Oil, Gas, & “The End Of Climate Catastrophism”

Oil stocks remain some of the cheapest relative to the broader market so we figured its time to discuss why.

In last night’s ZH Debate, we pulled together top energy analysts representing three different views, hosted by friend of zerohedge and former energy trader Erik Townsend, a true expert in the field and the host of the Macro Voices podcast.

In the bullish corner, Arjun Murti, a partner at Veriten has over 30 years on the Street analyzing energy for firms like Goldman Sachs. For the bearish case, Bloomberg’s Mike McGlone is a commodity specialist with equal time doing high-level institutional research. Lastly, taking a middle-road outlook, Paul Sankey of Sankey Research remains bearish through winter, turning bullish by February. Sankey is former MD at Deutsche Bank.

Here are the key moments for those short on time but we highly recommend anyone with money in the market listen to the full debate:

Bearish Target: $40 per barrel

Blooberg’s McGlone opened with the bearish case: “WTI crude oil is down about 16% this year… every trend is lower prices.” He called it “an extreme bear market,” adding that stabilization “requires the stock market [to] stabilize and at least go up.”

Equities are, of course, making new all-time highs by the week, which McGlone worries makes them vulnerable to corrections. “If we get a normal 10 to 20% correction,” he warned, “that’ll easily get to my $40 a barrel.”

Oil is not alone compared to corn, soybeans, and wheat. But according to McGlone,“crude oil is more elastic than it was any time in the past,” referring to

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— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) October 30, 2025

Long-term Bull Case: Climate insanity is done

Murti dismissed the idea of a “delayed transition” away from fossil fuels as “absolute nonsense,” arguing that while new technologies could one day threaten oil demand, “we do not know what they are today.”

He emphasized the global inequality of energy development—“one eighth of the world being rich and the other seven eighths” still striving to catch up—and said that the recent Bill Gates flip flop marked “the end of climate catastrophism as a mainstream thing.”

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— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) October 30, 2025

The “Horrendous Energy Intensive” AI Boom

Sankey warned that artificial intelligence could become an “energy black hole,” as it becomes ever more ubiquitous. “The more efficient AI becomes, the more you’re going to use AI and by extension, the more energy you’re going to have to use,” Sankey said.

This trend could continue “until the energy cost gets too high, potentially the environmental costs get too high, and you have to cease and desist.”

…while that may cause an energy crisis, it seems hard to deny it’s bullish for oil.