
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 2: odds of any sort of Greenland event happening in twenty

615
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 2: twenty six that would shock us in maybe a different era.

616
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 5: I don't think I have personal odds on it. I

617
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 5: will say, you know that now that the US has

618
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 5: done this, everybody is thinking about what Trump might do next. Yeah,

619
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 5: and that gives the US more leverage than it had

620
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 5: a week ago. That puts the administration in a position

621
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 5: to say, like, maybe we will do something with Cuba,

622
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 5: maybe we will do something with Columbia. Maybe we will

623
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 5: push the Danes to give us more access to Greenland,

624
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 5: to give us more to allow us to erect more bases.

625
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 5: Or we could just annex Greenland directly. You know, see

626
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 5: what you're gonna do about that? I think now that

627
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 5: there's so much uncertainty about how the US is going

628
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 5: to use its power, yeah, that creates space for the

629
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 5: US to make all kinds of new demands and get

630
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 5: new concessions, even if you know, actually annex in Greenland

631
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 5: is really not on the cards. You know, it's not.

632
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 5: I don't think it's something that the administration wants to do,

633
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 5: but it likes to threaten it.

634
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, the official like TikTok of how this all went down,

635
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 2: as far as I know, like hasn't really been reported anywhere.

636
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 2: But it's hard to observe a story in which you

637
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 2: snatch a foreign leader without suffering any casualties of your

638
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 2: own and not assume that there were quite a few

639
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 2: people on the inside that knew this was coming, that

640
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 2: had de facto flipped, et cetera. Every leader in our

641
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 2: neighborhood who has some sort of tension with Trump must

642
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 2: be terrified. Like presumably they're all paranoid about who in

643
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 2: their inner circle is really with them.

644
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 5: I think they have to be. I also think there's

645
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 5: a kind of an underreported element here, an underreported story,

646
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 5: And that's the technological side of it. The US didn't

647
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 5: just send in special operations teams and didn't just liaise

648
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 5: with insiders within the Maduro government to facilitate his removal,

649
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 5: although they almost certainly did. There almost certainly were members

650
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 5: of Madual's inner circle who collaborated and facilitated this removal.

651
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 5: US aircraft jammed Venezuelan communications Venezuelan air defenses were either

652
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 5: destroyed preemptively by US aircraft or they were knocked out

653
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 5: through cyber means. The US reportedly used suicide drones for

654
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 5: the first time, which is something we're going to hear

655
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 5: more about because this is an administration that's interested in

656
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 5: using drones more aggressively. Trump bragged that they knocked power

657
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 5: out in Caracas using cyber tool. I mean, it's not

658
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 5: just the intent that the administration has, it's the capabilities

659
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 5: right the US. We always talk about the US being

660
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 5: a global superpower. It is. It's one of the only

661
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 5: countries in the world that can do this, and if

662
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 5: it wants to start doing it more, it's a risk

663
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 5: that states around the world are going to have to

664
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 5: take into consideration. There's also the element of what we

665
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 5: don't know. We don't know all the capabilities that the

666
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 5: US military has at its disposal, be it cyber, be

667
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 5: it asymmetric, be it kinetic operations. Nobody really we still

668
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 5: don't have a fully formed picture of what the F

669
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 5: thirty five can do against older generations of air defenses,

670
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 5: older generations of aircraft. This opens up the aperture of

671
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 5: what twenty first century warfare looks like and that's creating

672
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 5: even more uncertainty and even more concern.

673
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,479
Speaker 4: Days into the new year and we're already talking about

674
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 4: suicide drones.

675
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,359
Speaker 2: Joe, Yeah, I know it's gonna be in the same year.

676
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 4: I realized one thing we haven't mentioned in this entire conversation,

677
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 4: I think, and that's probably a sign of the times,

678
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 4: is we haven't talked about OPEC at all. This was

679
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 4: the other thing that happened over the weekend was there

680
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 4: was an OPEK meeting where they talked about pausing or

681
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 4: continuing to pause their production quotas because of the low

682
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 4: oil price. Does OPEK matter anymore? And have you gotten

683
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 4: any sense of what the major OPEK players are actually

684
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 4: thinking about this Venezuela action.

685
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 5: Well, first, I would say, you know, Venezuela is a

686
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 5: marginal member of OPEK at this point, given how low

687
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 5: its production has fallen. It's excused from production cuts and

688
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 5: production quotas because it's under sanction. Incidentally, Iran is in

689
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 5: the same position as is Libya. Venezuela doesn't produce very much. Really,

690
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 5: OPEK is the GCC plus Russia at this point, through

691
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 5: the OPEC plus alliance. Those are really the members that matter,

692
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 5: and they do matter. I mean what OPEK has done

693
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 5: over the last year progressively pulling back production cuts, putting

694
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 5: more crude on the market, signaling that they're going to

695
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 5: produce more even with prices falling. That's a pretty deliberate strategy,

696
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 5: coming after years of trying to manage markets by cutting production.

697
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,080
Speaker 5: They've now signaled that they're okay with prices falling as

698
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 5: long as they're able to retake market share and also

699
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 5: reduce the amount of spare capacity that's hanging over. I mean,

700
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four, there was maybe three, maybe four

701
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 5: million barrels of spare capacity that was just hanging over

702
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 5: the market, and that's going to put a pretty firm

703
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,319
Speaker 5: ceiling on prices when you have that much spare crew

704
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 5: just lying on the sidelines. OPEK is trying to unwind

705
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 5: that they're comfortable with prices falling. I think in twenty

706
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 5: twenty six, maybe as low as you know, in the

707
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 5: fifties per barrel for Brent. It's already in the fifties

708
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 5: here in the US the WTI price. But OPEK is

709
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 5: looking ahead. They're looking into twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight,

710
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 5: and they reckon that by that point they'll be coming

711
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 5: out in a stronger market position. They'll have squeezed their competitors,

712
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 5: including their competitors in the US, and they'll have a

713
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 5: bigger chunk of the market and less spare capacity that

714
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 5: will put a ceiling on prices. And they reckon, you know,

715
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 5: we'll have fifty dollars CRUD in twenty twenty six, and

716
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 5: then eighty, maybe even ninety dollars CRUD twenty twenty eight,

717
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 5: twenty twenty nine, twenty thirty. Needless to say, they don't

718
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,799
Speaker 5: see demand peaking anytime soon. They reckon the market's going

719
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 5: to continue to grow, maybe a little bit more slowly

720
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 5: than it has in the past, but it's not going

721
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 5: to start declining due to the energy transition or any

722
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 5: other factor. That's the bet that Opek is making.

723
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 2: So does this event mean anything significant to some of

724
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 2: Venezuela's or Maduro's friends. You know, you're on China, Russia,

725
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 2: et cetera. Like obviously it seems like to you know, China,

726
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 2: they can get oil from other places, et cetera. But like,

727
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,399
Speaker 2: is there any real significance to that or were they

728
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 2: just sort of like sort of ideological friends, are there

729
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 2: any real steaks for them?

730
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 5: So I'll start with the Chinese. And one thing that

731
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 5: got buried a little bit was that there was a

732
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,280
Speaker 5: Chinese delegation in Caracas.

733
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 2: When the raid that's been so crazy for them.

734
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 5: And you know, if you're China, if you're Jijingping, and

735
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 5: you are in the midst of a sort of soft

736
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 5: reprochement with the United States, right Trump is going to

737
00:37:57,200 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 5: go to China g They're going to meet in twenty

738
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,439
Speaker 5: two the Sixers going to be sideline meetings. They're trying

739
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 5: to manage their relationship. Trump wants a deal and all

740
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 5: of that. They don't want a confrontation. If you're in

741
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 5: that position and you sent a delegation to Venezuela and

742
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 5: then suddenly the US flies in Delta force and kidnaps

743
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 5: the president and they don't tell you beforehand, that's going

744
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 5: to be alarming. The Chinese put out a statement where

745
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 5: they expressed their alarm in very explicit terms regarding this action.

746
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 5: I don't think it was necessarily that they love Maduro

747
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 5: and they were mad that the US came in and

748
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 5: took them. I think they were more mad that the

749
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 5: US didn't tell them in advance that this was going

750
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 5: to happen. But on the oil side, yeah, China can

751
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 5: get their crew from other sources, including Iran. You know

752
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 5: as Joe, you probably will know Tracy as well. I

753
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 5: also cover Iran for Injure Group, So I spent a

754
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 5: lot of time thinking about Iran. And the Iranians are

755
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 5: terrified right now. They're extremely paranoid that the US because

756
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 5: Trump's also been tweeting about the protests that are happening.

757
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 5: He's been saying, you know, the US is going to

758
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 5: get involved. The Iranians have been very worried that these

759
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,959
Speaker 5: Raelis are going to bomb them again. They're extremely concer

760
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 5: learned about that their economy is doing very poorly. They're

761
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 5: extremely worried that after doing Maduro, the US is going

762
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 5: to turn on them. So they're signaling that they could

763
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 5: do something. Their warning that they could attack preemptively. Tensions

764
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 5: are rising in that quarter. On Russia, I don't think

765
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 5: Putin is concerned. Venezuela was kind of a soft partner

766
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:24,879
Speaker 5: for Russia. They had dealings, they had relations. There has

767
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 5: been I think a certain amount of outreach from Moscow

768
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 5: to Caracas towards the Delce Rodriguez government, so they want

769
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 5: to retain their relationship there. But I don't think they're

770
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 5: shedding many tears about Maduro being swept away. I also

771
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 5: don't think Putin is worried that the US is going

772
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 5: to try to do the same to him.

773
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 4: Can you put a sort of percentage likelihood on some

774
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 4: sort of US action on around in the next I

775
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 4: don't know month, Let's say.

776
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 5: I would say low in the next month, below fifty

777
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 5: percent public action. I don't think the US is going

778
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 5: to start bombing Iran or sending troops in or anything

779
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 5: like that for a couple of reasons. One, I don't

780
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 5: think Trump is interested in getting that directly involved. I

781
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 5: think he threatens it, but I think there's still a

782
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 5: wariness of putting boots on the ground anywhere. The protests

783
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 5: in Iran are very violent. They are a clear demonstration

784
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 5: of internal dissatisfaction and descent towards the government. They're also

785
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 5: fairly small, and they've triggered a quite active response from

786
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 5: Iran's police and internal security services. So it's not in

787
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 5: the realm of say, like Egypt in the Arab Spring,

788
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 5: where you had hundreds of thousands of protesters. You know,

789
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 5: coming out putting huge amount of pressure on a government

790
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 5: and also you know, turning the military right. The Egyptian

791
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 5: military switched asides, We're not even close to that in Iran,

792
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 5: and I don't think Trump wants to get pulled into

793
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 5: a potential quagmire. Doing stuff covertly is another matter, and

794
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 5: that's where the Israelis really come into play. Israel has

795
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 5: a lot of capabilities inside Iran, more so than the US.

796
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 5: They're capable of doing a lot. At the same time,

797
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:58,839
Speaker 5: the Israelis have retained a posture where they say, if

798
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 5: Iran tries to rebuild their nuclear program and if they

799
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 5: continue to build missiles, we will strike. We will take

800
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 5: action because those are the concerns that we have. And

801
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 5: the Iranians are continuing to build missiles, and they are

802
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 5: now today January sixth, threatening to attack preemptively if the

803
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 5: pressure continues to build. The tensions are getting very very

804
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 5: high there. I don't think the US is going to

805
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 5: get directly involved, but the possibility of more Israeli action

806
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 5: in the next month is certainly there, and I would

807
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 5: say almost certainly in the first half of twenty twenty six.

808
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,400
Speaker 5: I think we're going to see new strikes by Israel

809
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 5: on Iran.

810
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 2: Just since we're throwing out random countries and sort of

811
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,919
Speaker 2: testing your tell us about Cuba, what does this mean

812
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:37,400
Speaker 2: for Cuba?

813
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 5: So I think I think Cuba is very much on

814
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 5: the menu, so to speak. I think we're going to

815
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 5: hear more about Cuba now that they have done what

816
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 5: they want to do in Venezuela. Obviously Secretary of Saint

817
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 5: Marco Rubio has a long running interest in, if not

818
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 5: toppling the government in Havana, then putting a great deal

819
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 5: more pressure on Havana. Venezuela was a partner of Cuba.

820
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 5: Venezuela was que this main source of crude oil. So

821
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 5: another element of the US posture towards the new government

822
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 5: of Caracas is going to be to pull them away

823
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 5: from Cuba, to isolate Cuba even more in the Western hemisphere.

824
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 5: I don't think military action is likely in the near

825
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:14,799
Speaker 5: term because they still have a lot of work to

826
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 5: do with Venezuela and moving on very quickly to another

827
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 5: large country is going to be difficult for them. But

828
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 5: I do think it's going to enter into US policy

829
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 5: moving forward.

830
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,399
Speaker 4: Joe, I watched The Godfather too over Christmas and now

831
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 4: I consider myself a Cuban history expert.

832
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 2: I need to rewatch Godfather too. Greg RW thank you

833
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 2: so much. You're early were the perfect guest. I do

834
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 2: feel like we could just throw random questions out about

835
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,640
Speaker 2: anything geopolitics or energy for you and you would have

836
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 2: an answer. So we'll have to have you back on

837
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 2: again soon and just more lightning ground stuff. But really

838
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 2: appreciate you coming on odlines.

839
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me back.

840
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 3: Godfather one or two?

841
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:53,479
Speaker 5: Greg two?

842
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,959
Speaker 3: Oh interesting de Niro, Yeah, de Niro, I got it all.

843
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 2: Right, take care of Greg. Greg is so good. I

844
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 2: love he's so good.

845
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he brings that historical perspective which is great

846
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 4: in which I think you need for something like this,

847
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 4: which isn't just a market story. It's no very much

848
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 4: geopolitical story.

849
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 2: No, it's really you know, there was a quote I

850
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 2: might write about it in the newsletter today. There was

851
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 2: a quote recently from President Trump about rare earth. He's like,

852
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,319
Speaker 2: earths really aren't that rare, which is true, and it's

853
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:34,280
Speaker 2: one of those things that we talk about like people.

854
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 2: I like to say, well, what's rare is the infrastructure

855
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,359
Speaker 2: to refine them and actually get anything commercial with right, right,

856
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 2: that's actually scarce. And I feel like this is the

857
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 2: thing that always gets missed in a lot of these

858
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 2: oil conversations, Like three hundred billion dollars of oil is

859
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 2: totally meaningless if you don't have all the aspects in

860
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 2: place to actually produce it at scale, produce it economically.

861
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 2: And so I'm not surprised. I guess that from the

862
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:03,839
Speaker 2: perspective of like the oil market that tray is day

863
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 2: to day, it seems like at minimum it's going to

864
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,800
Speaker 2: be years before this oil like to the extent that

865
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 2: there's some change actually moves.

866
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:12,359
Speaker 3: The market, right.

867
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 4: And again, I know the oil industry does work on

868
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 4: long time frames, but when you have oil at sixty

869
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 4: dollars a barrel on Brent lower on WTI, it seems

870
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:23,880
Speaker 4: really hard to make the case that, like we should

871
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 4: go in and spend billions in Venezuela when they're not

872
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 4: even starting rigs in the US. The other thing I saw,

873
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 4: you know, the headlines are flying thick and fast on

874
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 4: this particular story, and I guess we should just mention

875
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 4: that we're recording this on January sixth, But you know,

876
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:42,800
Speaker 4: Trump just said that maybe they could use public money

877
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 4: to encourage oil companies to invest in Venezuela US oil companies,

878
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 4: and that seems a hard sell to me as well.

879
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 2: How do you think the guys in Midland are going

880
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 2: to take that? We're going to use public money to

881
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 2: expand supply and depressed prices further?

882
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, hard, so putting it mildly.

883
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:03,959
Speaker 2: By the way, have you watched Landman the show?

884
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,279
Speaker 3: No, but I've heard of No.

885
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:08,399
Speaker 2: It's so good? Really, yeah, I start, It's so good,

886
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 2: you gotta say yeah. It makes me want to do

887
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 2: a lot more episodes about independent oil producers.

888
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 3: I'll watch it.

889
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 2: You gotta watch it.

890
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 3: Okay, shall we leave it there?

891
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 2: Let's leave it there.

892
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:19,280
Speaker 4: This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.

893
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:21,959
Speaker 4: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy.

894
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 2: Alloway and I'm joll Wisenthal. You can follow me at

895
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 2: the Stalwart. Follow our guest Greg Brew, He's at g

896
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 2: Brew twenty four. Follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman,

897
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 2: Erma Dash, Ob Bennett at Dashbot, and Kele Brooks at Kelbrooks.

898
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:36,839
Speaker 2: From our Odd Lots content, go to bloomberg dot com

899
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 2: slash odd Lots for vid daily newsletter. And all of

900
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:41,359
Speaker 2: our episodes, and you can chat about all of these

901
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Speaker 2: topics twenty four to seven in our discord Discord dot

902
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Speaker 2: gg slash.

903
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Speaker 4: Od Lots and if you enjoy odd Lots, If you

904
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 4: like it when we do these oil episodes, then please

905
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Speaker 4: leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

906
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 4: And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can

907
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Speaker 4: listen to all of our episodes absolutely add free. All

908
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Speaker 4: you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on

909
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Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening