So last week I checked in on the Iranian excursion and, well, the tea leaves weren’t good. And the news hasn’t improved much since. And I don’t want to belabour it because it is so discouraging but tucked in amongst the daily Trump tweets proclaiming complete and utter victory we had a number if Iranian rejections of red-line peace terms, a blockade that is struggling to adapt to Trump’s new position of a blockade without an end, a strait that remains closed and an OPEC member deciding to throw in the towel.
The implications of all this are pretty dire. Oil supply continues to be under duress – US storage numbers declined by a precipitous 13 million barrels which is, in a word, unsustainable. The immediate term is grim for pricing. But at least on the back end of the Hormuz lockdown we have the prospect of the United Arab Emirates unshackled by OPEC restrictions and free to flood the market with Texas bankruptcy inducing low cost barrels.
In light of this, and given that is indeed May and the sun is out, I am going to indulge in a frivooulous time-honored tradition – the Energy Draft.
But first a poem.
April is tough and nasty or so they say
But I don’t care, ‘cause on the morrow
It’s gonna be May!
Weird, right?
Alright, back to Draft Day. It’s NFL Draft Day! Well technically, last week was Draft Day but I was on Iran-watch, so I’m doing it now.
The NFL draft is of course the annual meat market wherein large men find out they have to move to such glamourous locales as Detroit, Cleveland and Jacksonville or have their careers needlessly wrecked by being drafted by perennial sad sack teams like the Jets who now have a QB so bad, they have already run him out of town once before. While the good teams also select players, the most ironic part of the draft for me is that the best players invariably find themselves in the worst places, unless someone makes a trade. Which they probably won’t, unless they do, in which case I may just delete this sentence. This year’s worst places lineup includes the QB graveyard known as New York Jets, the constantly rebuilding Las Vegas Casinos and whatever is happening in Tennessee and Arizona.
Anyway, I digress. I am going to cast off these April blahs, and, just like the NFL, I am going to hold a draft – like I do every year, except, as regular readers know, mine is a Global Energy League Draft.
So here goes.
The Global Energy League Draft of 2026
OK, first the rules. For the purposes of this draft there are only 10 teams, the others are all in some minor league or other entity like a Soccer Super League. The draft will take place in typical inverse order, so if you had the weakest record in the last year, you get to pick first. This means the best picks last. Each participant has 10 minutes to make their pick, spawning the term “on the clock”.
Trades are allowed, encouraged and occasionally happen. As an analogy for global energy politics, it needs to make at least a little bit of sense and clearly, if Russia isn’t portrayed as evil, then what’s the point?
Finally, just like in the NFL draft there has to be a last pick, in this case it is pick number 60 because this draft actually has 6 rounds. In the NFL this pick is called Mr. Irrelevant just to demean that poor kid a bit more, so we will go with that.
Alright, here comes honorary commissioner and noted Tourmaline insider Kevin F to announce that the team with the number one pick in the Energy Draft is up and has ten minutes to make its pick.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Canada is officially on the clock and the draft is on”
Canada – first pick overall! Very exciting, right? Until you realize that Canada has had the first pick in this draft for what feels like an entire pandemic and energy sector downturn, recovery and pause. And it’s not just feels – the reality is that Canada has been in last place since 2015. Might have something to do with the prior GM Justin Trudeau. Just a guess.
Last Season. The last season for Canada was nothing short of hopeless on the energy front. A new GM was plucked from the Brookfield Boomers to replace the recently run out of town Trudeau and he inherited what is colloquially known as a “shit sandwich”. Holdovers and expensive Free Agents TransMountain and Coastal Gas Link are solid team additions but their salary cap implications are limiting.
Needs: Everything. Seriously. OK, maybe not that seriously but there are holes in this lineup that newly hired Coach Pierre “Petey” Poilievre (he crossed the floor from a rival league) needs to address to attract more potential free agents. The new GM has his work cut out for him.
The Pick. This one is really no surprise. The consensus number one pick in the draft has always been staring any team in Canada right in the face. They need to get the best performance out of their most prized assets. With the first pick in the draft, Canada picks A New Coastal Pipeline.
Pick Number 2 goes to the Russian team which has fallen on hard times since they started squatting in the minor league Ukrainian teams locker room.
There was a lot of debate as to whether Russia should even be allowed to participate in this year’s draft due to their ongoing criminality, but this is an energy analogy after all and they are a major participant.
Last Season: Led by Vlad “the Impaler” Putin, the Russian Bears tried to bully their way through the season last year but thanks to the fast actions of league commissioner emeritus Mean Joe Biden, most of their trade requests were denied and a clever implementation of a salary cap penalty and embargo meant that they were no longer able to pay their players in anything except pure ethanol. It wasn’t pretty. Everyone except Canada beat them last year. Even their traditional cheating and intimidation did little to help.
Needs: It is hard to say what the Russians need at this point. Their energy team is typically balanced and requires very little tinkering. But invading your neighbour comes with a lot of unintended consequences, some of which include a lot of current customers declining to buy your stuff, the team owners having their assets seized and the minions on your team being ritualistically humiliated by an upstart team from Ukraine. On the other hand, they have their secret weapon in the person of the new US GM, who doesn’t overtly help them, but does indulge in a fair amount of tampering.
If pressed, most people would say Russia needs a new Coach/GM/President and Chief Play Caller if they weren’t afraid that doing so would result in the entire team falling out a window or being sent to the front.
Pick: Desperate to reset his team and in a rare moment of clarity, Putin traded his pick to the United States in exchange for the removal of sanctions on oil sales and a second round pick in next year’s draft.
Picks number 3 and 4 this year both go to Alberta, home to the league’s only female and ersatz libertarian coach Danielle Smith and plenty of oil and gas. The number 3 pick is “earned” thanks to Alberta’s continued lousy record the past season in the “Renewable Energy In-Season Tournament” while the number 4 overall pick is an ongoing compensatory pick from the United States for repeated cancellations of the Keystone XL pipeline project.
Last Season: Compounded by pipeline challenges, MOUs and delays, a few in-house scandals, an ongoing civil war with the rest of Canada and a vocal set of team members who want to separate and form their own league, the last few seasons have been a bit of a mess for Alberta. Distracted by both the separatist movement and ongoing negotiations about a player swap with the Canadian GM, the Alberta team felt like it was going in multiple directions at the same time – at least until the price of oil started moving up, solving various painful salary cap issues.
After a tough start to the year, the players decided to ignore the chaos in the front office and get back to basics – a strong ground game, play by the rules, keep your head down and don’t draw attention to yourselves and you will be competitive week after week and ultimately be rewarded. It was a slow start, but the Alberta team closed the year hard and they have so much cap space and money to spend on free agents that even Murray Edwards would blush. Dividends anyone? Even the Euros have started to pay attention are are trying to poach players.
Needs: With division rival Russia appearing to be on a downtrend, Venezuela being taken over by the United States and the Middle East/OPEC trucking along doing their dominance thing (despite some short term chaos), there is an opportunity here for Alberta to step up and maybe even contend for a playoff spot this year, especially with the prospect of drafting not one but two shiny new pipelines. That said, new coach Danielle Smith is still learning on the job and calls some of the most indefensible plays you can imagine with frightening regularity.
Pick #3: With this pick, Alberta went the safe route and chose to bulk up its defence, and who can blame them after the manhandling they have suffered the last few years. The pick is methane emissions reductions.
Pick #4: With this pick Alberta is faced with a conundrum. Do you take a flyer on a new oil pipeline proposal in concert with the Feds or a weird Keystone XL renewal with Trump back in the White House? Ultimately this pick came down to the wire and with time almost expiring to make the call, Alberta went with what we view as a panic pick – Eastern Slope Coal Mining. Well, I mean, you can’t get everything right, we all remember Johnny Manziel. Are there even carbon credits available with this one?
The 5th overall pick this year belonged to China, who often finishes somewhere in the middle, especially when one considers they are primarily a consumer and not producer of energy, currently saddled with both a volatile economy and more than a billion barrels of oil in their SPR.
Last Season: Finishing close to the top half of the league last year was something of a major accomplishment for a talented and disciplined Chinese squad. Especially when one considers that all their training facilities and stadium were put into bankruptcy due to billions in bad property debt. China plays the energy league by building up massive reserves they source from anyone who has a viable option for them no matter how sketchy and not being intimidated by any team in the league. Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia have long been propping up China with shadowy back room deals for cheap players that get snuck in under cover of darkness.
Needs: With strength at virtually every position, the Chinese entry has no glaring needs, so they are free to draft strategically. In the current league incarnation, the real rivalry for the Chinese team is the United States, especially now that the US squad is led by the Tariff Happy master of bombast Donald Trump. Secure in their lead in the renewables category, rare earths and critical mineral supply as well as all that coal and gas fired energy, China is very likely to move up several rankings next year.
Pick: In a bid to solidify their influence in the league and secure a leading competitive position for years to come as the US team seems to be hitting a bit of a meltdown with higher operating costs, the Chinese team selected Participation in Naval Convoys. This non-energy pick will allow China to secure their position in the crowded Middle Eastern Division, secure their energy imports and undermine the United States.
The 6th overall pick in this draft belonged to Iran and for the longest time, it was radio silence as they searched for their scouting notes, a list of available choices and a video-feed that wasn’t in Russian.
Last Season: Iran was blacklisted for much of the season last year as perennial powers United States and Saudi Arabia did their best to sideline them and keep them out of the playoffs. It was one debacle after another as they found themselves hemmed in with nowhere to send their energy. Then the US and Israel decided to start an excursion against them and dropped bombs and missiles all over their training facility.
Needs: For Iran, it’s pretty simple. They have some of the best assets in the energy league outside of Saudi Arabia but no way to properly use them while the US blockades them. On the other hand, they have rolled out what the call “The Hormuz Defense” which has sent the entire league into a chaotic price war as everyone scrambles for more oil. Aside from ditching their psychotic leaders and trainers what the Iranian players really need is some time to catch a breath and reorganize.
Pick: In anticipation of hopefully finally being allowed back into the league in a meaningful way, Iran needs a flashy pick that will make American fans sit up and take notice without compromising their newfound relevance on the world stage by their blocking of the Strait that no one had heard of 7 weeks ago. While some advocated for a thermonuclear device as the pick, for some reason cooler heads prevailed and the Iranians soon found themselves being paid not to run their Hormuz defence, which allowed them to finalize a bunch of trades with China and refresh their finances.
The 7th overall pick this year goes to India. India is one of the fastest growing consumers of energy in the world and they have made the most this year since moving up from relegation a few years back.
Last Season: In their first few seasons in the big leagues this expansion team made the most of their time, expanding in almost every energy category and lapping up whatever spare capacity the China team left by the wayside. This policy of balance is critical to their goal of building a sustainable juggernaut that can compete with the premiere teams in the league. If the last few years are any indication, they are here to stay.
Needs: They have a solid roster but can use improvement in the whole “clean” aspect of their energy expansion. They talk a good game, but their electricity needs are growing so fast that they are burning whatever they can get their hands on to generate electrons, including record amounts of coal, with no end in sight!
The pick: A good GM identifies and ranks multiple weaknesses and when the pick rolls around, they hope the best player on the board matches up to one or more of these. In this case, GM Modi made the pick to manage his electrical grid and selected LNG from anywhere in the world but Canada – even though Trudeau is no longer the GM, Modi knows how to hold a grudge.
The 8th overall pick went to Renewable Energy a previous expansion team (like India) that managed to translate expansion team draft capital into a multi year run of relevance in what was at one point a pretty fossilized league.
Last Season: Building on their relatively new participation in the league, this team continues to have an outsized impact, using a fast-moving offense to confound opposing teams and seemingly outstrip them with their very high capacity. Players come in waves as if carried on the wind and their fan base is completely bonkers. They even managed to survive a surprising shellacking at the hands of the Alberta team to finish the season on a great run. That said, last year’s draft pick Elon Musk was a bit of a bust.
Needs: The Renewable team is pretty solid at most positions but some of their newer players tend to take time off during night games or, oddly, when there isn’t a cool breeze to help them relax. So, they are looking for someone or something to act as a base load while their mercurial stars wait for their moment in the sun.
Pick: Determined to not make the same mistake again that came with drafting “names” and reaching for Elon Musk and the utterly useless Leonardo DiCaprio as draft picks, rumour is that the Renewables leadership has determined that “best available” is the way to go. And they did this in a big way with their pick of “big-ass batteries” which they view as completely complementary to their wind and solar driven Prima donnas. Time will tell.
The 9th overall pick in this draft belongs to the United States, a perennial power just trying to be great again.
Last Season: Defying all expectations of the punditry class, the United States team set team records at almost every position – oil, gas, coal – and were it not for a late season slide in drilling activity, might have finished first overall.
Needs: While they continue to get steady and expanded production out of their core energy assets, the US team continues to suffer from a lack of cohesion and strategy leading to some pretty disappointing results. The new GM is the flashy and mercurial Donald Trump who once tried to buy the Energy League franchise in Buffalo before owning a team in the now defunct “Lower Energy League”. At any rate, Trump is eager to make his mark and build his brand and has lots to work with to make this team great again. Team insiders say that LNG Expansion is a likely draft pick and there is some kid in Alaska who could be a hidden star. There’s even a Nepo-baby that could be picked up in the form of the Bridger Pipeline Expansion, the bastard child of Keystone XL.
The Pick. True to form, the Trump-led United States ignored the advice of the scouts and industry veterans, selecting Global Economic Catastrophe and Bombing Iran. It’s going to be a loooonnnngggg season.
The 10th and last pick of the draft belongs to Saudi Arabia, perennial favourite, founder of this and its onetime rival league OPEC.
Last season: As always, Saudi Arabia started out as the favourite, won the most games, dominated the headlines, the stat sheets, the press, talk radio, the playoffs – you name it. They won the season going away, crushed the spirit of any team they faced and easily locked down the championship. They are the perennial favourite and this coming year will be no different. They don’t even have cheating scandals to hang around their necks.
Needs: Absolutely none. How do we know that? History. Plus, Saudi Arabia has the bankroll and the cap space to wait anyone out – just ask the United States, or Russia, or Iran, or Venezuela. Even Canada. That said, there is this pinch point in their stadium that could prevent them getting on the field if someone chose to block it, so some renovations are being contemplated.
The Pick. There is no real weakness on their roster. Their farm teams are stacked, they have a massive cost advantage. Last year, they drafted natural gas, to further crush the spirit of the rest of the league. This year they are going to draft a Pipeline to Israel, just to piss everyone off and stay a step ahead of wannabe league influencer United Arab Emirates. The Saudis think in decades, not two-year election cycles like the Americans. This sleeper pick is genius.
Before I leave this flea-bitten, beaten to death analogy, I have to acknowledge the previously discussed Mr. Irrelevant.
So, with pick number #60, which based on how the draft order works typically falls to the #1 draft position team, Canada decided to pick, purely as a flyer, A New Natural Gas Export Pipeline to the USA. Seems like a winner to me, but who knows.
Now to go watch the movie Draft Day, which is in my top 10 sports movies… OMG, a new BLOG TOPIC!!!!.
Vontae Mack. No matter what.
