Saudi Arabia: Long-Term Strategy For Asian Investment

03/23/17 •lweb.es/f2703 •bit.ly/2peKLnK

Asia, Investments, Oil, Saudi Arabia

Saudi King Salman’s lavish tour of Asia had a mission – to cement the kingdom’s place as leading oil supplier to the world’s biggest consumer region. The string of deals inked on his three-week tour to Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, and China – the big prize – also point to a fresh strategy: growth in the downstream. Chief executive officer of Aramco, Amin Nasser, said on this: “The growth in that sector is very important, and anything integrated between refining, petrochemical, with marketing and distribution, is of interest to us.”

China’s Sinopec Buys Its First Major Refinery In Africa

03/23/17 •lweb.es/f2699 •bit.ly/2oTNcwJ

Africa, China, Oil, Refinery

China’s Sinopec has agreed to pay almost $1 billion for a 75 percent stake in Chevron’s South African assets and its subsidiary in Botswana, securing its first major refinery on the continent. The assets include a 100,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery in Cape Town, a lubricants plant in Durban as well as 820 petrol stations and other oil storage facilities. They also include 220 convenience stores across South Africa and Botswana. With a growing middle class, demand in South Africa for refined petroleum has increased by nearly 5 percent annually over the past five years.

Oil Majors Drive Down Costs In The Offshore Wind Industry

03/23/17 •lweb.es/f2689 •bit.ly/2oQnlJ1

Clean Energy, energy, Offshore, World

Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil and Eni are moving into multi-billion-dollar offshore wind farms in the North Sea and beyond. The oil companies have many reasons to move into the industry. They’ve spent decades building oil projects offshore, and that business is winding down in some areas where older fields have drained. Returns from wind farms are predictable and underpinned by government-regulated electricity prices. Current projects entering operation are delivering power at about half the price of farms finished in 2012 helping the technology start to compete with traditional forms of energy.

Oil At $40 No Problem: Hedging As A Shield

03/20/17 •lweb.es/f2705 •bit.ly/2oTZd5d

Oil, USA

American oil explorers are shrugging off the 14% slide in prices this year. The price would have to drop to the $30s or lower to dent the bottom line of many drillers now working U.S. shale fields. That’s because many producers have already locked in future returns with financial contracts that guarantee the price of their oil for most of the rest of the decade. “We’re in a boom again in Texas…” said Michael Webber of the University of Texas’ Energy Institute in Austin. “The cowboy spirit is back. Hedging is playing a big role.”

IEA And IRENA Report: Perspectives For The Energy Transition

03/20/17 •lweb.es/f2704 •bit.ly/2pfa21i

Clean Energy, energy, World

The objective of this joint International Energy Agency and The International Renewable Energy Agency study “Perspectives for the Energy Transition. Investment Needs for a Low-Carbon Energy System”, requested by the German Government, is to analyse the scale and scope of investments in low-carbon technologies in power generation, transport, buildings and industry that are needed to facilitate such a transition in a cost-effective manner, while also working towards other policy goals. The findings of this report will inform G20 work on energy and climate in the context of the 2017 German G20 presidency.

Majors To Grow Output By A Combined 15% In Next Five Years

03/08/17 •lweb.es/f2711•bit.ly/2pfkt4O

Oil, World

Five of the largest publicly traded oil companies – BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total – are trying to work down debts that totaled $297 billion at the end of December. “For the entire oil and gas industry, balance sheets have never been worse,” said Fadel Gheit from Oppenheimer & Co. The industry is betting that prices will maintain a delicate balance – high enough to repair balance sheets and finance new projects, but not so high that it creates a new glut.

India’s First Major Exploration Licensing Round In July

03/08/17 •lweb.es/f2716 •bit.ly/2oUmofL

Exploration, India, Oil

India, the world’s third-largest oil consumer, will conduct auctions of oil and gas blocks under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy twice a year with the first round being held in July. OALP will differ from the current licensing policy whereby the government identifies the oil and gas blocks and then puts them on auction. This policy gives an option to a company looking for exploring hydrocarbons to select the exploration areas on its own, based on the seismic and well data that the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons has put in in a National Data Repository.

U.S. Natural Gas Pipeline Projects Certificated In 2017

03/07/17 •lweb.es/f2715 •bit.ly/2obKovd

gas, USA

Last year the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) certificated 17.6 billion cubic feet per day of new natural gas pipeline capacity, and so far this year the Commission has certificated more than 7 Billion cubic feet per day. The seven projects certificated during the first few weeks of 2017 include more than 1,500 miles of natural gas pipeline construction and expansions. The pipeline projects are concentrated in the eastern half of the United States to improve access to markets for growing eastern natural gas production, and they have projected 2017 and 2018 in-service dates.

India Looks At Myanmar’s Oil And Gas

03/06/17 •lweb.es/f2709 •bit.ly/2pfbPTV

gas, India, Oil

“The prospect of deepening Myanmar-India ties are very interesting and could potentially be quite wide,” said Michal Meidan, Asia Energy Policy Analyst at Energy Aspects. “Indian refiners are increasingly looking to sell products to Myanmar in order to tap a growing market. This makes sense both on the geopolitical level where India is increasingly seeking regional influence – and Myanmar will be pleased to hedge against China, and in terms of Indian refiners’ corporate needs to deepen their presence in new markets,” she added.

Gulf Of Mexico Lease Sale To Reduce Dependence On Foreign Oil

03/06/17 •lweb.es/f2717 •bit.ly/2nWZ0NX

Oil, USA

73 million acres offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida will be offered for oil and gas exploration and development. The proposed lease sale scheduled for August this year would include all available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and is part of President Trump’s plan to make the United States energy independent. The estimated amount of resources projected to be developed as a result of the proposed lease sale ranges from 0.211 to 1.118 Billion barrels of oil and from 0.547 to 4.424 Trillion cubic feet of gas.

Hess CEO Sees Global Oil Supply Crunch Looming

03/06/17 •lweb.es/f2714 •bit.ly/2okjF1o

Oil, Shale, suppliers, World

A significant, years-long oil supply crunch may be approaching due to insufficient investment in exploration and production, Hess CEO John Hess said at the IHS CERAWeek, and this will begin showing up in declining offshore supply. He added that “The shale business is back in business and starting to grow again,” but such growth in US shale would not be enough to meet global oil demand, which the International Energy Agency has projected to grow between 1.4-1.6 million barrels a day over this year and the next.

Saudis Defending Sales Against Rising U.S. Exports

03/06/17 •lweb.es/f2713 •bit.ly/2oOa8ks

Asia, markets, Oil, prices

Saudi Arabia has cut the pricing for some of its April oil sales to Asia, showing that it is trying to lure buyers toward its lighter and less sulfurous crude varieties. “This came as a complete surprise to the market,” said Tushar Tarun Bansal, director at Ivy Global Energy in Singapore. “This is a signal from the Saudis that they are serious about market share and pricing crude competitively, and would even be open to changing the methodology if the need arises.” This is the producer’s latest effort to defend sales in Asia.

India-Gulf Cooperation Council: Delhi’s Strategic Opportunity

03/05/17 •lweb.es/f2642 •bit.ly/2nWdPAm

energy, India, Middle East, Oil

Ties between the Gulf and India stretch back several millennia. Until the last decade or so, the relationship was still being driven almost exclusively by economic interests: energy trade and migrant labor. Now, however, the agendas of rising powers like India and China are expanding, including in the Middle East. Specifically, India-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ties will be among the most important relationships for both sides in the coming decades. The emergence of several factors is forcing New Delhi to consider the strategic aspects of those ties…

Southeast Asia’s Oil & Gas Sector: Opportunities For Growth

03/13/17 •lweb.es/f2708 •bit.ly/2oO44IK

employment, gas, Oil, Southeast Asia

According to Rigzone’s Ideal Employer Survey the top three attributes that oil and gas professionals value most in an employer are “a commitment to health and safety”, “competitive salary” and “positive organizational culture”. With respect to the “ideal employer”, the first three rankings go to Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, both globally and in the Southeast Asia region. Southeast Asia has suffered with the global oil glut but it still has opportunities for growth. InvestKL, for example, is working closely with PETRONAS to help attract large global multinational oil and gas companies.

Canada’s Oil Sands: Big Energy Producers’Achilles Heel

03/02/17 •lweb.es/f2646 •bit.ly/2ocvx54

Canada, Oil

The oil-sands operations in northern Alberta are among the costliest types of petroleum projects to develop because the raw bitumen extracted from the region must be processed and converted to a thick, synthetic crude oil. These operations have been particularly hard hit by the worst oil slump in a generation. Exxon and Conoco, for example, have removed a combined 4.65 billion barrels of oil-sands crude worth $183 billion from their books. Under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules, proved reserves can only include oil and gas fields that can be produced economically within the next half decade.