Trump re-elected, Berlin coalition fails: Energy impact

It has been a big week for global politics.

On the same day that the United States voted Donald Trump as their 47th President, the German coalition government broke down after a budget row over cutting energy costs to companies and financial support for Ukraine.

In this episode, Richard explores what this new US administration will mean for energy markets, and he speaks to one of our guests live from Munich about what the initial reaction to the news has been in Germany. Listen to a discussion on where this leaves the country – and the wider energy transition – as it enters a period of limbo until a new government is elected. 

Host: Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel

Guests: Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital; Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool GmbH & Co. KG

Editor: Bled Maliqi

Transcript

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 0:05

Hello listeners and welcome to the Montel Weekly podcast where we bring you the latest news issues and changes happening in the energy sector. We are recording this on the morning of Thursday, the 7th of November. We plan to focus this episode just on the US and the Trump election victory. However, last night, Germany descended into political chaos as the coalition government collapsed. A split in a budget row over cutting energy costs to companies and financial support for Ukraine. In this episode, we are gonna bring in analysis of both events from the US and Germany, and the impact these tumultuous events will have on the European energy sector. Let's start with Trump. It's been named the biggest comeback in US political history that Donald Trump will be named the 47th US President on the 20th of January next year. In his previous presidential term, we saw an increase in tariffs and trade wars with China. The question is what will Trump's second stint in the White House have in store for the energy markets? And helping me to answer that and to talk us through the implications here. I'm very happy to welcome Nadia Martin Wiggen from Svelland Capital back to the podcast. Great to have you back, Nadia. How are you?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 1:18

Very well, thank you. It's great to be back.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 1:21

First of all were you expecting a Trump victory here? Did any of this surprise you? What happened what's happened this week?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 1:28

I think overall, the markets since selling capital, we did expect that the polls were leaning or that the results would support Trump. Also the Senate looks likely to go towards the Republicans, and the part that I think was, that was the least certain was that the actual Congress would also go red, and that appears to be the case as well.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 1:50

And so it wasn't so close in the end after all.

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 1:52

No, and I think the main thing to remember is before Kamala got into the race, things were looking really bad for Biden, there was some momentum, and then Americans voted on the economy first and foremost, and the cost of living is very high, and it was quite a damning result in terms of. How the Biden administration has done in the nearly four years they've been in power.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 2:16

Absolutely. So in terms of energy, does, is a Trump administration a more attractive choice with the energy market versus Kamala Harris?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 2:24

Well, first and foremost, I think American people wanna change and. What Trump did say in his victory speech is he referred to oil and gas as America's liquid gold. So he is clearly supportive of that industry and would like to increase production in that regard. Although the US is already at record oil production as of August, even under the Biden administration, but I think he has an understanding that, it's good to have a platitude. Of oil and gas and energy available to help. The US maintain a competitive advantage in production, and that includes not only services, but also manufacturing.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 3:08

And so what are the implications here, both in the short and medium term, then Nadia? Obviously a stronger focus on LNG and gas and oil, of course, but we're mainly, we'll be talking mainly about LNG and gas today. So how do you see this playing out?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 3:22

Yeah, so when we look at how the market initially reacted, it really seemed to take a bipolar a bipolar view, that it's very positive towards oil and gas development, very negative towards renewables. So focusing on the oil and gas side, you know, things that the market was concerned about with a potential kalo in or a strong performance by the Democrats. Is that there would be more environmental costs attached towards developing oil and gas. So for example we had finally this Matterhorn pipeline open up which then allowed. More oil production in the Permian Basin because you would have more takeaway capacity of natural gas when you don't want to have flaring. When we look at what the Biden administration did for LNG, they, in January they put out a halt on a new permitting for LNG development. That is something that we thought that would be probably. Proven to be temporary, should Kamala and the Democrats win. But that's not obvious. In the case of Trump, we believe he wants to develop that more. So that should happen more quickly and more easily. In particular, you know, there, there have been studies to show one one by Cornell University that was arguing that it is more environmentally negative to actually. Produce American LNG because of all the methane emissions associated with that. So there was a concern that those additional costs and concern could costs could be passed on to the actual oil and gas producers in. The event that we've now had this Trump victory and a red victory, it's less likely that would be passed onto the oil and gas producers, therefore, bringing down their costs and making it more efficient for them to develop production further.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 5:21

So full steam ahead for production. What does that mean for exports to, for example, to Europe?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 5:27

Yeah, so in, in the short term, we have the US capacity. We have. It's not Trump doesn't come into power until January. Same with this Republican sweep. So when we look towards the winter, we have had some delays in terms of what was starting out. So plaque Camus, for example, that had its first cool down cargo in August, but it's still not up and running in full throttle. We've also had a delay in Golden Pass. Terminal one, which was expected, to be up and running already. And now that's looking like late next year, early 2026. I think he will absolutely try to push these things forward. But, there, there can be actual technical problems on that level, but there is a lot more coming online as well. We have the second and third terminals of golden Pass coming. And then we, so there are more expansions on the cards. So I think if we look at when Trump starts and when Trump finishes his next term as the 47th president, we should have much more development in natural gas in general, and. Helped by these LNG terminals and that, that's where I think if we look at, the price of Henry Hub versus TTF, it's at a massive disconnect. Henry Hub this morning is at around $2 75 cents dollars per MDTU and TTF is at 12.9. So there is a lot of potential, you know, that is not the cost of shipping being reflected in that difference. So there is a big potential to, to help ease that pain for Europe and bring down costs for us as we have a plethora of production. And we have seen that, in the Haynesville there's been a curtailment of production because Henry Hub has been so low and we want that plenitude. Trump wants that plenitude. Of natural gas available to really speed that US economy along

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 7:30

and to export that in platitude the huge volumes mainly to Europe, which will bring TTF prices down. Then in, maybe not so much in the short term, but in the medium term, we're talking 25, 26, 27 then Nadia, would that be correct?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 7:42

Absolutely, and, but I think it is important to understand that the reason why Trump wants those exports. To Europe is in his first presidency, made it very clear to NATO and to the Germans that he did not like German dependency on Russian natural gas. He was very critical of the Nord Stream pipelines. And so he's a businessman. He wants to have those relationships and I think he will try to use this competitive advantage that the US and has in terms of oil and gas production to really build alliances. This is what the Saudis have done historically, and this is what the US, I think, will do under Trump. So that's when he. Pulls Europe back towards the US by providing that energy cheaply. What we saw with this halting of the permitting on LNG that the Biden administration did, it immediately was met with a response by Qatar that they are proceeding full speed ahead on, on developing their. Natural gas and LNG resources to supply Europe and sin Trump would much rather that the US is that main partner.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 8:51

Absolutely. I think that, that, that's gonna become clear as we go through the administration, Leonard, but you also mentioned renewables. It. Is it either or is it gonna be both with Donald Trump, with the next administration, do you think?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 9:03

In our view, it's gonna be both. I mean, the cost of living crisis in America involves, you know, there, there are criticisms of the oil price, which is not that high when we look on a historical level on natural gas prices. Everything costs. And what we see is that US energy demand is growing, global energy demand is growing, and so the US needs to develop that electricity supply. Trump cited or mentioned Elon Musk also in his victory speech. And Elon Musk is, very dependent on electricity and energy, but Elon Musk is a pragmatist, even though yes, he really has proven the success of electric vehicles, in creating a competitive US automaker. In America, right? But he's still a pragmatist, so he believes in fossil fuels. And I think that this will be the approach that Trump absolutely takes going forward. I think the other thing also to think about though, is in terms of foreign policy and what Trump thinks on that. So right now, when we look into winter, for example. We have Arctic, LNG two out of Russia being sanctioned, right? The US has sanctioned production out of those terminals, and what we had is this summer we actually had eight cargoes alone. They couldn't find buyers. Four of them are sitting in floating storage in Russia and they don't really have the capacity. One is sitting off of the coast of Jordan and Egypt, and as we discussed on the podcast last time, Egypt has become a net importer, but everyone is scared to take in. These cargoes because of these sanctions. So as a result, the market is expecting Russia to actually shut down Arctic two for the winter. Now, again, going back to the point that I just made Trump doesn't want greater dependency on Russia. So I think it is also important to think about sanctions on that side. And of course when we think about Iran and the development that we've had there, in terms of the fact that Iran in September loaded 2.1 million barrels per day of crude oil that's Norway's entire production. In a month. And whereas, we had a completely different story when Trump was in power last time. So it'll be interesting on how he sees the developments there. But of course, he doesn't want oil prices to go skyrocketing higher. So that's where he is very dependent on. US production going forward, as well as how OPEC Plus responds to that and having the Saudis onboard to replace any potential Iranian oil on that part.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 11:47

And sanctions against Arctic LNG. You think they what? They are very unlikely to be lifted then in such and such a scenario.

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 11:53

Yes. That is Exactly.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 11:55

And just as an aside, an, you mentioned Elon Musk. Do you think, I know this is more, this is speculative really, but do you think he would get some kind of position in a Trump administration?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 12:05

When Trump talks about it, it seems he would, so maybe he. Cut the red tape on that part at least I think Trump likes his his circle of friends, his circle of trust, be they officially or unofficially in terms of role. Right now they are communicating a lot and I think he's learning a lot from that. And this is where, it's fell capital. We found it very surprising that renewables traded down as much as they did yesterday on this. Trump Victory. The fact that yes, when we listened to Trump's speeches, he doesn't like wind and he especially doesn't like offshore wind. He's been more positive towards solar, but there's no reason for that to have a direct impact on the sector, the renewable sector in Europe, because we have good companies, especially in the solar space that are, profit making, dividend yielding companies, and they. Traded down off of this Trump victory when we absolutely need every source of power we can have in Europe. And when we look at what, trump is planning what she is planning. We currently have the MPC meeting in China, and discussing what kind of policies they are going to have going forward. Both the US and China are focused on infrastructure. Trump mentioned infrastructure yesterday in his victory speech that requires commodities that requires. Energy. And this is where that competitive advantage for both China and the US to develop. Factories, labor is more expensive in both of those countries than it was 10 years ago. So that competitive advantage can come from lower cost of energy, especially when we are trying to depend on AI to increase productivity. This is what Europe absolutely needs to develop, is that lower cost of energy and nstitute of energy to be more competitive, to be able to utilize ai to increase productivity as well.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 14:06

Absolutely. And when you say the renewables they traded down, you mean the share price of major renewable companies rather than the actual electricity. Because I think that Yeah.

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 14:15

Yes, exactly.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 14:15

Just to clarify. Yeah, absolutely not, but

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 14:17

yes. Absolutely,

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 14:18

A big driver in the US has been the Inflation Reduction Act or the IRA. What's the outlook there? Do you think Trump will scrap this or would. Could that continue? I think a lot of companies in Europe, for example, have con, have considered relocating to the US where they will receive more subsidies, more financial support for setting up factories, infrastructure billed there. But they may be a little. Bits or may be starting to reconsider those moves if it were to be scrapped?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 14:44

Yeah. First of all, this is why the Congress result, the congressional result is so important because the IRR really helped a lot of Republican states and the IRA, it's a little bit like Obamacare, trump didn't like Obamacare, but you actually have to try to get everyone on board to pass something else. This the same with the IRA. There will be a lot of Republican support for some of the for a lot of what the IRA did. Of course, it was overly inflationary and that was the problem, even though it was called the Inflation Reduction Act. Yep. It was overly inflationary. So those are the kinds of criticisms that Trump would probably focus on on changing things up. But it's actually quite difficult to pass some of these kinds of things. He has a lot of priorities and when we, the way you started your question is he said Europeans are looking at moving factories there, right? He wants to get rid of this. Loophole of having factories built in Mexico and have them built instead in the us. That's what he wants. He wants all these things to be built in the US So I don't think he will try to limit the reasons or cut down the limits why a factory would move to the US instead of sitting in Europe or sitting in Asia. And so he will it's not gonna be, oh, I'm just cutting it day one. At all. And this again I think is very important for people to recognize. It. It has been very helpful for a state like Texas. This white Elon Musk lives in Texas, right?

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 16:19

For sure. Absolutely. You mentioned China. In, in this previous administration there was a trade war and tariffs established. What's the outlook for the next four years in this terms, in terms of, in raising tariffs more protectionist the us what's your view here?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 16:35

Yeah, I think. When Trump used the word te trade war the first time, it was a real shock. Since the Clinton years, we've been all about free trade and bringing down barriers in the World Trade Organization. And then he, Trump really changed that dialogue. Since the Trump administration, Biden hasn't pulled back these tariffs on China, and he has added to them. And even Kamala was talking about targeted tariffs. So I think the impact on the market should be less in terms of shock. When we it will come down to. Individual effects. Right? Right now he's talking about 10% tariffs on Europe. Some economists say the effect would really come at minimum, 20%. We'll have to see how things start to develop and there can be of course negotiations on, on, on these points because. Of course he wants to maintain a competitive trade balance. And this is, I think importantly when we think about China is that if the US is currently the world's largest oil and gas producer, which Trump wants to maintain, China is a major importer of oil. Natural gas, right? LNG prices are as high as they are because we've had record imports of LNG into China month over month. And that is partly driven or largely driven by the conversion of the trucking sector to run on LNG. As well. Right? So if you want to improve the trade balance, it makes sense that he will encourage that relationship in terms of imports, right? When he, and at the same time, when we think about his type of foreign policy, he'd probably like to discourage China from importing Iranian oil, by American. Instead, he might have to take an approach of, okay, I won't. Tariff you as hard on something if you use us crude oil instead of. Iranian crude oil, for example. So I think we will have to be very specific in terms of the reactions. He will probably create more volatility in, in, in the market at times because he of course likes to be a deal maker and a big mover, and he doesn't just. He doesn't like bureaucracy and having things take months and months.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 19:01

And he is also quite unpredictable as well. Throw that into the mix. Yeah,

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 19:05

it is. Yeah. Well, I think that as who, he have one investor that likes to say, that in Europe, the problem was with Trump won is we didn't take him seriously and we took him overly, literally. And we have to take him seriously and think about what he is actually doing. At least he is a frequent communicator. It's not completely hidden what he's up to,

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 19:29

but what sectors specifically could be hit in Europe by the kind of tariffs or a trade war even?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 19:35

Well, I mean it's of course manufacturing. The big question is about the car industry, but I don't really think that his tariffs are going to hit Germany more so Germany is really suffering in our view from an identity crisis in the car sector and competition from China. That is the number one. Problem for Germany. So it's not really the American competition that is dis destroying things. So that would be less impactful in that regard. And ultimately as I've said, he wants to have more exports of natural gas LNG in a predictable fashion over to Europe. So that should help in the medium term. But of course, day one, it's not going to, make as much of a difference as Europe could appreciate.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 20:26

Absolutely. And Nadia, just a final question. You mentioned day one. What do you think are, what we gonna, what are we gonna see from Donald Trump in his first weeks or months of taking office?

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 20:35

I think he will really be focusing on America, and making America great again. So it will be focusing on improving things. For in terms of costs and trying to bring down inflation, it'll be interesting what what the Central Bank does ahead of that in, in the us in terms of cutting interest rates and creating that easier environment. But I think you will be number one focused on the US and having the US be competitive and open competition is a good thing. That's what makes. The world work well and we just have to be prepared in Europe with our companies and put our first foot forward.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 21:17

Excellent. Nadia, thank you for a fascinating discussion. Obviously we'll have to invite you back soon on a next year, even when we have more when we see more what the Trump news is all about and then we can have some reactive views on, on, on Outlook going forward. But once again, thank you very much for being a guest on the Montel Weekly podcast.

Nadia Martin Wiggen – Director, Svelland Capital: 21:34

Thank you.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 21:35

Now, listeners, we're moving on from the discussion about Donald Trump and what the administration means for the energy markets to Germany. Where the government collapsed late on Wednesday for a number of reasons. The disagreement over the budget, disagreements about how to cut costs for industry, but also funding for Ukraine. Now we are very lucky to have Tobias Federico with us. He's now currently at Munich train station. He was in the thick of things on Wednesday evening when it all all dissolved Tobias warm welcome to you and thank you for finding time to to explain to us what's happening in Germany.

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 22:12

Thank you, Richard. It's always a welcome to be here.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 22:14

So tell us what's happening in Germany? What's this chaos? What's the reasons behind the government collapse?

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 22:20

It's interesting. I think there are many reasons we can speak about it in detail. Yesterday I summarized it a bit towards an auditorium where I said the German government was able to handle crisis. But they were not able to govern. And I think the main reason is that when it comes to governing things, every party wanted to achieve their own ideas. And finding consensus was always a challenge. But in the end, I think the main reason, the money, we just realized the recently that all the plans the government had were before the war and before high interest rate and before high inflation. And. They see now that they cannot achieve all the goals in the first step, especially energy related, but all the other spending which were together, as you mentioned also with the Ukraine regarding the war part. The second thing is really that of course when it comes to money, we already see or saw until yesterday and see it even more the shadow of the potential elections in one year. So not the new one we will have, but the one which are regularly. From one year going on. So in the end, it was about the money and disagreeing on how to spend the money and where does the money come from.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 23:30

But this was not a fresh disagreement, was it? This has been ongoing within the government for at least a couple of years.

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 23:36

Yeah, it is, but of course it really piles up and that has something to do. And with the economic growth and also how to support the market. I mean there are several points coming together because currently they're speaking about for next year and they just that since a few years the. Subsidies for defeat and terrorists are paid by the government, by the tax income, and they have been planning to spend 7 billion euros last year and it will be 17 this year. So 10 billion euros more because wholesale electric enterprises of the decreasing at the gap between the sheet and the value of fluctuating removals on the market became bigger. That was expected and used to be paid by the end user. Notes paid by the government. That is one thing. The other thing is that they're really struggling and they're seeing that the tax income and the economic growth is decreasing due to high energy costs. That's not only also crisis, but it's also connected to grid fees and grid tariffs and how to handle those, how to support the industry, how to achieve economic growth plus renewable targets that has accumulated yesterday with some personal issues like that.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 24:56

So it's quite a financial mess. I think it'd be fair to say there in terms of, no money to pay for much higher costs. But what are, what happens next, Tobias?

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 25:06

Ooh, that's the big question and we only can guess a lot of things. And of course there are some obvious things. First of all, we have a minority government right now, which means that if they want to make raw decisions, they must find an additional partner. They need to find it within the CDU. Which means that the CDU already has the potential to govern a bit with some laws. They'll not find it in the FTP anymore. So the liberals, because the disagreement was too big, and they will definitely work together with the right wing party. The, and so that is one thing. So the question is if the German government comes to a hold, no, that's really frozen under its fees because we cannot govern at all. What is really interesting, usually in a such a situation the Chancellor says that he's questioning himself. We call it in German for Colin's father, and he wants to do that, but he'll do that in January the 15th of January, which is quite long. And I bet, and I'm not sure, but that's why I'm betting it has something to do with the budget planning. So they need to finalize the budget without the budget for next and planning. I think there will be no support from the other parties for that he might questioning himself. So having the fat father already this year to have much earlier reelections.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 26:31

Now that, it's fascinating. We were just talking before we started recording Tobias, you were mentioning that the situation here is more akin to an Italian situation. I know you also have Italian roots and rather than a German, but but I think, it seems that the government in Rome is much more stable and provides more certainty than the German one. And that's quite a change of situation change of affairs, I would say.

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 26:52

It, I think it started with Volkswagen a few years ago when they had the diesel, the frog with the emissions. Where Italian friends of me said you journalists become more Italian and we then become more German. And if you look into that, they has economic growth. System and they have a stable government. And here in Germany, see we have no, but it's on a different level honestly. And yes it's a bit like in Italy and it's the fourth time that a is questioning really his position. And it's something which increases the insecurity and the whole. We had yesterday. We had very interesting day. Missing wind production. And when a day starts like this, s never saw is Then we had the Trump news and then we had the German government news. I think the 5th of November will become one of the Germans days of history which we'll remember in the next five to 10 years.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 27:57

It was a proper triple whammy, wasn't it? That those kind of prices for one hour e evening Germany was burning. Oil, 700 megawatts of oil. In 2024, it beggars belief. But I think, in terms of, I know that maybe the listeners made, there's some background noise to BSS because you are at the train station in Munich, so that's absolutely understandable. But again it's. It impresses upon us the urgency to have and the timeliness of what's occurred in Germany. It's just literally fresh off the press. But what are the implication of the government collapse for energy and for energy? So maybe in the short and medium term.

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 28:34

What's quite interesting that all of short speech yesterday, he was mentioning energy prices and grid tariffs as first point of disagreement. That was interesting. So this government collapsed on energy more or less. It's now quite interesting because in, in the last years re regarding energy, there was one work which was quite often used where we said we are quite limited to technologies we want have fluctuating new. Green technologies and it should be green hydrogen, and any type of fossil fuels has been limited. Any type of additional support nuclear energy at all was stopped from banned, and we've closed, shut down all nuclear power plants. And now it's quite likely that the CDU might become the leading party for a new election. And what we see now, and I think this will be quite interesting, that we'll open up. Much other energy technologies, which means that I think carbon capture and storage with the common issue, the current government already was planning that, but for non fossil fuels, which is weird for my opinion, but nonetheless, so carbon capture and storage for fossil power, plant fossil fuel. Might be an option. I think there is a door open for nuclear energy, even though I think it's very unlikely that we'll have any type of nuclear power plants in the German market. Market discussions, we'll definitely go on. What is maybe a bit of a downside that we started discussion regarding a capacity strategy slash market mechanism, and the current government wanted to implement that. They wanted to make a bidding system for backup capacities, supporting the energy only market in case of a missing capacities as we saw yesterday, and so that they financially want to support those. For me, it's a big question mark. First, where does the money come from and secondly, will it be still achievable? There are no official statement from the government right now, of course, and but I really begged that this might become an issue. I think it's also quite likely that we will phase or stock the phase out of coal power plants, at least for a while because we really see that new capacities, some are coming into the system and I think it could quite likely also be that we take some of the winter reserves back again through the market. It's a bit of a rewinding, but when I think the new government in the fears there that we. In shorter midterm, we might run into a capacity crunch, we'll call it. Not really a blackout. So therefore it's really interesting looking into what is happening on the other side of the channel. I think one answer could be to increase the European. Union and to European energy market by increasing close border capacities. But that's nothing the government can really do. It's much more on my wishlist. Yeah. But there, there are some significant changes going forward. And again, we are opening chapters we thought we would've closed.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 31:47

It's fascinating that now that maybe nuclear back on the table in Germany, that's quite a departure from anything we've seen over the three, four years even. Just that it's back on the table and being discussed is it is fairly radical.

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 31:59

It's definitely, it's not likely that it'll come, but I think speaking about being technologically open. Means that every technology is on the table. Again, every technology and which if you would've asked me one week ago, I would've say no nuclear would never come back. And maybe it's quite right and nuclear would not come back. But we see that worldwide, that nuclear is on a moving forward. We see France with smalls, the small nuclear power plants. It'll not be an option for Germany, but we'll speak about it and we'll discuss this quite strongly. So a bit of a rewind of this. Distributed renewable energy to green transition by go to a much more centralized energy transition.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 32:44

Yep. And it's a, you alluded to it as well, Tobias but now we've seen, obviously the Trump president Trump win, or Trump winning the the election and he wants to export lots of gas, so he probably is likely to export lots of gas to Germany. And maybe that's, that, that's gonna happen. Germany will welcome that kind of those kind of deliveries of that, those kind of gas supplies in order to strengthen security of energy supplies going forward.

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 33:11

Definitely. But Trump is a businessman. We have to pay a price for that. And the price will be the market price. Market price plus a premium, I don't know. But in the end, natural gas will become the bridge technology as expected and maybe also as a first step to fill up our plant hydrogen grid. What would've in Germany? Not with green hydrogen, but far hydrogen outta me cell. So I think it's a bit of a rewind of the screen transition, but still, and I think this is common sense among every political party we want to become climate neutral.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 33:49

Tobias, fantastic that we managed to get hold of you. Thank you for all your fantastic insights into what's happening in Germany. We wait with bated breath to see what's happens in the weeks and the months to come. But or in the meantime as a safe journey back to Berlin.

Tobias Federico – Managing Director of Energy Brainpool, Montel: 34:05

Thank you Richard, and it'll be definitely exciting and hope to hear you again soon.

Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel: 34:10

Brilliant. Thank you Tobias.