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And oil prices have been volatile amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East, while growing demand for power is also putting a renewed spotlight on North America's energy sector. For more, we're joined now by Rob Thummel, Senior Portfolio Manager at Tortoise Capital. It's great to have you join us. Thanks so much. Thank you, Lindsay. We'll start with oil prices because we're just looking at that chart down again today. And then we're seeing some companies really reacting to this as well, right? Like Air Canada, for example, cutting profit forecast for the year due to surging jet fuel prices. What's your take on what we're seeing with oil recently? Yeah, the oil price just continues to fluctuate daily depending on if, you know, is the Strait of Hormuz open or not. And so if we can get the Staint of Horman's open and oil free flowing throughout the world, then then I think we will see lower, lower oil prices and then correspondingly lower jet fuel price. But we seem to be moving more towards an escalated conflict with making it more difficult, I guess, for the Strait of Hormuz to have steady, consistent traffic. And so as a result of that, I think while prices continue to rise, geopolitical risk concerns increase as well. You say U.S. energy production and refining have acted as a bit of a buffer against a larger inflation shock. We've seen recently, though, like SPR has recently fallen to lows not seen since the 80s. Given that, how much of a buffer really can government intervention continue to be? Yeah, well, I think it's what people I think have taken for granted is the U.S. has produced and Canada actually also has made a significant contribution to keeping inflation relative to oil related products low because Canada produces a lot of oil. that's turned into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The U.S. produces a lot of oil that's used in consumer products, as well as refined by the U. S. refineries. U.s. refinderies are operating at high, high rates. They are trying to produce as much diesel, gasoline, andjet fuel as they can because inventories for those three commodities are low, and we need to build those inventories back up. Otherwise, prices are probably going to just keep going higher for those commodities, and that's not good for economic growth. Let's move on to natural gas now, because you've got a note about U.S. natural gassing. It's becoming a major competitive advantage, particularly for manufacturing, industry, and AI. Tell us more about why you think that. Yeah, U.F. natural gas, and you can throw North America and Canada in there and call it North American natural gas. It's a huge competitive advantage for North America, and the U. S. in particular, because natural gas is a low-cost commodity, right? And so what do we need to generate a lot of in the next decade? Well, we need a lot electricity. We need a lot of electricity because AI is going to be the future, and electricity, in our opinion, is going become the new oil. And so natural gas provides a low cost of energy and a low cost electricity way of producing that electricity and will allow the U.S. and North America to maintain a huge competitive over Europe because there is such an abundant supply in North America relative to other areas around the world. But would there need to be more natural gas infrastructure to be able to power these data centers? And if so, like how quickly could you actually scale up that infrastructure to meet that demand? Yeah, no, that's a great observation, Lindsay. And you're right. You need more infrastructure. You need more pipelines. But those are being built right now. And at least here in the U.S. and Congress, they're working on permitting reform to try to move that along very quickly. Because I think what's been very clear is bring your own power has been what's being suggested by the U!S. administration to all of these hyperscalers. And bring your power will require a lot more natural gas, a lot more natural generation, and a lot more pipelines, so all of that generation can operate efficiently. Okay, let's stay with data centers now for a moment, because you say not all data centers are bad. Obviously, there's been a lot of backlash in terms of like the high energy costs, using local water supplies for cooling for data centers in certain communities. I guess, what do you mean by not all datacenters are bad? And are there like some good datacenter that are kind of finding a way around those concerns people have? Well, you know, you've highlighted the points. I mean, people, I think what's becoming the opposition to data centers is around water and it's around higher electricity prices. And what I mean by that is that, first of all, inside the data centers, there's some really advanced technologies like liquid cooling systems that are closed loop cooling systems. They use water, but they recycle that water. They recirculate that water through that closed loop. And so they don't use as much water as I think, as people think. And then the other side of it is electricity prices, right? I mean, just putting a data center in your neighborhood or in your community doesn't mean that your electricity prices are actually going to go up. Actually, a lot of, some of these data centers are actually entering, doing this thing called bring your own power. Behind the meter is another concept where the data center enters into a contract with a company that can generate the electricity for over a long period of time. And that contract is simply between the data center operator and the company that's generating the power. The retail consumer is not impacted at all by that contract. And so that's kind of a new eloquent solution that a lot of companies in the U.S. are coming up with, like Williams Companies here in the US. And then that's why, I mean, some of the perceived negatives and the negative connotations associated with data centers, I think people just need to make sure they understand that there are some offsets and there are Some improvements being made. Interesting. Okay. We don't have a lot of time left. You do have some stock picks. We probably won't be able to get to all of them, but I want to at least get to one. Your first one, Chevron. Tell me why you like Chevron right now, why this is one of your picks. Well, if we think that the commodity prices are going to stay high or even go higher, which we think at Tortoise they are. You know, Chevron is obviously one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the world and one of largest oil and gap producers in the U.S., so they will benefit from that. The other thing we like about Chevron is, look, they're expanding their business. We're talking about bring your own power. They just entered into a deal with Microsoft. Chevron's going to build a massive data center in West Texas, basically, to generate electricity. And Microsoft's going to buy that power from Chevron. And once again, that's a classic example of, look, the rate payers, the consumers aren't going to have to pay for that electricity. Chevron and Meta, or sorry, Chevron, and Microsoft, Microsoft's going to pay from that power, not the ratepayers in West Texas. All right. We got to leave it there. Rob Thummel, Senior Portfolio Manager at Tortoise Capital. Appreciate you joining us. Thanks for your time. Thank you, Lindsay.