“Otherwise Brilliant People Can Make Funny Decisions” Featuring Joseph Sigelman, AG&P Group

We are excited to share today's episode featuring Joseph Sigelman, Chairman and CEO of Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Company (AG&P). Joe and his team focus on downstream LNG import and distribution, engineering and construction across Southeast Asia, stretching from India to the Philippines. He joined us from Jakarta and we were thrilled to visit with him about everything he and his company have been seeing during his eleven plus years at AG&P. As you will hear, the "on the ground, energy transition trends" in this vital part of the world are fascinating.

In our conversation, Joe kicked us off with key background details on the company and their main goal to bring clean energy to developing markets along with jobs and industrial growth. We then touch on the company's build-out process, their experience in India, the company's team and size, their effects on the health and welfare of local communities, the acceleration of the business from 2021 to today, future markets, developing infrastructure with regulatory frameworks in different countries, and much more. In one of the more compelling moments, we discuss with Joe "what ESG is really all about" and why bringing more natural gas to the developing world isn't more commonly part of that discussion. Joe is on the frontline of a changing and growing world where "energy transition" can have a more profound meaning - in this instance, going from polluting and not enough to clean and reliable. We hope you enjoy the discussion with Joe as much as we did.

In our upfront discussion, Mike Bradley shared bond, commodity and equity performance from the past week noting that lower than expected CPI and PPI prints pushed bond yields lower and equities higher. He also discussed the many macro factors that will influence crude oil prices into year end and by highlighted several topical events including unconfirmed reports that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland, the potential fallout from a new divided Congress, the FTX crypto bankruptcy web, and the lack of real substance coming from the COP 27 conference. His slide from today's session is available linked here. Colin Fenton flagged a notable public disclosure from a just-completed secret space mission. This past weekend, the U.S. X37B spaceplane landed after a record 908 days in orbit. While aloft, it conducted experiments for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, in which unimpeded solar energy was collected in space, converted into microwaves, and transmitted to ground receivers. Colin also noted the human population has crossed the 8-billion-person threshold for the first time in history, and he shared some observations about how gold is catching a strong bid following the FTX debacle in the crypto space.