My partner Henry Hoffman attended the 22nd Annual Energy Infrastructure CEO & Investor Conference in Aventura, FL last week. Below are Henry’s notes from presentations and meetings. The mood at this year’s conference was upbeat, with natural gas demand driven by data center power requirements and the next wave of LNG projects taking center stage. […]

In early April JPMorgan reacted to Liberation Day by forecasting a recession in the second half of the year. They assumed the tariffs would cause a drop in business investment. They also raised their inflation forecast. They didn’t reckon on the President’s tariff flexibility, and so dropped their recession call following the 90 day moratorium […]

New Jersey, where your blogger resides when temperatures allow, had a good story to tell  on energy until recently. Power generation relies heavily on natural gas and nuclear (38% and 56% respectively in February). Residential electricity prices are 19.7 cents per Kilowatt Hour (KwH), above the US average of 16.4 cents but well below neighboring […]

Following Sunday night’s 90-day agreement on tariffs between the US and China, the S&P500 sailed back above its pre-Liberation Day levels. All is right with the world. Sentiment seems weaker than data, so one will correct. After Liberation Day JPMorgan called for a 2H25 recession. Following the tariff news they dropped that forecast. Fed Funds […]

Americans visiting Europe know that Republican presidents are generally less popular than Democrat ones, since Europe’s political center of gravity is left of ours. This is especially true of President Trump, which didn’t surprise us on a recent trip with friends to the UK and Belgium. Trade policy is largely how Europeans experience US presidential […]

Supplies of crude oil were already set to increase by 2.6 Million Barrels per day (MMB/D) year-on-year before the OPEC+ announcement on Monday. Demand is growing in emerging economies across Asia, Africa and South America, but not fast enough. This has led to forecasts of stocks increasing by 2 MMB/D this year. Last year we […]

On Friday the market achieved a welcome milestone in that the S&P500 rose above its pre-Liberation Day level. The unemployment report suggested that we’re not yet falling into a recession. Signs that trade negotiations with China may start was encouraging. Midstream earnings have been coming in with little discernible impact from the tariff trauma. Worth […]

It’s too early to say what caused the loss of power across Spain and parts of Portugal, but early signs are that it was linked to a disruption in solar supply. Some will soon blame it on global warming. But reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) requires increased electrification of energy systems. European governments are pushing […]

Midstream energy infrastructure is offering solid defense during a period when Presidential ruminations on tariffs or Jay Powell’s career prospects regularly cause 2% daily market moves. Operating a pipeline business is dull by comparison. These companies are largely immune to trade wars. They just keep generating cash and raising dividends. Last week Energy Transfer (ET) […]

Tariff turmoil and the market’s gyrations have elicited more than normal feedback on recent blog posts. Politically, our readers and investors tend to be Republican so many are inclined to look for positives in Liberation Day and the subsequent policy switches. Some echo Trump’s claim that foreign countries have been exploiting the US for years. […]