Alan Kohler

Trump's been talking it up for a few days, and then he starts blowing up their ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and that's going to – I mean, Iran's got upset about that, so that's going to hold up a deal between the two, isn't it?

Yeah, that's right.

So, I mean, it's a really amazing situation and Trump does seem to be in a real pickle because Iran, he's managed to change the regime in Iran, as promised, but instead of the Ayatollah Khamenei, who was relatively moderate, he's got this revolutionary guard in charge and they're not moderate at all.

Yeah.

And they, as you say...

Understand the leverage I've got over the Strait of Hormuz, which in some ways, I mean, what they were trying to get was leverage through having a nuclear weapon because, you know, everyone who's got a bomb, you know, other countries are very careful about, which is why they want it.

Yeah.

But now they've got the leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, which is pretty strong leverage as well, and maybe that's enough.

Maybe they'll just give up the nuclear weapons because they've got leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.

Yeah.

And in the meantime, the Australian government is moving on having a domestic gas reservation policy, 20%.

Yeah.

Which obviously the gas companies like Santos are dead against.

And where do you think that's going to go?

Do you think the gas companies will succeed in their lobbying attempts or they'll just have to put up with it?

Yeah, I think one of the things that came out of the presentation that they made to the investor there was really kind of to remind us that when we're talking about fossil fuels being replaced by renewable energy, that's kind of true, except that within fossil fuels, there isn't one fossil fuel, right?

So what's been happening is that gas is replacing coal.

It isn't just solar and wind that's replacing coal, it's gas.

And so that is a significant underlying demand point for gas, which is going to be maintained and it can't be really replaced.

Yeah.