Recorded on October 22, 2025 and September 17, 2025

Episode 143 of the PetroNerds podcast is an exceptionally timely and heavy hitting podcast focusing on oil prices and geopolitical risk.

Trisha Curtis, CEO of PetroNerds, spends time in the introduction of this podcast walking listeners through the recent drop and rebound in oil prices, driven by sanctions placed on Russia. She gets listeners up to speed on geopolitics and oil price dynamics, Ukrainian strikes on Russia, and US China negotiations.

The body of the podcast is the keynote address Trisha Curtis gave in Fort Worth at Whitley Penn’s Fueling the Future conference. She is joined on stage by the moderator of the fireside chat, Haley Mitchell, Senior Audit Manager at Whitley Penn. Haley is PetroNerds podcast listener and she comes prepared with a series of questions for Trisha.

This keynote address covers everything from oil prices and the shale patch to China. Trisha gets into the state of oil prices, US production levels, Russian refineries getting attacked, and the status of the Russian war in Ukraine. She dives into US shale patch nuances, service companies and thin margins and blank space, what $60 oil means for the economy, what is happening with the Fed and inflation and interest rates and continued inflation, and her concerns about goosing inflation with lowering interest rates. Trisha further discusses tariffs and revenue, the US economy, health of the global economy and China’s economy, and she connects it back to oil prices.

She talks about China’s economy, deflation and actual Chinese oil demand, US electricity prices. Europe and their energy prices and commitments to NATO, US natural gas prices, natural gas demand, LNG, and AI. She touches on electricity and power purchase agreements and so called “cheap” wind and solar driving up electricity prices, the role of coal and need for coal in the US, coal as the enabler of natural gas, China’s role in Russia’s war, Chinese stockpiling, understanding markets and risk and oil trading, and nuclear energy.

Trisha closes the keynote with some great questions from the audience on natural gas prices, electricity prices, and holding up US production levels. And she does this all in less than one hour.

Trisha Curtis’ oped in the Daily Caller, “Winning Against China Means Winning on Energy,” can be found here: https://dailycaller.com/2025/10/19/opinion-winning-against-china-means-winning-on-energy-trisha-curtis/.

And please reach out to PetroNerds and Trisha directly on the “Contact Us” page.

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