Bloomberg播客：霍尔木兹海峡危机重塑能源格局与替代方案

Talk to us about. Let's go big broad macro right now as we look at what's going on. Um, where do you see what what's happening today that kind of sticks with us longer term in terms of the trends? Well, I think, uh, for certain the volatility will continue. Uh, whether there's a immediate resolution or not, I think the second order effects that we're seeing in downstream fuel, in naphtha, in LPG, all of the demand issues will continue.

I think geopolitics wise, what doesn't change is the fact that one third of the energy crosses geopolitical lines. So us to China use to Russia. Two thirds of the energy is still traded through, uh, choke points, uh maritime choke points. And 95% of the world lives in a country that is dependent on one imported fuel. None of that changes through the long term. Okay, so I'm just I want to read between the lines here. Choke point, Strait of Hormuz.

Mhm. It's an important fuel. Yep. Which which is, which is either oil or LNG. Okay. So and also what ends up coming as a result of distillation or downstream products from that. That's right. So if you look at for example, Australia is a good example where Australia is an LNG and coal exporter, but they're tight on jet fuel right now. And so that's an example of where you've got a country resource rich but actually quite constrained on the downstream to your point, on distillate.

Okay. Part of it that nothing changes quickly or soon to is the infrastructure is super expensive. And we even talk about like, you know, um, refining the right, you know, changing refineries. You can't do that overnight. It requires investment, it requires time. So changing this infrastructure is pretty difficult. It is. And we just published a report on Friday which is aftershock Strait of Hormuz. And what that looks at is if we were to pull all the levers, which is substitution for oil and gas or new supplies for oil and gas and demand, uh, flexibility, which was amazing.

What's happened the last five months? We can talk about that. If you pull all of those levers over the next 3 or 4 years till 2030, we can make up for 35 to 70% of the shortfall that we're seeing from the Middle East, meeting the 21 million barrels per day of oil, we could make up of, uh, 35 to 70% of that. You mentioned shortfall in the Middle East, and that certainly has been our focus for the last six plus months.

The president, though weighing in earlier on on his social media account, talking about Russia, and this is in regard to to diesel. He said Russia has unfortunately lost control of its diesel oil industry, two to it due to its war with Iran, with Ukraine. Excuse me, a large number of their diesel refineries have been blown up and are at least temporarily out of commission. This ridiculous and never ending war with Ukraine must be ended.

Those are the words of President Trump out earlier today. Untrue. Social. I would imagine he's responding to the idea of six of diesel being at a record high above 650 a gallon right now, just to help us understand the role of Russia and Ukraine with the diesel price increases that we've seen, the Strait of Hormuz and that conflict causing higher diesel prices, like, where does this sort of responsibility lie? Yeah, I think there's two things to think about here.

First is just on the macro scale, the Strait of Hormuz crisis has by far been the largest energy disruption we've seen. It's six times as big as the, uh, Russia, Ukraine crisis in terms of volumes that you see displaced. Wow. So you've got to take that into. And the second thing is certainly refining capacity for Russia has been down. But that's not the only thing that sets the price right. It's it's a global pricing market.

There are many other factors like, uh, for example, just in the Middle East, refining capacity is down. If you look at a diversion of refining capacity in South Korea, Japan, that's also having an effect. So it's there's not a single answer to this on the on the jet fuel side. Where does all this energy fit into all of this. So alternative energy. It's interesting if you do the max view which we've looked at okay. Nuclear included, of course.

Um, renewables in the next few years. Maybe there's a way to get 20%, 30% more renewables or clean energy into the into the mix. But it's not easy. It's expensive. Uh, what do you think about nuclear? The time frames are 5 to 10, 15 years. No, that's another one. You can't just flip this. You can't just flip it. Renewables. You can. But there is policy support that's required. So if you look at the EU, uh, as an example of the last few years, uh, last few months, they have in a reaction State of Hormuz said, we're going to accelerate and build renewables at 100GW per per year.

That's there. That's the target they're they're aiming for. So you need that kind of policy. Top down push. That has to happen with alternative energy. Whom I mean you just you just miss Toby Rice, the CEO of ECT. He was in I don't know if you guys cross paths in the green room or in the elevators on the way. Yeah. Um, but we had a great chat with him about what he sees as barriers to, to more adoption of natural gas here in the US.

And he cited lower prices in the US. He talked about infrastructure and specifically permitting issues, um, that are preventing people in the northeast, in New England from getting cheaper energy. This this winter. Would you agree with him that the biggest challenge has to do with infrastructure in the US for the US? Yes, that is the one of the largest, uh, pieces of of challenges. It's one of the largest challenges.

I mean, certainly when you look at us cost like we're $283 today, right? Uh, in the northeast, when you've got at one one large choke point in the northeast in in the Massachusetts area. Yeah. Then. Yes. Then then we are when we look at power prices as a result of that. You look at, uh, the New York ISO prices, you look at New England ISO prices. It translates into power volatility as well. So that is a big issue on permitting.

By the way, the permitting issue is not just for gas, it's for power plants. It's for data load data center connections. Right. So it is a it is a pretty consistent theme on permitting that we do need to address. Um. National security, energy security go hand in hand. Does that just beg that things are going to be more expensive? It doesn't necessarily have to. Because if you look at the US situation, of course, the US is, uh, has a great endowment.

Right. And what's happened as a result of Strait of Hormuz is we've actually increased we had peak production in April on on oil and we've maintained prices in the US on energy. Now, not every country can do that. I go back to Australia. Right. Exporter at an importer. Uh, you go to places like Pakistan in India, very expensive LPG, China, China and China story is very interesting because they haven't all of the above strategy.

Right. Which what is remarkable about China is they were able to absorb demand by reducing demand or had demand flexibility on the oil and gas side. Yeah. So about 3.5 million barrels a day, they're reduced.