India: Opportunities In Clean Power Generation lweb.es/f2224 12.05.2016
India’s energy system faces the challenges of meeting growing demand, cutting pollution and offering more than 300 million people not connected to the power grid access to modern energy. The target is to build 175GW of renewable energy by 2022, primarily solar and wind. This would present an investment opportunity of more than $150 billion in clean power generation. This report examines the recent growth across India’s off-grid, small energy grids, rooftop solar and utility-scale renewable energy segments and looks at challenges in their future growth.
U.S. field production of crude oil increased in 2015 for the seventh consecutive year, reaching 9.42 million barrels per day. This was the highest crude oil production level since 1972. In 2015, production gains were highest in Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, and North Dakota, as these three regions accounted for 77% of the country’s total increase. Although annual production for 2015 grew, monthly U.S. crude oil production has declined since April 2015. Lower oil prices led to slower development activity, and production fell to 8.74 million b/d in August 2016.
According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Nigeria has capacity to create about $51 billion investment opportunities in the midstream and downstream gas sector. This investment will go into gas exploration and production activities, power plant projects, fertilizer plants, virtual pipelines and flare gas commercialization initiatives; as well as in Free Trade Zones infrastructure development and concessioning, port infrastructure, central gas processing facilities, gas transmission, LPG plants, real estate development, pipe milling and local fabrication yards. The intent is to position Nigeria as a regional hub for gas-based industries. 
This 2016 Energy Outlook from the company JLL looks at global macroeconomic trends and considers the recovery timeline to expect once oil prices stabilize. The net effect on property markets of the structural changes that are currently redefining the energy industry is then discussed, focusing on the performance of office and industrial inventories in energy-centric cities. The influence of renewable energy on the health of real estate markets today and into the future is also covered. Lastly, U.S. and Canadian trends, deals and fundamentals are presented.
The James M. Barry Electric Generating Station, a 2.7 gigawatt mixed-use coal and gas-fired power plant operated by Alabama Power will host pilot plant tests of a fuel cell carbon capture technology, which uses carbonate fuel cells to concentrate and capture carbon dioxide streams from power plants. “The fuel cell carbon capture solution we are advancing with ExxonMobil could be a game-changer in affordably reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants globally,” said Chip Bottone, president and CEO of FuelCell Energy, Inc. 
OEF REVIEW:The first wave-produced electricity in the US goes online in Hawaii. The ocean packs enough power to meet a quarter of America’s energy needs and reduce the nation’s reliance on oil, gas and coal. But wave energy technology lags behind wind and solar power, with important technical hurdles still to be overcome. Both the solar and wind industries received substantial government investment and tax credits that helped them become energy sources cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels. Wave energy test sites run by other researchers are being planned in Oregon and California. One of those projects, Cal Wave, run by California Polytechnic State University, hopes to provide utility-scale power to Vandenberg Air Force Base. But while the U.S. government and military have put about $334 million into marine energy research over the last decade, Britain and the rest of Europe have invested more than $1 billion, according to the Marine Energy Council.
OEF REVIEW:The Brookings report “Lower Oil Prices and the U.S. Economy: Is This Time Different?” explores the effect on U.S. real GDP growth of the sharp decline in the global price of crude oil and hence in the U.S. price of gasoline after June 2014. This decline produced a stimulus of about 0.7 percentage points of real GDP growth by raising private real consumption and an additional stimulus of 0.04 percentage points reflecting a shrinking petroleum trade deficit. However, the net stimulus since June 2014 has been effectively zero. No evidence of an additional role for frictions in reallocating labor or the price of gasoline in explaining the sluggish response. Neither was there evidence of lower oil costs stimulating other business investment, nor an increase in household savings, nor of households deleveraging.
High regional gas prices in South America, most notably Argentina, are attracting US exports of domestically produced LNG, with more than 70% of landed cargoes arriving on the continent so far this year. South America has offered the most profitable destination for US exports compared with Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Regional gas markets, particularly in Argentina, are experiencing elevated prices. In an effort to stem the decline in gas production, the Argentine president cut domestic subsidies in December. His administration hopes that higher wellhead prices will revive production in older fields and stimulate new production, particularly in the Vaca Muerta Basin where large untapped volumes remain locked in shale and tight gas reservoirs. In March and April the first and second US cargoes to arrive in South America landed in Brazil, and since April, all eight US cargoes exported to the region have landed in the Southern Cone nations of Argentina and Chile.
OEF REVIEW:According to the IEA the oil glut in global oil markets will persist into late 2017 as demand growth slumps and supply proves resilient. Stocks of oil in OECD countries are swelling to levels never seen before. The combination of faltering demand and increased OPEC output pushed oil inventories in developed nations to a record in July. BNP Paribas considers that “OPEC’s long game got a little longer”, and also with regard to OPEC Petromatrix GmbH says that the organization is “trapped” since “Non-OPEC supply has been able to adjust better than expected to the lower oil prices.” 
Hillary Clinton is promising to revitalize Pennsylvania communities hurt by a downturn in the coal and steel industries. With regard to the coal industry she asked whether there was a technology that could create clean energy from coal, and stated that she would revitalize the coal producing areas. Earlier in the primaries, Donald Trump made his position clear on the coal industry saying that he wanted clean coal and that the country would, in his words, have an amazing mining business.
OEF REVIEW:Oil investors are buying contracts that will only pay out if crude oil rises well above US$100 a barrel over the next four years – a clear sign some believe today’s bust is sowing the seeds of the next boom. The options deals, which brokers said bear the hallmarks of trades made by hedge funds, appear to be based on the belief that current low prices will generate a supply crunch. Over the last month, investors have bought call options for late 2018, 2019 and 2020 at strike prices of US$80, US$100 and US$110 a barrel. Previously, some investors had already built super-bullish positions. The options deals suggest a concern about shortages as demand begins to outstrip production – the traditional boom and bust commodities cycle.
OEF REVIEW:India’s fuel markets could be a lucrative prize for the world’s oil majors as they seek outlets for their gasoline and diesel. India posted the fastest oil demand growth in the world in the first quarter of 2016 and is replacing China as the driver of growth globally, the International Energy Agency said in its latest report. Fuel marketing in India has turned profitable after the government ended decades-old control over the retail prices of gasoline and diesel, and local private oil refiners Reliance Industries and Essar Oil have started opening their mothballed fuel stations, adding new ones to expand business. India recently offered Saudi Aramco a stake in refineries and petrochemical projects; Total and Royal Dutch Shell are also keen to strengthen their presence in the fuel retailing business; BP could market jet fuel in the country; and Rosneft may take up a 49% stake in Essar Oil’s in a 49% 400,000 barrels per day Vadinar refinery in western Gujarat state. 
OEF REVIEW:Technical analyst Clive P. Maund lists the reasons he believes oil prices, which recently peaked above $50 a barrel, are headed for a fall: “It still looks like oil is topping out here at about the $50 level after its substantial recovery uptrend from its February low. While we cannot be sure until it breaks down from its uptrend, the chances of its doing so soon look high for various reasons.”
OEF REVIEW:Coal is cheap but the challenge is how to harness coal as clean energy. The main technology being used is coal gasification where the coal is chemically transformed into synthetic natural gas, but its overall carbon intensity is worse than coal mining. Other methods are the coal-bed methane process and underground coal gasification. Underground coal gasification is now a feasible way of accessing the vast resources of coal that are too deep to mine, thus potentially increasing world clean energy supply.
OEF REVIEW:Ship tracking data, sourced from Bloomberg, shows that 83 supertankers carrying around 166 million barrels of oil are headed to China, which has stockpiled an impressive 787,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2016 – the highest Chinese oil stockpiling rate since 2014. Additionally, in January 2015 it was reported that China’s strategic petroleum reserve would be increased from 30 days to 90 days. Later in January 2016, it was revealed that China was building underground oil storage facilities to complement its above-ground storage tanks. So it could be considered in the light of this that in contrast to Saudi Arabia, which is a swing producer, China is acting like a swing consumer. Such increased demand from China has helped in lapping up excess oil production, and if If its imports drop, according to Oil Price, the world will return to the oil supply glut and oil prices will retrace back to the lower $30 a barrel.
OEF REVIEW:The new magic number in the oil industry is $50. BP Plc, rig-owner Nabors Industries Ltd. and explorer Pioneer Natural Resources Co. all said in the past 24 hours that prices above $50 will encourage more drilling or provide the needed boost to cash flow. With oil bouncing close to $45 a barrel, an industry that has been shaving costs to stay competitive is ready for signs of stability at a price level less than half of 2014’s average. At an average price of $53 per barrel of oil means the world’s 50 biggest publicly traded companies in the industry can stop bleeding cash, according to oilfield consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. Nabors, which owns the world’s largest fleet of onshore drilling rigs, said it has already been talking with several large customers about plans to boost work in the second half of the year if prices rise “comfortably” above $50. “It’s not just about touching $50,” Fraser McKay, vice president of corporate analysis at Wood Mackenzie in Houston, said Tuesday in a phone interview. “It’s about touching, maintaining and having the perception of future prices above $50 a barrel before you start sanctioning projects that are economic at $50 a barrel.”