Apple Overtakes Saudi Aramco As The World’s Most Valuable Company (31 July 2020): By Julianne Geiger - It is a time for market shakeups. On Friday, tech giant Apple unseated oil giant Saudi Aramco as the world’s most valuable company. Earlier in the week, the market saw Reliance Industries unseat the world’s second-most valuable energy company, ExxonMobil. Reliance’s upward move can be attributed to Google’s investment in Reliance’s Jio Platforms—a digital services segment of Reliance. Tech is reveling in the coronavirus, smoothly transitioning workers to remote work and a magnet for those looking to sink money into “stay at home” stocks. Not so for the oil industry, which has struggled on multiple fronts, including an excess of oil and crashing demand. Apple’s stock did well on Friday after a tremendous Q2 report, and its market cap rose to $1.8 trillion. (Source: Oil Price)
India’s Top Refiner: Oil Processing Won’t Be Back To Pre-Crisis Levels Soon (31 July 2020): By Charles Kennedy - Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country’s biggest refiner and fuel retailer, doesn’t expect its capacity utilization to return to pre-pandemic levels in the near future, IOC’s chairman S.M. Vaidya told reporters on Friday. IOC had been gradually boosting its refinery capacity utilization since May, but utilization has been down in recent weeks as many states in India re-imposed localized lockdowns, after the nationwide lockdown in April-May, following a surge in COVID-19 cases. IOC’s capacity utilization has dropped to 75 percent these days, from around 93 percent in the first week of July, Indian media quoted the company as saying alongside its results for the first quarter of its 2020-2021 financial year. In May, India’s fuel demand picked up pace from the April lows, and IOC began to gradually boost operations across its refineries, aiming to raise utilization to 80 percent by the end of May, compared to 45 percent in early April. (Source: Oil Price)
CNPC In Talks To Buy $1.5-Billion Stake In BP’s Oman Gas Field (30 July 2020): By Charles Kennedy - Chinese state-held giant China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is in advanced talks to buy a 10-percent stake in a giant natural gas field in Oman from BP in a deal that could be worth US$1.5 billion, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the discussions. BP, which has had an upstream presence in Oman since 2007, holds 60 percent in the Khazzan natural gas field, one of the Middle East’s most abundant unconventional gas resources, according to the UK-based supermajor. Production at the field began in 2017, with phase one made up of 200 wells feeding into a two-train central processing facility, with production reaching 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day (bcf/d). In April 2018, BP said it would invest in the development of the second phase of the Khazzan field, Ghazeer, which is expected to be fully up and running in 2021, with production from the entire Khazzan development rising to 1.5 bcf/d. (Source: Oil Price)
The COVID Crisis Could Lead To A Green Energy Boom (29 July 2020): By Haley Zaremba - The novel coronavirus pandemic has wreaked an historic havoc on global markets, and left economies around the world floundering. The tragedies that have come along with COVID-19 are innumerable, from the more-tan 650,000 people around the world who have lost their lives, to the countless more that have suffered and will continue to suffer from long-term symptoms and side effects and all those that mourn and care for them, to the legions of fired and furloughed workers and economically devastated communities. While these tragedies should not be minimized and cannot be reversed, the global pandemic has also opened up a unique opportunity for the world to redirect its trajectory for a greener future. The interruption to the status quo, argue many experts, should not be misused or taken for granted. The World Economic Forum has advocated for the development of a “new energy order”and a “great reset”. Furthermore, according to NPR, “around the world leaders see opportunity in the global pandemic to address the other big problem humanity faces: climate change.” These leaders include such big-name international agencies as the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and the European Union, all of which are either considering or actively drafting green stimulus plans. Even a number of blue chip companies are pushing for a green energy stimulus. (Source: Oil Price)
ExxonMobil & Berkeley Make Major Breakthrough In Carbon Capture Tech (28 July 2020): By Jon LeSage - One of the world’s oil giants sees carbon capture and sequestration as a smart pathway for hitting a number of targets. Scientists from ExxonMobil, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered a new material that could capture more than 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources. It would help natural gas-fired power plants and other industries meet increasingly stringent carbon emissions rules. It's a breakthrough in a collaboration that's been eight years in the making between ExxonMobil and its two partners. The patent-pending materials, known as tetraamine-functionalized metal organic frameworks, capture carbon dioxide emissions up to six times more effectively than conventional amine-based carbon capture technology. The technology uses low-temperature steam, requiring less energy for the overall carbon capture process. (Source: Oil Price)
Little Known UK Shale Firm Challenges Fracking Ban (27 July 2020): By Charles Kennedy - UK’s oil company Aurora Energy Resources plans to challenge the government moratorium on fracking issued at the end of 2019, just a few months after Aurora had applied for permission to frack at a site in Lancashire, northwest England, the Guardian reports. Aurora Energy Resources has dropped its application to frack two wellbores in Lancashire because of the “de facto ban on shale gas activity,” according to Aurora’s managing director Ian Roche. In November 2019, the UK government ended support for fracking, after a report from the UK’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) concluded that “it is not possible with current technology to accurately predict the probability of tremors associated with fracking.” The UK government announced in November “a moratorium on fracking until compelling new evidence is provided,” after considering the OGA’s report and after several tremors at the fracking site of Cuadrilla at Preston New Road near Blackpool in Lancashire. (Source: Oil Price)
Rystad’s New Oil Demand Scenario Banks On Second Wave COVID-19 (25 July 2020): By Julianne Geiger - Rystad Energy is now changing its base-case scenario for oil demand, banking on a second wave of Covid-19. The new assumption for the base case now incorporates a mild second wave of the coronavirus, which will stall the global oil demand recovery. While Europe reopens parts of its economy, triggering an increase in oil demand, increases in the number of coronavirus cases in other large oil consumers, including the United States, Brazil, and India will offset those European increases, according to Rystad. Rystad also added a worst-case scenario—one that sees oil demand to be 3.7 million bpd lower for the remainder of 2020, compared to the above base-case scenario, if full lockdowns are reimplemented globally due to increases in the coronavirus. (Source: Oil Price)
Oil Prices Stuck At $40 (24 July 2020): By Tom Kool - Friday, July 24th, 2020, Oil fell back to around $40 for WTI and $43 for Brent – familiar territory for the market over the past few weeks. The EIA’s data for this week was more downbeat, dashing hopes of positive momentum. Still, crude remains stable and steady at around $40, trapped between coronavirus fears on the downside, and improving fundamentals on the upside. Goldman: More M&A to come. The Chevron (NYSE: CVX) purchase of Noble Energy (NASDAQ: NBL) may spark more M&A activity. Goldman Sachs said more M&A could be positive for the macro outlook for oil because consolidation will translate into slower production growth. “We believe strip prices are too low and are likely to move higher in 2021, a catalyst not only for fundamental upside to E&P stocks but also for potential M&A values,” Goldman Sachs said in a note. NY seeking bids for 4GW of renewables. New York is seeking bids for 2.5 GW of offshore wind and 1.5 GW of onshore renewables. The state will also invest $400 million in port upgrades to support offshore wind. (Source: Oil Price)
Is Nuclear Energy Making A Pandemic Comeback? (23 July 2020): By Charles Kennedy - For decades, the nuclear energy sector has been regarded as the black sheep of the alternative energy market, thanks to a series of high-profile disasters such as Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Miles Island accidents. But recently, the sector has received the backing of the Trump administration which has sought a $1.5B bailout of America’s flagging uranium industry in a bid to create sufficient federal stockpiles for national security purposes. Trump isn’t its only friend of late, though. Nuclear power has also been receiving fresh endorsement from an unexpected source: the Covid-19 pandemic. The ongoing energy crisis has been helping to highlight nuclear energy’s billing as the most reliable energy source, which ostensibly gives it a serious edge over other renewable energy sources such as wind and solar which exist at the lower end of the reliability spectrum. Notably, Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest union, has backed the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) call for massive nuclear investments by saying that comprehensive investment in the nuclear industry will be necessary to kick-start the UK’s post-pandemic economy, while also fulfilling the EU’s goal to decarbonize all its industries by 2050. (Source: Oil Price)
The Beginning Of The End For Gas Flaring (22 July 2020): By Irina Slav - The Texas Railroad Commission last month surprised many: it said it would tighten the rules for gas flaring at oil fields later this year. Texas is certainly not the state with the best environmental policies record for obvious reasons. After all, it is the largest single producer of oil in the United States. But gas flaring literally wastes billions of dollars. Perhaps the time has come to stop the waste. Every year, the oil and gas industry flares some 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The reasons vary: at oil fields, gas is flared when there are no pipelines to transport it to a collection or storage hub; at refineries, some gases need to be flared to avoid explosions. (Source: Oil Price)
Goldman And BlackRock Are Betting Big On This New $30 Trillion Mega-Trend (20 July 2020): By Jason Eckerman - There’s a new mega-trend taking Wall Street by storm… with everyone from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to BlackRock taking notice. One renowned Stanford University economist expects the disruption to personal travel choices to put an extra $5,600 per year back into the average family’s pockets every year. All the biggest names in tech are jumping on board -- Apple, Google, Amazon, and more -- but one startup from Canada’s Silicon Valley is aiming to upend the personal transportation industry as we know it. It didn’t take Uber long to step onto the scene and disrupt a hundred-year-old dynasty, bringing the taxi industry to its knees within 7 years. Now, a booming mega-trend could upend Uber much faster thanks to its broken business model and lack of profitability. Sitting at an incredible $53 billion market cap, Uber is already enormous compared to hundred-year-old auto industry giants like Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. (Source: Oil Price)
EIA: Oil Demand To Hit Pre-COVID Levels In 2021 (20 July 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - U.S. demand for petroleum and liquid fuels is expected to remain below the 2019 average from before the COVID-crisis until August 2021, despite the uptick in consumption in recent weeks, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Monday. Total demand for motor gasoline, distillate fuel oil, and jet fuel crashed in March and April due to the stay-at-home orders and reduced travel as states were trying to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Demand has increased since the lows in April, and will continue to rise in the second half of this year as economic activity picks up. Yet, total demand levels will continue to trail the pre-crisis levels until August next year, the EIA has estimated. In April, U.S. consumption of liquid fuels reached its all-time monthly low since the early 1980s at an average of 14.7 million barrels per day (bpd), according to the administration. (Source: Oil Price)
The Robinhood Phenomenon Is Fueling An Electric Vehicle Boom (16 July 2020): By Alex Kimani - In the past, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk never hesitated to call it as it was whenever TSLA stock started overheating. But maybe he’s finally beginning to buy the Tesla hype. Lately, all he could muster was a “wow” after another Wall Street pundit joined the ranks of investors who cannot seem to get enough of the EV maker. Tesla and the EV sector have been running riot in recent weeks thanks to a wave of speculative bets and the famous Robinhood effect. Tesla and leading Chinese EV manufacturer, NIO Inc. (NYSE:NIO) have become Robinhood’s most coveted stocks, with the two commanding the highest number of new owners over the past 30 days on the zero-commission trading app. Currently, 4 EV names appear on Robintrack’s top 25 leaderboard, with Nikola (NYSE:NKLA) and Workhorse (NASDAQ: WKHS) being the other two. Robintrack is a company that collects data on Robinhood users' activity. (Source: Oil Price)
Small Lab Makes Big Breakthrough In Nuclear Fusion Tech (15 July 2020): By Jon LeSage - Nuclear power has high hopes of coming back as a serious competitor in the utility sector through nuclear fusion, but it’s been requiring massive investments and several more years of development before it wins regulatory approval. Dense plasma focus (DPF) could open the door to fusion being adopted much faster and for being economically feasible. Middlesex, NJ-based Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc., known as LPPFusion, may soon be leading the way in transitioning over to nuclear fusion through DPF. So far, expensive, large-scale experimental facilities utilizing ultra-high power lasers and microwave generators, particle beams, giant superconducting magnet systems and other advanced technologies, has been the norm for nuclear fusion projects. But it's quite costly and has several years built into the testing and development process. One of the largest of these fusion projects has been the giant International Torus Experimental Reactor (ITER) under construction in southern France. It now has an estimated cost of over $40 billion. (Source: Oil Price)
Tesla’s China Gamble Is Paying Off (14 July 2020): By Haley Zaremba - Over the last several years, China has slowly but surely taken over the global electric vehicles industry. The country has indirectly controlled EV markets for years through their near-monopolization of lithium-ion battery production, producing about two-thirds of the world’s supply of this crucial EV component that represents a staggering 40 percent of an electric car’s value. With so many individual EV components manufactured in China, it makes sense that many foreign car companies are shifting their entire production operations to Asia. but instead of enjoying an EV boom, Chinese-owned EV companies are struggling to get off the ground in their own country. One reason for this is intense competition from foreign companies. One of which is, of course, the ubiquitous Tesla. Tesla is not just pushing into Chinese manufacturing sectors, it’s pushing into Chinese markets, and it’s wreaking havoc for local companies. (Source: Oil Price)
OPEC Looks To Boost Production By 2 Million Bpd (13 July 2020): By ZeroHedge - In retrospect, it's impressive that it lasted as long as it did. Four months after OPEC cobbled together a record production cut to offset the demand destruction unleashed by the COVID-19 lockdowns, R-OPEC+ (i.e., OPEC plus Russia and a bunch of non-OPEC exporters) is set to slowly resume pumping more after an alliance of producers led by Saudi Arabia wants to increase oil production starting in August, amid signs that demand is returning to normal levels following coronavirus-related lockdowns Bloomberg and the Journal reported overnight. Bloomberg confirms as much, noting overnight that "having successfully doubled crude prices over the past few months through unprecedented output cuts, the OPEC+ alliance led by the Saudis and Russia is poised to begin unwinding these stimulus measures. As fuel demand recovers with the lifting of coronavirus lockdowns, the producers are about to open the taps a little." (Source: Oil Price)
Wind Is Emerging As A Leader In The Renewable Race (12 July 2020): By Irina Slav - Good news is in short supply during any crisis, and this one has been no exception. The energy industry is being pummeled to the ground by low oil and gas prices, crippled demand for hydrocarbons, and unfriendly banks. But there is one part of this space generating good news: renewables. And, more specifically, wind power. Often in the shadow of cheap solar, which can be slapped up on a rooftop to generate electricity, wind power is now coming to the fore. Costs, as for solar, have fallen substantially over the years, and businesses who want to polish their social and environmental responsibility reputation are inking long-term electricity supply contracts with wind power producers. Wind is on its way to becoming the new darling of corporate America. A big part of this increasing popularity of wind among businesses is the fact that wind turbines produce energy cheaply, writes Sarah Golden, senior energy analyst at GreenBiz Group in a recent analysis on the topic. (Source: Oil Price)
Singapore seeks to appoint two new LNG term importers (10 July 2020): Singapore’s Energy Market Authority is seeking to appoint two new LNG term importers for the city-state, adding to the two it already has, to boost competition and give more options to gas buyers. Natural gas is expected to play a growing role in Singapore’s energy mix as it shifts towards renewable energy. Singapore, Asia’s main oil trading hub, has been expanding its LNG infrastructure by increasing storage capacity and also adding the capability to break up big cargoes into smaller ones. The energy regulator issued a request for a proposal so it can select and appoint two new importers who will receive a gas importer licence, the proposal issued by EMA on Thursday said. (Source: Gas Processing)
Shorts To Make Tesla The First Stock With $20 Billion Bet Against It (10 July 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Short interest on Tesla is set to make the EV maker's stock the first stock to hit US$20 billion in bets against it, data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners showed, as short sellers seem unfazed by Elon Musk's open mocking in recent days. Short interest in Tesla has reached US$19.95 billion, S3 Partners data, cited by Business Insider, shows. While Tesla's stock continues to rally, closing at a record $1,394 on Thursday, Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of S3 Partners, said in a note on the same day that Tesla is a candidate for a short squeeze. Early on Thursday, Dusaniwsky tweeted that Tesla short interest was $19.19 billion, with 14.05 million shares shorted, or 9.5 percent of the float. (Source: Oil Price)
Covid-19 Could Boost Fossil Fuels, Slow Renewables In Emerging Economies (9 July 2020): By Oxford Business Group - Just as the pandemic has had an considerable impact on the global economy, travel restrictions and the suspension of industrial activities have led to an unprecedented drop in global emissions. According to data from the Helsinki-based Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS), by the first week of April daily carbon emissions had fallen by 17% against mean 2019 levels, with some countries experiencing a 26% fall in CO2 output. The fall was the sharpest on record, with global emissions dipping back to 2006 levels. This was a far greater drop in both absolute and percentage terms than was seen at other comparable moments in history, such as the Arab oil embargo of 1973, the collapse of the Soviet Union or the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. However, as lockdown measures have been eased and economic activity has resumed, emissions have also increased. (Source: Oil Price)
EU to boost green hydrogen use for decarbonization, focus on energy efficiency (8 July 2020): The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled a strategy to scale up renewable hydrogen projects across polluting sectors from chemicals to steel and push for clean fuels and energy efficiency to meet the EU’s net-zero emissions goal by 2050. European industry and refineries already use around 8 million tonnes of hydrogen each year, but most of this is “grey” hydrogen, a version made from natural gas in a process that produces planet-warming emissions. The EU’s priority is to develop “green” hydrogen and largely deploy it for sectors hard to decarbonise or where electrification is difficult or impossible from 2030 to 2050. But it recognized the need for a phased, gradual approach where a halfway house of “blue hydrogen” will play a role. From 2020 to 2024, hydrogen electrolysers installations of at least 6 gigawatts of renewable would be set up in the EU, with the production of up to one million tonnes of renewable hydrogen. In the second phase, at least 40 gigawatts of renewable hydrogen electrolysers would be installed and up to ten million tonnes of renewable hydrogen would be produced in the EU, from 2025 to 2030. (Source: Hydrocarbon Processing)
COVID-19 Set To Hasten UK Ban On Sales Of Gasoline And Diesel Cars (7 July 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - The pandemic is hitting hard economies worldwide, but it is also an opportunity to jumpstart an economic recovery to achieve the net-zero emission ambition of the United Kingdom, according to the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the UK's top advisory panel on climate change. The UK – which last year became the first major economy in the world to enshrine into law its target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 – has a historic opportunity to rebuild its economy in line with the energy transition and in line with its ambitions to be a net-zero economy in three decades, the committee said in its annual report to Parliament. Apart from rebuilding the economy by turning it greener, the committee's report calls on the government to bring forward the date for phasing out the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles to 2032 at the very latest. (Source: Oil Price)
China Could Invade Taiwan's 'Oil Island' (6 July 2020): By Gregory R. Copley - The People’s Republic of China (PRC) seemed to be considering, by July 2020, whether to risk early military conflict as a means of moving its declining strategic fortunes back from the precipice. Its momentum thus far in challenging the U.S. and the market societies has been based on non-kinetic amorphous warfare. Now, PRC Pres. Xi Jinping was being forced by a range of circumstances — a declining economy, the socioeconomic impact of the coronavirus epidemic, and a range of natural and demographic disasters and trends — to take precipitate military action before the final window on the path toward global dominance closed for the PRC. Pres. Xi had moved into a situation similar to, but far more grave than, the 11th-hour desperation which faced Lt.Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the Argentine military ruler, in 1982. (Source: Oil Price)
The World’s Most Important Oil Consumers And Producers (4 July 2020): By Robert Rapier - Following last week’s release of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020, I began to review and analyze the data. Today I take a deeper dive into the numbers on petroleum. Oil accounts for a third of the world’s energy consumption. That is the greatest share for any category of energy. In 2019, the world consumed a record 98.3 million barrels per day (BPD) of oil. This was nearly 1 million BPD higher than consumption in 2018, and marked the 10th consecutive record for global oil consumption. Over the past 35 years, global oil consumption has risen by 39 million BPD, an average increase of 1.1 million BPD each year. Last year’s rise fell just short of that average. In recent years, BP has begun to provide more granularity in the Review. In previous years, the oil consumption category included biofuels. Now, they have split biofuels into a separate category, so the consumption numbers above are for just oil and derivatives of natural gas and coal (e.g., synthetic oil). The U.S. continues to lead all countries in the consumption of oil, but China has had the fastest consumption growth for several years. Below are the Top 10 global consumers of oil for 2019. (Source: Oil Price)
Elon Musk Trolls SEC And Short Sellers As Tesla Stock Rallies (3 July 2020): By Tsvetana Paraskova - Elon Musk took his Twitter feud with Tesla’s short sellers and the Securities and Exchange Commission to a whole new level on Thursday evening, mocking the traders who had bet against the EV maker, as well as the U.S. market regulator, as Tesla’s stock hit a new record-high of $1,208, rallying 7.95 percent. In a series of tweets, Musk asked, ‘Who wears short shorts?’, and said that “Tesla will make fabulous short shorts in radiant red satin with gold trim,” and “Will send some to the Shortseller Enrichment Commission to comfort them through these difficult times.” Musk also tweeted a profane play on the regulator’s initials, “SEC, three letter acronym, middle word is Elon’s.” Musk has a history of taunting the SEC on Twitter, and some of his tweets essentially disclosing information about Tesla cost him several millions of U.S. dollars in fines. (Source: Oil Price)
U.S. Shale Needs To Rethink Its Strategy To Survive (2 July 2020): By Haley Zaremba - U.S. shale is hurting. While the entire global energy industry has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus pandemic and its disastrous effect on oil prices and oil demand, West Texas shale takes the cake for the biggest economic collapse. While the international Brent crude benchmark did take a beating, the West Texas Intermediate crude benchmark stunned the world when it plunged below zero on April 20, closing out the day at nearly $40 in the hole. The results have been devastating. The Permian Basin has been swept by a tidal wave of bankruptcies, shut-in wells, and legions of fired and furloughed employees, converting untold numbers of Texan oil towns from boomtown to ghost town. Just this Sunday, Permian basin pioneer and industry titan Chesapeake Energy declared bankruptcy. It’s difficult not to read the shuttering of this shale golden child as a bad omen for the industry as a whole. Not that we didn’t see it coming. (Source: Oil Price)
Russia And China Face-Off For Nuclear Dominance In Africa (1 July 2020): By Haley Zaremba - Russian nuclear power is one continent closer to taking over the world. This week the Rwandan parliament approved a plan for the Russian state-owned nuclear conglomerate Rosatom to build a brand new nuclear research facility, along with a nuclear reactor, in the Central African nation’s capital city of Kigali. This hard-won development comes as the latest step in a decades-long aggressive lobbying effort on the part of the Russian government and more specifically Rosatom to woo African nations into making deals with Russia, ostensibly for profit as well as influence on the African continent. German media company DW News reported earlier this week about the Kigali nuclear center, “The Center of Nuclear Science and Technologies, planned for completion by 2024, will include nuclear research labs as well as a small research reactor with up to 10 MW capacity.” And the Rwandan plant is just the beginning. “Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia have signed similar deals with Rosatom, while countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Sudan and DRC have less expansive cooperation agreements.” (Source: Oil Price)