"Imagine Iran Had Been Integrated Into The Modern World Instead Of Declaring War On The Modern World" With Dr. Dan Yergin

[MUSIC] For our COBT listeners and viewers, it's Maynard, Mike, and Argin here thrilled to welcome back an old friend. Dan Yurgen, the man in energy who does not need an introduction. This is his sixth appearance on COBT. How we got lucky six times, I don't know. But Dan, we are ecstatic to talk to you. We scheduled this thinking it was a couple weeks ahead of Syrah. And that's always a fun discussion. But in these few weeks, we've had some action in the mid east, of course. And so this is how we got so lucky to talk to Dan Yurgen on today of all days. The gods are with us, so thank you for being with us today. >> Thank you. It's great to be back on COBT. >> Well, can you believe it's been six times? I mean, it's been every year since 2020. So this is like a Hestruck every year we try to get one. >> And COBT has been over the years, unlike a Hestruck, COBT has gotten bigger and bigger. The Hestruck is going to stay the same size. And they're still coming. They're still coming. >> Yeah. >> Well, Mike, there's a lot going on in the market. We want to jump in with Dan. But what would you tell us just as we sit here today, almost three o'clock on Tuesday here in Houston? >> Yeah, you said almost. >> Oh, well, there's 16 minutes left. >> Yeah, exactly. So anything could change here in the next 15 minutes. But you know, you know, throw a lot of stats today. But markets are kind of all about Iran. They have been for the last two weeks. WTI is down about $11 today. It was down as low as $17 a barrel. We'll talk about why the Dow and Nasdaq and S&P are all just marginally today. You know, so kind of give you an idea where WTI is. WTI is trading at around $84.85 a barrel. Prior to this war, you know, WTI was at $67 a barrel. So up roughly $17 a barrel or roughly 25%. WTI peaked on Sunday night at around $120 a barrel. That was up $53 per barrel or up 80% at its peak price. Reason why this is is because a straight up horn moves is effectively shut. Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi are cutting back on production. We're talking anywhere from five to seven million barrels a day. And that's mostly due to just oil storage constraints and also some pipelines constraints as well. WTI, like we said earlier, is plunging around $11 per day. And I think that was talks earlier today about a potential coordinated SPR global release anywhere from three to four hundred million barrels a day. You know, just kind of give you an idea of SPR coordinate in a coordinated releases. There's only been five. Two of them happened during the Ukraine war. One happened during the Libya supply issues. Hurricane Katrina and the first Gulf War. The first Ukrainian release so was done one month after Russia invaded Ukraine. That was roughly a hundred million barrels. It was 30 million by the US 60 million by the rest of the world. So this if the stories are anywhere close to true of being three to four hundred million. That would be three to four times that initial release in the Ukrainian war. You know, I think the other thing is many want to compare this Iranian war to the Ukrainian war and just kind of give you some ideas how it might be different. On February 4, 2022, Russian Veda Ukraine, Brent Price was $82 a barrel. One month later was at $120 a barrel. Two months later at $105 a barrel. Three months later at $95. Also the difference this time around is February of 2022. TTF natural gas price which is a quoted in euros per megawatt hour. You know, it was at 82 a month later was 192 two months later at 112 three months later at 195. But he didn't peak until six months later at 339 I was up 300%. Last week, you know, TTF was trading at 31 today. It's around 45. So that's up around 45%. You know, if you look at it interestingly enough, US gas prices are unchanged during this time frame at around $3 an M. The last thing I want to really say about this whole thing is economic circumstances are totally different today than they were during the year Ukraine war. Back then, US CPI was 8%. PPI was 14%. Gasling was 350 and diesel was $4 an gallon. Three months later CPI searched to 9%. PPI was 18%. Gasling was $475 and diesel was roughly $575 to $6. Start of this war US CPI is 2.5%. PPI is 2%. Gasling is $295 and diesel is $375. Gasling and diesel are up around 25%. The thing I want to get here is a pain threshold today was nothing like the pain threshold back then. So there is some differences. Now, as far as energy sector performance, since the start of the war, energy sector is essentially flat. You know, refiners are up 7%. US LNG, a company is up around 5%. NNP is up around 4% or 5%. US oil majors are down 1% and 1/2 and oil services companies are down 4% to 5%. So they're underperforming the moving oil prices. You know, a couple more things and it will be done. If you look at the back of the WTI curve right now, sort of from mid-26 to mid-27, you take out some of this noise. You know, one month ago we traded at low 60s WTI. Three months ago was high 50s WTI. Today, it's in the high 60s. So up around $6 to $89 a barrel. And I guess people were asked us, where do journalists want to get involved? They're not buying into these stocks at this point in time. They're going to have to buy this inflated prices. You know, they're going to want to buy back into low 60s per barrel WTI where the strip was back then. Or are they going to be looking at something different? I think it's going to be more like $65 to $70 per barrel because you're going to have to have some of that war premium in there. But I think the low 60s where they were buying for force probably mid-60s to 70s were at worse than the price range for generalists to step in. Last thing is as far as broader markets, the Dow is down about 2.5%. Yes and P is down about 1%, NASDAQ is flat, the AI tech stock is up 2%, the biggest under performer airlines and cruise lines. And they're both down about 8 to 10%. So that's kind of a background of where we are and where we've been over the last week. We can have two weeks. I mean, okay. Well, thank you, Mike. A lot of good stats as we jump in with Dan. Arjun, what would you add before we get to Dr. Yergen? You know, Maynard, I'll just build a little bit upon what Mike just said. And I want to say that I think, nocially, my title is something like Macro, policy or something. The Maynard, I got to give you credit that when we were talking about things as a team just after the war started and people were reasonably complacent, not just us, but the market saying, oh, we just lived through Venezuela. That was kind of quick and short. Look how Russia, Ukraine played out and your time it was be wary of tail risk. And I think maybe unfortunately those tail risks are starting to come through. Some of those to the upside. We saw that a couple days ago, but they're all due to the downside where if you go too high on oil, you obviously have economic risks. And I think this situation, whether it's different or not, it's not Venezuela and it's not Russia, Ukraine. And I think we'll get into some of that, hopefully, with our with our guest, Dr. Yergen today. I think the second point we'd make is the extent we again start seeing the upside risks. Mike alluded to probably what is the best case policy outcome, which is we have SPR releases. If there a heck of a lot of worse policy outcomes that we could have, that politicians under dress will be tempted to engage in and energy policy, energy map, or these things are very long-term in nature. The time to prepare for a crisis was about 10 years ago. And so to the extent you try and change the nature of your energy, since that cannot be done on the fly. And therefore, I don't even want to list the potential bad policy outcomes that could occur, but maybe I'll just mention one, and that would be banning crude oil or product exports from the United States. I will just hope and pray that our government is sensible to not go down that route. But I do worry when you get times of stress, politicians reach for a grabback of stuff that often does not help in the short term. I think for our corporate clients out there, I do think the current environment is not the same as when we were coming out of COVID and having Russia, Ukraine, where there was disappointment with the profitability over the previous decade. And there was a real emphasis on give it all back to shareholders. We support shareholders distributions, where we hope they grow over time. But those variable dividends, I'm going to say, is a general comment, not for every company, but as a general comment. I don't think we need to see a return of those. What is going to be sustainable? What are the sustainable distributions you have? And really, what are the opportunities through all this noise and volatility to take risk to figure out what the next areas to invest on? That's been a key theme of ours. And just a final quick story, Maynard, you know, March 31st will be my 34 year anniversary of being in this business. My career started in Denver at Petri Park. And Tom Petri hired me out of college. I actually knew that I had longer hair back then. Now that's not physically possible. But Tom grabbed me one evening. He had a lot of you in him, Maynard. He's like, he took me as a young guy. Like, you got to come to the Denver Petroleum Club, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the prizes there. And he's coming out with this PBS mini series, and they're going to debut it at the Denver Petroleum Club. So I got to meet Dr. Yergen. It's about 34 years ago. And I remember like it was yesterday, you don't expect him to remember me as a 23-year-old kid. I will say the fact that here 34 years later, I've now had this honor to serve on several advisory boards with Dr. Yurgen and to have the opportunity to ask him a few questions here, OBCT, is really an absolute thrill and we've got it in there, and I'll turn it back over to you. Well, thanks you both, and thank you again, Dan. We are super lucky to have you. The thing that I have been hearing consistently over the last eight to ten days here is people were already excited about Sierra. We always are, but in this kind of environment, with this many moving pieces, in light of these events, Sierra just promises to be incredible. And so I just wonder if we might start there because you guys plan that all year. There's so much going into it. There's so many different flavors and discussions to have, but now we have quite the big variables have been injected into the biggest show of the year. Well, thank you very much and glad to be with all of you in Arjun. Thank you for your remarks and remembering the launch of the video of the prize. It was funny. At first I was told that the prize could never be made into a dramatic television. And of course we did, and it was great to have that premiere there in Denver. So obviously I've had great admiration for your analysis and forward-looking in the energy world, seeing where things were going before others did. I wanted to, and I'm glad to be on again. So I wanted just three comments before Sierra, we're just listening to comments. First, I think that what Arjun said, I noticed too last week, there was this complacency where, oh, okay, there's this disruption, but people didn't really think through how serious it could be or what the ramifications are. And it took several days for that to sink in. And, you know, this was just another disruption. Second thing, Arjun said, well, what else could happen, bad policy? So when I did the enduring lessons of the prize for the new edition of the paperback, one of them is bad policies that people do when prices go up. And the first congressional hearing that I could find on high-gasly prices was like in 1922 where the predictions were, oh, we've got to intervene because they're going to go sky. Of course, next year prices collapsed. So I would say, price controls and congressional hearings on prices, particularly when affordability is an issue, is I would add to your list, Arjun. And the third thing is just kind of how to think where we are in oil prices that, you know, laid out how much the increase since the war, I find myself thinking about how much of the increase since the buildup began in the Gulf. And that was late January. So I still go back to really saying oil prices really risen from where they were like in the low 60s rather than like that 72 because already anxiety and fear was already building into the price. And I give, I think that gives us a greater sense, at least as another way of seeing, but the impact on the market has been of this. It didn't just begin with the war, but it began with the buildup. So these are all things that, you know, we're figuring into Syria, we clearly, we begin the planning in advance. Very big theme is kind of the energy industry meets the electric power industry, energy industry meets the tech industry, AI comes together, how those pieces of so we just got to query this will be the first time we're going to have chip makers in a major role we have both five people from the video speaking will have people from AMD speaking. Obviously, the hyper scalers are there as not as vendors of cloud services, but rather really because they've turned into electric power companies that's and how to interact with them. So that's kind of a big theme. Minerals will be a big theme. We did a study this year on copper. We can come back to, and I think copper is part of the energy spectrum right now. And other likely shortfall in copper, given all the demands that are there. So mining, obviously, the return, something that you guys are thinking about, the return of exploration, sort of looking beyond shale is an issue. And of course, the global gas markets, what's happening there, but we'll also have the CO forward speaking about how they see transportation changing. We'll have a whole senior representatives from the US government talking about policy. We'll have both Democratic and Republican senators there. And we'll hear a lot from CEOs about how their strategies are changing and how they see their market and their role. And we'll hear from major decision-makers from the Gulf, who are in a very different world than they would have thought three weeks ago. So there's a lot there. I'll say we're going to have, I think, very prominent general speaking, I think, will have very prominent international figures speaking, who we can't quite release their names yet. But I think it's going to be a very rich program and tremendous opportunity as it always is for all of us to learn and to expand our understanding of what's ahead and how the energy world is changing. We are truly so excited for Sierra and to be a part of all that. Dan, I was wondering, you mentioned policy, Arjun mentioned policy. Arjun, when you said making policy under duress, that expression right there just almost the implication is it's not going to be good. I was wondering, Dan, because you see the world, particularly the Western world's energy policy making. And I know it's hard to generalize, but do you think, you know, from Europe, through North America, into Asia, as you look around the world and see energy policy making, has it converged, has it narrowed, is it getting closer together, some sort of consensus about the best ways to manage everything we're trying to do? Or do you think it's as divergent as ever? Right. Let me answer that. But the question about policy under duress, I remember, do you remember Sarbanes Oxley? Everybody? Yes. There you go. There's one. One day I ran into Congressman Oxley after he was out of office. And he said that that legislation is proof of Arjun's point, which is policy made under duress, is not very good policy. And that's when you do it under pressure. And I just thought that his name is forever preserved in legislation. And he's saying it. And he said that's what happens when you try and do things in an unconsidered way. I think energy security fell off the table until, as you've noted, the morning of February 24th, 2022, and Russia invaded Ukraine. It followed up the table everywhere except in Japan, among the major countries. And I remember doing the Japanese Prime Minister had me do an event with heads of state from Southeast Asia. And that Japan really had a fight to prevent the G7 from saying that we want to be rid of natural gas. And that's just a few years ago that that complacency was there. And that complacency, of course, was shattered. Obviously, we've seen a 180 degree change in energy policy in the United States from where it was. And I think Europe has a real problem. It's really stuck. And we're going to have some senior European decision makers there. And one of the ones from one of the member states of the EU said, one of the problems is the EU. You get rhetoric from the EU, but nothing changes. And as this policy maker, this person described it, they just want to introduce a new regulation every day. And I think that Europe has really pursued policies to deindustrialize of the economy and to make it uncompetitive by focusing exclusively on climate as the only thing that mattered and pushing regulations and requirements and expenditures without looking at more broadly at affordability and security. They now realize they're in a tough place, but it's hard to change because they now have to worry about being competitive and Europe is not competitive now. And they have to worry about going from one and a half to five percent they're spending on defense. And so they just don't have the resources that they did before. So I think Europe is still in a, you know, is still kind of needs to catch up with itself and it needs to catch up with reality. So I don't see a convergence. One area of convergence is a recognition that US natural gas, US LNG has a very important role in securing the prosperity of Europe the future. You know, one thing that Arjun was quick to point out around Veritan is because when the ormuz discussion came up, it was right out of the gates a lot about oil and Arjun started nudging us like, hey, don't forget how much L and G goes through there and how important that is. What do you think if you're, I know it's hard to generalize, but if you're Europe and you look at the situation in Iran, you know, there's been controversy about how involved the Europeans, countries are in the effort. It illustrates energy vulnerability again. It illustrates a second, another supplier where there could be an issue in this case, Qatar. So do you think that? What do you think some of the takeaways are specifically in Europe around this situation in Iran? Because it's a real tough reminder for them of a number of issues. Well, one thing it has led, of course, to people saying they need to do more to be autonomous in energy, which means renewables, wind and solar, that they need to step that up. I think it should lead to questions in Britain, which is somebody said in 50 years, they've changed their tax policy 25 times. That and they're not allowing new oil and gas production, but they'll import it from elsewhere. And so meanwhile, the Norwegian side there have had about 13 or 14 new discoveries. And it means reliance on the US. And I think to some degree, the tension over other issues like Greenland, the question about the-- there's some questioning about reliance in the United States, the answer to which is that these are contracts and companies are making with companies. These are not government contracts, but realizing that the US is very important to their energy future. But they weren't part of-- this was not a NATO operation that's unfolding. And they're seeing the consequences. The biggest hit is on Asia, because 80% of the oil that goes to the straight goes to Asia. 91% of the LNG goes to Asia. And so there, although now it's eased, and oil is easing, I don't know, Arjun, I don't know if you have a view or a view on gas prices, because that's really a separate thing. And the gas prices weigh up. And of course, bidding away ships that were headed LNG tankers that were heading to Europe, changing directions and going to Asia because of the magnitude of price. I mean, I think you've highlighted-- it seems to be one of the key issues here. And I do wonder what it means for Europe, right? They were hooked on Russian gas, and that went away. Now it's sort of LNG, but you take out Qatar for some period of time. Renewables are certainly one of the things they'll look to. But when I think about base load power agent, if they don't have domestic gas in Newclerger 20-year thing, does coal become acceptable in some way? We know how much time has grown there, coal. It doesn't seem crazy to say, well, maybe some of that manufacturing capacities being fueled by Chinese coal could actually be done domestically at a time where LNG's got a greater uncertainty to it, whether it's US or Qatar, and Renewables does have its challenges in terms of powering 100% of your economy. Well, you know, we saw after the invasion of Ukraine that actually Germany went back to birding or coal. One of their several mistakes that one now looks back at, which has some Merkel, which has some Germany, one of her three big mistakes was shutting down the nuclear making that decision over a weekend, and taking out 25% of your electric generation over time based upon a very short-term decision making, and a political decision making. I was wondering, Dan, we are not China experts by any means, but China does seem somewhat quiet in all this. I don't know if that's the right judgment, but do you have any impressions of how the Chinese have been reacting or were you expecting more? Did you see some that we didn't see? Well, I haven't seen much, I've seen them denounce it, but not do anything else. I mean, you wonder if they look at this, and they look at Venezuela and say, well, that's the rules of the game. We have an island that we're very-- that's off our shores called Taiwan. So there have been-- when I was in China just before the turn of the year, I certainly saw that I'm looking forward very much because of Trump's visit there and feeling that they're going to deal. And I think they-- maybe they're not saying much now because they do want to deal. And one of the sense that the Trump administration wants to deal as well, and this is kind of their chance. So I think the president's trip is still scheduled for-- is it late March or early April. And the Chinese, when I was there, were-- they were happy that the Americans had used the term G2, not G7 to G2, IE, U.S. and China, indicating that a positive-- that they expect a positive outcome. Don't know if these events will end up derailing that. But that certainly still seems that that trip is on. And the president is very intent on making that trip. This is maybe as an observer. I thought it was interesting when President Trump first announced the operation in Iran. He took it all the way back to November 1979 and painted a 47-year picture, a reference to hostages. And obviously, all of us here remember those things. You've seen Iran as a student of energy and geopolitics those whole 47 years. Do you think that's the right characterization that it's been an extended, often on battle, hostile all the time, or is there more nuance? Like, how do you think about that relationship? Well, there was one period when there was a kind of-- they taught, like, feeling, and I-- under one president, before Ms. President, but then they reverted to previous form. And I think going back, as you said, the seizure of the embassy, death to America-- this is so much built into the ideology that in some sense, you say, this war has been brewing for half a century. I mean, there's a rand that adopted this hostile revolutionary zeal seeking to overturn the order in the Middle East and in positive in the United States as the big Satan that not making an accommodation. And the argument that people who are students of that regime said that ideology was necessary for consolidating power in this authoritarian regime. Yeah, just one point on the whole energy, European energy. The one point I would make is that we set it up front that prices haven't moved as much as they did in Ukraine or-- but what worries me a little bit is that Europe has become complacent, especially this winter. I mean, their storage levels are very, very low. I mean, every time they turn around, they seem to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, because they're going to have to basically be competing for barrels for Ellen Gia, Cargo's here with Asia. That's not going to be a pretty picture. And they really need to see those UAE facilities back online in a quick fashion. So I just want to throw that out there. I guess the question I want to ask you is, I mean, we've heard about-- we mentioned up front about six to seven million barrels being pulled back in production. Who knows how long that will be. I know people always want to find out or talk about what is the damage potential to reservoirs. How long will it take for that production when it's shutting the camp, come back on? I mean, any thoughts there? Is it something we should be worried about? Is it weak? Is it months? I mean, any thoughts on that? Well, I think as I understand, of course, I hesitate because there are many petroleum engineers who'll be watching this who will have much greater expertise than I do. But what I'm told is it really depends upon how those reservoirs have been managed that a rack reservoirs will be more difficult than others. And what I've heard from people depends when it's shut in that maybe some part of it comes back in a matter of days. Some part comes back in weeks or even as much as three months. And some parts might not come back in some circumstances. But then there's an incentive for countries to keep that part going to meet their domestic needs. So that's one typology. But also, presumably, there is a lot of country to country. As you know, what does that matter? I'm very similar to my perspective. I think we've had these situations in the past. And like you say, there's been a wide spectrum of what came back quickly and what didn't come back. And it's just going to vary. And it's one of the uncertainties that are out there. And I think Mike's mentioned. this we talk about this some notion of an ongoing risk premium not just for drone strikes or the straits but even for this kind of stuff, probably persists going forward. One of the reasons I brought that up too, Dan, is because one of the things we talked about in the lead is, USC and P companies are not going out and picking up rigs and it's not because the next three or four months is sort of where it was but it was back into the curve was much lower and they're like we're not going to do this and so to me if there's some issues with oil production coming back online, we drain a substantial amount of storage potentially that happens. That may bring the back into the curve, but which may incentivize some of these US producers to get after it. Yeah, I think that nobody I think nobody's going to make a very short basis on what's a couple weeks decision and even if they wanted to they'd go to their board and their board would say, "Whoa, let's wait and see what happens." Because I think most people are operating as you kind of suggest to your remarks with a kind of 60-ish price in mind as a basis on which they were making decisions and with this uncertainty, don't see that happening. You know, I suppose you can produce marginal barrels at a higher price, you will, but you're not going to step up your activity when you don't. I mean, because they still remember where we were in the first three weeks of January. But one thing that is clear, you know, we always talked about in a crisis, their spare capacity. Unfortunately, in this case, the spare capacity is all in the Gulf and so it's not spare, not available, unless it opens up. It's all in the Gulf and prior to this crisis, they were already in the process of sort of unloading a lot of that into the market and perhaps selling it to China, I don't know if that was a deal or that's a coincidence, China built up their SPRs ahead of this and find that sort of an interesting fact that happened. I wanted to talk more about how this crisis may play out. It's early days, there's a wide range of outcomes, but I think back to like the 1970s and how different a lot of these countries are, and even just in the last decade, what kind of changes that happened in a place like Saudi Arabia, which under MBS has sort of dramatically opened up. Women are integrated into the society, I'll use I think it's President Trump's phrasing, they have picked commerce notionally over chaos. We've seen the same thing with the Emirates, which is just a massive success story and on a smaller scale, Qatar and Kuwait. I'll just, I'm using an American moral judgment here on kind of the good side of integrating into the global economy. Iran has been a major outlier with the religious, the military and the hardline nature you said. I'm just, how do you think the openings of those other countries? Does it impact how this crisis will play out? Does it, uh, well, I think, I mean, you know, to build on what you said, that these countries, you know, if we go back to the 70s, 80s, even 90s, they were sources of oil and then starting in the mid-19, late 1990s, LNG, but they weren't a source of money. Now, their sovereign wealth funds are major players in the world economy. Whether, you know, whether, if you look at a private equity funds, you look at equity investments, you look at FDI, foreign direct investment, they're big players. And so one question is, what role will they play after this conflict is over? How much, and that depends what happens to domestic infrastructure? How much money will be diverted back into the domestic economy rather than playing this role of capital X quarters to the world, which are such, such big players? One of the outcomes of the prior crisis was that east to west, if I have my direction correct, pipeline that Saudi built to Goody-Yanbu. I'm not sure you can't, I'm not sure what the solution is to the strait, and they're never any short-term solutions. Kind of feels like even if you had to change your regime in Iran, in an age where drones are a thing, and it takes one person with one drone to wreak havoc. You know, I'm trying to think through what is the infrastructure solution to this? Is it just continuing to build out long-term export options to other areas, which obviously we can't do within a year or two? I worry a lot about the advent of drones and what it means for the straits on a long-term basis. That's a very good question that it isn't just a space-sponsored, but individuals are angry individuals. One of the lasting questions will be how do you protect against that for motion going transport? In Saudi Arabia built that pipeline system that big altogether, although sometimes it's five million, I think it's really more like seven million barrels a day, and they had the geography to do it. The UAE has pipeline as 1.5 or 1.6 million barrels a day, goes around strait. But there are no options for LNG, I mean, by definition, unless you build a huge gas pipeline system, somewhere else that then connects to shipping and that's a multi-year process and a very expensive process. It's actually a great observation that out of all these things, crude will fill a pinch of the space, they're sort of long-term, disrupted, maybe not closed, but LNG is the one that really jumping out here is, I don't know what this is. I've highlighted Rosalfan industrial city as the favorite industrial site I've ever been to anywhere in my career. It's an incredible place, but what makes it incredible is its concentrated nature and all the people there and all the efficiency and that can be a dual-edge sword and unfortunately can be in this kind of situation. Yeah, I mean, they can certainly use Patriot, Patriot, Missiles, a lot of them. I was wondering, Dan, you know, a lot of these things, you have a certain mindset around problems, and then things work out a different way or they play out in a way you just hadn't anticipated, and it feels like in this one, because the straight-of-horn mousse has always been talked about as a pinch point. This has been around for a long time. But suddenly, insurance companies were the de facto entities of bringing so much of this traffic to a halt. It wasn't armed ships or mines or some of the things that we talk about. It was insurance. Were you surprised by that? Will you have any insurance companies defending themselves at CIRA or talk about that aspect? We have, we'll have some big insurance companies there, and I think we'll also have the DFC, which is the agency that is now stepped forward to backstop the insurance. Okay, great. And, you know, this is something that's been invented as we speak of how to make how to make it work, and will the insurance be enough to convince people, or will it require greater sense of physical security as well? Even if you have a lot of insurance, you don't want your ship to be severely damaged or in the process. But obviously, this is meant to provide an incentive. I don't know, do you all have a sense of how quickly this is going to be put into place? We've been resurgying in ourselves and and and aren't sure, but to your point, it seems like even if the insurance is absolutely there, we keep hearing feedback of you have to have physical security, like just being insured won't solve the problem, so to speak. Right, yeah. And as I understand it, insurance wasn't necessarily canceled, it was just that but it was de facto, just the rates went up enormously. As others did too, you know, you could have rented, you know, hired a LNG tanker two weeks ago for like $40,000 a day. Now, at least I heard, you know, it's like $250,000 a day, you know, so they cost go up all along the supply chain. One question, this is a little bit outside that energy around, but it's a comment that we've heard and maybe thought ourselves, which is the the performance of the Israeli military and the US military in a number of actions here has just really been super impressive. And I wonder as I've given watching security and geopolitical and and therefore military type issues for a long time, are you are you surprised at how how well those military seem to be executing a number of missions? It's it's really somewhat striking the capabilities. You're going to miss job of coordination also to coordinate the two militaries and then to coordinate the number of planes and then bound to firepower there and the amount of communication that's necessary to do it. I guess that last June, what they did is they knocked out a lot of the basic air defense ran so that it was still challenging, but not as challenges it would have been at. They not done that before. And obviously this was not something that was cooked up in a weekend. This was months of planning and coordination to get there. I think the Iranians probably thought that the build up of American forces was pressure and a bluff by Trump, but they didn't really take it seriously. They didn't, you know, they really didn't think that this was going to happen probably partly because their ideology didn't allow them to think that. So this is a really unfair question so you can just say, I'm not answering, but a couple of weeks ago with all that build up, what would you have said about the probability of us of the US going in? Did it feel just absolutely imminent and when you build up like that, you just end up using that military power or what, what do you, has this surprised you? Would you have said something different? Well, I guess by the scale of it, I would have said it should be taken really seriously. This is not just a block, this is not just pressure on the negotiation and, you know, the amount of expense and the scale of it should have been taken, certainly taken more seriously by the Iranians whose style of negotiation was to keep negotiating and not come to a deal. And one other thing is that you've also watched the Mideast obviously for so long, is it, and one thing Iran has done here with the missiles hitting a number of, you know, hitting the UAE, hitting drones, hitting Saudi, they have been hitting people who are not directly involved and it seems like they have, that's what caused a lot of the concern over the straits, but it also is aligned everybody against them arguably. Like are you surprised at some of the actions Iran has taken by hitting other Gulf states? Yes and no, I mean, yes, in terms of their relationship with those countries, the fact that, you know, Dubai's UAE since, and a lot of their finite economic resources, you know, what are they thinking? But it seems to me that what they've decided to do is by attacking oil, attacking those countries with as we said, if I economic calf, they're really also trying to attack the world economy and create the economic additions and create the panics and so forth and the specter of what I wrote the other day in the financial times of the nightmare scenario, that would create the pressure that would lead so great that the U.S. and the Israelis would be forced to stop, that seems to me that that's kind of like their Hail Mary pass. It's just so striking that the alignment seems to be in some of this started with the Abraham Accords, but you have Israel and these Gulf states and the U.S. seemingly all vote on the same team. And I suppose it's the Israel part that's really striking that somehow this is now okay, they're an accepted member of both the team. I don't know if I'm overstating it, but it's. Well, I think there was, I don't know if it stopped or after, you know, after October 7th and the left that followed, but you know, there were a lot of daily flights between Israel and Dubai and people going back and forth all the time and became kind of a normalization of that. Obviously, but we're focused on the Iran War, but it's also, of course, there's a war going on, southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, which is, you know, was created by Iran as part of their proxy network. However, there's so much coverage, Dan, of Iranian, sort of the Iranian diaspora around the world, the people in various places who had to leave the country. Do you have any. Do you ever bump into that community, talk to those people, anything that you would share from all that? Well, only there are hatred of the regime and how it's ruined the country, you know, it's ruined the prospects because Iran really was on track to, you know, under the Shah with all the drawbacks and his authoritarian imperial, you know, pretensions and everything was on track with its education and its connection to the outside world to be a formidable country. And you know, now you say about it, you think, look at Dubai, look at Abu Dhabi, look at those countries what they've done. Imagine Iran had been integrated into the modern world instead of declaring war on the modern world, which is what it's done ever since the advent of this Islamic regime. That's a fascinating point that these are my words, but listening to you, 1979 Iran was out in front of modernizing, commercializing, like it was what would it have looked like today? That's an incredible point. Well, actually, as we say it now, in 1979, Dubai was not what it is today, those countries were not, but it was Iran, you know, its students were studying nuclear engineering at MIT, they were connected to, you know, connected to the world economy. And of course, the Iranian diaspora has turned out to be a very dynamic part of the global economy. And you know, I had never thought about it that way if you compare them, it was like this, and then it was like that. Well, we know you've got to get back to syrup planning and you need your rest because the world needs you right now, Dan. But Mike and Arjun wrap us up, what else would we close with? Yeah, maybe one last thing. I mean, obviously, most people are going to expect a lot of the conflict and everything that's going on Iran is going to be the subject of the Sarah Conference. But maybe give us an idea of what maybe the second most talked about or third most talked about subject will be at the conferences as you think about it. As you were thinking maybe two or three weeks ago before this happened, what are those areas? Well, I think that it is the role of gas, the role of electricity in AI. And that's what we said. It's convergence and competition. And the convergence is the energy industry with the tech industry with AI. And so I think that's a very big theme and how not only how the essential role of energy and how it's changed a lot of attitudes among people who do not really think about the role of energy. And to realizing how important it was when the CEO of Amazon says that the big constraint on AI is electricity. I think that's a theme. We're going to have a lot of infrastructure, a lot of permitting in some very interesting discussion then on the whole financial dimension. So we just heard today that how do the nuclear regulatory commission is going to come and the rebirth of the clear powers on the agenda. But I think, and then that is the fundamental questions of where does the U.S. upstream oil and gas industry go within the U.S. and where does it go internationally and what are the areas and will hear a lot of comparison of strategies. I'm just, it's such a rich program to prepare. But we have the presidents of both Microsoft and Google coming. That's what would have happened 10 years ago and what is an energy conference. That's actually amazing. They're coming. So honestly, one of the things that gives me the most hope about this sector, which you're highlighting, about the convergence of technology and power and traditional energy and all the critical minerals where we started with sort of policy and the fear of bad policy. I think one of the things that happens, especially during the prior low price periods, and it's really from an American perspective, one of the things I find most odd and most frustrating that somehow something like fossil fuels gets tagged as quote, Republican and renewal that gets tagged as quote, Democrats. And we're fighting over energy sources versus maybe a more traditional fight of market-based solutions versus regulation and that kind of stuff. And I'm going to give my hope and I'm curious if you agree that the tech sector can help us break through that divisiveness that we have about energy. I mean, we're not going to argue over what we should do or what taxes we should have or any of these kind of things. But do you share a hope that the tech sector is actually going to be probably the best thing to happen to the energy sector at a long time? I think it's really important because the tech sector was sort of sectarian in its views on these things. And I love the point you've made because I was hoping that we could, I don't know if it's not the right word, "D" ideologic. You know, get rid of the ideology about energy sources and just say it's practical. It isn't that one is better. It's what meets the need. And I also like your dichotomy between market solutions and policy-driven solutions. So that's my hope. And part of it, we've talked about the executive conference, but there's also the innovation of Gora, where we had 250 startups last year. And that's where you really feel the hope and excitement in terms of people, whether they're startups, whether people have finished their PhDs or leading companies kind of pushing their technology. Basically, people looking and developing solutions, and that's what makes one more optimistic. And I think your point about this convergence of the tech industries and the traditional energy industries, and of course, think about the gulf that existed because the tech industries were not, were not big cap ex spenders. Suddenly, they're the biggest cap ex spenders. So they're trillion dollars this year that they're going to spend. And secondly, an engineer in a tech industry, software engineer, that's your project's a couple of months, and an engineer in the energy industry is to seven year project. And now, you know, they've learned to talk to each other. So I think actually that dialogue between those industries and how they're each going to change each other will be a theme that will run through the entire conference. So Dennis has been tremendous. I can't thank you enough. I know there's all three of us. I've been watching our facial expressions. We've been like, there's one, there's one, there's one, you know, such interesting points. Tell us how you make it through Sira. What is your, what energy drink or special vegetables or how do you get sleep? Like it's incredible. You personally, what you go through those five days or six days, how do you do it? Well, I think it's so intensely interesting. I think that's what really drives me. I wish there was some super drinkers, you know, some good vitamin thing to take. But it's just that the content is, you know, it's exciting and it's constantly, you know, your mind is constantly learning. And that for me is very energizing. And that's I think what really hope drives, drives me. And you know, at the beginning it seems like, boy, that's a big mountain decline. And then you sort of get to the upper ridge and you say, yeah, it's very interesting. But we get to Thursdays can be interesting. And Friday, that's another new innovation that we have. It's called, we call it Friday, look forward. We're going to try and focus on big themes, looking outward, building upon the discussion of the week. And I want to be sure people are aware of that. And the other thing that's really very important is the, is the future leader program. Energy leaders. And I mean, I was talking to somebody that was a pretty senior job in the Trump administration. He said six years ago, he was in the future leader program. And how important it was for him in terms of opening his eyes. So encourage of, you know, companies to keep that in mind too. Well, I say, I'll say one other issue. People talent is also going to be a big top. You've given me an idea, though, guys. I think we need an energy drink called the Jurgen. And we'll put all this great stuff in it, all natural. And it'll just give you all this great vitality and, get you excited to learn. So we're going to work on that then. Okay. Well, thank you. Great. We've been with you. And look forward to seeing you with many of the people on COBT at us here week. So thanks for this opportunity to come back and talk more. Thank you. Thank you everybody.