Super-Spiked Podcast

Arjun Murti
  • 5.0 (11)
  • Investing
  • Updated Weekly

Super-Spiked Podcast focuses on the mission of everyone on Earth someday becoming energy rich and what that would mean for corporate strategy and energy & environmental policy, markets and commodities arjunmurti.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    EP231: Good Call Bad Call FAQ on Oil Markets

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript using the blue Download button below. 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? 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

  2. Oct 3

    EP230: Long Takes From The Road: CEOs and Strategy Change

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript using the blue Download button below. 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). 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). 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. 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

  3. Sep 26

    EP229: NYC Climate Week Takeaways: Glass Half Full

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript and the slide deck using the blue Download buttons below. 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. 0:00 Introduction 3:07 FAQ on Climate 10:28 On A Personal Note: I ❤️ New York 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

  4. Sep 19

    EP228: 20 Years of “A View From Wall Street” at Oxford

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript and the slide deck using the blue Download buttons below. 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. 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 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

  5. Sep 12

    EP227: Fall Progress Report on our Big Themes for 2026

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript and the slide deck using the blue Download buttons below. 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 (here). 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. 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 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

  6. Aug 22

    EP226: End of Summer Macro Thoughts

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript using the blue Download buttons below. We have another audio only post as we enter the final stretch of summer. Our next episode will most likely be the Saturday following Labor Day. This week we want to share various observations about the energy macro, policy, and corporate strategy—the core topics we focus on with Super-Spiked—that have come up in various events or meetings we’ve attended or in reaction from many of you to prior episodes. Six points to go through: * Natural gas as a through theme for all aspects of where we are in energy and power * Legacy Auto OEMs seem bad at autonomous mobility * Being in a Peer Group of 1 * Under-appreciated areas of energy * Geopolitical necessity provides clarity of purpose to energy policy * How will any country overcome China’s overwhelming manufacturing dominance in numerous areas? Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 1:19 Natural gas as a through theme for all aspects of where we are in energy and power. 8:27 Legacy Auto OEMs seem bad at autonomous mobility 13:26 Being in a Peer Group of 1 16:01 Under-appreciated areas of energy 22:58 Geopolitical necessity provides clarity of purpose to energy policy 24:28 How will any country overcome China’s overwhelming manufacturing dominance in numerous areas? 29:20 On A Personal Note 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

  7. Aug 15

    EP225: Long-Takes From The Road: Countering Consensus Corporate Strategy Narratives

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript using the blue Download buttons below. We have an audio only post due to some travel this week. One of the best parts of not being a covering equity analyst anymore is not having to process the deluge that is quarterly earnings season. But we have kept the discipline of reading transcripts for a wide swath of companies. As always, we want to provide our longer-term perspectives on the sectors and corporate strategy. Here are six areas where we would most push against what we think are consensus narratives. * Resist pro cyclical capital return narratives, especially in deeply cyclical sectors like we know exists in refining. * Differentiate companies that might be in need of restructuring, typically exemplified by having sub-scale businesses that are earning sub-par returns on capital, versus believing every non-pure play needs to become one. * The Strait of Hormuz may never return to pre-war “normal.” * What are the growth opportunities companies should be leaning into? * Power sector growth is economic growth. Economic growth is geopolitical security. * We are concerned about energy policy risk in the United States. There is no more important sector in the world than those involved in energy and power. It’s a hedge to Tech. It’s an enabler of tech growth. It’s a geopolitical hedge. It’s about as exciting a time as we have experienced in our 34-year career. Even now, reading upwards of 80-90 earnings season transcripts is borderline fun. 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

  8. Aug 8

    EP224: Mini-Dives: New vs Old Europe

    WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here). STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app. DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript using the blue Download buttons below. It is now August, the last month of summer, and we are planning a series of shorter “mini-dives” that offer insight into our major themes and in some cases, like this week, push back on some of our own biases and perspectives. By now our disdain is well known for what we have called the European mindset of prioritizing climate and net zero as the de facto primary objective of energy policy. We do not believe in an equal-weighted energy trilemma either to be clear. But we have been wrong, or perhaps more accurately lazy, in simply saying “we don’t like European energy policy and hope America never goes down that road.” Europe is no more a singular place than is the U.S. From an energy policy standpoint, we regularly differentiate states with favorable energy policy like Texas, North Dakota, Louisiana, and Oklahoma from places with unfavorable policies like California and New York. Pennsylvania is not the same as New Jersey. Florida is different than Connecticut. Our critique of European economic and energy policy is primarily rooted in its Big-4 economies especially the United Kingdom and Germany. What former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld famously derided as “Old Europe.” This week we take a look at oil demand trends in Old Europe versus New Europe. Three key messages: * We often discuss the rising prosperity of the other 7 billion people on Earth and our everyone deserves to be energy rich mega theme. We have never before noticed that 250 million of them live in New Europe and are on an upswing. A special shout out this week to Poland and Türkiye. * Our Obliterating Peak Oil Demand theme is alive and well in Europe, where growth in New Europe is surprisingly offsetting declines in Old Europe. * This is positive not just for oil demand but growth in power markets and the fuels that support general economic and industrial growth. As usual, we advise applying our natural hierarchy of energy needs to the energy sources and technologies that will make the most sense for each country—”some of the above,” country specific. Exhibit 1: European oil demand Source: Energy Institute, Our World in Data, Veriten. 📜 Credits * Intro & Outro music: Wolf Hoffman: Concerto for 2 Cellos in G Minor, Rv 531: I. Allegro Moderato. * This episode of Super-Spiked Videopods was edited and produced by Veriten Productions. ⚖️Disclaimer I certify that these are my personal, strongly held views at the time of this post. My views are my own and not attributable to any affiliation, past or present. This is not an investment newsletter and there is no financial advice explicitly or implicitly provided here. My views can and will change in the future as warranted by updated analyses and developments. Some of my comments are made in jest for entertainment purposes; I sincerely mean no offense to anyone that takes issue. Subscribe to receive all content. Also available at Veriten.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arjunmurti.substack.com

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About

Super-Spiked Podcast focuses on the mission of everyone on Earth someday becoming energy rich and what that would mean for corporate strategy and energy & environmental policy, markets and commodities arjunmurti.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Arjun Murti
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    121
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Arjun Murti
  • Show Website
    Super-Spiked Podcast

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