Hyundai Teases Most Efficient Car Ever (31 August 2020): By Charles Kennedy - Hyundai Motor has unveiled the first image of a car it plans to make available to customers in Europe soon, just after the South Korean carmaker, an early backer and developer of the hydrogen fuel cell technology, increased its electric vehicle (EV) offering. Neither ICE nor EV nor hydrogen, the car will be the most eco-friendly car on the planet. It won’t have EV battery metals to mine, or EV battery recycling issues to contend with, and it won’t slurp up fossil fuels. But there's a catch. It doesn’t have an engine at all. It is thereforeunlikely to compete with any EV or ICE vehicle in the car market. Hyundai is talking about its soapbox car. As Hyundai Motor says, the "term ‘soapbox’ refers to a motorless, gravity-propelled vehicle that was traditionally raced by children on a downhill road." The Hyundai Soapbox features a wedge-shaped silhouette, angular body lines, and a low wheelbase for a dynamic look shared with the 45 concept car. (Source: Oil Price)
Three Stocks To Watch As Natural Gas Prices Bounce Back (30 August 2020): By Alex Kimani - After prices hit decade-lows due to a stubborn supply overhang, natural gas markets appear to have finally reached a turning point. Buoyed by strong cooling and industrial demand due to an extraordinarily hot summer in the western part of the United States as well as economies gradually emerging from lockdown, natural gas prices have surged 49.1 percent over the past 30 days to trade at $2.65/MMBtu, a level they last touched in November. The rally has even caught short-sellers who went short as Hurricane Laura hit a critical natural gas export terminal by surprise, prompting massive short-covering. (Source: Oil Price)
Hydrogen Is Cleaning Up One Of The World’s Dirtiest Industries (27 August 2020): By Haley Zaremba - Acceptance is the first step to recovery. One of the world’s dirtiest industries seems to have taken this tenet of the 12-step program to heart. It knows it has a problem, it knows it has to change, and it’s asking for help. That industry is the high-polluting global shipping sector, which currently runs on one of the most emissions-heavy kinds of fuel known to man--a particularly dirty heavy fuel oil also known as bunker fuel. “If all the ships on Earth were a single country, that country would be the sixth-largest polluter in the world.” This jaw-dropping fact comes from an NPR report from late last year. The shipping industry, by way of its massive scale and its dirty fuel, ranks just behind Japan in its pollution levels. But the shipping sector’s open approach to change makes it pretty unique. As climate reporter Rebecca Hersher told NPR, “I cover a lot of big pollution-heavy industries as a climate reporter. And shipping has something going for it that's kind of cool, which is that they have publicly acknowledged that they have a problem - they're dirty [...] Second, they're actually trying to change it, which is good.” Putting their money where their mouth is, “Maersk, the largest shipping company in the world, has already promised to go zero carbon by 2050.” (Source: Oil Price)
When Will Refining Margins Begin To Recover? (26 August 2020): By Irina Slav - There has been a slew of positive signs from the upstream industry: U.S. producers restarting shut-in wells in the shale patch, OPEC+ easing production cuts as they see the market inching closer to balance, and four consecutive weekly inventory draws in the U.S. are some of these signs. Meanwhile, in downstream, margins remain squeezed tight, some are turning their facilities into biofuels plants, and others are planning permanent closures. At least two European refineries will shut down permanently in the wake of the pandemic, Argus Media reported earlier this week. One is Gunvor’s facility in Antwerp, Belgium, and the other is a Total refinery near Paris that the French supermajor is considering turning into a biofuels plant. That would be more than 200,000 bpd in refining capacity gone forever. (Source: Oil Price)
Building The World’s First Nuclear Fusion Reactor (25 August 2020): By Haley Zaremba - 70 years after the first energy was made using nuclear power at an experimental station near Arco, Idaho, nuclear energy remains at the heart of a contentious debate. Nuclear power holds enormous potential as a solution to curbing emissions that contribute to global warming, as splitting atoms to make energy is extremely efficient and produces absolutely greenhouse gas emissions. What it does produce, however, is hazardous waste that remains radioactive for millennia. And then there is the issue of public mistrust, as high-profile nuclear disasters like those at Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island have seared themselves into the global community’s collective memory. But what if there was a way to produce nearly boundless atomic energy without creating any radioactive waste and without any risk of meltdown? Scientists have been chasing this holy grail of clean energy--nuclear fusion--for nearly 100 years. Nuclear fusion, the energy creation process that occurs naturally on the sun, is many times more powerful than nuclear fission, and could solve some of humanity's most pressing and seemingly unsolvable problems with its infinitely renewable and totally clean energy production if we can finally find a way to make it commercially viable. (Source: Oil Price)
Why Is Australia Turning Its Back On China? (24 August 2020): By Vanand Meliksetian - Australia is facing its first recession in 30 years. The Covid-19 pandemic ended an unprecedented period for the country’s economy which expanded consecutively for decades. Even during the financial crisis of 2008, Australia managed to prevent the faith of other countries. The most obvious reason is the close economic relations with the world’s economic growth engine: China. Canberra, however, has become increasingly bellicose in its opposition to Beijing in numerous cases since the pandemic started. Australia has managed to balance the country’s most important trade ties concerning China with political and security ties concerning its Western allies and the U.S. more specifically. That has become more difficult recently as Canberra voiced opposition to Beijing’s handling of the pandemic and internal human rights issues. There is even a discussion of a decoupling that is desirable according to an Australian parliamentary inquiry. In contrast to the United States, however, this is easier said than done. (Source: Oil Price)
What The 2009 Financial Crisis Can Teach Us About Going Green (22 August 2020): By Haley Zaremba - COVID-19 has disrupted the global economy in a truly unprecedented fashion. This unanticipated interruption to business-as-usual and the near-unstoppable momentum of the economic industry has given the world the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a breather, reevaluate, and redesign our pathway forward. The Global Economic Forum has advocated for using this unique moment to engineer and embrace a “new energy order” and a “great reset.” Europe has designed green stimulus packages that place clean energy at the heart of the continent’s post-corona economic recovery and European Big Oil is transitioning to being Big Energy. (Source: Oil Price)
What Will It Take For Americans To Switch To EVs? (22 August 2020): By Irina Slav - One and a half million electric cars on the roads of the U.S. West and Midwest by 2030: this is the vision of regional power utility Xcel Energy, and part of its aim to be emissions-free by 2050. Those EVs are certainly enjoying a lot of attention on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, some companies are even giving them away for free to encourage people to go electric. Xcel Energy is not going this far, however. It will simply encourage people to switch to an EV. An electrifying vision “Through new electric vehicle customer programs and charging infrastructure, we will expand our clean energy leadership to transportation, developing innovative partnerships with our communities, customers and others,” the company says in a brochure. “The vision means that 20% of all vehicles in the areas we serve would be replaced with electric vehicles by 2030.” (Source: Oil Price)
U.S. Oil Rig Count Rises For First Time Since January (21 August 2020): By Julianne Geiger - Baker Hughes reported on Friday that the number of oil rigs in the United States rose for the first time since January by 11, to 183—the first double-digit increase since the pandemic took locked down significant parts of America. The total number of active oil and gas rigs increased by 10 for the week, with oil rigs climbing by 11 and gas rigs falling by one. Total oil and gas rigs in the United States are now down by 662 compared to this time last year. The largest gain was seen in the Permian Basin, which added ten rigs. The EIA’s estimate for oil production in the United States stayed the same for the week ending August 14—the last week for which there is data, at 10.7 million barrels of oil per day. Oil production in the United States is 2.4 million bpd less than its all-time high reached earlier this year. (Source: Oil Price)
An Innovative Way To Deal With Soaring Battery Demand (20 August 2020): By MINING.com - The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labor and Housing of the German state of Baden-Württemberg announced that it will finance a two-year project aimed at investigating how to best reclaim battery electrodes. The $1-million project, called RecycleMat, is led by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW). Its ultimate goal is to prevent bottlenecks in the supply chains of cobalt, lithium, and natural graphite and to mitigate price risks. “Future demand for lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and for short-term storage of green electricity will surely be enormous,” Margret Wohlfahrt-Mehrens, who heads up Accumulators Materials Research at ZSW, said in a media statement. “The development of a recycling concept to recover as much raw material from spent batteries as possible can be decisive to the sustainable supply of these resources and could considerably reduce the amount of material and energy required for new cells.” (Source: Oil Price)
U.S. Brokerage Faces Lawsuit Over Trades At Negative Oil Prices (19 August 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - E*Trade Securities, one of the largest U.S. brokerages, was slapped with a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday for allegedly failing to disclose proper risks to clients that were burnt by the negative WTI Crude oil prices in April, Bloomberg reported, citing the lawsuit filed in California. As the WTI Crude futures collapsed into negative territory on April 20, many retail investors lost a lot of money as they were unable to sell the front-month futures contracts they had purchased. ome brokerages limited the ability of their smaller customers to place new trades in the June futures contracts of WTI and Brent Crude, after the May contract of WTI Crude plunged to as low as minus -US$37 a barrel on April 20. According to the class-action lawsuit filed with the Northern District Court of California on Tuesday, E*Trade failed to explain to investors that oil prices could go negative and failed to adequately test its trading system to see how it would handle negative prices. E*Trade clients who wanted out of the May WTI Crude contract on the day the prices went negative were unable to do so because the brokerage’s systems failed and locked users out, the lawsuit alleges. (Source: Oil Price)
South America Is Rapidly Becoming A Global Leader In Offshore Oil (18 August 2020): By Rystad Energy - South America has made a cost-cutting leap since 2013, when it was the world’s most expensive region for deepwater oil and gas production costs. Average operational expenditure (opex) per barrel of oil equivalent has more than halved since then, from roughly $26 to $12.7 in 2020, a Rystad Energy report shows. The region also enjoyed the largest cost decline globally this year, in both absolute and percentage terms. South America’s deepwater opex is driven mainly by Brazil, which accounted for roughly 99% of the continent’s brownfield costs from 2013 to 2020. Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras alone accounted for nearly 88% of South America’s deepwater opex. It therefore makes sense to focus the cost reductions on Brazil to get the greatest impact. One of the factors that have helped Brazil save opex is Petrobras switching out its floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) fleet. When the state player initially began production on pre-salt basins it chose to rent most of its fleet, which led to a surge in its operational costs. In 2015–2016 the company started ordering more owned FPSOs. (Source: Oil Price)
OPEC+ Complied 95% With Oil Production Cuts In July (17 August 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - The OPEC+ coalition saw its compliance rate with the oil production cuts at 95 percent in July, four sources from the group told Reuters on Monday, which is a level similar to the previous month, if the additional one-month voluntary cuts from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait for June are excluded. The 95-percent compliance rate for July has yet to be ratified by the Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of the OPEC+ group, which is meeting later on Monday. The volatile oil market and the highly uncertain trajectory of global demand recovery has forced the OPEC+ group to have the JTC and Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) hold meetings every month until the end of 2020, instead of ahead of every full OPEC+ meeting only. The JTC and the JMMC are meeting this week, but they will not be discussing any revisions of the ongoing production cut pact and are not expected to make any major decisions to tweak the deal, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said last week. (Source: Oil Price)
Why Fracking Activity Hasn’t Increased As Oil Prices Recovered (16 August 2020): By David Messler - It’s been a long dry spell in the Permian. Shale drilling and completions activity has collapsed to levels not seen since before 2000 (as far back as records are kept). That was the year shale activity first began to pick up from essentially nil and hit all-time peaks in 2008. With occasional ebbs and flows, it had gradually drifted down to the start of the current calamity, where active rigs stood at a somewhat healthy 805 rigs turning to the right. Fracking has also taken a commensurate dive over the last eight months, defying the conventional wisdom that as prices began to improve, activity would increase. It hasn’t happened in either case. Why? Driven by low prices not seen much in modern history, formerly high-flying shale drillers like Chesapeake Energy have gone bankrupt. The service providers who do the actual work like Halliburton, (NYSE:HAL), Schlumberger, (NYSE:SLB) have written off tens of billions worth of fracking-related equipment, closed facilities and laid off thousands of workers. Much of the expansion from 2016 onward was fueled by growth at any cost mindset in the drillers, and aided by bankers willing to accept ever-increasing estimates for the value of reserves. In 2018 much of that laissez-faire mentality in the boardrooms of the drillers and in the vaults of the bankers came to an abrupt halt as profits and cash flow were demanded. That was the moment shale activity began to falter numerically, while at the same time, a miracle was taking place. Production grew from advances in technology and a deeper understanding of key reservoirs to record levels. (Source: Oil Price)
IEA Sees 2020 Oil Demand Down 8.1 Million Bpd (13 August 2020): By Irina Slav - The International Energy Agency expects crude oil demand this year to be 8.1 million bpd lower than it was in 2019, a downward demand forecast revision of 140,000 bpd, the authority said in its latest Oil Market Report. “Global oil demand is expected to be 91.9 mb/d in 2020, down 8.1 mb/d y-o-y. In this Report, we reduce our 2020 forecast by 140 kb/d, the first downgrade in several months, reflecting the stalling of mobility as the number of Covid-19 cases remains high, and weakness in the aviation sector,” the IEA said. A day earlier, OPEC also had bad news for the oil industry, admitting that demand this year would be weaker than it expected previously. It was, in fact, even more pessimistic than the IEA, estimating demand loss for the year at 9.1 million bpd. In its closely watched Monthly Oil Market Report published on Wednesday, OPEC now forecasts that the global economy will shrink by 4.0 percent this year, more than the 3.7-percent economic drop expected in the July forecast, due to the additional negative impact of the pandemic. (Source: Oil Price)
Big Oil Wrote Down $87 Billion In Assets In Less Than One Year (14 August 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Seven of the largest oil companies in the world have written down a collective US$87 billion from the value of their oil and gas assets over the past nine months, as commodity prices slumped in the pandemic, an analysis by climate finance think-tank Carbon Tracker quoted by the Guardian showed. In the past three months alone, the companies Chevron, Shell, BP, Total, Repsol, Eni, and Equinor wrote down a total of US$55 billion off the value of their assets, the analysis showed. Many of those companies posted losses for the second quarter when global oil demand crashed by 20 percent due to the lockdowns in the pandemic. With the notable exception of U.S. supermajor Exxon, all five Big Oil recalibrated the value of their oil and gas assets in the second quarter due to the crash in oil prices and expectations of depressed demand for at least several more quarters. (Source: Oil Price)
Why Wireless Charging Is A Waste Of Energy (13 August 2020): By Kurt Cobb - It turns out the cellphone industry believes its customers just can't be bothered with setting their phones in charging cradles or worse yet, actually plugging a charging cord into a phone. Users can now simply place a phone on top of a wireless charging pad to get their phones topped up. For the privilege of being extra lazy these users of wireless charging expend up to 47 percent more energy to charge their phones, something that if widely adopted would require dozens of new power plants across the globe to accommodate. Everything wireless seems like magic, and it is essentially sold as magic. It's also sold as freedom, freedom from those pesky cords that limit where you can use your electronic devices. But the freedom is illusory. We are simply shackling ourselves ever more tightly to an addictive device that is contributing to an unsustainable fossil fueled way of life which is bound to crumble dramatically if we do not alter course. (Source: Oil Price)
BP Set For Biggest Downsizing Of Its Office Space Ever (12 August 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - BP plans the most massive downsizing of office locations and properties in its history amid remote work and office job cuts, the Guardian reported on Wednesday, citing senior officials and a spokesman. BP is currently reviewing the need of office locations in the UK and abroad in view of the growing work from home trend amid the coronavirus pandemic. Over time, BP could nearly halve the office space it uses, which would be the most dramatic downsizing of office locations in the company’s more than 100 years of history, the Guardian has learned. BP has yet to refine the plans for office space and layouts and is expected to finalize those plans in the coming months. In June, BP said it would cut 10,000 jobs, or around 15 percent of its workforce, as it looks to cut costs amid the oil price crash resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. As BP aims to reinvent itself as an energy company and a net-zero company by 2050 and sooner, the UK-based supermajor is resorting to job cuts—most of which in office-based positions, in order to reduce its costs as the downturn has severely affected its finances. (Source: Oil Price)
Oil Prices Rally On COVID Optimism (11 August 2020): By Josh Owens - Oil prices got a boost on Tuesday on fresh hopes of progress in coronavirus vaccine trials, though the oil industry still has a long road ahead before seeing a full recovery. Oil prices strengthened again on hopes of a slowdown in coronavirus transmission in the United States. “The fact that the COVID cases seem to be tapering off in the U.S. is making people a little more optimistic about getting it under control and demand recovering toward the end of the year,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research. Also, Russia said it was moving forward with a coronavirus vaccine despite the lack of rigorous trials. The health impact is unclear, but any positive vaccine news has tended to spark a bullish reaction from the market. Rig count slides again. Even as the oil market has stabilized, the U.S. oil industry has not returned to drilling. Even the Permian basin continues to lose rigs. “North American E&Ps are in a battle for investment relevance, not a battle for global market share,” Matt Gallagher, CEO of Parsley Energy Inc. (NYSE: PE), told analysts during a conference call. “Allocating growth capital into a global market with artificially constrained supply is a trap our industry has fallen into time and time again.” (Source: Oil Price)
Aramco Aims To Boost Production Capacity To 13 Million Bpd (10 August 2020): By Julianne Geiger - While the world is still awash with oil that it cannot quickly get rid of during a time of historic demand crumbling, the world’s largest oil company is looking to raise its production capacity by an extra million barrels per day, according to Reuters. Should the market be fearful? Aramco’s CEO Amin Nasser has confirmed that it is moving ahead with its plans to boost its oil production capacity from 12 million barrels per day to 13 million bpd, causing concern in a market that is already reeling under the weight of excess inventory. This, despite the OPEC+ production cut agreement that has been in effect for quite some time—and mainly carried by none other than Saudi Arabia—could be construed as curious, given the fact that Saudi Arabia’s production quota over the next few months falls well under that 13 million bpd mark. (Source: Oil price)
Europe’s First Geothermal Lithium Recovery Plant To Be Built In The UK (9 August 2020): By MINING.com - The UK government announced plans to invest, through its Getting Building Fund, in the construction of Europe’s first geothermal lithium recovery pilot plant at a location near Redruth, Cornwall. The public funds will support a £4-million collaboration between Geothermal Engineering (GEL) and Cornish Lithium at GEL’s deep geothermal project, which aims to demonstrate that lithium can be produced from geothermal waters with a net-zero carbon footprint. According to Cornish Lithium, the pilot plant will trial environmentally-responsible Direct Lithium Extraction technology, and its suitability to extract lithium from Cornish geothermal waters. “The optimal DLE technology for Cornish waters is currently being selected, however, the processes being considered utilise technologies such as nanofiltration to selectively remove lithium compounds from the water, rather than relying on evaporation and other less environmentally friendly methods,” the company said in a media statement. “Once the lithium has been extracted, the waters will be returned to depth via injection boreholes.” (Source: Oil Price)
Going Green Is Easier Done Than Said For The U.S. (7 August 2020): By Haley Zaremba - As the rest of the world follows the global trajectory toward an energy transition, moving away from fossil fuels to alternative forms of energy, whether in the interest of creating a decarbonized future or staying afloat in a decarbonized economy that is looming on the horizon, the United States is falling behind. COVID-19 has presented the world with an unprecedented and largely unanticipated disruption to the industrial and economic status quo, and many experts think that these extraordinary circumstances provide an unmissable opportunity to reorient the global economy toward decarbonization and construct what the World Economic Forum has advocated as a “new energy order” and a “great reset.” The World Economic Forum is not alone. International agencies such as the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and the European Union, are all either currently considering or actively drafting green stimulus plans. Even a surprising number of blue chip companies are pushing for a green energy stimulus, but in the United States these calls have largely fallen upon deaf ears. (Source: Oil Price)
Demand For Offshore Oil Rigs To Return In 2022 (6 August 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Demand for offshore rigs will slump this year as a result of the pandemic and the low oil prices that are forcing offshore operators to delay drilling activities, but the offshore rig industry is set for a comeback in 2022, IHS Markit said in an analysis on Thursday. Due to the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19 and the subsequent crash in oil demand, most operators that were expected to award contractor work offshore have pushed the timelines to next year at the earliest, Cinnamon Edralinis, Senior Offshore Rig Market Analyst at IHS Markit, said. The drillship market should expect pent-up demand in 2022, with demand rising from this year’s levels through 2021 and 2022. Global demand for drillships is forecast to average 73 units over 2022, up from 66 units for 2021 and 59 units through 2020, according to IHS Markit. (Source: Oil Price)
Natural Gas Has Replaced Over 100 U.S. Coal Plants In The Last Decade (5 August 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - A total of 103 coal-fired power plants were converted to natural gas or replaced by natural gas-fired plants in the United States since 2011, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday. Natural gas has displaced the majority of the 121 coal-fired plants that have been converted to burning other types of fuels over the past decade, according to EIA estimates. A decade ago, at the end of 2010, the U.S. had 316.8 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired capacity in the United States. By the end of 2019, as much as 49.2 GW of that capacity was retired, another 14.3 GW had the boiler converted to burn natural gas, and 15.3 GW was replaced with natural gas combined cycle. Low natural gas prices amid abundant supply, stricter emission regulations, and more efficient technology of the natural gas turbines were the key reasons why natural gas has been increasingly replacing coal-fired capacity in the United States. (Source: Oil Price)
What Will The Post-Pandemic Shale Patch Look Like? (4 August 2020): By Julianne Geiger - The global coronavirus pandemic--a true black swan event--has altered the course of the entire oil and gas industry, and not even the mighty US shale industry will emerge unscathed. Employment in the oil and gas industry in the United States has already dropped off considerably in the months following the coronavirus, exacerbated by Russia and Saudi Arabia’s oil price war that saw millions of extra barrels of oil flood into the market, including into the United States. The combination of those two events put remarkable pressure on the shale industry in the United States. And the industry is unlikely to return to normal in the near future--or ever, perhaps. (Source: Oil Price)
Why Natural Gas Prices Just Exploded (3 August 2020): By Julianne Geiger - The weather is going to be hot after all in the short term, forecasts now predict. That prediction sent natural gas prices soaring on Monday by nearly 20 percent as traders hold out hope for anything that will contribute to a reduction in nat gas stockpiles. Natural gas prices have been trading under $2.50 since December on weak demand and oversupply. Other bullish factors on Monday highlight the increased LNG/feedgas export figures provided over the weekend, with Genscape estimating a 740 MMcf/d increase on Saturday. Natural gas prices were trending lower at the end of last week, as Hurricane ISAAIS was expected to bring cooler weather to most of the Gulf of Mexico. Gas still has an oversupply problem, of course, and traders are still hoping that natural gas inventories will draw down soon—the call for warmer weather is part of that wishful thinking, sending natural gas prices up at least for now. (Source: Oil Price)
The Sky Is The Limit For Clean Energy Subsidies In Europe (02 August 2020): By Irina Slav - China may have saddled itself with as much as $42 billion in unpaid renewable energy subsidies, but it pales in comparison to the enormous amount of money Europe is pumping into ambitious renewable transition plans even as the continent is ravaged by a global pandemic. Germany recently unveiled a $145-billion (130 billion euro) recovery plan for Europe’s largest and strongest economy. Of this, Bloomberg has calculated that some $48.7 billion (41 billion euro) was allocated for renewable energy and EVs. The government was especially generous with EVs: it increased subsidies for these to the extent that it made some models cheaper to buy than comparable models with internal combustion engines. Some EVs, Automotive News reported earlier this month, are even free thanks to the higher subsidies. (Source: Oil Price)