Behind the Data

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with my post on joining the advisory board for Texas A&M's Bahr Engineering MBA, where engineering undergraduates add one year in College Station and finish with an MBA. I spent 11 years in higher education, between UT Austin and Caltech, and left academia for the breadth of problems in industry. These students want to work at that same interface between the technical and business worlds. The board also fits something I think about more the further I get into KSG: giving back where I know I can add value. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/on-joining-the-advisory-board-for-texas-ams-bahr-engineering-mba/

From there I get into LNG Canada Phase 2, where Shell and its partners reached final investment decision last week, the subject of Sunday's newsletter insight. It is a useful example of politics colliding with economics, and of the Two Timelines framework I use in my own analysis. The near-term timeline carries acute geopolitical stress and a dissolving trade relationship between the US and Canada. The longer timeline is how LNG markets evolve over decades, and Phase 2 makes the partners' stake in that future larger.

Next I share my LinkedIn poll rerunning a question I asked in June: where will the US rig count end 2026? In June, 86% of voters expected the count to hold or fall. It has since climbed 37 rigs. The open question is how durable the Iran war's price uplift is, and whether it lasts long enough to justify new capital while investors still push for discipline. You can find the poll at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffkrimmel_in-june-i-asked-where-the-us-rig-count-would-activity-7510809801916928000-4Dde

I close with my post on where those rigs are going. The Permian has added 30 rigs since the Iran war began, but Texas is up 35 while New Mexico is down 5, and EOG accounts for most of the New Mexico pullback. I don't read that as structural, but the Permian is not one uniform place, and who is drilling where matters as much as the headline count. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/permian-adds-30-rigs-since-the-iran-war-began-with-texas-gaining-35/

Everything in this episode is in this week's newsletter, free every Sunday. You can sign up at https://foundationsofenergy.com

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with Governor Abbott pausing data center approvals in Texas, the subject of a note in tonight's newsletter. It shows how responsive politicians have become to public backlash, and it adds uncertainty to the prospects and economics of these projects. Pair that political pressure with a rising cost of capital and data centers face real headwinds. That matters well beyond energy: so much of the strength in the US economy is concentrated in AI and data center spending that slowing that train even a little could call the broader economy's progress into question.

From there I get into my Foundations of Energy piece on the proposed US diesel export ban. The logic is easy to follow: take international buyers out of the market and domestic prices should fall. But my piece is about the ways it could backfire. What drew me in is the conflict between short-term political expedience and long-term damage to the industry, a clean case of two timelines running at once. It also comes from the administration the industry celebrated as its friend, which raises the question of what a hostile one might do. You can read it at https://foundationsofenergy.substack.com/p/banning-us-diesel-exports-could-backfire

Next I share my LinkedIn poll on which oilfield services company is next into thermal management, after Baker Hughes closed on Chart Industries and SLB announced its intention to acquire Kelvion. Thermal loads concentrate wherever compute does, and oilfield services has spent decades engineering tools to survive heat downhole. I also go back to 2003, when I did engineering work on a liquid metal heat exchanger at an Austin startup called NanoCoolers. You can vote at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffkrimmel_baker-hughes-bought-chart-slb-is-buying-activity-7508310062130446338-DX5L

I close with a post on US rig counts continuing to climb. With WTI above $90 and breakevens low enough to reliably make money at $60, the price signal is pulling hard against capital discipline. And on top of that, oil and natural gas continue to move in different directions.

Everything in this episode is in this week's newsletter, free every Sunday night. You can sign up at https://foundationsofenergy.com

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with the mental model I finally landed on for what KSG does, three years in. The tagline is turning energy data into clarity, which invites the question: clarity about what. I think of three domains. One, the market, where the work is market dynamics. Two, the business, where it is corporate finance. Three, the interface between them, where it is corporate strategy. The idea came to me on a drive to a meeting with an oilfield services executive. You can read it at https://krimmelsg.com/a-three-part-framework-for-clarity-in-energy-analysis/

From there I get into the LinkedIn poll I'm running on where federal money would actually land if Washington moves on refining. Diesel is at record levels and US refineries are running at 98% utilization, so there is no slack in the system. The politics are clear. The administration needs to be seen responding to cost-of-living pressure ahead of the midterms. What I wanted was the community's read on whether a Defense Production Act push is plausible at all, and where the first barrel would show up. You can vote at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffkrimmel_us-refineries-are-98-utilized-diesel-is-ugcPost-7505695153769070592-O_-_/

Next I cover the post on oil prices and 10-year Treasury yields, both near decade highs. WTI sits at the 97th percentile of the past ten years and the 10-year at the 100th, a combined score of 197 out of 200. The last time we were here was 2022, when oil was higher but the 10-year was only 3.5%. Inflation then ran 9% to 10% against 3% to 3.5% today, so the price level is easier and the cost of money is worse. Voters track the direction of travel with these prices. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/the-price-of-fuel-and-the-price-of-money-are-both-near-decade-highs/

I close with Venezuela, which has reached the point where I'm having a conversation about it pretty much every single day. Each individual seems to share both the excitement and the risk. I'm not meeting blind evangelists, and I'm not meeting people throwing cold water either. The opportunity is massive and so is the risk, and for a sector as adept as any at balancing the two, this one is a different beast.

If you want to get in touch, find me on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected]. You can learn more about my work at https://krimmelsg.com

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with Energy Finance Mastery, my second cohort-based program after Oil & Gas Market Mastery, built for the same audience of mid-career professionals and rising executives. It runs 12 weeks at one hour per week, all virtual, and every session is posted within 24 hours with the recording, transcript, deck, an executive brief, and an audio summary.

From there I get into my push into AI over the past month, specifically Claude Code. Too much of my 15 to 20 years of energy data work went to pulling data by hand into Excel. Now the repositories I built with Claude Code gather the data and refresh a standard chart library, and I spend my time interrogating charts instead of manually building them. It's a big win for my productivity and breadth of coverage.

Next I cover my newest Foundations of Energy research post, on what rising US Treasury yields mean for energy companies' borrowing costs. Most coverage of yields near 20-year highs focuses on politics. I wanted to write a piece that starts with what a Treasury security actually is and traces the line to the financial reality of energy companies. It is up at https://foundationsofenergy.substack.com/p/energy-companies-have-rarely-been

Then I share the LinkedIn poll I'm running on where you would put one extra dollar into the data center power chain, motivated by four real deals: SLB's acquisition of Kelvion, Georgia Power's approval to serve an OpenAI data center, Williams buying Momentum Midstream for its Haynesville position, and Chevron's 20-year deal to power Microsoft directly. You can vote at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffkrimmel_34b-for-data-center-cooling-55b-for-ugcPost-7500660145845276672-BLb6/

I close with a post on ONEOK buying Permian gathering assets from Brazos Midstream. From 2018 to 2022 ONEOK grew organically, with capex far ahead of M&A. Since 2023 that reality has reversed. The story is about midstream consolidation, a strategy pivot with urgency in it, and a novel financing instrument: Apollo's minority equity investment is returns-capped, with no new stock issued. You can read the piece at https://krimmelsg.com/oneok-shifts-from-10-billion-of-organic-capex-to-28-billion-of-ma/

The founding cohort of Energy Finance Mastery kicks off Wednesday, September 16th. You can learn more and grab your spot at https://krimmelsg.com/efm

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with Energy Finance Mastery, the 12-week cohort program I built to teach executive-level finance to energy professionals. It grew out of corporate training work and a steady stream of notes from people whose companies were too small to bring me in, but who wanted the material themselves. The founding cohort kicks off Wednesday, September 16th.

From there I get into a post on six-month total stock returns for the energy companies in the S&P 500, where the refiners are leading. The part I left out of the written version is why I watch total return at all. It is the cleanest read I have on how investors are weighing each segment's prospects against everything happening around the US-Iran war, and reinvesting dividends is what makes upstream, midstream, downstream, and services comparable in the first place.

Next I cover two posts on Venezuela, written back to back off a Wall Street Journal piece on Chevron and Halliburton weighing a more serious move in, and a Financial Times piece on the deal for a US majority stake in 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude. Venezuela generates real emotion, for reasons I understand and think should be respected. I still write about it dispassionately, because there is a reason more has not happened there in decades, and enthusiasm does not erase that risk.

Then I share the results of my LinkedIn poll on the WTI price planners are using for next year's budgets. 80% are planning at $65 or higher, well above where I would have set it myself, and a signal of how enduring people expect these disruptions to be.

I close with the poll I have running now on natural gas flooding into the ERCOT generation queue faster than solar or batteries, and the question underneath it: how much of that gas actually gets built.

The founding cohort of Energy Finance Mastery kicks off Wednesday, September 16th. You can learn more and grab your spot at https://krimmelsg.com/efm

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

Before getting into this week's posts, a quick note: I'm running a market research project on downhole inspection solutions, specifically acoustic devices used for perforation erosion evaluation and well integrity checks. If you work with these tools, I'd love a 15-minute conversation. Reach out on LinkedIn or at [email protected].

I open with a new LinkedIn poll asking which upstream producer steps into power supply next, prompted by Chevron's 20-year deal to deliver power directly to a Microsoft data center with no utility in between.

From there I cover the results of last week's poll on where incremental oil and gas exploration spend will land. Latin America won by a wide margin, likely reflecting the momentum building around Guyana, Vaca Muerta, and offshore Brazil.

Next I get into my latest paid research post at Foundations of Energy on where US LNG is actually flowing, driven by two questions: how much of it Europe is really absorbing, and what happens to Qatari LNG capacity as facilities recover from war damage.

I close with a post on how AI changes the economy from the consumption side rather than the production side. We end up swapping the demand for housing and food that comes from adding people for the demand for electricity, construction, and water that comes from adding AI.

If you want to get in touch, find me on LinkedIn. My DMs are open. You can also visit krimmelsg.com to learn more about my work.

And if you're interested in my energy community and cohort-based programs, visit krimmelsg.com/energy-boardroom.

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with two LinkedIn polls on WTI and rig counts. The previous poll asked where WTI closes 2026. The plurality landed on $85–$95, above the forward strip at the time, which I read as the market expecting more disruption than the consensus suggests. From there I get into the new poll on where US rig counts will be in December, and the competing explanations for what's been driving recent rig count moves.

From there I turn to why I think Shell's CEO is right about structurally higher oil prices. The immediate hook is his public comments on the medium-term price outlook, but what actually grabbed me was the broader argument: the easiest hydrocarbons have been found and produced, capital discipline is crowding out R&D investment, and the industry isn't pursuing the technology innovation that historically reset the cost curve downward.

I close with the newsletter-exclusive note I wrote Sunday on Iran's new fee structure for the Strait of Hormuz. Most of the reporting has focused on the ongoing diplomatic friction, but the text of the Memorandum of Understanding is explicit: vessel flows are toll-free for 60 days only, with an administrative structure to follow. I walk through what that language signals and what it means for the long-term risk calculus around one of the world's most important oil chokepoints.

To learn more about me and my energy research, visit krimmelsg.com. 

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with how oil markets have been playing "slaps" with the US-Iran peace deal, with prices grinding lower in anticipation of an agreement, never blowing out to the upside, and now sitting at around $80 with a $15 war premium still baked in. I walk through why the 60-day nuclear negotiation window makes a straight-line normalization back to pre-war prices an unlikely outcome.

From there I get into a LinkedIn poll I ran asking where WTI will average in December 2026, and why the responses matter more than a casual curiosity. The people voting are executives and planners with real on-the-ground visibility into capital spending decisions.

I close with two pieces: an argument for why oil and gas professionals should build working literacy across upstream, midstream, and downstream regardless of where they sit, and a look at US residential electricity prices rising 10% year-over-year (five times the Fed's target) and what that means for the data center demand story.

If you want to develop executive-level market fluency alongside a cohort of peers taking it as seriously as you are, you can learn more at krimmelsg.com/energy-boardroom.

You can also find me on LinkedIn at https://linkedin.com/in/jeffkrimmel and at https://krimmelsg.com

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with a Foundations of Energy piece on why oil prices aren't a reliable predictor of future rig counts. The simple model you'd want—oil up, rigs up—just doesn't hold when you test it against history, and I walk through why some nuance is unavoidable when the capital decisions you're making today carry return horizons years, even decades, out.

From there I turn to bp ousting its board chairman. The parlor-game version is easy to write, but what caught my attention was the governance angle: the line between governance and management, and why the returns to good governance only grow as energy companies get more complex across power, renewables, nuclear, and geothermal.

Next I share a short clip from our most recent Oil & Gas Market Mastery session on why natural gas prices are so volatile. It's about the interplay of short-term weather, seasonality, and structural forces like electrification, AI and data centers, and LNG exports, all sitting on a supply story muddied by associated gas.

I then get into Eni pulling forward a $4 billion investment in its Baleine project off the Ivory Coast. There's a lot of hand-waving enthusiasm about offshore right now, and this is the kind of tangible, multi-billion-dollar proof point I'd rather anchor to than the talking points.

I close with Microsoft's AI Tour event here in Houston, and the mix of excitement and frustration I feel about the broader AI conversation. So much of it lives at the theoretical level, but the specific demonstrations at the event grounded it in what we can actually do today.

Finally, Oil & Gas Market Mastery is the 12-week program I built to help energy professionals develop executive-level market fluency. If you want to build that fluency alongside a cohort of peers taking it as seriously as you are, you can learn more at https://krimmelsg.com/ogmm

This is Behind the Data, where I take you behind the energy market analysis I'm publishing online.

I open with the research piece I wrote at Foundations of Energy on why the UAE is leaving OPEC now. Most of the commentary I was reading focused on what happens to oil markets after the decision, e.g. how much more the UAE will produce, how Saudi Arabia responds, what instabilities follow. All reasonable questions. But the angle I felt was missing was the causation running the other direction: oil markets had already been changing in ways that made capital discipline the dominant logic, and the UAE was reading those tea leaves. The decision is a consequence of where the market was heading, not the start of the turbulence.

From there I share a clip from the opening session of Oil & Gas Market Mastery's second cohort, where I walk through the first framework I teach: when you see an energy market headline, ask yourself whether it's more about supply or demand. It sounds almost too simple to be useful. But with the volume of headlines we're getting right now (between the Iran war, macro turbulence, and ongoing OPEC+ moves) the two natural responses are to tune out entirely or to try to ingest everything deeply. Neither works. This framework is the 80/20 version: a small amount of rigorous thinking applied consistently builds market fluency without requiring hours of your day.

Next I get into Shell's $16 billion agreement to acquire ARC Resources. The Shell-bp parlor game gets all the oxygen, but Shell-ARC actually happened, and the deal sits at the intersection of three threads I've been working: how energy management teams communicate strategic moves, capital being deployed in the direction of energy security, and the geopolitical repositioning happening between the US and Canada under the current administration. Shell's slide deck and press language tell you a lot about how they want investors to read this and what they're betting on.

I close with my time in Birmingham at the U. S. Steel customer event, where I joined a panel on market dynamics and tubular goods, and got to tour Fairfield Works. I'd never been inside an integrated steel and pipe mill before, and the post was partly a reaction to the sensory experience (the scale of the buildings, the heat off the furnaces, the constant motion) but also a reminder of the existing US industrial footprint and how aggressively capital and innovation are being steered into it. As wells get longer, deeper, and more demanding, the equipment side has to keep pace. Fairfield is one example of how that's happening.

The second cohort of Oil & Gas Market Mastery is underway. You can still jump in and catch up. Learn more at https://krimmelsg.com/ogmm