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 the first KSG Executive Dinner, which I hosted last week in Dallas with executives who run oil and gas businesses. I put three questions to the group, and we spent most of the evening on the third: where does the market see stability that we are not confident exists? The first answer was labor, where data centers, power plants and LNG facilities are competing for the same workers an oilfield recovery would need. The second answer was transportation, where crude and LNG shipping will carry more risk than before even after flows return through the Strait of Hormuz. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/the-first-ksg-executive-dinner-dallas-oil-gas-leaders-on-2027-risks/From there I get into my LinkedIn post on why Marathon Petroleum is selling two refineries, in Minnesota and North Dakota, to Carl Icahn's CVR Energy while refining margins are near records. Management said the proceeds go back toward the Gulf Coast, a theme I have been writing about for years: as the world's energy mix changes, the Gulf Coast is becoming more prominent, not less. Marathon is selling while crack spreads are historically wide so it has the capital to deploy on the Gulf Coast now. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/why-marathon-is-selling-4-2b-of-assets-with-refining-margins-near-records/Next I share my post on why oil and gas companies so openly share lessons learned, written ahead of The Gathering, the Crue Club event in Houston on November 19 where I am delivering the keynote and facilitating a roundtable on capital discipline. Producers do compete, but not the way GM and Ford compete for each vehicle buyer: no one agonizes over whether the next barrel comes from ConocoPhillips, Oxy or EOG. And when the E&P sector struggles, talent, investor capital and service capacity are harder for every company to attract. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/why-oil-gas-operators-share-lessons-learned-even-though-they-compete/I close with this week's newsletter insight on the implications of the US midterms. I have learned not to overreact in the short term to a big market development, and I lay out the reasons I don't believe the results mean the imminent demise of oil and gas, from the industry's history under both parties to the realities of the current political environment.Everything in this episode is in this week's newsletter, free every Sunday night, along with a weekly insight like the midterms piece that I don't publish anywhere else. 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 my post on what Range Resources brings to its combination with EQT. The deal is consolidation built around growth in natural gas demand, and it is a specific example of the divergence we've been seeing between oil and gas markets. Long-term oil demand forecasts run from OPEC's growth through 2050 to a peak in the early 2030s, and that uncertainty holds back oil investments with decade-plus horizons. Gas carries no such hesitation, because data centers and electrification need dispatchable power. Range also brings a larger NGL focus, which helps while liquids prices are stronger than gas prices. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/what-range-resources-brings-to-eqt-27-of-the-equity-64-of-the-ngls/From there I get into the framework I shared on LinkedIn for getting more out of earnings season. For your own company, your customers, your suppliers and your competitors, I start with the question I am trying to answer and what I expected going in, so the results that differ from those expectations are the ones that trigger my curiosity. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/a-five-step-framework-for-getting-more-out-of-energy-earnings-season/Next I share my post on the Crue Club dinner I facilitated on the intersection of power with oil and gas, under the title "Hype or Opportunity." The conversation ran from how oil and gas companies are keeping power from becoming the bottleneck to their 2027 plans, to which new commercial opportunities in power are real. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/what-i-told-the-crue-club-dinner-about-oil-gas-and-power/I then get into my talk at the IADD Annual Technical Forum, my third talk to the group, on how the US oilfield has responded to $90 oil. WTI has averaged $90 since the war began, and capital discipline has survived contact with those prices. The US rig count has been climbing, almost all of it oil focused, but it has only just returned to where it stood in May 2024. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/what-i-told-iadd-about-how-the-oilfield-has-responded-to-90-oil/I close with the insight from this week's newsletter on Valero buying LyondellBasell's Houston Refinery. The US is willing to invest in upstream oil production but not in new greenfield refining capacity, which is being built in Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific instead. A refinery reopening at home was a useful case for challenging my own expectations for refining.Everything in this episode is in this week's newsletter, free every Sunday night, along with a weekly insight like the Valero piece that I don't publish anywhere else. 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 my Foundations of Energy piece on the past and present of Gulf of America activity and production. It was my homework for a talk I gave at the Gulf Coast Renaissance Forum in Lafayette. An industrial renaissance along the Gulf Coast is already underway and funded, from LNG and chemicals to data centers. My question for the room was whether an upstream renaissance will accompany it. You can read my piece at https://foundationsofenergy.substack.com/p/the-gulf-of-america-far-from-itsFrom there I get into my post on WTI prices climbing even as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz recovers. For most of this year the two moved inversely, and now they are climbing together. Oil markets are multidimensional, and a moment like this is a good trigger to ask what needs to change in my own model of how they work. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/wti-tops-100-even-as-strait-of-hormuz-oil-flows-return-to-prewar-levels/Next I share my post on the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow, which shows Q3 growth at 3.5%, a little stronger than the 3.1% median annualized growth of the past 80 years. In election season I wanted to write about GDP in a sober, data-supported way. When the official number lands, I will be watching how much of that growth comes from the data center buildout and how much is broadening out across the economy. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/atlanta-fed-gdpnow-puts-q3-gdp-growth-at-3-5-ahead-of-thursdays-release/Then I talk about my post on Amazon exploring small modular reactors with X-energy and AEP. The press release combined some fluff with some substance. On advanced nuclear, it was an agreement to explore, with no capital figures attached. The substance was Amazon paying the development funding upfront to shield ratepayers if the effort never produces power, which says more about affordability than about advanced nuclear. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/amazons-indiana-smr-deal-is-an-agreement-to-explore-not-to-build/I close with a conversation I had with someone on the oilfield services side at a Houston Geological Society golf tournament. Most of the value from accumulating well construction efficiencies has landed with E&Ps, so oilfield services teams are evaluating opportunities in legacy oilfield markets against adjacent markets like LNG and data centers, where the customers are less familiar but there is more hope of higher returns.Everything in this episode is in this week's newsletter, free every Sunday night, along with a weekly insight that I don't publish anywhere else. 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 my post on the opportunity for oilfield services in data centers, built around a graphic of where oilfield services companies fit in the data center buildout. The conversations I'm having with executive teams revisit the same premise: the legacy oilfield does not offer much growth, and E&Ps are capturing most of the incremental value upstream. The opportunities within data centers run from distributed power generation and gas processing to produced water and thermal management. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/data-centers-give-oilfield-services-its-first-growth-story-since-2014/From there I get into my talk at Oleon's customer event in Conroe, celebrating the grand opening of its esterification unit. Oleon is a specialty chemicals manufacturer whose feedstocks are bio-based, so the conversation about sustainability was grounded in supply chain proximity and performance, not so much around emissions. As a fluids guy by training, I appreciated the technical detail. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/speaking-at-oleons-conroe-seminar-on-the-state-of-us-oil-and-gas/Next I share my LinkedIn poll on where US E&P cash goes when Q3 results land. With oil still at $100 a barrel, private E&Ps have added rigs while public E&Ps have not leaned in nearly as strongly. The poll choices are capex, dividends and buybacks, paying down debt as rates climb, or holding cash for optionality. You can vote at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffkrimmel_in-q2-ep-operating-cash-flows-were-up-ugcPost-7515934109484077056-EwxlThen I talk about my comments to the Kyiv Independent on the diesel deal President Trump announced with President Putin. It had a large political impact and a small energy sector impact. The volumes are not material and would have reached global markets anyway, which is why US diesel futures kept climbing through the announcement. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/my-comments-to-the-kyiv-independent-on-the-us-russia-diesel-deal/I close with the insight from Sunday's newsletter on why AEP is paying an 80% premium for gas power generation through fuel cells and linear generators. Gas turbines have years-long queues, and power demand is arriving faster than the supply chain can expand. As they say in sports, the most important ability is availability. One particularly fraught question is whether those added costs reach everyday electricity consumers.Everything in this episode is in this week's newsletter, free every Sunday night, along with a weekly insight like the AEP piece that I don't publish anywhere else. 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 my post on the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve falling to its lowest level since 1982, when it was still on its initial fill. Withdrawals have slowed, but it is easy to read more stability into the market than exists. Flows out of the Strait of Hormuz still have not normalized. A low SPR means less protection against the next disruption, at a time when geopolitical risk keeps growing. For the oilfield there is also a benefit: refilling inventories is a demand tailwind into and through 2027. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/the-spr-is-at-its-lowest-level-since-1982/From there I get into my post on Devon exiting the Eagle Ford by selling its assets to Crescent for $4.2 billion. Capital discipline has two sides, because every transaction needs a buyer and a seller. Devon's press release says the price beat even its strategic upside case. Crescent can still agree to pay it, because its mineral rights ownership and adjacent locations give it a very different economic calculus for the same assets. You can read my post at https://krimmelsg.com/devon-and-crescent-value-the-same-4-2b-eagle-ford-assets-very-differently/Next I share my LinkedIn poll on what Henry Hub averages in 2027. I'm building a rolling five-year outlook with a client, now with gas alongside oil, modeled monthly at the basin level with constraints like pipeline egress. That one 2027 number carries new pipeline projects, the LNG buildout, and data center demand. You can vote at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffkrimmel_shell-reached-fid-on-lng-canada-phase-2-ugcPost-7513040325737791488-fr2W/I close with the insight from Sunday's newsletter on uprates at US nuclear plants, where upgraded turbines, generators, and digital systems let an existing plant generate more than it was rated for. Nuclear gets an enormous amount of attention, but to me the paths to more nuclear power in the short to medium term are remarkably narrow. We have not seen small modular reactors deployed at scale, and for now incremental generation looks largely like a solar and storage story.Everything in this episode is in this week's newsletter, free every Sunday night, along with a weekly insight like the nuclear uprates piece that I don't publish anywhere else. 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 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-7510809801916928000-4DdeI 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-backfireNext 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-DX5LI 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-beenThen 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