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Oil Trades Near $45 as Saudi Arabia, Russia Fall Short of Freeze
Saudi minister says no need for production freeze right now Russia ready to join agreement, energy minister says Oil traded near $45 a barrel as talks between Russia and Saudi Arabia over ways to stabilize the crude market fell short of an output freeze. Futures were up 1.3 percent Tuesday, paring gains of as much as 4.7 percent since the close on Friday amid speculation Russia and Saudi Arabia would announce plans to stabilize the market. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said at the G-20 summit in China on Monday there’s no need to freeze production now and he is optimistic a meeting later this month between producers in Algiers would lead to an agreement. His Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, said the two nations were seeking ways to ease oil market volatility. Crude rose the most in two weeks on Friday as President Vladimir Putin said he’d like […]
Crude edges down on oil glut worries
Crude prices inched down on Monday in Asia, paring 3 percent gains in the previous session amid worries over a global oil glut. London Brent crude for November delivery LCOc1 was down 18 cents at $46.65 a barrel by 2245 GMT (6.45 p.m. ET) on Sunday. The global benchmark settled up $1.38 on Friday after a weak U.S. jobs report hurt the dollar. It was also helped by a report that Russian President Vladimir Putin supports OPEC’s attempts to implement an output freeze with other producers. NYMEX crude for October delivery CLc1 was down 18 cents at $44.26 a barrel, after closing up $1.28 on Friday. The trading in U.S. crude is likely to be limited on Monday because of the U.S. Labor Day holiday. Brent rallied to above $50 a barrel by […]
Limited Spare Capacity Could Lead To An Oil Price Spike
Oil prices have continued to languish below $50 per barrel as a glut of crude oil and gasoline persist even as global demand continues to rise. The IEA still predicts that oilconsumption will expand by another 1.4 million barrels per day in 2016, while production stagnates. That dynamic suggests that the market is converging towards some sort of balance, although the speed with which that takes place is hotly debated. But in the short-term the record levels of crude oil and refined products sitting in storage have prevented oil prices from rebounding. The U.S. had 525 million barrels of crude oilinventories at the end of August and 232 million barrels of gasoline . Both figures are sharply higher than the running five-year average and higher than even year-ago levels. And inventories are only down slightly from their peaks hit earlier this year. Until oil and refined product […]
Where Will Gulf Of Mexico Oil Production Go From Here?
In this post, I will address 3 topics relating to the Northern Deepwater Gulf of Mexico – 1. Historical oil production 2. One view of the future of exploration 3. EUR ranges I will limit my comments to oil production (not gas production). All production data is from BSEE/BOEM. The play outlines on the map are my best estimates. I will be using the BSEE definition of deepwater, which includes water depths greater than 1000’. And, I will be assuming a Business As Usual future – by that I mean that fossil fuels will continue to be an important energy source, and the world will continue to be able to afford them. 1. Historical production Cumulative production to date from the deepwater GOM is about 7 billion barrels of oil (Bbo). Total shelf production is about 13 Bbo. The chart below shows both shelf (in green) and deepwater production […]
Shell starts new production in Gulf of Mexico
After taking a partial cash offer for assets in the region, Royal Dutch Shell said it started production at its deepest project yet in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell said it started production from the Stones development in the Gulf of Mexico using a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, the 13th such facility in its portfolio and, tapping a basin beneath 1.8 miles of water, the world’s deepest such development . “Our growing expertise in using such technologies in innovative ways will help us unlock more deep-water resources around the world,” Andy Brown, the director for exploration and product projects for Shell, said in a statement. By the end of next year, the company said Stones should be producing around […]
Volkswagen faces fresh EU claims over emissions scandal
Volkswagen faces claims that it broke consumer protection laws in 20 European countries by marketing cars at the centre of the “dieselgate” scandal as “green”. Vera Jourova, the EU justice commissioner, is pushing national authorities to investigate if Volkswagen broke the law on their territory, and if so to take action against the company. She wrote to capitals earlier this summer requesting information on what they had done to probe VW’s actions. She told the Financial Times the responses showed it is “likely” the German carmaker breached Europe’s “unfair commercial practices directive”, which prohibits misleading advertising claims, in many EU nations. Whether the law was broken in a particular country could depend on factors such as the type of advertising strategy used by VW there or on exactly how EU law has been incorporated into national statute books, she said.
