Inside the "Super Bowl of energy”
Make Me Smart
Marketplace
4.6 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, at a time when the war with Iran has been roiling global energy markets, executives from energy companies all over the world gathered for CERAWeek, the “Super Bowl” of energy conferences. But as Marketplace’s Elizabeth Trovall tells us, conflict in the Middle East wasn’t the only hot topic there. Trovall joins Kimberly to discuss how the energy sector is confronting a wide range of disruptions, from geopolitics to technology.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- "At "Super Bowl of the energy industry," war in the Middle East is the hot topic" from Marketplace
- "Gas prices eclipse $4 a gallon in the US, the highest since 2022" from AP News
- "How Blocking Oil and Gas From Leaving the Strait of Hormuz Ripples Around the World" from The New York Times
- "Venezuela oil production has reached 1.1 mln bpd in March" from Reuters
- "Energy demand from AI " from the International Energy Agency
Got a question about the Iran war and its impact on the global economy? Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email makemesmart@marketplace.org.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone, I'm Kimberly Adams. |
| 0:07.0 | Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us. |
| 0:12.0 | Last week, executives from energy companies from all over the world met in Houston for Zero Week, |
| 0:19.0 | an annual conference that's nicknamed the Super Bowl of Energy. |
| 0:23.6 | Now, it's a particularly interesting time for the industry to come together because this war with Iran is really impacting their businesses and looming over the entire global economy. |
| 0:34.6 | My colleague Elizabeth Troval spent the week there, and she's here to tell us |
| 0:38.6 | about what folks were saying. Give us a little insight on to what the top minds in the energy |
| 0:45.1 | industry are thinking about. Liz, welcome back. Yeah, super happy to chat. So what exactly is |
| 0:52.1 | Sierra Week and who shows up? So Sierra Week is an annual global energy conference, |
| 0:58.8 | like major global energy conference put on by S&P Global. It takes place in downtown Houston and, |
| 1:04.9 | you know, it's top executives in the world of oil, gas, utilities, car companies. Like we're talking the, you know, CEOs of the Ford's and Chevrons of the world of oil, gas, utilities, car companies. |
| 1:11.2 | Like we're talking the CEOs of the Fords and Chevrons of the world are coming to Houston |
| 1:15.7 | for this conference. |
| 1:17.3 | And, you know, also politicians, folks like Energy Secretary Chris Wright and former Secretary |
| 1:22.6 | of State John Kerry. |
| 1:24.6 | And just real quick, also the tickets to attend like the main conference, I just want to say, are $11,000. |
| 1:31.1 | Press, of course, does not have to pay $11,000. But yeah, that's how much people are paying to just get in to attend this conference. |
| 1:41.2 | Wow. So that's a lot of money. Obviously, it is clearly the important place to be. What was the energy like there? |
| 1:50.6 | The vibes were interesting. Like, you know, it was a bit tense. There's restrained, hesitant. And there's just something weird. I was talking to my former |
| 2:03.2 | colleague at the Houston Chronicle, Amanda Drain. She and I were talking about how it was just |
| 2:09.1 | like kind of weird to be looking at like the front page of like the journal and the New York |
| 2:14.8 | Times and seeing like this war imagery and then to be at this like |
... |
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