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Oil market rebalancing could take until end 2017: Shell
The huge global oil oversupply that has weighed on prices for the past two years may not clear until the second half of 2017, Shell’s chief energy adviser Wim Thomas told Reuters. The potential return to the market of some 1.5 million barrels per day of supply from Libya and Nigeria and uncertainty about Iranian and Iraqi production levels could push a rebalancing further away than many in the oil industry are hoping. “All these things when they come back on the market can again postpone the true balancing,” Thomas said in an interview on the sidelines of the ONS oil conference in Stavanger, Norway. He said the most optimistic scenario was for rebalancing, meaning that huge volumes of stored crude have to be absorbed, to kick in this year and that Shell was […]
Oil Discoveries at 70-Year Low Signal Supply Shortfall Ahead
New finds at lowest since 1947 and headed even lower: WoodMac Explorers replacing just 6% of resources they drill: Rystad Explorers in 2015 discovered only about a tenth as much oil as they have annually on average since 1960. This year, they’ll probably find even less, spurring new fears about their ability to meet future demand. With oil prices down by more than half since the price collapse two years ago, drillers have cut their exploration budgets to the bone. The result: Just 2.7 billion barrels of new supply was discovered in 2015, the smallest amount since 1947, according to figures from Edinburgh-based consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Ltd. This year, drillers found just 736 million barrels of conventional crude as of the end of last month. That’s a concern for the industry at a time when the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that global oil demand will grow from […]
Is An OPEC Production Freeze Even Remotely Possible?
Oil Rig Oil prices enjoyed a bump last week, thanks in part to a weakened dollar and some geopolitical tensions in the Persian Gulf. But a large factor in the recent rally has been the return of a possible OPEC production freeze , a subject that was last tossed around before the organization’s much-publicized, and ultimately unproductive, meeting in Doha last April. The likelihood of a freeze sent markets up on Thursday, though some less-than-confident comments from the Saudi oil minister sent them dropping back on Friday. Whether a freeze occurs or not is likely to be the trending gossip among speculators for the next month, at a time when such talk is exerting greater-than-average pull on the crude price. But a question worth asking is whether a freeze is even possible , given the state of OPEC and the increasingly divergent interests of its fourteen members. This new […]
Shell to Sell Gulf of Mexico Oil Assets for $425 Million
Royal Dutch Shell Plc agreed to sell its Brutus/Glider operation in the Gulf of Mexico for $425 million as Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden seeks to resuscitate an explorer dinged by the lowest profits in more than a decade. The buyer, EnVen Energy Corp., will gain control of four blocks in the U.S. part of the Gulf, as well as the platform and subsea pipeline network that funnel crude from the fields to shore, The Hague-based Shell said in a statement on Monday. The field pumps the equivalent of 25,000 barrels of oil a day, or 5.8 percent of Shell’s output in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell, the biggest oil producer in the U.S. Gulf, has been canceling projects and reducing cash outlays to cope with the plunge in oil markets and the burden of the company’s $54 billion purchase of BG Group in February. Quarterly profit fell […]
World population may rise to nearly 10 billion by 2050
Ever Wonder Who's Next?
The world population will reach 9.9 billion in 2050, increasing by 33 per cent from an estimated 7.4 billion now, the latest report from the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) has predicted. If the assumptions underlying 2050 projections by the PRB’s World Population Data Sheet are applied to subsequent years, the world population would hit the 10 billion mark in 2053, with set to Asia gain about 900 million to 5.3 billion. (ALSO READ: Humans altered 97 per cent of most species-rich places on Earth ) “Despite declines in fertility rates around the world, we expect population gains to remain strong enough to take us toward a global population of 10 billion,” said Jeffrey Jordan, president and CEO of PRB. “Significant regional differences remain, though. For example very low birth rates in Europe will mean population declines there while Africa’s population is expected to double,” said […]
