World’s largest concentrated solar plant switches on in the Sahara lweb.es/f800
Morocco has switched on what will be the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant. The new site near the city of Ouarzazate – famous as a filming location for Hollywood blockbusters like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Gladiator” – could produce enough energy to power over one million homes by 2018 and reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 760,000 tons per year, according to the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) finance group.
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OEF REVIEW:“It’s hard to see a dramatic price increase,” Vitol Group BV Chief Executive Officer Ian Taylor told Bloomberg in an interview, saying prices were likely to bounce around a band with a midpoint of $50 a barrel for the next decade. “We really do imagine a band,” probably between $40 and $60 a barrel, he said. “I can see that band lasting for five to ten years. I think it’s fundamentally different.”
OEF REVIEW:China’s oil demand will grow 4.3% this year to surpass 11 million barrels per day, compared to 4.8% growth last year, the country’s top energy group forecast on Tuesday. State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) sees the country’s oil demand rising to 566 million tonnes, or 11.32 million barrels per day in 2016, some 460,000 barrels per day higher than last year.
OEF REVIEW:As oil prices continue to decline, North American exploration and production companies have hedged just 15 percent of their total production volumes for 2016, including 14 percent of oil and 18 percent of natural gas, leaving the companies largely exposed to current depressed market prices, according to new analysis from IHS (NYSE: IHS), the leading global source of critical information and insight.
OEF REVIEW:Though Syria itself is mostly irrelevant as a trading partner for China, the region’s stability is nevertheless one of Beijing’s core concerns, not only because Iraq is among its main oil suppliers. Beijing’s $900 billion Silk Road initiative aims to connect Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe through a wide-ranging infrastructure network. But ongoing fighting and terror attacks are putting this mega-project at risk.
OEF REVIEW:Given the current circumstances, the impact of China on global markets should not be underestimated. As the world’s largest oil importer, China is one of the countries that benefits the most from low oil prices. The decline in oil prices is generally good for China. But wild swings in oil prices, and a possible price rise in the future, could have a big negative impact on the country’s economy. One of the strategies to offset the impact of wild fluctuations in oil prices is to increase the country’s oil reserves.
OEF REVIEW:With oil-directed rigs representing two thirds of the decline, the US drilling rig count fell 18 units to 619 during the week ended Jan. 29, the latest Baker Hughes Inc. data show (OGJ Online, Jan. 22, 2016). The overall count is down 924 year-over-year and the lowest since Aug. 6, 1999. Martin Craighead, BHI chairman and chief executive officer, forecasted more pain in 2016 for the worldwide drilling industry“. At current commodity prices, the global rig count could decline as much as 30% in 2016, as our customers’ challenges of maximizing production, lowering their overall costs, and protecting cash flows are now more acute,” he said.
OEF REVIEW:These are the key findings of this report on Canadian oil and energy: 1. Recent developments have highlighted numerous uncertainties for Canada’s long-term energy outlook. 2. In the Reference Case, energy production grows faster than energy use and net exports of energy increase. 3. The levels of future oil and natural gas production are highly dependent on future prices, which are subject to considerable uncertainty. 4. Without development of additional oil pipeline infrastructure, crude oil production grows less quickly but continues to grow at a moderate pace over the projection period. 5. The volume of liquefied natural gas exports is an important driver of Canadian natural gas production growth. 6. Total energy use in Canada, which includes energy use in the energy production sector, grows at similar rates in all Energy Future 2016 cases, and Greenhouse Gas emissions related to that energy use will follow similar tren
OEF REVIEW:Global energy demand will increase 25 percent between 2014 and 2040, driven by population growth and economic expansion, ExxonMobil said today in the 2016 edition of The Outlook for Energy. At the same time, energy efficiency gains and increased use of renewable energy sources and lower carbon fuels, such as natural gas, are expected to help reduce by half the carbon intensity of the global economy.
OEF REVIEW:Question: BP moved very quickly to say it thought that the oil price would stay low for a long time. What factors fed into that statement? Answer: If you consider the two most recent big drops – 2008/2009 and 1998 – both of those were driven by economic recessions. So, we saw big falls in demand. Those tend to correct themselves relatively quickly. In contrast, the price weakness this time was caused by strong growth in supply, initially as a result of very strong growth in US shale. Normally, world demand for oil grows by about 0.8 million barrels a day per year, but at the end of last year US shale, on its own, grew by 1.6 million barrels a day. Last year, we saw a combination of supply increments from Iraq and Saudi Arabia that added a further 1.5 million barrels a day. What we know from history is that the oil market takes an awful lot longer to adjust to supply shocks than it does to cyclical demand shocks.