Jul 2018

The Oil And Gas Boom Sends U.S. GDP Soaring (30 July 2018): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Higher oil prices this year boosted U.S. oil production, and the U.S. oil industry played a large part in America’s impressive second quarter economic growth—the fastest growth since the third quarter of 2014. Real U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) rose at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2018, according to the ‘advance’ estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Friday. The first quarter of this year, by comparison, saw real GDP increase by 2.2 percent. (Source: Oil Price)

$40 Billion LNG Project Finally Starts Up (30 July 2018): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Japan’s largest exploration and production company, Inpex, said on Monday that it had started producing gas at the Ichthys liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which has cost US$40 billion and has faced delays in its development. Inpex, the operator of the project with a 62.245-percent operating interest, expects first shipment of products from the project toward the end of the first half of its current fiscal year—April to September. (Source: Oil Price)

Kuwait lets contract for Al-Zour integrated complex (26 July 2018): By Robert Brelsford - OGJ Downstream Technology Editor: Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC) subsidiary Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co. (KIPIC), through Honeywell UOP LLC, has let a contract to a division of E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. to license technologies for units at KIPIC’s grassroots 615,000-b/d Al-Zour integrated refining and petrochemical complex under construction in southern Kuwait. As part of the contract, DuPont Clean Technologies will supply its proprietary technology licensing and design for a 9,100-b/sd STRATCO alkylation unit as well as a 70-tonne/day MECS advanced sulfuric acid generation (SAR) unit, both of which will enable the refinery to fulfill its ambitious targets for desulfurization and reduced emissions, DuPont said.

Citi: The Case For $45 Oil (25 July 2018) By Irina Slav - Oil could be back to US$45 a barrel within 12 months, Citigroup’s commodities chief Ed Morse said in an interview with the Financial Post, noting that the bullish case for crude is based on a faulty analysis. The top oil forecaster who warned about the 2014 price collapse and also accurately predicted that the OPEC+ club would end its production cut deal earlier than everyone expected, has said that the capital efficiency and technological advancements that have improved oil recovery goes against the bullish scenario, because the better the recovery rate, the more oil that can be produced on the cheap. (Source: Oil Price)

Borouge awards petchem plant contract amid output boost (24 July 2018): Sarmad Khan - Borouge, the petchem joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Austria's Borealis, has awarded a contract to build a polypropylene plant in Ruwais amid plans to double output by 2030. The additional plant will be integrated with the existing Borouge 3 complex that will help the firm in achieving its target of almost 5 million tonnes per annum production by 2021, it said in a statement on Tuesday. It didn't disclose the value of the contract. “Today’s announcement is a significant milestone in the expansion of Borouge’s growth ambition to become the recognised leader in creative plastics solutions,” Ahmed Abdulla, chief executive of Borouge said. (Source: The National (UAE))

There are fears about an oil spike above $150 (6 July 2018): By BEN SHARPLES - HONG KONG (Bloomberg) -- Oil investors may regret urging companies to cough up cash now instead of investing in growth for later as the dearth of exploration is setting the stage for an unprecedented crude price spike, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Companies have been compelled to focus on boosting returns and shareholder distributions at the expense of capital expenditures aimed at finding new supplies, analysts including Neil Beveridge wrote in a note Friday. That’s causing reserves at major producers to fall and the industry’s reinvestment ratio to plunge to the lowest in a generation, paving the way for oil prices to surpass records reached last decade, according to Bernstein. (Source: World Oil)

No matter what he wants, Trump cannot escape oil price logic (4 July 2018): The White House can drive Iran’s oil exports to zero, or it can have moderate US petrol prices but it probably cannot have both. The awkward tension between the administration’s foreign policy priority (tough Iran sanctions) and its electoral calculation (to keep petrol prices low) explains its increasingly frequent comments about oil prices. President Donald Trump has already blamed Opec for the sharp rise in prices that has pushed the average cost of US petrol close to $3 per gallon. (Source: The National (UAE))

Oil Industry Faces Unexpected Skill Shortage (3 Jul 2018): By Irina Slav - Automation, data analytics, the Internet of Things—you name it, the oil industry wants it. In the new post-crisis, efficiency-driven industry the adoption of digital technology has really flourished, and, as so often happens, now this fast-growing adoption is creating a shortage; a talent shortage, for a change. Oil companies are increasingly relying on things like cloud computing and Internet of Things to stay ahead of the competition. This means they need more and more software engineers to keep the whole thing going, writes energy industry analyst Mark Venables in a story for Forbes. (Source: Oil Price)

Saudi King To Trump: We Will Boost Oil Output If Needed (02 July 2018): By Irina Slav - The White House has dismissed a suggestion that President Trump made in a tweet that Saudi Arabia is ready and willing to increase oil production by up to 2 million bpd to compensate for declines in Venezuela and Iran. “King Salman affirmed that the Kingdom maintains a two million barrel per day spare capacity, which it will prudently use if and when necessary to ensure market balance,” a White House statement issued on Saturday read. (Source: Oil Price)

US administration backs off on Trump's Saudi oil production tweet (1 Jul 2018): US President Donald Trump’s administration backed off an assertion he made hours earlier indicating he persuaded Saudi Arabia to effectively boost oil production to its maximum capacity, which would have threatened to blow up a truce agreed by Opec last week. “Just spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and explained to him that, because of the turmoil & disfunction in Iran and Venezuela, I am asking that Saudi Arabia increase oil production, maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels, to make up the difference...Prices to high! He has agreed!,” Mr Trump said on Twitter Saturday. (Source: The National (UAE))

Nuclear energy experts assess progress on UAE's Barakah plant (1 Jul 2018): The UAE is close to completing the nuclear power infrastructure needed to start the Barakah plant, international atomic energy experts have said. A ten-person team from the International Atomic Energy Agency has been in the country since June 24, conducting an “integrated nuclear infrastructure review”. The results were announced on Sunday. The team assessed areas for improvement across 19 segments including the electrical grid, emergency planning, nuclear security, radioactive waste management and environmental protection. (Source: The National (UAE))