Legendary trader sees ‘seismic shift’ in Houston’s oil patch

  • Date: 21-Apr-2021
  • Source: Energy Voice
  • Sector:Oil & Gas
  • Country:Gulf
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Legendary trader sees ‘seismic shift’ in Houston’s oil patch

For John Arnold, the billionaire philanthropist who made his fortune betting on natural gas prices, Houston's fossil-fuel industry seems finally ready to move on.

A year ago, talk in the Texas energy hub was mostly about defending oil and gas and denouncing renewables, Arnold, 47, said Monday on his Twitter account. Now, much of the discussion has shifted to clean-energy topics including wind, solar and batteries.

“There's been seismic shift in the Houston energy industry of late. A year ago, there was a lot of defending the oil & gas sector and denouncing renewables. Anecdotally, about 75% of the talk was O&G and 25% clean energy. It feels like those numbers have reversed,” Arnold posted on Twitter.

“Even those who are not ideological believers are taking the cues from the financial markets, which have no interest in oil production growth anymore,” said Arnold, the former head of natural-gas derivatives at Enron Corp.

He also said capital available to oil and gas has dried up while “every” private equity firm in Houston is raising money for clean energy. “The markets are rewarding those in a growth industry (zero carbon energy) vs one in secular decline.”

Arnold said the shift has made him more optimistic about the