Energy Markets

It Was Saudi Arabia That Broke Iran, Not the US

May 8, 2026 · 18:20

Saudi Arabia, not the US, broke Iran: this episode argues the 1976 Doha meeting, where Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani walked out and returned to veto an increase to $13.50 in favor of a 5% rise and a production jump from 8 million to 11 million barrels a day, was the moment the Middle East split. Host Phil Andrews explains the math: Ghawar oil costs Saudi Arabia $3 a barrel, while Iran's fiscal breakeven — the price the Shah needed to fund his lavish promises — was $19 within two years. The Stevenson Plan story shows why: 1920s British rubber's price hikes pushed customers to better synthetic rubber, and petrostates fear prices so high the world finds a replacement. The same logic reappears in 2016, when Saudi Arabia flooded American fracking into bankruptcies to protect market share, proving the kingdom chooses self-interest over friends.

The Oil Nobody Is Allowed to Buy

Mar 31, 2026 · 16:13

Sanctions create a vacuum the shadow oil fleet fills: the episode traces how Russian oil gets smuggled — from the Bosporus jam of 28 ships with 20 million barrels to the paperwork that gets a $75 million cargo paid through banks — using a playbook pioneered by Marc Rich. Host Phil Andrews explains Rich's 'Apartheid Premium' earned him $1–2 billion selling oil to sanctioned South Africa for 20 years. Smuggling takes a rust-bucket tanker bought for $15 million, not scrapped for $5 million, a Flag of Convenience from landlocked Bolivia for $500,000, and a 48-hour ship-to-ship transfer with transponders off. Rich's unlock was the post-1973 spot market, letting sellers write 'ON ORDERS' on the Bill of Lading instead of a destination. Footnotes cover Turkey's insurance-based ship stops and why enforcement fuels BRICS currency ambitions.

They're Lying to You About Nuclear Energy

Aug 12, 2025 · 18:25

Host Phil Andrews argues that fear and regulation, not accidents like Three Mile Island, killed America's nuclear industry, which flipped the switch on three reactors a year in 1969 but collapsed after the NRC's Linear No-Threshold rule took hold in 1975. Radiation is unavoidable—dentist X-rays, Everest climbs—yet Chernobyl caused only 50 sure deaths and Fukushima no measurable cancer rise. Rules ballooned from 400 standards in 1970 to 1,800 by 1978, delaying plants like Seabrook 14 years and driving the first utility bankruptcy since the Great Depression, at $44 million per month of delay. Four reactors can power Manhattan, versus 25x the land for solar and 300x for wind. GE's small modular reactors, based on 70 years of safe Navy submarine reactors, could join the grid by 2030.

Why Countries Are Pouring Billions into Liquefied Natural Gas

May 23, 2024 · 9:29

The 2022 Nord Stream pipeline shutdown and explosion transformed the global natural gas trade, making liquefied natural gas (LNG) central to energy security. Fracking created a U.S. gas surplus, and the $18 billion Sabine Pass terminal opened in 2016, making the U.S. the world's largest LNG exporter by 2022. When Russia cut off gas flows, Germany, which had no regasification terminals, built three in 18 months to import U.S. LNG from Freeport Gulf Coast in Texas. The Freeport explosion that destroyed 20% of U.S. export capacity showed how global spot markets now expose American gas prices to worldwide shocks. With permits already issued, U.S. export capacity will triple in three years, likely raising prices as EVs and generative AI lift electricity demand; 200 new LNG tankers launch by 2027.