supply chain

There is tremendous buzz around natural-gas-fired turbines right now with backlogs reportedly stretching five years into the future due to supply-chain bottlenecks, labor shortages and a surge in demand. The power generation industry is poised for a major upswing as data center development and overall electricity demand continue to accelerate, driving an even greater need for gas turbines. In today’s RBN blog, we will explore why gas turbines are so challenging to build and why there’s such a manufacturing backlog. 

If the U.S. is to significantly grow its production of electric vehicles (EVs), it’s going to need a robust domestic supply chain that includes critical metals and minerals. The Biden administration has previously provided billions in funding made available through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) to help establish new clean-energy industries, an approach it is repeating with EV battery manufacturing and its goal of having EVs account for half of all new-car sales by 2030. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the $3.5 billion set aside to fund investments in the EV battery supply chain and increase domestic manufacturing. 

By all appearances, the momentum behind electric vehicles (EVs) has done nothing but increase over the last year, boosted by higher gasoline prices and federal legislation intended to speed the pace of EV adoption. But the transportation sector's transition to electric power and away from the internal-combustion engine (ICE) won't be easy, and may take a lot longer than many expect or hope, due in part to the significant challenges in finding the hard-to-come-by metals and other materials needed for EV production. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the continuing focus on EVs, China’s current dominance in the global market, and how the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is boosting plans to make EV batteries in the U.S.

Yesterday the folks at RBC Capital Markets issued an excellent research piece titled “Cross-Sector Implications of North America Energy Supply Chain Evolution.”  It is a look at the shale revolution from the perspective of a supply chain – the linkages between interconnected businesses involved in the development, extraction and production of liquid and gas hydrocarbon energy.  The 31 page report makes some great points about the fundamentals of today’s hydrocarbon markets and recommends stocks that are expected to benefit from these developments.  I thought it would be useful to summarize the high points of their investment thesis here.  You’ll need to contact RBC if you want to see the report and its investment strategies.