The Energy Pragmatist

Ep.15 Interview with Mark Wade | The Great Repricing of Energy

In this episode of The Energy Pragmatist, Ben West sits down with Mark Wade, Partner at CAZ Investments to discuss why energy is becoming attractive to generalist investors again. The conversation explores U.S. natural gas, LNG export growth, power demand driven by AI and data centers, geopolitical risk in global energy markets, and why private energy assets remain undervalued relative to broader private markets. Mark also shares how CAZ Investments approaches thematic investing, manager selection, downside protection, and where he sees the most compelling opportunities across upstream, midstream, infrastructure, and power markets today.

EP. 14 Interview with Ken Hersh | Why Energy Investing Is Ultimately a People Business

In this episode of The Energy Pragmatist, interviewer Ben West sits down with Ken Hersh, Chairman of HFI Capital Management and co-founder of NGP, for a wide-ranging conversation on commodity cycles, geopolitics, and the evolving investment landscape in oil and gas. Drawing on decades of experience, Hersh shares lessons from building one of the most influential energy private equity firms, discusses why successful investing ultimately comes down to backing great people, and unpacks how today’s market volatility, LNG demand, and global supply risks are reshaping energy markets. The discussion offers valuable insights for family offices and long-term investors navigating the future of energy investing.

Ep. 13: Interview with Rob West, Founder & Lead Analyst, Thunder Said Energy

In this episode, Amy Miller sits down with Rob to unpack one of the most powerful forces shaping energy today: AI. From oilfields to manufacturing lines, they explore how AI is quietly transforming the industry, driving efficiency, lowering costs, and challenging assumptions around future power demand. Rob explains why AI is both the biggest risk and the biggest opportunity, and why its impact may be less about massive data centres and more about thousands of small, high-impact applications. The conversation also dives into what this means for gas demand, LNG growth, and how energy markets could evolve as technology, geopolitics, and consumption patterns shift in parallel.

Ep. 12 Interview with Daniel Herz, Chief Executive Officer, WhiteHawk Energy

In this episode, Ben West speaks with Daniel Herz, Chief Executive Officer of WhiteHawk Energy, about the investment case for minerals and royalties and why they are increasingly attracting attention from allocators. Drawing on nearly three decades in the energy industry, Herz explains why he believes the minerals model offers a more resilient and capital efficient way to gain exposure to oil and gas, with minimal operating costs and no capital expenditure requirements. The conversation explores how rising electricity demand, particularly from AI and data centres, is strengthening the long term outlook for natural gas, and why minerals can provide a way to participate in that growth while maintaining downside protection. Herz also discusses how family offices are approaching the sector, how WhiteHawk is building a large scale natural gas minerals platform, and why he believes the space deserves closer attention from a broader set of investors.

Ep. 11. Interview with Daniel Connell, Managing Director, CF Private Equity

Ben West sits down with Daniel Connell, Managing Director, CF Private Equity to discuss how LPs are reassessing energy within diversified portfolios. They discuss the shift from a supply driven story to one shaped by AI led power demand, why institutional capital pulled back from upstream, and what is attracting it back.Topics include private versus public markets, the illiquidity premium, secondaries, capital discipline, hedging, and underwriting volatility. The episode closes with a look ahead to 2026 and what continued AI infrastructure build out could mean for energy demand and investment opportunities.