Oil Ground Up

This episode of the Oil Ground Up podcast features host Rory Johnston in conversation with Andy De La Rosa, a senior field engineer with 15 years of experience in the wireline industry. De La Rosa describes wireline as the "tip of the spear" for the fracking process, utilizing specialized trucks with miles of steel conductive cable to send perforating guns downhole to fracture rock with shaped charges. Beyond the technicalities, the guests examine the wave of industry consolidation and how independent firms like Underdog Wireline survive market downturns.

The Oil Ground Up podcast welcomes Doug Terreson to parse the dynamics of the chaotic and confusing current oil market. Terreson details his illustrious career path, which included drilling oil wells for Schlumberger, managing one of the world’s largest energy funds on the buy side at Putnam, and managing the global energy group at Morgan Stanley and Evercore for 30 years. He explains how his research note, "The Era of the Super Major" (1998), spurred the industry's most significant consolidation phase since 1911 by forcing companies to pivot from growing production to a value-based model. This focus on value was reinforced by "The Pledge" in 2017, which mandated greater capital discipline, flat spending, and tying intrinsic value metrics to CEO pay. Discussing the present, Terreson analyzes the complex situation where fundamental analysis points to potentially massive inventory builds that have never been seen before. However, he suggests the market must also account for aggressive geopolitical currents, including a potential strategic push from the U.S. and allies that may be defunding three different global conflicts. Finally, Terreson shares his long-term view on the refining sector, recalling his profitable "Golden Age of Refining" call and asserting that utilization rates and margins are poised to rise again due to zero net growth in global refining capacity.

The Trump Administration has gotten increasingly aggressive in its relations with Nicholas Maduro's government in Venezuela, accumulating a historic volume of US military capability in the Caribbean and cancelling a raft of oil sector operating licenses. Whether or not this leads to outright regime change, it seems like we are on the precipice of something major occurring on Venezuela.What could all of this mean for Venezuela's chronically challenged but stupendously high potential oil industry? To help me explore this question, I'm joined today by Dr Francisco Monaldi, the director of the Latin America Energy Program and the Wallace S Wilson Fellow in Latin American Energy Policy at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Fransisco has spent decades chronicling and analyzing Venezuela's oil sector and brings a very welcome and encyclopedia body of knowledge to bear in our conversation.

The Western Canadian oil industry pumps more crude than most OPEC members but its production is located far from consuming markets and depends on a dizzying array of pipelines to connect that supply to end demand. At the same time, Canada's oil producers have had to navigate a quagmire of ever-shifting politics, policy, and regulations—especially concerning greenhouse gas emissions—that were widely seen to be restraining the sectors growth.To help me dig into the meat of this discussion, frame the current position of the massive oil sands industry today and where we're headed, as well as how to parse the ongoing negotiations between Canada's West and Ottawa, Rory is joined this week by Kevin Birn, Global Head, Center of Emissions Excellence and Chief Analyst, Canadian Oil Markets, at S&P Global.

Rory Johnston welcomes Arjun Murti, a partner at Veriten and former Goldman Sachs equity research analyst with 33 years of experience covering the full energy value chain. Murti discusses his Substack, SuperSpiked, explaining that the branding harkens back to the 2004 call for a super cycle, though the current framework emphasizes multi-year "super volatility" rather than a new permanent price state. The experts dive into the core short-term commodity debate, analyzing the divergence in demand forecasts between the "big three" agencies and critiquing the inconsistency between high oversupply forecasts and only short-term low price predictions. Murti firmly pushes back on the peak oil demand narrative, arguing that continued growth is illogical to deny given the massive unmet energy needs of billions globally. They explore how companies, particularly US-based EMPs, should lean into current market pessimism by prioritizing "fortress balance sheets," proactively managing costs, and protecting their returns on capital. This insightful conversation offers a differentiated, optimistic view of the sector, framing the present environment as a time for strategic risk-taking rather than capital destruction, supported by long-term belief in economic and energy growth