Saudi Arabia considering initial public offering for Aramco lweb.es/f730
OEF REVIEW:A potential initial public offering is under review for Saudi Arabian Oil Co., also known as Aramco, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s deputy crown prince, said in an interview with The Economist. A decision will probably be taken in the next few months, he said, without giving further details. “Personally I’m enthusiastic about this step,” Salman said. “I believe it is in the interest of the Saudi market, and it is in the interest of Aramco” by helping to promote transparency and counter corruption, he said. “This is an epochal change in the oil industry,” said Bob McNally, founder of Washington-based consultant The Rapidan Group and a former senior White House official. “Saudi Arabia is getting ready to ride the oil-price roller-coaster, not control it.”
OEF REVIEW:In a move to improve its energy security and take advantage of cheap oil, China is spending billions of dollars to build up strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) to meet up to 90 day’s worth of net import demand in case of a disruption. The country is building underground caverns capable of holding up to a quarter of its expanded strategic oil reserves by 2020, as it looks for new storage methods away from expensive and exposed above-ground tanks in crowded coastal regions.
OEF REVIEW:The oil tanker that left the Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, late last week is the bearer of the first freely traded U.S. crude in about four decades – made possible by congressional legislation that President Obama signed to end a 1970s-era ban on exports. It’s a new day indeed.
OEF REVIEW:The International Energy Agency’s Monthly Oil Report provides an overall view of the state of the international petroleum market and projections for oil supply and demand 12-18 months ahead. These are the IEA’s highlights of the current report.
OEF REVIEW:The International Energy Agency (IEA) considers that South East Asia is moving to the center of the global energy area and is a key pillar for Asia’s growth. This report covers the prospects for energy demand and fossil-fuel supply, as well as priorities for policy makers. There is a special chapter concentrating on Malaysia
OEF REVIEW:The world’s largest independent refiner, Valero Energy, which has 15 petroleum refineries with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 2.9 million barrels a day, plus 11 ethanol plants and a wind farm, presented its second quarter 2015 business update: – Earnings per share from continuing operations of $2.66 versus $1.22 in the second quarter of 2014. – Refineries operated at 96% throughput capacity utilization. – Advances made in capital investments designed to increase the company’s ability to access and process more North American crude oil. 
OEF REVIEW:This Energy Information Administration (EIA) presentation for the October 2015 Oil and Money Conference covers the following questions: 1) What are the key cyclical and structural factors driving oil demand? 2) How is demand changing in developing countries? 3) To what extent will a prolonged period of low prices result in a return to higher demand growth? and 4) How is the landscape of oil trading changing with the decreasing presence of key financial institutions? Note for the article: CAFE = Corporate Average Fuel Economy.
OEF REVIEW: Oil and gas hedging protections for North American exploration and production companies will fall in 2016 to 11% of total production volumes leaving many companies at a high risk of financial stress. For the remainder of 2015 such companies have 28% of production hedged.
Energy ministers from the G20 affirmed their commitment to renewable energy at the first G20 Energy Ministers Meeting this October in Istanbul. This is the first time that renewable energy is on the G20 agenda.
OEF REVIEW: Solar installations have grown 25-30% in 2015 compared to last year, accordinbg to Mercom Capital Group’s global forecast. Global solar installation figures are illustrated from 2007 to 2015, and country-by-country forecasts are made for China, U.S., UK, India and Japan.
OEF REVIEW:The UK Energy Statistics Report for the Second Quarter of 2015 highlights that total energy production in the UK was 10.8% higher than the same quarter of 2014, and final consumption was 2.9% higher. Total primary consumption rose 0.6% over the same period. In terms of electricity generation, gas had a share of 30.2% and coal 20.5%. Renewable electricity generation rose 51.4% compared to a year earlier, and wind generation rose 65.2%.
Statoil and its partners have put the first subsea gas compression facility on line at Aasgard in the Norwegian Sea. Subsea compression will add some 306 million barrels of oil equivalent to total output over the field’s life.
Risk assessment in the oil sands industry should consider the repeated decadal droughts that are a common feature of the regional hydroclimate but have not occurred since the industry was established. The long-term trends and variability in river flow examined in this paper extend beyond the Athabasca River Basin, and thus the lessons for water resource management are transferrable to watersheds across Canada’s western interior.
OEF REVIEW: Decline rates in conventional fields will play a critical part in rebalancing the oil market and determining where oil prices settle in the longer term. Decline rates will cut output by several million barrels a day in 2016 and 2017 unless oil producers invest to maintain production levels from existing fields and develop replacement fields.
Baker Hughes Incorporated announced that the worldwide rig count for August 2015 was 2,226, up 59 from the 2,167 counted in July 2015, and down 1,416 from the 3,642 counted in August 2014. The average U.S. rig count for August 2015 was 883, up 17 from the 866 counted in July 2015, and down 1,021 from the 1,904 counted in August 2014.
Crude oil production for October from seven major U.S. shale plays is expected to drop 80,000 barrels a day to 5.21 million b/d.
“Drillers will increasingly contend with diminished backlogs,rig values,fleet sizes, and margins if oil prices do not bounce back to the $70-80/bbl range, which we believe could support an increase in shallow-water, deepwater, and ultra-deepwater drilling”, says Moody’s in an industry report.
U.S. Federal waters in offshore Alaska are estimated to hold around 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the vast majority of which is located in the Arctic. Experts believe that the Chukchi Sea may represent one of the world’s largest sources of untapped oil and gas.