Oil
Why Saudi Arabia Has No Intention To End The Oil Glut
In the geopolitical and oligopolistic global oil market, purely financial supply and demand has often been a secondary force, acting when it is allowed to act. It is the strategic behavior of the producing titans, not their talk or the slow-motion supply-demand balance, which has the real power to m..
Iran Slowly But Steadily Increasing Oil Market Share
Iran is expected to raise the April Official Selling Price (OSP) of its flagship light crude oil to Asia to 25 cents above the Saudi’s similarly graded Arab light. This is the highest premium since 2011 and is an increase of 30 cents over the previous month. Iran will likely price its light crude a..
Court Decision Threatens Midstream Sector
A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that Sabine Oil & Gas could withdraw from its contract obligations with pipeline companies to ship a certain volume of oil and gas through their pipelines. The court decision may seem arcane, but it could have major ramifications for both producers and midstream com..
75-Year-Old Oil Pipeline Shuts Down
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A pipeline buried under three New England states that carried foreign crude oil from the Port of Portland to refineries in Montreal for 75 years has been mothballed. The oil has stopped flowing. The 236-mile-long pipeline was built to provide for the safe transport of crude o..
The U.K. Is About To Boost Oil Exploration With An Old Trick
In 2000, Canadian miner Goldcorp changed its fortunes through a unique strategy: giving away its proprietary technical data. Dubbed the “Goldcorp Challenge”, the firm made all of its geological information available to the public. And offered $575,000 in prize money to geologists who could use the ..
Chevron Cuts Spending Budget Again
NEW YORK (AP) — Chevron is cutting its spending budget by nearly 40 percent for 2017 and 2018 as it deals with plunging oil prices, a bigger cut in spending than it previously expected. The oil and gas company said that it expects to spend between $17 billion and $22 billion on drilling and other p..
Is China About To Open Up Its Oil Industry?
Brief but extremely interesting note from China this week. Suggesting that an unparalleled opportunity in the energy space may be coming available here. That’s in the Chinese oil and natural gas industries. Where it appears the government may be about to open up former government-only sectors to ou..
Federal Officials Say Bid-Rigging Goes Beyond Chesapeake’s Ex-CEO
DALLAS (AP) — As advanced drilling technology opened untapped sources of oil and natural gas, it triggered fierce competition among energy companies to scoop up rights to drill on vast swaths of land across the country. The rush caused lease prices to skyrocket in the most promising fields. In a fe..
Drillers: Oil Well Rules Dire for Business; Others Disagree
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An industry-funded study warns of dire consequences if pending rules to prevent another catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico go into effect, but critics questioned that claim. The dire economic analysis was done by Wood Mackenzie, a business research firm, and commissione..
Canadian Oil Slammed By Low Prices, Pipeline Woes
Canada has been particularly hit hard during the downturn in oil prices. A major oil-producing country, Canada rode the commodity wave upwards over the past decade, but has suffered from the downturn. The economy briefly dipped into a recession in 2015. Even after growth resumed, Canada’s GDP slowe..
First Oil Flows From Alaska Reserve Set Aside in '23
NUIQSUT, Alaska (AP) — Rising from the edgeless, wind-scoured, snow-covered tundra on Alaska’s North Slope lies a million-pound drilling rig pulling the first commercial oil from a reserve set aside nearly a century ago. ConocoPhillips is the first oil company to draw crude from the National Petrol..
Nigerians Sue Shell in UK Court for Oil Spills Contamination
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Tens of thousands of Nigerian fishermen and farmers are suing multinational oil giant Shell in two new lawsuits filed Wednesday in a British High Court, alleging that decades of uncleaned oil spills have destroyed their lives. London law firm Leigh Day & Co. is representing th..
Harvest Pipeline Sets Open Season For Point Comfort Project
Houston-based Harvest Pipeline Company affiliate Arrowhead Offshore Pipeline launched a binding open season for its Point Comfort Pipeline Project. Once complete, the project will permit Arrowhead to offer transportation of crude petroleum from Jackson County, TX to the Port of Calhoun in Calhoun C..
Chesapeake Energy Ex-CEO McClendon Indicted
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Aubrey McClendon, the former chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., was indicted Tuesday on a charge of conspiring to rig bids to buy oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma. The Department of Justice said in a statement that McClendon is suspected of orchestratin..
Russia Says Global Deal to Cap Oil Output is Close
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia says it is close to an international deal with OPEC countries to cap oil production, and that a final decision will be made at a meeting this month. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Qatar floated an output cap last month with the aim of boosting oil prices, but it was condit..
US Report: Rail Safety Violations Should Be Prosecuted
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators are failing to refer serious safety violations involving freight rail shipments of crude oil and other hazardous cargo for criminal prosecution, and are going lightly on civil fines, according to a report released Friday by a government investigator. The Federal Ra..
Why Oil Booms and Busts Happen
What if I told you that there was a period in history where oil demand declined by 5 MMbpd and non-OPEC supply increased by 5 MMbpd, yet oil price rallied more than 50%? Would you believe me? If your answer is yes, then you guessed right. This was the period from 1979 to 1985; it was a period duri..
Wall Street Won’t Give Up on Its Energy Bets
The oil and gas industry is suffering through its worst cycle in a generation, with most companies losing money at today’s prices. Debt is piling up and the losses are starting to become a concern for lenders. Shareholders are getting burned by plummeting share prices. Yet, major investors are stil..
Game-Changer Leviathan Gas Field Sees Serious Delays
The massive Leviathan gas field, nestled deep inside the Levantine basin off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, is considered a game-changer for both Israel and Europe, but a wide range of roadblocks is threatening development, and now production will be delayed by at least a year. Political hurdles, re..
Canadian Oil Production Expected to Increase Despite Lower Prices
Despite lower crude oil prices, EIA expects Canadian oil production to continue increasing through 2017. Canadian oil sands projects that were already under construction when prices began to fall in 2014 and that are expected to begin production in the next two years are the main driver of productio..
Saudi Oil Minister Says Market Should Handle Low Prices
HOUSTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s oil minister says production cuts to boost oil prices won’t work, and that instead the market should be allowed to work even if that forces some operators out of business. Ali Al-Naimi said Tuesday that production cuts by big, low-cost producers like Saudi Arabia wou..
High Supplies Seen Capping Oil Price Until Early 2017
PARIS (AP) — A glut of oil will keep prices from rebounding until next year, much later than previously forecast, experts at the International Energy Agency said Monday. A year ago, the IEA, a Paris-based organization of 29 major oil importing nations, had forecast a “relatively swift” recovery. ..
Oil Production in Federal GOM Expected to Hit Record High in '17
U.S. Gulf of Mexico (GOM) crude oil production is estimated to increase to record-high levels in 2017, even asprices remain low. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects GOM production will average 1.63 MMbpd in 2016 and 1.79 MMbpd in 2017, reaching 1.91 MMbpd in December 2017. GOM prod..
Sandpiper Startup Delayed Until 2019
Enbridge Energy Partners plans to push back start-up dates for its proposed Sandpiper pipeline and a replacement for its existing Line 3 pipeline until 2019, because of a court-ordered environmental review. The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in August that Sandpiper requires a full environmental ..
PHMSA: Pipe Corrosion Led to Santa Barbara Oil Spill
LOS ANGELES (AP) — External corrosion on an oil pipeline was the root cause of a leak that spilled more than 140,000 gallons of crude on the Santa Barbara coast in May, federal regulators reported. The spill occurred after pumps on the Plains All American Pipeline were shut down and restarted, se..
Iran Balks at Doha Proposal, Won't Freeze Oil Output Levels
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran on Wednesday snubbed a proposal agreed to by four influential oil producers to cap their crude output if others do the same, with a senior Oil Ministry official saying Tehran has no intention of freezing oil output levels. Mahdi Asali, Iran’s OPEC envoy, said his country ..
Pipeline Opponents Ask Iowa Board to Consider New US Oil Exports
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Opponents of a proposed pipeline project in Iowa want the state utilities board to take additional evidence that crude oil produced in the United States is now being shipped overseas, which would bolster their argument that North Dakota oil to be shipped through the so-called..
Iran Exports 1st Oil Shipment to Europe since Nuclear Deal
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran says it has exported its first crude oil shipment to Europe since it reached a landmark nuclear deal with world powers, the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday. IRNA quoted Deputy Oil Minister Rokneddin Javadi as saying the shipment was the first in five years and m..
Notebook: Now for the Good News
I’m doing research for presentations I’ve been asked to give before some groups in coming months, including Pipeliners Association of Houston and the Tennessee Gas Association. Obviously everyone knows about the chaos that “The Great Unwinding” is causing as the price of crude continues its historic..
Production Rates in Tight Oil Formations Still Rising
Tight oil production in the United States increased from 2007 through April 2015, based on estimates in EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), and accounted for more than half of total U.S. oil production in 2015. Tight oil growth has been driven by increasing initial production rates from tight..
- Trump Aims to Revive 1,200-Mile Keystone XL Pipeline Despite Major Challenges
- ONEOK Agrees to Sell Interstate Gas Pipelines to DT Midstream for $1.2 Billion
- Energy Transfer Reaches FID on $2.7 Billion, 2.2 Bcf/d Permian Pipeline
- Another Major U.S. Oil Refinery Shutting Down as Lyondell Confirms Houston Closure
- Boardwalk Approves 110-Mile, 1.16 Bcf/d Mississippi Kosci Junction Pipeline Project
- Tullow Oil on Track to Deliver $600 Million Free Cash Flow Over Next 2 Years
- GOP Lawmakers Slam New York for Blocking $500 Million Pipeline Project
- Energy Transfer Reaches FID on $2.7 Billion, 2.2 Bcf/d Permian Pipeline
- Polish Pipeline Operator Offers Firm Capacity to Transport Gas to Ukraine in 2025
- Macquarie, Dow Launch $2.4 Billion Gulf Coast Pipeline Infrastructure Partnership
