Natalie Gallagher

From a broad point of view, what we have to sort of acknowledge is that economic volatility is no longer episodic.

It is an embedded part of the economic narrative, and we're seeing that in oil prices in real time.

Monday alone, Brent crude fell 10%, 14% in a matter of five hours.

I mean, it's back up as of today.

Now, if you are

at all in an industry that has energy sensitivity, this environment feels almost impossible to plan in.

Yeah, I mean, just relative to pre-conflict, LNG prices have swung 60% to 80%.

Even if part of the impact is transitory, say we get a best-case scenario and the Strait of Hormuz reopens tomorrow, we still have a structural component we have to account for.

What really comes to mind is the fact that 17% of Qatar's LNG production is offline for three to five years.

So this really has an implication on the cost side of the balance sheet for these companies.

Yes, absolutely.

So let's take Helium for example, 34% of global supply comes from one facility in Qatar that has been affected by the strikes.

It's anticipated to be offline in some regard for four to six months.

Industry estimates are that we have about three months of inventory, right?

So you do some back of the napkin math and you realize that the question really isn't, will there be an impact?

There will be an impact.

When will it hit very likely Q2 and to what extent?

That really depends on the continued path that this conflict takes and if there is future escalation or hopefully de-escalation.

You know, I would say, right, the question we have to ask ourselves is what is being impacted by this conflict?

The cost side of the balance sheet is what's being impacted, the cost to power these AI data centers, for example, the cost to produce these chips.