Archive for category: Industry News

Gas flaring in the largest U.S. shale plays has been in the spotlight since the shale revolution started. Pressure from society and ESG investors have recently turned up the heat on the oil and gas industry to reduce flaring and eliminate routine flaring as a step toward contributing to emissions reduction.

The spotlight in the United States is on the biggest shale basin, the Permian, where flaring soared to record highs while production was surging in 2019, and fell in 2020 to the lowest since the shale boom started, due to lower oil and gas drilling and fewer new wells put into production.

Most of the spotlight has been on the larger portion of the Permian in Texas, but neighboring New Mexico, home to part of the Delaware basin—one of the most active and prolific basins in the Permian—has also had to grapple with the flaring issue.

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Source: Oil Price

Shell is buying ubitricity, the European provider of on-street charging for electric vehicles (EVs) that has the largest public EV charging network in the UK, the supermajor said on Monday.

The expansion of Shell’s EV charging offering is part of the oil major’s support for low-carbon transport by offering electric vehicle drivers public on-street charge points integrated into existing street infrastructure, the company said.

That’s not the first deal for Shell in the EV charging business. As early as 2017, Shell signed a deal to buy one of Europe’s biggest EVs charging networks, Netherlands-based NewMotion. Shell has also partnered with a consortium involving some of Europe’s largest carmakers to build a network of EV fast-charging stations across the continent.

The acquisition of ubitricity, founded in Berlin, is the first major EV charging deal since Shell announced in April 2020 its ambition to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050 at the latest, joining other majors such as BP and Eni in unveiling plans to curb carbon emissions.

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Source: Oil Price

OPEC was formed in 1960 by founding members Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. For a brief period, the petroleum cartel became the dominant force behind world oil prices and a key geopolitical power broker, with its members controlling nearly half of world oil production and more than three-quarters of global oil reserves. As U.S. oil production entered a period of apparently inexorable decline after its 1970 peak, Washington’s desire to shore-up energy security and create a bulwark against communist expansion into the Middle East saw Saudi Arabia become a key U.S. ally. OPEC at the height of its power, in the 1970s, flexed its muscles by cutting oil output causing prices to spiral upward triggering two oil price shocks that sparked global recessions. Since then, OPEC’s power has steadily deteriorated, with that decline accelerating over the last two decades because of rapidly growing non-OPEC oil production, notably in the U.S and Brazil.

The U.S. shale oil boom caused onshore production to swiftly soar after nearly three decades of decline. U.S. crude oil imports from the Middle East plummeted and Congress lifted a four-decade restriction on U.S. oil exports. Even Riyadh’s 2014 plan to regain market share and obliterate the U.S. shale oil industry by opening the spigots and significantly boosting production, causing crude oil prices to enter a sustained decline, failed.

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Source: Oil Price

An Alaska judge has ruled against a request for an injunction against a lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska scheduled for today, letting the tender proceed.

The AP reports that District Judge Sharon Gleason motivated her decision with failure on the part of the plaintiffs—environmentalists and Native American communities—to show the likelihood of harm, which is a necessary prerequisite for an injunction.

The Trump administration first floated plans to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas drilling last year, as part of its energy self-sufficiency agenda. The news understandably caused an outcry among environmental groups and some Native American communities.

The Alaska Wilderness League reported last year that 70 percent of Americans are against oil and gas drilling in the ANWR, adding, “The world remains mired in a global pandemic and the oil markets are experiencing continued volatility, yet this administration has once again opted to barrel forward with unnecessarily aggressive oil and gas development.”

It is questionable what interest the industry will have in the lease sale, however. Growing pressure from investors for greater environmental responsibility is one reason, and another is bank’s pullout from funding Arctic oil and gas exploration projects, limiting the industry’s access to financing.

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Source: Oil Price

Crude oil prices today moved higher after the Energy Information Administration reported an inventory draw of 600,000 barrels for the week to December 18.

This compared with a draw of 3.1 million barrels estimated for the previous week and an inventory build of 2.7 million barrels for the week to December 18, as estimated by the American Petroleum Institute and reported yesterday. Analysts had expected the EIA to report an inventory draw of 3.25 million barrels for last week.

Oil prices have been on the rise the past two weeks on positive vaccine news and hopes for a rebound in demand once vaccinations started on a large scale. However, earlier this week, oil reversed its climb on the news about a new, more virulent variant of the coronavirus infecting thousands in the UK and prompting new travel restrictions in Europe and other parts of the world. The news saw oil traders exit their positions in droves, driving prices down.

A decline in crude oil buying by Asian refiners also contributed to the most recent reversal of oil prices’ fortunes.

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Source: Oil Price