June 2023

Zolan Poszar – the widely-followed former Credit Suisse economist (who’s also had stints with the New York Fed and U.S. Treasury) – explains why global central banks have been piling into gold, and why this trend is likely to continue (from an interview in the In Gold We Trust Report on May 24)…

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I think reserve management practices, the way central banks manage their foreign exchange reserves, is going to go through transformative change over the next five to ten years. There are a number of reasons for this. One reason is that geopolitics is a big theme again; we are living through a period of “great power”

Luke Gromen – founder and president of Forest for the Trees (FFTT) – makes the case for “peak cheap gold,” and why it implies much higher gold prices from here (from FFTT Tree Rings on June 16)…

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According to S&P Global, there were roughly 180 major gold discoveries (over one million ounces in reserves) in the 1990s, 120 in the 2000s, 40 in the 2010s, and none since 2019.1 With the recent strength in gold prices, majors are suddenly seeking to acquire additional resources through acquisitions. – Dan Oliver, Myrmikan Capital, 6/12/23

If you’re only watching gold priced in U.S. dollars, you could be missing a lot (from McClellan Financial Publications on June 21)…

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Traders have a tendency to “think” in their own currencies, which is a natural human action.  But it is worth paying attention to how other traders may think, because how they see prices can affect their behavior in ways we might not be seeing through our own lenses. In the USA, we think in dollars,

U.S. oil drilling has been moving significantly lower this year as shale producers pull back (from Bloomberg on May 19)…

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Oil drilling is collapsing in the US as producers rein in output, mirroring a recent plunge in rigs searching for natural gas. Rigs targeting crude declined by 11 to 575 this week, according to data released Friday by Baker Hughes Co. It’s the biggest weekly drop since September 2021. The pullback was led by the

Global “ESG-friendly” consulting firm McKinsey & Company gives the “green light” to an expansion of nuclear power generation (from McKinsey Sustainability Insights on May 22)…

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Nuclear should be part of the energy transition Nuclear power can play a significant role in the search for energy resilience. The power sector has to decarbonize—at present, it accounts for about 30 percent of global emissions, and electricity demand could triple by 2050, driven by increasing electrification and economic growth. Unlike renewables that offer

Electric grid watchdog warns two-thirds of the U.S. is at risk of blackouts this summer (from The Wall Street Journal on May 26)…

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How many warnings does it take before the Biden Administration wakes up to the risks from its climate policies to the U.S. electric grid? The latest came this month from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and please pray the wind keeps blowing. NERC’s summer reliability assessment forecasts that no less than two-thirds of

Natural resource investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg believes conventional oil production has “unequivocally” peaked (from Goehring & Rozencwajg’s Natural Resource Market Commentary – First Quarter 2023 on May 31)…

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Conventional oil production has now unequivocally rolled over. Unconventional production, the only source of growth in global oil supply over the last 12 years, has also significantly slowed. The only growing non-OPEC basin is the Permian in West Texas. Never before has oil supply growth been so geographically concentrated. Six counties in West Texas are

Exxon Mobil is betting new technology can double oil production from shale wells (from BNN Bloomberg on June 1)…

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Exxon Mobil Corp. is betting that a better way to frack will double the amount of oil it can pump from shale fields. “There’s just a lot of oil being left in the ground,” Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said Thursday at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference. “Fracking’s been around for a really long time,