So i work in energy for almost like 18 plus years now i mean i came to work as a physicist in engineering. My background was math physics. Then i did masters in geophysics, so i get to live with the oil price reality on day to day basis. So we are in an energy transition mode, but we have not yet replaced even the two percent of world energy needs.

Germany and the eu basically saying well we're out renewables all the way like what were they thinking about uh i get to be in meetings with the good. It's like certain regulators and we talk things. We try to be very realistic, like what is possible or not, but then you realize that certain thoughts are not welcome. Bringing supplies from venezuela in a sustainable manner will take for longer than the current mass we have in this match.

There is only two: there are only two things that can help you need immediate release on on oil supplies from somewhere, and the only place that can do at this particular point is opaque and primarily saudi. So any discussion we are having about iran or any discussion. We are having about venezuela, it is more a strategic move, in my opinion, to create pressure on earthquake. I mean because see when oil price is going up.

The challenge is not the price. The challenge is the supply. Countries have to think that okay, one thing is to having it costly, second, is not to have it at all, there's nothing to stop until unless there is an outside intervention. This is exactly what happened two years back when we went sub zero, because literally there was nothing to stop that particular time so same is is valid for ceiling that in short time it will keep shooting unless there is an intervention at this particular point, all the Evidence that we have is pretty much in the same direction and there are three critical things.

The first is, i mean the way russia is being disintegrated at this particular point from the energy system and economy. I think this is not something that you can sort it out very easily, so sasha welcome to the interview i mean everybody wants to have a piece of you right now right. Everybody wants to know. What's going on with the energy prices, we're literally flirting with the 125 130 crude? Do you think this is really kind of the peak of where it's going to get or is just the beginning of a or quite a tough time for us? No, i don't think it has speak the uh tom, because normally what happens is like when oil prices are in this extreme? What we call like 1.5, two sigma category, the move is pretty sharp because a lot of people who are on futures in 10, 20 margins.

I mean they are getting wiped out, uh called out pretty fast, so it moves pretty fast. There is nothing to stop until unless there is an outside intervention. This is exactly what happened two years back when we went sub zero, because literally there was nothing to stop that particular time so same is is valid for ceiling that in short time it will keep shooting unless there is an intervention you, so you spent many years In this in the sector, so you've seen everything you've seen the predictions of the twelve dollars, and then you see the negative rates now you've seen the 145s which we had in 2008. So how likely do you think, with all your multi-year experience in this and we'll talk about your experience in a second, i just wanted to start with the bottom line.

So how likely do you think that this is probably the next cataclysmic of the energy sector that we're about to experience right now? At this particular point, all the evidence that we have is pretty much in the same direction and there are three critical things. The first is, i mean the way russia is being disintegrated at this particular point from the energy system and economy. I think this is not something that you can sort it out very easily. The second thing is like: if you go three years back, it was pretty much your trump mbs and putin.

They pretty much can control the oil price in any direction they want. At this particular time, putin is kinda out uh, we don't have trump and it's pretty much like one person mbs who has more control over opaque. It's not a free market price oil price. So at this particular point until unless someone hold it uh, you cannot stop it, and you know when oil price goes high, the inflation will jump high as well, and you know, oil companies have become very cost efficient during the last seven eight years decline.

So suddenly, now they are in a position where they can print a lot of dollars, especially the oil and gas companies very which have active trading arms which can sell futures which they can later back with the barrels. So it's uh, it's quite an opportunity for them. So at this point, energy is the biggest contribution when it comes for inflation. Okay, any like, for example, countries have to start deciding their own budget deficits.

It is beyond what anybody has thought, so there is going to, and also i mean, the country will also start securing critical supplies, so the supply chain bottleneck is actually going to increase at this particular time. Yeah, i mean you're talking about like hoarding a oil. At this point like we had with the chips it's going to exacerbate the problem right, yeah yeah, i mean because see when oil price is going up. The challenge is not the price.

The challenge is the supply. Countries have to think that okay, one thing is to having it costly, second, is not to have it at all. Okay, like, for example, i mean u.s, we saw the news that people are flying to venezuela to secure the supply. I mean in paper it looks very simple that yeah you can get the supply from venezuela.

In reality not see, venezuelan regime has been cut by economic sanctions for a long time. People have fled venezuela. Companies have not invested money in venezuela, venezuelan oil is high api. Heavy oil, it's not that easy to drill and produce and scale up as you can do high api means sorry.

So high api is like a tar like something which is very thick, so the oil has. I mean it has a different chemical compositions, uh. What we call brand brent is what we call i mean it's if it can flow. Well, okay, it is less thick better that we call the light wire like wti in venezuela.

We have a lot of reserves, but companies are not investing companies there. I mean like, for example, if you want to drill there, you need service companies. Service companies were not working there, a lot of them because they were in the fear of sension. So you don't have people, you don't have engineering prowess and you do not have additional supply like a saudi have.

So one thing is to go and talk to venezuela, and then you have to first make them first untouchable, because people were against venezuela for a long time, but bringing supplies from venezuela in a sustainable manner will take far longer than the current mass we have in This match there is only two: there are only two things that can help you need immediate release on on oil supplies from somewhere, and the only place that can do at this particular point is opaque and primarily saudi. So any discussion we are having about iran or any discussion we are having about venezuela. It is more a strategic move, in my opinion, to create pressure on opaque, but if you cannot get these oil supplies as easy as people are talking, because it's not about just getting the oil, i mean people have to physically move the containers. You need to have right, i mean these countries are under economic extensions and they will want thing in in return also uh.

So at this time, if saudi is not on board with opaque to reduce or to increase additional supply - and you know if i, if i would beat them - i mean they have been in challenge for last seven - eight years when they were first against oil shale, then They were against this whole idea that now we are moving towards energy transition, so they have to prepare for it, so they have a say now i mean this is this is what the oil industry is about. I mean people have and when they have balls and they have opportunity, they go big. So at this particular point, opaque has everything going for it. So i think it is important that politicians stay more strategic rather than i think it's better to be a bit humble to go and discuss, because unless this crisis will be quite severe, so opec, which is kind of for those of you who are not familiar.

It's the oil and petroleum cartel, so do they have any incentive in helping the us government and the eu push down their prices at all, but they also have to think in terms of sustainability, and they also do not want oil price to go in a range Where the incentive to develop very expensive oil is is also on the table, so the people go further in deep water. The shale oil comes back, so they wan na stay strategy because they have done it once and they lost the control to u.s shale oil. First. So they do not want to do it in a in a way that it happens again.

So that is first part. The second part is the u.s oil situation, and the european situation is a bit different, see if you see that germany today is getting 60 or whatever percentage from its gas from russia, so people say: let's replace it see, it cannot be replaced. That's the ground reality because, in order to replace the euro, i mean the russian gas. What germany needs to do like, for example, if they go to the u.s uss, to dedicate a whole basin, like eagle ford, with around 25 000 wells with all the infrastructure? All the vessels d, gas terminal lng vessels for long term, and it will take nearly four to five years to put in place and at that particular point, that gas will be two to two or two to three times expensive than what they are getting from russia.

So germany is not going to do it, it's just not happening. Even if, like we talk about the gas coming from qatar and other places, it's not happening so see. That is the challenge. When people negotiate these projects, they focus too much on the unit development cost or unit selling price.

They don't go too much into the non-cash part. The risk you lose because thing is like the same thing that happened with chips sherman. I just call it sharpen. It's such an and why we can change your name to sharmin.

We can, i mean uh, i mean i already use an alias as words a lot of time. Okay, we have, we will give it in the interview, because i think it's hilarious. I just a combination of sachin, sharma and shaman yeah. At least i mean as long as it's not qnon shaman.

I mean i'm okay, so so go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but the same thing happened with chips right uh such an i mean the same. The same fallacy of trying to drive down the cost and basically completely overlook diversification, risk management and supply chains. Yeah - and you know, this is one thing which renewable industry also have to be very careful, also because the the way politicians are selling renewables is that it is cost is going down.

This is everything if you are reducing the cost. There is something else you are trading and what is that, and that is where a lot of time we miss so you i mean eu has no way to come out of russian gas in the near-term timeline. There is literally no way what if russia says tomorrow, because russia knows this right. What if russia can russia is? Russia is in the position physically to just shut off the gas and say: well you can they do it? What's stopping them? I guess the question is: what's stopping russia from doing something something like that see? Uh again i mean you know that what going on in putin's head is is anybody's, guess at this particular yeah.

Of course, there aren't any insanity. If we're talking about rational kind of academic discussion, i mean they're just got hit hard and if they want to, you know punch back, can they just shut down the gas to europe and say well, they can they can the and they will survive. They will. I mean they are already in a bad place.

They will, if the things are not working for them, their cash flows are are already halted. I mean they can take this the step i mean if people say it cannot be done, you look what opaque does in 70s, they decided to shut the supply down for world, so it can happen. I think the only thing that will matter is that if russia wants to do it, they will think at what point they can hit the europe maxima because it has to be like you, you do these kind of things. When there is already a panic is set.

You do not do these things to create panic, because you need kind of nobody wants to hold in this kind of standoff for a very long time, mm-hmm, so ben. I think that time they haven't done it so far means they still think. There's a solution. Uh! No, i don't think the thing is the solution, but they they don't want to use this bargaining chip for now.

So it's kind of the nuclear weapon of economic, economic warfare. It's it's far worse than that i mean if somebody fires a nuclear missile with all the thought and all the frontline defense system. You can shoot it, but if somebody stops the supply of gas to you, you cannot uh put a compressor on the other side and suck the gas from the pipeline. Is it not like i mean look, russia's economy is basically predominantly based on on exports of energy.

So if they do it, half of their like and also doesn't have access to foreign reserves, they've blocked the access of the russian national bank. So if they do it half of the money that they have coming in that they're supposed to survive on is gone. So they're also kind of killing themselves with their where they attack. No, no.

That is that that's what i said, but if russia wants to do it, they want to do it at a point where it creates sudden panic and they can bring people on table as they want. They cannot do it for a long time, but you see the way russia has acted uh. I think they have sacrificed a lot of their positioning global positioning, their economic value, so i think it has become more a gamble now, rather than any well thought plan. In my opinion, so can they do it? I mean at the end of the day, if you put somebody in a corner for too long yeah man i mean we have seen putting too much power in one person and person has not been best of his mind.

I mean it can have what would be the implications if they, if they decide to do something like this? Obviously we can talk about alternative solutions, but if they do it tomorrow, we don't have iran, we don't have venezuela. The u.s system has basically been shut down. Ever since trump left office, so it's gon na. So what do? What does the world do? I mean the us will be fine, they hardly import any russian oil.

I mean like three percent, but what would the european union do if that happens, see the immediate impact? Will be very similar to what happened in 73 74.. The there will be physical, see right now, the right now there is no shortage of gas and oil right now you are buying gas and violet at an expense and it's expensive, but then it will be gone. I mean there is a there will be amazing supplies, there will be russians, there will be quotas by government. You saw what happened during the time of covet.

I mean. If there is, you just cannot control the situation. You will use other means to to manage how things are done. The the manufacturing industry will suffer.

You cannot just uh, you cannot get your nuclear also back, so you know that's what i said. Europe is in a far worse place than uh, especially in germany, compared to where the u.s is. I mean u.s at the end of the day, in a in a way that says: okay, let's go and do the shale oil. Okay, that's one way to do it.

Okay, and but eu cannot do it, i mean eu literally, the u.s has their own oil u.s have canada, they have friendly neighbors with oil. No problem us will be fine. Mexico, i mean there's mexico. I mean they're surrounded by friendly people who have a lot of oil and they have oil of themselves if they want it.

So no problem for them see the the situation of u.s is that they can get more oil, both domestic and from outside. They just don't want that. Okay, but problem for eu is very different. They need gas and gas from pipeline.

It has a certain price which has been, which has been priced in all the manufacturing, all the supply chain, all the government budgets, so you just cannot go into a mode where suddenly it is not available and you are buying the same gas at three to four Times, but also like russia can do this uh for for an extended period because the same, is it not like the flip side of it would be? So if russia does this long term and says well we're not selling to you it's going to take them. Three. Four five years to set up the infrastructure with china, which would obviously have to be the main buyer, then so they're kind of in the same position where they cannot. They cannot play this game for a long time.

Right. No, i mean it's uh tom! You have been in russia, i mean you have seen like what happens if a country implodes overnight, okay, i mean so russia is, is in a very difficult directory. I mean people are suffering a lot both in terms of their wealth has been, is being wiped out overnight. They have no clarity in terms of their career, their family and all the stigma that is coming at this particular point.

So in long term i hope uh countries sitting on that much nuke become desperate. I think one of the thing which i have to i have to honestly say is like i think western world has failed to integrate russia in a cohesive way. Over the last three decades. Uh, i mean see russia had challenges coming out of ussr and being coming out of the communist country, but i think it more should be more should have done from from other part, also to have been integrated as well.

This is this is my personal opinion. I could be wrong, but this is how i think you think germany is to blame for this with all their uh. The shutting down the nuclear power and phasing out coal and the whole renewables was the renewables gamble. A mistake on germany's part see uh.

Renewable is the way to go. The mistake was that politicians have now haven't thought it thoroughly that how we are going to do it a step by step. It becomes a euphoria at some point of time. Okay, i mean, if you see a developed country, if you are relying within with a country who is your ideological, reasonable, territorial and, in principle your your adversary.

It's always a question of bran than if that you will run into some sort of trouble and they relied on this situation for three decades uh. I think they survived quite a lot actually uh without having this trouble and people started, believing that it will not happen. So it was a strategy that was based on hope than actually planning so yeah. It's a failure, you think, can germany go back and restart their nuclear energy industry at all? Is this possible? They will go back actually with respect to whatever they say, because at the end of the day they need electricity, and if somebody is thinking that all the electricity will come from renewables see, renewables can only grow at a certain pace by supply chain world i mean They, if they don't go back to nuclear, that means they are going to be in this soup for far longer than they would have thought, so they i think that the choice on the table has taken from a lot of countries to go back to nuclear.

They have to go back to nuclear, so as the russian. So before i tell you my my thoughts on this, i have a very, very big fear from this um. So technically speaking as a you're, the energy expert, not me, how long would it take? I mean shutting down. The nuclear system is not like turning off an oven right, it's going.

You cannot just turn the button and turn it on right. So how long would it take germany to to reinstate the i mean, find the employees infrastructures certify everything test it out? How long this is? Is it three four years? How long does it take? I think it will take uh yeah. It will definitely take more than two years for sure i mean at least to get some of it back. I think the focus should be more on uh on new small scale, nuclear plants.

Okay, on one hand, you will try to re bringing a lot of these old nuclear online, but you see that is the thing with the nuclear. The engineering specifications are quite high. Okay, you just i mean the you need to remove removing the remote chance of failure. If there would be - and another thing is uh the stigma that comes with being nuclear - that if you go to the nuclear defense from the past, i've seen it happen - this traumatized my childhood 1987, it's very it's when i say this year.

My goosebump starts on my body bro, i'm 40 years old. Now i can imagine man i mean i have see several of my european friends. Remember the time uh when the channel will happen. My entire body started to shake just to talk about chernobyl.

Chernobyl was so the question is, emotions aside. Are we now so far removed from it that the technology i mean we just had tepco not that long ago, again like we, i thought that by then we so is it really that safe with fukushima already happening, and we had the the mile high. So we had incidents over the years. It's not like it became totally accident.

Proof i mean fukushima is definitely not what you would call it a contained event. It's it's pretty horrific. It was see. I think there are two parts of this problem you see.

Nuclear will always come with the stigma and this kind of complexity. We cannot remove it, we can, because the thing is you can remove. You can reduce the probability of the event, but whenever event happens, it's very horrific. That is one part.

Okay. The second part is that we failed to actually move towards kind of modular or smaller nuclear energies. Okay. That is another thing, because what happens is - and this is what i was saying - people try to build everything on unit cost why nuclear plants are so big because you need to bring the unit cost down.

But that is the thing when you are bringing unit costs down, you are increasing the complexity of the project and people they kind of trade off they, because how? How do you say like the value of complexity or what is the the economic value of complexity like, for example, you saw like what happened in australia uh in the the lng project that that shell was doing nothing. This was 17 billion or something the invest, because the the project was increased in size, so much okay to bring the unit cost down. It became quite a challenge in terms of engineering to manage so there's this whole idea that people say like, for example, i've seen the same thing happening in renewables. People say: oh, this is the value in terms of per unit electricity, guys, nothing is free.

When you are buying something there is something else you are trading off. You have to be extremely clear. What is that so yeah? It's like you, know, um. I guess the best example would be right.

If you go to a restaurant and the chef makes you one steak or you go to a dining hall where they make 50 steaks on this on the same, serving the quality of stick is not going to be the same. Obviously, it's a different. It's the same story. The question is: how do you modularize the process, so you can make 15 stakes and not one but not 50..

It will never be 50 or 100.. I understand so. If that's the question i mean so, are we i mean? How close are we to having beyond just obviously now everybody understands the whole renewables thing was a little bit overhyped like the super bowl commercials for the evs. These guys don't even make cars right, and so how far, are we really from sustainable, considerable contribution from renewable energy in western countries actually with the high oil price? What will happen now is that oil industry will have a better say what will happen in the world of renewables, because during the time of covet, what i call like a big oil that all the major oil and gas companies they have made a commitment and move Towards moving to big energy, so what will happen now is that when the oil price is going to be high, the world from big oil is actually going to be translated into big energy.

That means they have a better say what constitutes low carbon or zero carbon energy. Okay, what like, for example, oil in the gas industry, have shown specific preference to offshorement because it requires optional maritime experience. It requires mega capital project, so offshore wind is gon na get bigger than what it is today on the on the european side, as well as on the u.s side, there is only one technology in low carbon that everybody is focusing is that is carbon capture? Okay, now why carbon capture? Because if you want to capture carbon and put it back into the subsurface, the engineering is simply like oil and gas. I mean what you need in oil and gas and, if you are doing in, in addition with oil and gas project, you subsidize the cost.

So the world of big energy is going to be very similar to what is big y and the loser in this game. Are the innovative and the small renewable companies, because oil and gas is now flushed with cash and they want to go to energy overall? And they have not invested that much in the past. So they are going to go into the buying spring. That, let's try to acquire like, for example, if you see the case of cfs, which is common wealth, fusion system, a company that came out of mit and if you start seeing like who are the investors, you will see eni and equino as an investor there.

Okay uh, so that is one thing like, for example, in in the world of big energy, i mean, and you know, renewable companies are not global companies in general, they are reasonably reasonably. They are strong, like companies like austin, but, like shell, shell is present globally. Shell has been present globally for hundreds of years. They have connections, they have brand recognition, they know they have.

Lobbyists and people know them so for them to work out regulators and everything around. So the world will move towards renewable and low carbon energy at a pace that is defined by big oil moving forward only when it makes sense for them. It will happen because they control all the money and all the politicians and all the regulators see if you have so much gas sitting on the world's balance sheet like there are so many companies with so much reserve sitting on the balance sheet, and they are the One who are in position to define how to move it, i mean it makes a lot of sense for them to ensure whatever economic value they can get out of it, so it might be decades away until we see any significant contribution from renewables. If that's the case, because they have at least gas and oil see there are - i mean purely from engineering point of view.

There are two problems to be sorted out. First. The first problem is that the large scale renewables needs a lot of capacity in terms of supply chain and manufacturing, which is yet to come. Okay, you cannot work large scale, renewables in a grid and utility system.

Thus, but we have, you need distributed grids and you need storage. If you cannot get these two things working at very large scale. You just cannot move. I mean substantially to renewables for countries like india and china, i mean it is very important to make this change because uh in the war of this energy, like, for example, what is happening between you, they they are the they are the losers because they don't get To control it, they have state, they don't have any independence, they don't have any energy independence so so see.

The move to renewable is likely going to happen because it makes a lot of sense for a lot of countries to change the geopolitical map and it makes sense for big oil to move to big energy. So my view is like the energy transition is going to accelerate, but with the specific agendas moving forward. So good question for you: if that's the, if right now is a game of uh trying to politically leverage the world to try to leverage putin put in trying to leverage the west, and since we know that we don't have an alternative. And since we know like because people have been, i've been hearing some more on some pseudo specialists on youtube explaining well, russia won't have audis and prada handbags, but we won't have energy so we're well.

My guy russia needs the oil money as bad as we need. The oil and gas, so they don't have anybody to sell it to the capacity in which they can sell to china is very limited. It's going to take years and years. So it's a it's a pretty much a mexican standoff.

Both of us are standing with the gun and we're going to kill each other or not. So the question is since we both don't have alternatives. Uh is it so how? How do is energy even the consideration right now? As far as uh? It i mean if you know that neither side can't push the button. How does this thing play out uh because, well i look at this and i say: well, if one guy, you know, in a fight when you have like an even fight, usually the crazier guy win the one that is willing.

You know what i mean. That's what scares you the most about this see uh. This is what to me like. If you see the the world and the era like especially post world war, uh politicians managed to bring some very difficult parties on the same table to discuss some very sensitive matters.

Okay, this is what what we are missing at this particular point i mean uh, see we can criticize putin as much we we like i mean and - and i despise a lot of things he is doing, but the reality is that he is in control of russian Army and russia at this particular movement, and if you want to resolve so the idea is, are we going to cut our losses and bring these parties on table? That means at that particular time? We need to give something to putin, also so that he can have an honorable exit. If i'm right in russian culture, you cannot make leader look weak internally, i mean putin, cannot come, go back to russia and say that yeah i made a deal and we actually lost so much value. He has to show why it it has all been done. So that is something which is entirely interesting at this particular point and even like it's not close.

Obviously, there's not, it doesn't seem like it's. I don't want to make any predictions. We don't obviously know right, but it doesn't seem like they're. In the i mean when you want, you know when you come out out of war to negotiation, somebody always tried to get better position before so right now he's in total uh.

It's not a it's coming to negotiation from weakness. He's not going to want to do it, so there's he's need some something to come with. So assuming we don't have negotiations soon and assuming that he's gon na do something in the middle. Let's say that he doesn't shut down the gas supply to europe, but let's say he starts to with it.

You know what i mean: give them a one, one. Third, less that's enough to completely with their lives. Bro, just put it by 30. You create insanity.

Right can can the us and their allies at least an emergency kind of uh layout. They compensate for that to prevent the catastrophe in europe, or would this be game over for europe? No, i mean they can supply 10 20 by mobilizing whatever in the spot lng worldwide. But that's i said that europe has no escape. There is no way europe can come out of it without russian energy.

The u.s gets too long sachin. If he does this two months ago and the winter is almost over, so he has lesser leverage. No, i mean technically i mean that's how it seems from outside in point. But what was his challenge? What was going on internally uh in his troops and in his industry internally? It's very difficult to say that the timing and what triggered it and my view is that he waited that.

He really wanted the western countries to come on the table and provide him an honorable or probably lucrative option to not to go into the war, which did not happen, and i mean politicians nowadays are spending more time on twitter than actual diplomacy. So people have made putin a parhaya in all sense, so for politicians it becomes very difficult to go and talk to him now, because then they look back to their voters. So the the consideration of voting is actually kind of having a higher precedence over the the international diplomacy. So if that's the case i mean is buying oil, i mean because when i think of oil right, all the experts are saying well.

130 is where we're pricing in zero oil from russia. Is this true or not, because i've heard this? No! No. What's the point of price point for zero from zero, complete stoppage from russia see uh. The oil will keep on increasing, even if it is there is no.

There is no fixed floor and reason for that is there are three: there is no, there is no cap and i'll. Tell you why. Okay see oil supply is not something which is fixed. We should have an infrastructure, the oil produce and it keeps on declining, so you need to add more capacity to to replace it.

Okay, so russian oil is not going russian. The russian capacity of adding more oil is also going away when you take the system. The second thing is that oil and gas companies have not invested enough in last two years to maintain oil gas, so oil and gas is already under restrained to maintain outside russia what it is doing. Okay, the opaque is the only place that can add capacity and currently the u.s administration and their relationship with opaque is not working out very well okay, so it's not like if anybody says that 130 is the price at which no russian oil.

No that's. In my view, that's not right if it is 130 today it will be tomorrow. 135 - and you know, oil price is a self-killing prophecy. If you tell everyone that oil is going for 200 people will end up buying five times, then they should have been and then it collapsed.

So there is it's a it's a dynamic market you buying. Are you buying energy right now at all? Are you no? I mean this market, i cannot buy energy because i mean, since i help clients for energy and also my confidentiality and ndas. I mean i was checking this morning but uh. I cannot at this particular point so uh, so i work in energy for almost like 18 plus years now i mean i came to work as a physicist in engineering.

My background was math physics. Then i did masters in geophysics my postgraduate diploma in petroleum engineering. I also had a diploma in environmental and ecology. I had my rebel face for energy green energy guy in the in the late 90s.

Before i joined this job, though so i spent nearly 14 years in schlamberger, okay and i was in the division that used to be called production management where we used to manage the oil and gas field. So that means i was in charge of a lot of mega capital project where you design the project and you go to banks for like final investment decisions for billion dollar plus. So i did this kind of projects in india in malaysia, south east asia, in ia. So i get to live with the oil price reality on day to day basis, and after that, like i did my mba, i moved to boston, consulting because i wanted to move towards broader energy than oil and gas um.

I helped clients which includes all the large companies in digital oil in energy transition. That was. These are like two of my favorite topics to work with so large companies, noc's regulators, governments, banks, uh people who are lending money or who are somehow exposed to oil prices. These are like my clients, as of today uh, i have my own body consulting i'm trying to establish a kind couple of sas products.

I'm a fund advisor to an esg fund in singapore, i'm still expert advisor with a tier one consulting and whenever they need me, i mean i work with them. I help couple of business education, consulting companies in uk, which uh, which in turn have some of the large business schools to navigate their students that how to build a career in energy. I help a lot of people nowadays, which is my passion. Is that how to transition from oil and gas to renewable? So that's pretty much where i spend most of my time, so your phone is probably ringing off the hook.

Right now, with everything is going on it is, it is pretty bad. So, what's the most uh common questions, you're getting right now without telling us clients, i mean, what's the type of questions that people want to ask you now as an expert in the industry, so the the question i received over the weekend almost like i think, 40 Plus messages or call is like how how high the oil price can go. I ask this as well and like i said until and unless there is an intervention, it's not going to stop it's an inelastic price. I mean see, even if you see from a just from a futures trading point of view, you have a difference in the calendar price as future contracts are forward.

So there are so many calendar strategies that are displayed at this particular point that it's very difficult to contain the price. At this point - and this is in a very inelastic range, so the moves are very sharp. Less time we we we hit 145, i mean the economy and the stock market collapsed, not because of the oil, but it was kind of one more. You know contributing factor.

We had the big real estate collapsed in 2008, but i mean when you have these sort of pricing levels. It's almost like when your body is telling me that something wrong. The the market is telling me that something is really flawed, because i mean it's not like the prices were forty dollars now jumped to one 120.. The prices were high before the invasion right.

We were talking about 90. So do you think? That's part of the reason he decided to do this now, with how energy was already kind of running hot and the inflation pressures like do you think he strategically chose this time because to get the most leverage out of this, i don't think so. I mean see, the reason is like, even if the u.s is flooded with oil, and even if the oil price is 25, the dependence of europe on russian gas is still as much as it is today. So his leverage is so, are you were you surprised by how germany reacted, given the fact that they're calling his bluffs so to speak like that yeah? The way eu has acted like, for example.

First, they flirted with the idea that they want to bring ukraine in. In in european union, without thinking it thoroughly, i mean see: if putin is a stakeholder in the european relationship and european like a geopolitical balance, then yeah i mean you like it or you don't like it, but you need to kind of bring him on board also That this move is not gon na hurt it okay. This is not a. This is not an easy conversation.

It's not like somebody, a teenager in a politics and go say: oh, we should do this. Okay, i mean it's a it's a very complicated place to be so. People have started uh, treating that this person cannot be touched. This country cannot be touched, this commodity cannot be touched, and then you create these distances that you just cannot cross it.

So yeah suffering is brought on to them, but i mean like the fact that when he started this, so i think his assumption was - and i said this in my video - which i think you you mentioned - you watched - i think the assumption was that germany would not Be able to confront because of the fear of losing the gas, and yet they chose to confront. So is this something that it's it's strange for you to see that they they take this gamble, given the fact that the the risk of losses is is horrific for them. There are two views on this. The one view is that uh that, on one part, the germany has calculated well because they thought that russia will not do this because the kind of damages it will brought to them.

So if germans were thinking from that view, that putin is bluffing. Okay, then yeah. This this move could have been well, but the thing is: if you are expecting to caught others bluff, then you need to have substance in yourself also because they were also bluffing. They have nothing yeah, of course they have yeah.

So so i mean it was. It became more issue of of resilience that who calls each other's bluff, but so far we have twice already we have the germany calling his bluff and we have us calling his bluff on the nuclear readiness where he said the reduced readiness in the second half. Okay, you remember that so two players is it now getting too dangerous when you call too many bluffs, eventually you get shot. Actually it is, i mean uh see.

The thing is how to trust uh. I mean uh european union intention or u.s intention when they are not able to back it up. I mean, of course i mean they are helping in terms of humanitarian needs, okay, but that is the part of western democracy and western culture. It's not a part of western governments.

Okay, they cannot just go and say we are not helping, but they are helping humanitarian. It should not be misunderstood that they haven't failed. They have failed on foreign policy and strategy in this issue. That's why ukrainians are suffering today and they are still not able to force or create situations where they can bring russia on table to negotiate.

So it is a failure of diplomatic channels. I mean even in the worst cold war crisis countries were able to have. You remember, i think you remember the hotline discussions now in the in the cold war era, that people from the u.s will have a direct line to do the russian president and the same vice versa. These channels were created because they knew that there are times when we need to talk directly with each other.

Despite we like it or we don't like it. That is missing. What do you say to people who are now looking at this and they? Obviously a lot of people will be looking to take advantage of this in the in the stock market in the commodities market. Um i mean: do you think that this might create a feeding frenzy? That's going to spiral this out of control on the market side, not just on the supply side.

You think there's a risk that all these uh bitcoin coin idiots are going to drive the prices up to to the sky. Is this a possibility? Uh see, all players are quite bigger than the old coin and coin domain oil price is going to. I see i have been in this industry, for these are sharks. These are not kids, i understand yeah so, and you know which what is my my my longest or largest losing trade.

I lost very high six figures, some in oil. Somebody like me, because the reason is that no it's not about demand and supply demand and supply is overarching narratives, but tomorrow somebody comes up and tweets: something: okay, who has control the market changes overnight, and if you are trading, for example, in ets, which is i Mean either uso or leverage gts, like you see your seo, what happens is that you cannot trade it outside market hours. If a decision has changed in the asian hours, you are just caught in middle of anything. You just cannot you sleep with this happens, yeah yeah, so the exposure is, is quite large in these kind of situations - and you know a lot of people are build junk because that's what we have seen happen with gme amc.

Another thing that oil is the next thing, but yeah oil can burn you far worse than uh alt coins. It does not behave like stocks, people forget oil can go to zero tomorrow and it has completely volatile cycle life cycle. It's very different from stocks. I will just say my two cents: if you're not a commodities trader, if you're, not an energy stay the away from this, because you don't know what you're playing with it's a very dangerous game, not so much money.

But i mean if it's like: it's like a playing with the gun. Very dangerous oil trading is best suited for people who have physical barrels to back it up. So, for example, if you are in u.s today - and you say that okay, i can actually produce 10 000 barrels in six months. Okay, so you go to your uh contractor and you say i need a drilling break.

I need a fracking unit. This is my cost and then you start selling futures on a certain date. So you have your revenue, you have kind of trimmed your upside, but it's an arbitrage for you in these kind of situations. You have your cost.

You know what your revenue will look like and you have an actual barrel. You have certainty. So, basically, what happens is that you actually remove volatility, and you know this is what people missed in shale oil people said that shale oil is expensive. So it's not disruptive, because disruptive things have to be cheaper.

That's what the theory is. Yeah shale oil was expensive, but then what happened was you were in the u.s era, which is flooded with the qe money? So you have a lot of cheap credit. You have a short cash cycle, you have limited cash exposure and then you have certainty in terms of future selling. So when you try to look back in terms of risk, adjusted returns of shale oil in 2009-2010 versus an lng project that is going to take nine years to develop shell oil was cheaper, and that is exactly why, because people were looking on the unit, development cost And you know, i know this very well: schlamberg's, ceo, andrew goat, i mean one of the person.

I admired a lot. He said that it is one of his biggest regret of his life that how he missed it. He just couldn't understand the dynamics in time and by the time everybody else understood the dynamics uh. It was out of everybody's hand.

It's it's tough. You know everybody's smart in hindsight in real time. I i you know i can. I can understand why people sound.

Sometimes you know it's hard to see, especially when think about it. This way, like i mean for the past few years, nobody's it's not sexy enough. Everybody was on the eevee on the renewables. Nobody was, i mean it's too boring.

It's uh. Nobody really like everybody, was looking for the next big explosive thing right, so we are in an energy transition mode, but we have not yet replaced even the two percent of world energy needs see. The thing is, it's, the energy demand is also increasing, so renewables are capturing very well the increasing demand of energy, but they are not reducing the existing demand of energy, germany and the eu basically saying well we're out renewables all the way like what were they thinking. Bro there was not somebody like, like you, like an advisor to say, hey guys, we're not even anywhere close to this, like what the you doing see uh i get to be in meetings with the good.

It's like certain regulators and we talk things. We try to be very realistic, like what is possible or not, but then you realize that certain thoughts are not welcome. Okay, like, for example, i mean in one of the discussion in one of the project, and i was trying to explain, i said see in a world where both european majors and u.s major inject a lot of money on carbon sequestration, and it becomes a thing and They certify it for carbon trading and, if you are not investing in your country in it, the one challenge is. That means your carbon credit certificates are going to be expensive than those who is going to buy it.

So it's not like what i want. It's you need to like strategic thinking is you are going from point a to point b? What needs to happen to make this journey go through, and if one of these thing doesn't happen, then you are not going to point b. You are going to point c and what is that point c? So it's it becomes a more a desire. Kind of thing that i want this to happen serves the narrative of everybody who says: renewables is scam because they've did the opposite.

In fact they get, they definitely get the opportunity. I think people who are pushing larger skill universe project, they have made a strategic mistake. Okay, i mean people have not done this kind of projects at this skill, so they are facing challenges. They have questions which needs to be answered, so they have to come up honestly and say: okay, we are sorting it out.

Another challenge: what is happening is and like we discussed that in order to push to renewables, people are pushing a lot more on unit cost. So this project has this much unit cost and, like we discussed it's okay, to have a project with higher unit cost. If it is a flexibility in building that, so people are not talking about the flexibility or the great requirement that it needs to take. They simply say: government needs to invest, and you know when it comes for government to invest money and subsidize yeah governments are not best for capital deployment, it's better, it is done by private sector.

Well, look uh such and we can do this all day. I know you're a busy guy uh. Thank you for doing this. I'm gon na try and get it out as fast as i can for people to kind of get an insight into.

What's going on. I think my main conclusion from this. Whenever i talk to real experts, i come off more confused because the reality is not so black and white and simple and like dimensional media wants us to think. So.

When you talk to an actual expert, you basically say well, this is a complex situation. That's not so easy just to you know solve it with a few. Oh, this goes there. This goes there and then you know so.

I definitely appreciate the insight, i hope, you're right and they can figure it out because i think eventually, at least in in the in our lifetime, financial interest usually wins. I hope this continues to happen. I i hope so i mean my idea is like this: that people have currently issues with their egos and position that they don't want to talk to each other. Oil price will keep on rising until unless somebody breaks.

So that's what i say the oil price is not going to stop until someone's resolve is actually broken. Who is going to be that person uh yeah? I think i would expect uh it's so i mean this is also like well. Politicians also have to think that eventually they are going to detract back, so why not earlier than later sachin. Thank you so much.

Let's do it again real soon. Thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure if people want to find you on the internet. I know you have a youtube channel.

You want to give us a little bit about your youtube channel and i'll put it on the screen. When i post the video yeah, i mean see, i was the kind of a person who was groomed to go in corporate world, so i was like kind of a 10 years quite period on on on social media. I mean people who are supposed to go higher in career. They don't post things in social media because it can come back to bite them.

So that's how i used to be, but during my time in kovit uh, i started learning more and more from community. Okay - and i also realized that people like who have experience like me or who are working close to different companies, they generally don't talk on social media, or so that was my point of trigger. I think i thought why don't i do it? Okay - and so i like talking about companies - i, like i like french, i mean energy - is something which is very passionate for me. I mean companies like valentia tesla.

I mean klarna, spacex uh, i'm heavily invested in in any of these uh, not tesla. At this particular point because i moved everything in in valencia, i'm going to convert my indian account in tesla most likely soon, because now tesla can be credit, uh traded on indian exchanges, uh spacex i mean i i'm fascinated about technology and yeah. I think that's that's. My passion is um technically semi-retired, so getting more time to invest on uh.

I understand on these activities as well. Yeah, i'm gon na put the link to your channel in the description, so people can go and subscribe to your channel. I mean this guy's the real deal. If you want to hear some actual uh insight from somebody who knows what the they're talking about and not the most professional looking channel or sounding i mean but you're, not a media expert.

But you definitely know what the you're talking about for engineering. For for data for energy, i mean this guy's the real deal. I highly su recommend you guys subscribe to him, and this has absolutely been a blast. Thank you so much sachin.

This is a. This has been an honor and the privilege. Thank you for coming on and sharing your insights and tom really appreciate, and thanks for uh encouraging me, because i think you were one of the the person uh along with, i think, meet kevin couple of other people. I was spending a lot of time watching during kovite and you know, despite like you, you don't agree with people all the time, but i think the community is far better with you being sharing things on media and people like me also what kind anchorage to share So really appreciate that.

Thank you so much sachin and i'll see you soon. Buddy.