"Israel Is An Energy Island" Featuring Julia Weller, Energy Law International

C.O.B. Tuesday

For today’s discussion, we were pleased to host Julia Weller, Principal at Energy Law International. Julia has worked in electricity and natural gas regulation and transactions for over 30 years. She served at both Hunton & Williams and Pierce Atwood before starting Energy Law International in 2017. Energy Law International advises governments, private investors, international finance institutions and electricity transmission system operators across Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the MENA Region and Sub-Saharan Africa on energy market reforms and provides support to institutions seeking to invest in emerging energy markets. We were thrilled to visit with Julia and gain valuable insights into the international energy law landscape. We first became connected with Julia after she recently published a very interesting article on 2024 power deregulation in Israel that caught our eye (linked here).
In our conversation, Julia first shares how she started her career helping countries with energy reforms after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of US/Western efforts to wean those countries from their dependence on Russian energy. Sound familiar? We discuss the missed opportunity in integrating the then struggling Russia into the global community, Energy Law International’s work to help countries improve legal systems for safer investments and introduce capitalist concepts, the increasing significance of climate change in legal/regulatory reforms and emerging markets, energy market reforms in Israel, and the stability and structure of Israel’s power market. We explore some of the key topics from Julia’s recent article on Israel, Israel’s historical need for self-reliance broadly, lessons from European countries focusing on renewable energy ahead of reliability and affordability, introducing competition in energy markets, and examples of market reform success. We ended by asking Julia for her vision of the energy world in ten years and her response was “a complete course correction.” It was a fascinating discussion. Julia’s answer to the 10-year question was quite direct and is linked here.
Mike Bradley kicked us off by highlighting that prior to this week, U.S. equity markets could best be summed up in one word: “rotation” (out of S&P 500/Big Tech and into the Russell 2000). Global markets so far this week could be best defined as “volatility.” Over the last year, the S&P Volatility Index (VIX) had traded in a very tight range, but on Monday, it spiked to a 4-year intra-day high (2020 Covid Pandemic levels) before closing Tuesday at levels just above its recent trading range. So far this week, there’s been a substantial spike in the VIX, a plunge in Bitcoin, a temporary blowout in the Yen Carry trade, and a historical % plunge in the Nikkei Index. On the bond market front, the 10-year U.S. bond yield easily blew through 4.0% (~3.7%). Some were calling for the FED to implement an emergency interest rate cut which would be extremely counterproductive as in Mike’s view it would signal that the FED was behind the curve (and really worried) and could easily lead to an equity market plunge. On the crude oil front, WTI price continued to be pressured because of lack of technical trading support (under 50/100/200 moving averages) and growing global demand fears. Crude oil contract length over the last few weeks has gone from “net long” to neutral, and traders could push it to “net short,” but that’s largely dependent on the magnitude of Iranian retaliation against Israel in the near future. Mike ended by noting that this type of volatility is why energy companies need to continue pursuing pristine balance sheets which will allow them to be oppor