Neal Kumar

Director AmpTank Energy, Oil Trader. Lars Moravy fan club.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@JavierBlas @opinion If that's the case then everyone should be betting on contango (in crude to start and then products) both because of prompt avails and incentivizing a billion barrels of inventory to get rebuilt in commercial and government storage. Question is how quickly governments will move

[NBA @NBA]

Just two kids from Jersey with their trophies 🏆🏆

@KarlTowns x @jalenbrunson1

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

There is zero finance available for compute in Europe (DC build, GPUs, everything). European banks, governments and financial institutions only want to take credit risk on US companies. Pensions etc invest in US equities. Governments and utilities prefer Google to local entrepreneurs.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

Sweden could own it, if there was any support and effort Sweden can built 1-2 gw compute in 2-3 years just for this. Tell the banks to finance GPUs and open LCs for construction. Streamline environmental permitting. It won’t happen in the end because this would entail a lot of people getting rich and that’s difficult to sell in the Nordic.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@Yme That’s correct, but how if Europeans (other than the occasional low level govt grant) are unwilling to finance any of this, deemed as too risky?

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@Laz4rz Like a lot of Europe seems they want a giant factory (of course with no pollution and noise) but thousands of employees working 8-5z Let’s see we’ll keep trying.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@Laz4rz FWIW we permitted a 200mw data center in Finland and they will build 3GW by 2030 and who knows how much by 2035. We approached a few places in Switzerland and were either told no interest at all (rather do something else) or it would require a 5-10 year study for a 1-2km cable.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@ira_joseph The general vibe I got speaking with electricity traders at the oil cos was that they could look at renting batteries, but when asked about investments that the investment teams didn’t have a clue to understand them.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

They should be good at it, as they understand land, risk, trading and volatility. The problem is that they never put these types of people in charge and went for large capex (ie oil and gas mega project size I assume to get through investment committees) and people coming from renewable/infra background rather than building a similar price risk tolerant, organic growth, trading business. How many oil and gas companies have invested in batteries, which are low opex (and relatively low capex) volatility and arb boxes? Only Total somewhat. They should have been all over these, integrating into renewables and electricity retail. Just didn’t do it.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@TweetsOfSumit Europe is totally unprepared for AI sovereignty. Nordic countries in theory can build but they’re building for Chinese and American companies. Germany, Switzerland, Austria anti everything +-. And what European companies would even rent capacity.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@ShanuMathew93 They don’t even lease directly (until now), they rent capacity from neoclouds, google etc.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

Our 200MW data center project in northern Finland has received building permits and signed a grid connection for an immediately available 200MW of power. Looking forward to starting construction in the summer and building out our compute as fast as possible!

[AmpTank @AmpTankEnergy]

Great news for Utajärvi and the Oulu region! AmpTank's 200MW Utajärvi data center campus has received binding building permits and signed a grid connection agreement with Fingrid. Our innovative design combining local renewable energy and battery storage will increase power supply while managing load. Construction will start in the second half of 2026 with first power and compute in 2027. We will also establish an office in Oulu to manage construction and build out the local startup and physical AI ideas. Thank you to everyone involved!

https://t.co/wXpQBVVSL3

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

It's an open question depending on meeting grid code requirements and meeting ramp cycles, particularly difficult problem in the nordic. You could cycle near constantly on one hour, for example. Or you could do it partially, or you could do it not at all until you need to. Nobody really knows until there is a year or two of operation. You'd probably run it one way through one transformer for a while (assuming split transformers) and then see how that works vs. just the UPS system. But the entire project needs to get grid code certified which many existing and new data center operators are going to learn the hard way will be more difficult than expected without a BESS system.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

Bearing bearish oil is the worst possible view right now. Anyone who has actually traded or is trading physical oil is beyond bullish. It's just a question of how to express that position given volatility and "headlines" risk. The fact is that oil inventories of +1-2 billion will have to be rebuilt over years. This involves filling caverns, building some more storage in some cases, producers taking more commercial storage, state agencies overfilling refined product inventories like gasoil caverns in Scandi, shore tanks in Germany, etc. The curve is going to stay elevated for years, cracks on average as well especially as Russian refineries keep getting blown up. Z7, Z8 whatever is liquid is a given bullish position. ULSD will have a major problem to meet winter specs due to refineries meeting jet yield, and that spec change will not start in Sept/Oct, it'll start now with winter diesel being sunk into caverns and tanks across Europe. The US should, but won't, and can't build inventories. Electrification in general but China specifically is a risk to demand but by how much and how quickly? Not enough to offset this demand increase. The situation is dire, despite the press either not understanding or purposely downplaying the severity of the situation.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@calvinfroedge 50% speed and a dry dock to fix is in reality the only solution. Or just 50% for a couple of months. Have encountered this problem before. Also vessels stuck will have expired SIRE, other issues. SIRE is a requirement for many ports/receivers, needs discharge ops, etc.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

Personal opinion is understated but no idea by how much. China has built 100s of millions of bbls of shore tanks since 2020 for dual commercial and govt use, prob swaps with commercial more like how the German EBV works. IE, this is really govt storage dressed as commercial. I remember looking at renting some tanks there in 2017 or so, many tens of millions of bbls available. They all got taken to give service when I checked a few years later. Personal opinion too is that this has supported balances and spreads last few years also.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

People want more/cheaper housing and less inflation for food in particular. Go out and build more housing, very publicly, in places where it’s expensive. If you’re blocked by government, call them out. Document it like Adam Carolla and Spencer Pratt are doing. Don’t just fund other people to do it or lobby for permitting reform, you and other tech billionaires need to do it yourselves, directly. Then there will be less opposition politically because it won’t be possible to oppose actually solving these issues. Just threatening recession and unemployment won’t resonate, and nobody in the real world believes China is a bigger problem than housing, food, and inflation.

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@ira_joseph @ColumbiaUEnergy It’s also because they see people getting very wealthy on AI infra + startups and they have no way to participate. + the founders of some of the companies are not viewed as trustworthy or honest

[Neal Kumar @NealFKumar]

@MattZeitlin Please realize that Germans think moving air of any kind gets you sick. There are not even fans in Germany. They don’t even open car windows. AC is a non starter.