Germany Targets 100% Renewable Power Generation By 2035 (28 February 2022): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Germany will target to have all its electricity provided by renewable energy sources by 2035, according to a new draft policy that speeds up the timeline for ending fossil fuel-powered generation before 2040. Germany, the largest economy in Europe, said in a major shift of energy policy this weekend that it would draft a strategy to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, accelerate renewable energy capacity installment, and build two liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facilities. “After all, the events of recent days and weeks have shown us that responsible, forward-looking energy policy is not just crucial for our economy and our climate. It is also crucial for our security. This means that the faster we make progress with the development of renewable energies, the better,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the German Parliament on Sunday. (Source: Oil Peice)
The Biggest Problem With The Green Energy Revolution (27 February 2022): By Gail Tverberg - 1) It is becoming clear that intermittent wind and solar cannot be counted on to provide adequate electricity supply when the electrical distribution system needs them; 2) Adequate storage for electricity is not feasible in any reasonable timeframe. This means that if cold countries are not to “freeze in the dark” during winter, fossil fuel backup is likely to be needed for many years in the future; 3) After many years of subsidies and mandates, today’s green electricity is only a tiny fraction of what is needed to keep our current economy operating; 4) Even as a percentage of electricity, rather than total energy, renewables still comprised a relatively small share in 2020; 5) Most modelers have not understood that reserve to production ratios greatly overstate the amount of fossil fuels and other minerals that the economy will be able to extract; 6) The world economy seems already to be reaching limits on the extraction of coal and natural gas to be used for balancing electricity provided by intermittent renewables; 7) Conclusion. Modelers and leaders everywhere have had a basic misunderstanding of how the economy operates and what limits we are up against. This misunderstanding has allowed scientists to put together models that are far from the situation we are actually facing. (Source: Oil Price)
Putin Pushes For Regime Change As Russian Forces Close In On Kyiv (24 February 2022): By Julianne Geiger - Putin’s declared intent at this point is to ensure a “pro-Russian” government in Ukraine, and the only question now is how long the Ukrainians will fight. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus said Putin’s aim now is to topple the Ukrainian government, replace it with a pro-Russian regime, control the capital and control everything east of the Dnieper, as well as the southern portion of the country to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and connect up with a Russian unit in the eastern part of of Moldova. Ukrainian forces are overwhelmed, and Russian has complete superiority, says Petraeus, and everything now depends on whether Ukrainian forces surrender or fight. (Source: Oil Price)
U.S. Sanctions Will Not Target Russia's Oil And Gas Exports (23 February 2022): By Tsvetana Paraskova - The sanctions that the United States is imposing on Russia for recognizing two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine and sending troops there are not targeting Russian oil and gas flows, nor will they target such flows in subsequent sanctions that could be imposed in the near future, the U.S. said. "The sanctions that are being imposed today, as well that could be imposed in the near future, are not targeting and will not target oil and gas flows," a senior U.S. State Department official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity. "We would like the market to take note that there's no need for increasing the price at the moment," the official added. (Source: Oil Price)
Russia’s Recognition Of Ukrainian Republics Reverberates Around The Region (22 February 2022): By Eurasianet - Russia’s formal recognition of eastern Ukraine’s two separatist republics has been closely watched – with dread, celebration, or quiet concern, depending on the viewer’s own geopolitical situation – in the Caucasus, which boasts the post-Soviet world’s greatest concentration of unrecognized breakaway states. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the formal recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic (known as the DNR and LNR, respectively, using their Russian acronyms) in a late-night speech at the Kremlin on February 21. (Source: Oil Price)
5 Commodities That Could Explode As The Ukraine Crisis Escalates (21 February 2022): By Alex Kimani - Escalating tensions in Eastern Europe over Russia's looming invasion of Ukraine as well as prospects of sanctions against Russia are fueling fears of supply shocks in the commodity markets. After several weeks of joint military drills ended last week, Russia was supposed to start pulling back troops, but that is currently not happening, with as many as 190,000 Russian troops still camping out on Ukraine's border and Belarus confirming that 30,000 of them would stay in the country indefinitely. Here are 5 key commodities that are likely to be hardest hit if Russia invades Ukraine: Aluminum; Oil; Natural Gas; Copper; Cobalt (Source: Oil Price)
Major Hack On Ukraine Infrastructure Highlights The Reality Of Modern Warfare (20 February 2022): By Michael Kern - The websites of the Ukrainian army, the defense ministry and major banks were knocked offline after a series of cyberattacks highlighting the nature of modern-day warfare. At least a dozen Ukrainian websites were unreachable for a few hours due to the attacks, including the defense, foreign and culture ministries and Ukraine’s two largest state banks. Customers of Privatbank and Oschadbank reported problems with online payments, ATM withdrawals and mobile apps. Even though Ukraine officials didn’t rush to blame Russia for the attack, like they did with a previous cyber attack, a Ukrainian Information Ministry statement suggests Russian involvement. (Source: Oil Price)
Could Nuclear Power Be The Answer To Rising Energy Demand? (17 February 2022): By Robert Rapier - Between 2009 and 2019, global consumption of renewable energy grew at an annual average of 13.4%. Over that time, renewable energy consumption grew from 8.2 exajoules (EJ) globally to 28.8 EJ. Yet, global carbon dioxide emissions rose by more than 4 billion metric tons per year during that time, reaching an all-time high in 2019. The reason for this is that overall global energy consumption — while growing at an average annual rate of only 1.9% — rose by 92 EJ from 2009 to 2019. Renewables are growing at a much faster rate, but it will take decades at the current growth rates before renewables can make a serious dent in global carbon dioxide emissions. (Source: Oil Price)
Forecasters Have No Clue Where Oil Demand Is Really Going (16 February 2022): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the oil market and investors have seen a growing gap between the highest and lowest demand scenarios from the major forecasting agencies to the point that the gap has widened to a size that is larger than today's oil market, or 100 million barrels per day (bpd), the Riyadh-based International Energy Forum (IEF) said on Wednesday. IEF and Resources for the Future (RFF) published today their 'IEF RFF Outlooks Comparison Report', which compares energy market outlooks prepared by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and OPEC using various modelling techniques and in consultations with those two organizations. The demand "gap" between OPEC's High GDP Growth Case and the IEA's Net Zero Emissions Scenario rises to 84.6 million bpd in 2045, the IEF RFF report notes. The IEA's net-zero scenario says that investments in new oil and gas resources must stop after 2021 if the world is to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. (Source: Oil Price)
Russia’s Aggression Towards Ukraine Could Backfire (15 february 2022): By Haley Zaremba - The state of affairs at the Ukrainian border is now being referred to as a “crisis,” with prominent news outlets such as the New York Times and CNN providing live updates on the rapidly developing tensions as Russian troops amass on the outskirts of the former soviet republic. According to CNN, US intelligence has indicated that Russia is currently "clearly advancing their ability to invade." European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson each made statements supporting Ukraine on Monday as serious conflict threatens to break out in the immediate term. Geopolitical conflicts, especially with respect to energy and energy security, lie at the heart of Russia’s impending invasion of Ukraine. Russia has been trying to use its hefty natural gas supply amidst the European energy crunch as leverage to strong-arm the European Union into greenlighting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which would allow the Kremlin to pump liquefied natural gas directly into Germany by way of the Baltic Sea, avoiding Ukraine entirely. (Source: Oil Price)
Did Environmentalists Just Undermine Big Oil’s Carbon Capture Efforts? (14 February 2022): By Haley Zaremba - When it comes to debates around global warming, the communication breakdown often occurs between two essential camps: the idealists and the pragmatists. Yes, we all know that in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions need to be slashed down to nothing, effective immediately. However, it’s also apparent that phasing out fossil fuels overnight is not only impossible, it would also be completely devastating to the global economy. Like it or not, global industry runs on fossil fuels, and phasing them out will take time, creative problem solving, and no small measure of trade-offs and sacrifices. Decarbonization is a difficult problem, but an entirely necessary one to tackle. (Source: Oil Price)
The Global Energy Policy Problem No One Wants To Acknowledge (13 February 2022): By Haley Zaremba - More than a decade after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the nuclear debate is once again raging in global forums. While fear about nuclear fallout and future tragedies like those that took place at Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island remains clear and present in the minds of many policymakers, the pressing need for rapid decarbonization of the global economy has brought nuclear, a zero-emissions proved technology, back to the forefront of energy policy debates. While many nations – most notably Germany, who vowed back in 2011 to shutter all of its nuclear power plants by this year – remain staunchly opposed to nuclear power on the basis of the outsized risk posed by nuclear meltdown, many other countries are re-embracing the technology as an unfairly demonized and relatively safe clean energy alternative. While those aforementioned nuclear disasters loom large in the public consciousness, such nuclear disasters are exceedingly uncommon, and nuclear energy has actually been demonstrated to save lives on the whole. (Source: Oil Price)
Veteran Bankers Are Taking Up Jobs In Renewables (10 February 2022): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Veteran bankers who have advised mega-deals in oil and gas are starting to take up jobs as advisers of mergers and acquisitions in renewables as the energy industry globally is increasingly focused on growing low-carbon businesses. The global push toward cleaner energy and net-zero emissions has created a kind of transition dilemma for bankers, too. Some have moved from advising oil and gas firms on multi-billion deals to working with customers on smaller-scale renewables deals. While the total value of deals in the clean energy sector has jumped over the past few years, it is still just a fraction of the value of the mega-deals in the oil and gas industry. On the other hand, the growing net-zero emissions and ESG trends are promising much more work for bankers in renewables in the coming decades, while the field and scope of work in fossil fuels will narrow, bankers say. (Source: Oil Price)
Higher Oil Prices Not Likely To Lead To Runaway Inflation (9 February 2022): By Alex Kimani - After a relentless rally, oil prices have lately tumbled, falling for two days on potential de-escalation of the Ukraine crisis and the resumption of Iran nuclear talks. March WTI crude (CL1:COM) slipped -2.1% on Tuesday to $89.41/bbl, with April Brent (CO1:COM) falling by a similar margin to trade at $90.75/bbl. French President Macron has said he has received assurances from Vladimir Putin that there would be no "escalation" of Russian pressure on Ukraine, while diplomats from Iran and world powers have reconvened in Vienna to seek a deal reviving the 2015 nuclear accord. But while geopolitical optimism has prompted some profit-taking, OANDA analyst Edward Moya says the price weakness likely will be short-lived as the oil market remains in a supply deficit. (Source: Oil Price)
Is The Energy Transition Moving Too Quickly? (8 February 2022): By David Blackmon - Researchers at Rice University’s Baker Institute released a new report Monday warning of the human and economic costs of moving too rapidly to a desired “energy transition” from fossil fuels to renewables and electric vehicles. The study, authored by Gabe Collins, Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs at the Baker Institute, and Michelle Michot Foss, fellow in energy, minerals and materials, warns that a premature transition would result in consumers across the globe feeling “energy price pain” on even basic necessities such as food. (Source: Oil Price)
Blackrock CEO: The Energy Transition Will Create 1,000 Unicorns (7 February 2022): By Alex Kimani - Back in 2013, when venture investor Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined the term "unicorn" to describe VC-funded companies valued at $1 billion or more, just 14 still-private companies less than a decade old qualified for the title. Crunchbase now counts 952 globally, with just over 300 in the United States alone, with the U.S. cohort valued at nearly a trillion dollars. As you might suspect, the software, cloud, and media space is well represented, with recent entrants Airbnb Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB), Snowflake Inc. (NYSE:SNOW), DoorDash Inc. (NYSE:DASH), Zoom Inc. (NASDAQ:ZM), CrowdStrike Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWD) and Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) debuting to massive valuations (Source: Oil Price)
Russia To Supply More Gas To China Via New Pipeline (4 February 2022): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) have signed a new deal under which the Russian gas giant will deliver natural gas to China via the Far Eastern route, Gazprom said on Friday as China and Russia are strengthening their energy cooperation. Gazprom and CNPC signed a long-term Sales and Purchase Agreement for natural gas to be supplied via the Far Eastern route, which will boost the amount of Russian gas supplies to China by 10 billion cubic meters annually, the Russian gas giant said on Friday. “The signing of this document is an important step towards further strengthening the mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and China in the gas sector,” said Gazprom, which expects total Russian pipeline gas supply to China to reach 48 billion cubic meters per year, including deliveries via the Power of Siberia gas trunk line. (Source: Oil Price)
OPEC’s No.2 Fails To Reach Oil Output Quota (3 February 2022): By Tsvetana Paraskova - OPEC’s second-largest producer, Iraq, is one of the OPEC+ members struggling to boost its oil production as much as its quota in the pact allows, with January output 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) lower than its production ceiling, according to data from state marketing firm SOMO seen by Reuters. The figures from SOMO showed that instead of rising, oil production in Iraq dropped in January by 63,000 bpd from December. This was due to insufficient storage capacity, an oil official in Iraq told Reuters. Exports from the second-largest OPEC producer after Saudi Arabia declined in January because of bad weather, maintenance of export terminals, and technical issues, the official said. (Source: Oil Price)
The Global Gas Crisis Has Made American LNG Hot Again (1 February 2022): By Tsvetana Paraskova - The global gas crunch and skyrocketing prices in Europe and Asia are laying the foundations for a revival in final investment decisions in new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects in the United States. Following a nearly three-year-long hiatus in project sanctioning in America, the high natural gas prices globally, the historically low storage levels in Europe, and the continuously growing gas demand in Asia could incentivize the signing of more long-term offtake LNG contracts. Such deals would secure supply commitments for decades for LNG projects and show financiers that export facility developers could make handsome profits by selling gas to energy-starved regions, despite the recent backlash against fossil fuels, including natural gas.