“While the Petra Nova project will certainly benefit Texas, it also demonstrates that clean coal technologies can have a meaningful and positive impact on the nation’s energy security and economic growth,” said Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
30 crude and natural gas projects are expected to start operations in the North Sea by 2020. The UK will lead with a total of 19 projects, followed by Norway with 10 and Denmark with a single project, according to GlobalData. The total recoverable reserves for these projects are expected to stand at 5.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The planned projects in the North Sea They are expected to require a total capital expenditure of $56.7 billion, of which over half (54%) is expected to be spent between 2017 and 2020.
A deal to give Russia’s Rosneft 49.9% ownership of US refiner Citgo if Venezuela’s cash-strapped national oil company PDVSA defaults on its loans threatens US national security and should be investigated by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, two US congressmen have said. “This would give Russia clear control over the sixth-largest refinery in our country, the ability to impact gas prices for the American people, and a strategic advantage over US freedom of action globally,” Representative Jeff Duncan, Republican-South Carolina, said in a statement.
In the Middle East North Africa region $622 billion worth of development is planned in the energy sector for the next five years. The power sector accounts for the largest share at $207 billion, with the oil and gas sector at $195 billion and $159 billion respectively. Leading the drive will be Saudi Arabia, and Iraq and Iran will play catch-up. Algeria will pump billions into its upstream sector, and much is expected from Egypt’s recent gas. Renewable-energy projects will be at the forefront of efforts to meet rising power demand in Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan.
Russian president Vladimir Putin met with Saudi Defense Minister in Sochi on October 11th, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was holding a meeting with his Saudi counterpart. The parties discussed Syria and agreed upon the necessity to prevent the creation of a terrorist caliphate. The levers of a hypothetical Russian-Saudi deal would be: a rise in oil prices, possibly accompanied by Saudi arms purchases, and on the Russian side, the guarantee that Assad will leave after a transition period, along with some kind of a Saudi “right of scrutiny” on Russian arms sales to Iran.
West African producers led by Angola and Nigeria are set to send crude to China at the rate of 1.48 million barrels a day in April, the most since Bloomberg began compiling the data in August 2011, according to loading programs and traders. Overall Asian imports of West African crude are poised to reach 2.4 million barrels a day this month, also a record. Asia’s increasing purchases of West African crude provides a valuable source of income for Angola and Nigeria, both of which rely heavily on oil revenues to fund government spending.
China’s largest crude oil refiner Sinopec aims to ship more cargoes from Brazil, the United States and Canada to help ensure stable crude supplies. Asia, which will account for a third of the world’s refining capacity by 2020 will have to look beyond the traditional markets Middle East and Africa for crude supplies. China will soon import its first Southern Green Canyon and Thunderhorse crude from the United States, and Brazil overtook Venezuela as the top South American crude supplier to China in the first two months of this year.
Venezuela’s economy is in slow collapse, accelerated by the fall in oil prices; oil service companies such as Schlumberger are cutting back activities because they are not being paid; and Russia has become the leading foreign oil investor. Russia is also the country’s key financier. Venezuela has pledged half the shares of its subsidiary Citgo – an important US refiner and fuel-retailer – as collateral for the loans from Russia’s Rosneft. If Venezuela were to default, the prospect of the Russian state firm owning American refineries would be political dynamite in Washington.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, major construction at three of China’s large man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea is wrapping up, allowing Beijing to deploy fighter jets and mobile missile launchers to the area at any time. China has continued to militarize the waters as it seeks to reinforce effective control of much of the waterway, through which $5 trillion in trade passes each year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims.
PetroChina’s profit fell 78% to the lowest on record as the oil price crash punished the country’s biggest oil and gas producer for a third year. Net income dropped to 7.86 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion). While PetroChina expects its crude production to fall a second year in 2017, it sees gas sales rising 10% this year and to be its main growth driver to the end of the decade. PetroChina expects its 2017 global crude production to be 879 million barrels, down 4.5%.
Due to a surge in oil hedges, the oil-price weakness will not prompt US producers to pull back on drilling. The producers rushed to lock in oil prices above $50 a barrel after the OPEC production cuts announcement in November, and will use hedging gains to help plug any budget deficits caused by sub-$50 spot prices. However, most of the hedges expire by 2018, and oil futures prices must recover before producers can lock in prices over $55 a barrel for next year – a level needed for significant tight-oil production growth.
Policy makers in Moscow see Urals oil at an average of $50 a barrel this year, but falling to $40 at end-2017 and then staying near that level in 2018-2019. Russia’s Finance Ministry similarly highlighted the $40 level in January when it announced that the central bank would start buying foreign currency on its behalf when crude exceeds that level in order to insulate the exchange rate from oil volatility. The price of $40 is additionally being used to calculate the country’s budget in 2017-2019.
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 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.
Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron plan to spend a combined $10 billion this year in American shale.
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.”
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, 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.
“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.
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.
