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Now Live: Super-Spiked EP234: $100 Oil Redux: Where Are We In The Current Era?⚡ Oil markets are again trading the $100/bbl level. We've been here before including at the height of the COVID recovery and start of Russia-Ukraine in 2022-23. The point of this week's post is to assess where we are in the current macro era today and compare and contrast the current set-up with prior periods of high prices. Our aim, as always, is on helping management teams and board directors navigate a Geopolitical Super Vol energy macro backdrop. Three things jump out at us today: 🔹 Back end oil remains firmly anchored in the $65-$70/bbl range, a general price band we think is sensible. 🔹 We are in year 5 of the Geopolitical Super Vol era characterized by persistent forward curve backwardation..."oil glut" has been a terrible call, even as we recognize sharp pullbacks, especially when the curve is steeply backwardated are inevitable. 🔹 Investors are slowly shifting from the doubt of "you-guys-will-always-waste-money" world view to having a more open mind about the outlook. It's probably too strong to say we are fully glass half full for traditional oil value chain names, but there does seem to be a growing recognition that traditional energy companies can generate competitive profitability with the right business model and asset mix. Our bottom line conclusion is that we still think sector weightings across energy, power, and key metals and minerals can about double from here. Certainly there is still a long way to go in the current Geopolitical Super Vol era and a period of overall healthy profitability and to varying degrees top and bottom line per share growth. Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 0:43 Mega Themes 2:33 2026 Specific Themes 8:20 Energy Scenario Normalization 11:31 Markets, Technology and M&A 15:58 What We Didn’t Sufficiently Emphasize 23:07 On A Personal Note: 25 Years @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti #SuperSpiked

Now Live: "It Was Absolutely Unexpected By All Of Us" – Clarissa Lins, Catavento | Special Edition COBT from Veriten 10.29.26🎙️ We are thrilled to share this Special Edition #COBT focused on Brazil with Clarissa Lins, Founding Partner of Catavento. Clarissa founded Catavento, a strategy and sustainability consultancy, in 2013 and has over 20 years of experience in strategy, sustainability, and corporate governance. She was part of Brazil's Ministry of Finance team that developed the Real Plan, the country's landmark economic stabilization program introduced in 1994, and previously served as an Advisor to the President of Brazil's BNDES Development Bank. From 1999 to 2002, Clarissa served as Head of Corporate Strategy at Petrobras, helping guide the company's strategic transformation during its listing on the New York Stock Exchange. We were delighted to host Clarissa for a timely discussion on Brazil's recent presidential election, the implications for Petrobras and the country's energy policies, and Brazil's broader energy outlook. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: "This Time, Hopefully, Is Different" – Dr. Francisco Monaldi, Rice University’s Baker Institute🎙️ Today on #COBT we had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Francisco Monaldi, Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Latin American Energy Policy and Director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Francisco is a leading expert on Latin American energy markets and policy, with expertise in Venezuela's oil industry and political economy. With significant developments unfolding across the region, we were delighted to welcome Francisco for a timely discussion on Latin America's energy outlook, the evolving political landscape, and the opportunities and challenges surrounding Venezuela's potential recovery. @fmonaldi @BakerInstitute @RiceUniversity @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: Super-Spiked EP233: Long Takes From The Road: Thoughts on "Peak China"⚡ A recurring theme from many of our recent meetings and engagements is around the role of China in energy markets going forward. Here are nine China-related thoughts in the context of our Geopolitical Super Vol macro framework. 1. China's massive trade surplus with the rest of the world is not sustainable. 2. Industrial diversification away from China is inflationary, and at least in the short-term, higher in energy intensity than the status quo. 3. From the perspective of energy, peak trade surplus by China likely coincides with peak energy usage in the country. A plateau in its oil and coal demand seems possible in coming years under the assumption that the rest of the world makes headway diversifying manufacturing away from China. 4. Whether China can transition to more of a consumer market from a heavy industry, export oriented economy is a question that is beyond our ability to intelligently comment as an energy specialist and is the key to its long-term energy growth potential. 5. We do not believe peak or plateauing oil demand in China means peak global oil demand is here, as the other 6 billion people on Earth outside of China still have massive unmet energy needs. 6. China is still building coal plants even as it is meaningfully ramping solar, wind, batteries, and nuclear. This is a real lesson the U.S., Canada, and Europe ought to embrace. Build and definitely don't close baseload power generation as you are adding renewables and other new technologies. 7. Increased volatility in China oil imports likely mutes the extreme ends of the oil price trading range, as we expect the country to add to strategic stocks on pullbacks toward $50/bbl or lower with reduced imports when oil is trading above $90/bbl. 8. For companies in the oil value chain in particular, cash is king. 9. For the power value chain, higher inflation means higher borrowing costs. All the turmoil in the world creates supply chain risk. Let us conclude with this takeaway: China did not matter to energy analysis prior to 2004 and may become less relevant within the next few years (to be clear, China will remain important but may no longer be the top driver is our point). The Asian Tigers stopped mattering in 1998. Japan and Western Europe stopped mattering a few years before that. So if we think about macro eras, which countries are the driver evolve as well. There is only one long-term direction of travel for the world and that is one of more prosperity and progress over time, even as the path can sometimes be rocky. There are still at least 6 billion people ready to move up and to the right economically. The 2030s may well be more about some or all of those other 6 billion people than it will be about China. #SuperSpiked @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: "The National Debt Doesn't Care If You Vote Republican or Democrat" – Tyler Hassen, Author of "Inside DOGE"🎙️ Today on #COBT we had the pleasure of hosting Tyler Hassen, CEO of Zone Frontier and author of the recently published book, "Inside DOGE" (linked here: lnkd.in/gR2f8JJp). Tyler spent 16 years in the oilfield services industry, serving in both CFO and CEO roles, before joining the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and serving as Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget at the U.S. Department of the Interior. His book offers a firsthand look at the inner workings of DOGE, the challenges of reducing government spending, and the opportunities to improve efficiency and accountability across federal agencies. We were delighted to host Tyler for a fascinating discussion about his experience inside government, lessons learned, and what meaningful government reform could look like going forward. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti @TylerHassen1

Now Live: EP232: Cash Is King⚡ One of our core Super-Spiked themes since inception nearly five years ago has been the idea that companies in deeply cyclical commodity sectors should aim to have a fortress balance sheet, and that you run the business to ensure that you can not only survive but actually thrive through industry downturns. Preparation for bad times is what enables success during the bull markets. It’s what positions companies to keep pace with and beat the broader S&P 500 over the decades through all the ups and downs. From the breakup of Standard Oil in 1911, its largest surviving pieces plus Royal Dutch/Shell not only survived but thrived over the next 100 years until the end of the China/BRICs super-cycle in 2014. We are currently in an era where oil prices are around $100/bbl and refining margins are over $60/bbl and companies exposed to upstream and downstream oil commodity value chains are increasingly flush with cash. Today’s video adds a corollary to our fortress balance sheet ethos and that is “cash is king.” We have little doubt that Street analysts on upcoming 3Q2026 earnings conference calls will be querying management teams on what they will do with the cash and many will argue some large portion ought to be immediately returned to investors. If we are sticking with our pragmatic approach to energy, some of the surplus will and should go back to investors. But there are a number of arguments made about returning all or the bulk of cash back to investors that we do not agree with. The strategic value of cash, especially in a deeply cyclical commodity business, is often under appreciated by both investors and management teams. It’s not simply having a fortress balance sheet. It’s about having a degree of balance sheet strength that enables significant counter-cyclical buybacks, M&A, or CAPEX. We would argue there is no such thing as having too much cash on hand, especially given our Geopolitical Super Vol macro framing. Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 2:42 Cash is King 9:37 Pushbacks On Retaining Cash 15:48 On A Personal Note: In Honor of Malcolm Young #SuperSpiked @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: "Big Tech Is Making The Mistakes That Big Oil Did 20 Years Ago" – Rob Connors, The Crude Chronicles🎙️ We are excited to share this Special Edition #COBT featuring Rob Connors, Founder of The Crude Chronicles. Rob is a longtime sell-side research analyst who covered companies across oil and gas, industrials, transportation, and aerospace and defense before launching The Crude Chronicles. His Substack offers in-depth analysis of energy markets, industry investment cycles, capital allocation, and historical trends. We have gotten to know Rob over the past few years and are avid readers of his work. We were delighted to host Rob for a wide-ranging discussion on global refining markets, capital allocation and executive incentives, and the long-term outlook for oil and natural gas. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti @crudechronicle

Now Live: "We Do Want To Beat China, But We Don’t Need To Be China" – David Hill and Xan Fishman, Bipartisan Policy Center🎙️ Today we were delighted to host David Hill, Senior Advisor, and Xan Fishman, Executive Vice President of Energy, with the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). The BPC is a leading Washington-based nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing stakeholders together to address critical U.S. policy issues and identify areas of alignment for action. We were thrilled to visit with David and Xan for their latest insights on permitting reform, the policy environment in Washington, and the prospects for meaningful bipartisan legislation. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti @XanFishman @BPC_Bipartisan

Now Live: Super-Spiked EP231: Good Call or Bad Call: FAQ on Oil Markets⚡ This week we have a twist on our Q&A styled commentaries, which we are calling "Good Call or Bad Call.” We focus on oil markets with four topics to go through. The point of the post is to shed light on signal from noise and when to push back on consensus narratives. (1) About a month ago, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright made headlines stating that oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz and the Middle East in general were much higher than everyone realized. His comments were broadly dismissed as happy talk from an administration that was desperate to see lower gasoline and diesel prices ahead of upcoming midterm elections. Was it a good call or bad call to doubt Secretary Wright's comments on Middle East oil flows? (2) Has it been a good call or bad call to believe in the oil glut narrative? (3) Is it a good call or bad call to think recent changes to U.S. fuel economy rules announced by the Trump Administration will gut mpg improvements and boost gasoline demand? (4) Has our Super Vol framework been a good call or a bad call? ▶️ Listen below. #SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti @SuperSpiked

Now Live: "I Call Myself A Drill Baby Drill Democrat" – Rep. Jon Rosenthal, Candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner🎙️ With the midterm elections approaching, one particularly important race for the energy industry is the election for Texas Railroad Commissioner. This week, we had the opportunity to host Representative Jon Rosenthal, one of three candidates running to succeed incumbent Commissioner Jim Wright. Jon is currently serving his fourth term in the Texas House and has 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industry as an engineer and project manager. We were excited to hear Jon’s perspective on the race, the role of the Railroad Commission, and the key energy issues facing Texas. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti @Jon_RosenthalTX

Now Live: Super-Spiked EP230: Long Takes From The Road: CEOs and Strategy Change⚡ It's a heavy travel week so this is going to be a quick audio only commentary. On Veriten's Close of Business Tuesday podcast this past week, we had oil industry veteran Scott Sheffield on to discuss his new memoir, "From Tehran to the Permian" (here: veriten.com/stream/cobt-347/). Scott of course was the long running CEO of oil & gas exploration and production company Pioneer Natural Resources and its predecessor Parker & Parsley spanning over three decades. Scott's career as CEO covered all four of the oil macro eras we highlighted a few weeks ago in our 20 Years of "A View from Wall Street" at Oxford podcast that discussed how corporate strategy needs to evolve depending on what macro era you are in and how mature a given era is (here: arjunmurti.substack.com/p/ep…). We give Scott, as a very long serving CEO, a lot of credit that his management style allowed Pioneer to thrive across very different oil macro environments. It is rare for a CEO to last that long and it is even rarer for a leader to be as adaptable as he was. If you pull up PXD's stock chart, it was not a straight line up, but the low points didn't break the company and every time they emerged stronger than before, culminating in the sale of the company in 2024 to ExxonMobil at an all-time high that resulted in PXD outperforming the S&P 500 by a good amount over his tenure. ▶️ Listen below. #SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti @SuperSpiked

Now Live: "We Are Here as an Enabler of the Private Sector" – Julie Kozeracki, U.S. DOE EDF🎙️ We are excited to share this Special Edition #COBT featuring Julie Kozeracki, Acting Chief Investment Officer for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF), for a wide-ranging look at the effort to accelerate nuclear power deployment in the U.S. Julie previously served as a Senior Advisor to the office under the Biden Administration and as a Principal with Boston Consulting Group. EDF has over $250 billion in loan authority available to help deploy high-impact energy infrastructure projects. We were thrilled to hear Julie’s latest insights on EDF’s activities, recent announcements, and the opportunities and challenges ahead for nuclear development in the U.S. @juliekozeracki @ArjunNMurti @SuperSpiked @ENERGY @DOE_EDF

Now Live: "You Have to Be Willing to Change Strategy" – Scott Sheffield, Author of "From Tehran to the Permian"🎙️ We were thrilled to host our good friend Scott Sheffield on #COBT in advance of his new book, "From Tehran to the Permian: Leading the Shale Revolution and My Fight for Energy Independence," publishing on October 6th (pre-order available here: lnkd.in/gP2sRrTC). Scott’s career spans more than four decades, including serving as CEO of Parker & Parsley and later Pioneer Natural Resources, where he helped lead the company through multiple industry cycles and played an important role in the development of the Permian Basin and the U.S. shale revolution. Scott’s new book traces that journey from his formative years living in Tehran through his decades in the energy industry, sharing the leadership lessons, challenges, and experiences that shaped him along the way. We were honored to host Scott and hear his reflections on his career and his latest perspectives across the energy landscape. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: Super-Spiked EP229: NYC Climate Week Takeaways: Glass Half Full⚡ We provide takeaways following a number of New York City Climate Week events we attended this past week. We are going with an optimistic take directed at those of you that place a high priority on addressing carbon emissions: in my 34-year career, the outlook for new energy technologies has never been brighter. The vast bulk of new energy tech is de facto lower carbon in nature. The favorable outlook is being driven by economic and geopolitical security fundamentals that are consistent with energy's natural hierarchy of needs along with our Lucky 1 Billion Other 7 Billion person framing. This is and always has been the basis for all energy and economic development. Notable events we attended were hosted by the US-India Strategic Partnership, ClearPath and API, and the Center On Global Energy Policy—developing world, right of center, left of center were represented and all recognized energy’s natural hierarchy of needs. Pretending carbon emissions is anyone’s organizing principle, mercifully, was not the view at any of the events. Notably, decreased carbon intensity of economic growth was the clear result of the focus of everyone on Earth deserving to be energy rich. Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 3:07 FAQ on Climate 10:28 On A Personal Note: I ❤️ New York #SuperSpiked @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Physical AI is bringing the energy and technology worlds together in an exciting new way. So we got together with friends at Andreessen Horowitz (@a16z) to host a first of its kind event to dive in. The energy industry's technology transformation is accelerating, but the question is which companies are building solutions that work at industrial scale. We brought Silicon Valley to Houston for the Energy and Industrials Technology Showcase to dive in. Seven startup companies, from grid modernization to autonomous subsea inspection to AI for heavy equipment, presented live demonstrations to our friends across the energy and industrials world. This is the just start of an exciting partnership, and we look forward to doing more soon! @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: "Gas Storage Is Back In Style" – Dave Marchese, Caliche🎙️ Today on COBT we had the exciting opportunity to tour Caliche’s Golden Triangle Storage facility in Beaumont, Texas. Caliche is an acquisition and development company focused on the underground storage of natural gas and industrial gases, including hydrogen and helium, as well as carbon sequestration. Following the tour, we sat down with Dave Marchese, CEO of Caliche. Dave has over 25 years of experience in the development, construction, and operation of energy assets, including underground hydrocarbon storage, utility-scale power plants, and petrochemical facilities. We were thrilled to hear Dave’s perspective on the natural gas storage business, the growing importance of storage to LNG and power markets, and the infrastructure needed to support rising U.S. natural gas demand. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: Super-Spiked EP228: 20 Years of “A View From Wall Street” at Oxford⚡ We have been presenting “A View From Wall Street” at the annual Oxford Energy Seminar since 2006. The seminar brings together around 50 “next generation” leaders at national oil companies, Western majors, refiners, and various government agencies from around the world. The opportunity to join this esteemed gathering at Oxford each year is a career highlight. The participants, we would note, spend 10 days on campus hearing from a range of speakers such as yours truly while also engaging in group projects/discussions meant to foster networking and diverse perspectives on the outlook and challenges facing the energy sector. It skews “oil” in terms of participant representation and is run by the former CEO of Kuwait Petroleum Company. This year, one of the participants asked me what common themes and lessons have I learned in over 20 years of speaking? How had the outlook changed? It is a great question. So, what we are going to do this week is take a look back on what we were saying at the time, what we got right, what we got wrong at the time relative to how things ultimately played out. Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 2:12 1992-2001: $15-$25 Forever 7:29 1st OES: Isn’t The Rise to $60 Just Speculation? 10:04 2014 OES: “Normal” Discussions About Outlook 12:09 2019 OES: Can Shale Endure at $50? 14:03 OES 2023: Energy Transition Doom & Gloom 16:23 OES 2026: “Thank You For An Optimistic Take” 18:32 Alternative Energy to Clean Tech to Geo Security 22:43 Lesson For Traditional Energy 26:59 Lesson For New Energies 33:27 Biggest Surprises or Change In View 40:27 On A Personal Note: Oxford #SuperSpiked @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: "20% Of The World’s LNG Is Now Interruptible" – Martin Houston🎙️ As you may know, #Gastech is currently underway in Bangkok, Thailand. To help us get a sense of the on-the-ground takeaways and sentiment, we had the pleasure of hosting our good friend Martin Houston on #COBT. Martin is a longtime energy industry leader with decades of global experience. He currently serves as Chairman of Omega Oil and Gas, a Non-Executive Director of Energean, BUPA Arabia, CC Energy, and Singapore GasCo, and a Senior Advisor at Moelis & Company. Martin previously co-founded Tellurian, where he served as Executive Chairman until the company’s sale in 2024, and spent 32 years at BG Group, serving as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director. Mark Castiglione is also attending Gastech and joined us for today’s session. We were thrilled to host Martin and hear his perspectives on the global natural gas and LNG outlook, Asia’s growing energy needs, and beyond. @SuperSpiked @ArjunNMurti

Now Live: Super-Spiked EP227: A Check-In On Our Big Themes for 2026⚡ We are back after a 2-week end of summer hiatus. We hope everyone had a great summer and is ready for Fall. Our Fall kickoff starts with a look back at our first Super-Spiked post his year titled “Big Themes for 2026: Up and To The Right.” In this week’s post, we will assess how we are doing we the themes we had highlighted in January. Overall, we think we did a generally decent job of identifying the most important themes, but of course have room for improvement which we spend time discussing. Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 0:43 Mega Themes 2:33 2026 Specific Themes 8:20 Energy Scenario Normalization 11:31 Markets, Technology and M&A 15:58 What We Didn’t Sufficiently Emphasize 23:07 On A Personal Note: 25 Years @ArjunNMurti @SuperSpiked #SuperSpiked

Now Live: "Our Weather Will Be Dictated By The Polar Vortex" – Dr. Judah Cohen, JANUS Research Group🎙️ Today on #COBT we had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Judah Cohen for a discussion focused on weather. Judah is a Director of Seasonal Forecasting at JANUS Research Group and a Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work focuses on sub-seasonal to seasonal weather forecasting, with particular expertise in the polar vortex, Arctic climate variability, and the factors that drive winter weather across North America and Europe. We were excited to hear Judah’s perspective on the upcoming season, the evolution of weather forecasting, and how new technologies including AI could improve our ability to predict weather further into the future. @SuperSpiked @judah47