As Biden's term ends, the US introduces a methane tax on gas and oil emitters.
The U.S. administration of President Joe Biden finalized on Tuesday a fee for large oil and gas companies to reduce emissions of this powerful greenhouse gas. However, the incoming Trump presidency is likely to scrap the fee. The methane tax is one of the last measures taken by the administration to combat the second most common greenhouse gas, after carbon dioxide. This gas tends to leak undetected into the atmosphere from drilling sites, gas pipes and other oil and natural gas equipment. The fee will be $900 per metric tonne of methane emissions in 2024. It will increase to $1200 in 2025 and to $1500 in 2026.
Who would be the best person to run Trump's energy policy?
Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, has pledged to overhaul U.S. Energy Policy. He aims to maximize oil and gas production in this country which is already at record levels by rolling back regulations and accelerating permits. Who will he select to lead the departments and agencies that are critical to completing this task? These are some names that have been considered. Two sources with knowledge of the matter say that Trump's second Energy secretary Dan Brouillette, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, are both candidates to lead the U.S. Department of Energy during the next administration.
Colombian court reverses order to suspend gas well off Caribbean coast
On Wednesday, a Colombian court overturned a previous court order that was issued last month, which had suspended operations at Sirius-2 (formerly known as Uchuva-2), a major offshore gas well. The ruling was issued on October 29, following a complaint from Indigenous communities that their way of living would be negatively affected by the development of the well. Industry groups warned that the suspension of the well would threaten Colombia's energy independence and erode the prospects for the nation's diminishing gas reserves. The project is owned jointly by Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol, and Brazil's Petrobras.
Congo cancels the licensing round for 27 oil block
According to a Monday statement on the hydrocarbons minister's X Twitter account, the Democratic Republic of Congo has canceled a licensing round originally launched in 2020 to tap the nation's potential for oil and gas. The statement of October 11 listed multiple reasons for cancellation. These included late submissions, inappropriate and irregular offers, as well as a lack competition. Aime Sakombi Molindo, hydrocarbons minister, said: "Given what I have just stated, I feel compelled to announce the cancellation of this process." He said that the process will be restarted shortly, but did not give a timeline.
Incoming Shell Boss Aims Fire up Renewables Drive
Shell's incoming Chief Executive Wael Sawan is set to accelerate the group's drive to build its renewable energy business, including through a possible "transformative" clean power acquisition, company and industry sources said.Sawan will from January take on a firm with a strong balance sheet after a surge in oil and gas prices, but whose renewables capacity has lagged peers like TotalEnergies and BP as green issues come increasingly into vogue. Shell aims to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to become a net-zero emitter by 2050…
Coronavirus, Consolidation Taking Toll On Energy Jobs
Oil and gas companies worldwide are taking an axe to their employment rolls, shedding workers to survive what is expected to be a prolonged stretch of weak demand.Exxon Mobil Corp said it will cut its workforce by 15%, or about 14,000 people, along with oil majors Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.All told, more than 400,000 oil and gas sector jobs have been cut this year, according to Rystad Energy, with about half of those in the United States, where several big exploration companies and most large oil service companies are headquartered.Coronavirus has devastated swathes of the global economy…
Petronas Farms Out Part of Suriname Offshore Block to Exxon
Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas has completed the farm-down of a 50% stake in an offshore Suriname block to a subsidiary of ExxonMobil.The offshore block, known as Block 52, is located north of the coast of Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital city, and is situated in the prospective Suriname-Guyana basin where several major hydrocarbon discoveries were made recently. Block 52 covers an area of 4,749 km² with water depths ranging from 50 to 1,100 meters.Following the farm-down, Petronas will remain the operator of Block 52 with a 50% stake, while ExxonMobil will the remaining 50 percent.
Shell Cuts Dividend for First Time Since World War Two
Royal Dutch Shell cut its dividend for the first time since World War Two on Thursday as the energy company retrenched in the face of an unprecedented drop in oil demand due to the coronavirus pandemic.Shell also suspended the next tranche of its share buyback program and said it was reducing oil and gas output by nearly a quarter after its net profit almost halved in the first three months of 2020.Shell's shares in London dropped 6.7% in early trading on Thursday, underperforming rival BP."Given the risk of a prolonged period of economic uncertainty…
Oil, Gas Players Optimistic on Profits
Companies in the oil and gas sector are optimistic about their ability to achieve their financial targets for 2020, according to a survey from standards agency DNV GL.While the sector’s growth hangs in the balance for 2020, oil and gas leaders are optimistic that they will weather the storm, drawing on hard-earned cost efficiencies from the past five years to make margin.Some 64% predict their organizations will hit profit targets this year (largely consistent with 62% in 2019), and nearly half (46%) say their companies would still achieve acceptable profits if the oil price were to average less than USD50 per barrel.
Big Oil to Bid for Guyana Crude Cargoes
Large oil companies Exxon Mobil, Hess Corp, CNOOC, BP, Chevron, Total, and Eni are expected to present bids to buy the first three cargoes of Liza crude offered by Guyana's government, the South American country's director of energy said on Monday.A consortium of Exxon, Hess, and China's CNOOC has discovered more than 6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas resources off the country's coast. The companies plan to begin exporting crude from the country, which has no history of oil production, in January and February.Mark Bynoe…
OPEC, Other Stakeholders May Adjust Output Quotas
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Wednesday the forthcoming meeting of OPEC and other large oil producers may discuss adjusting oil output quotas at a next-month meeting, local news agencies reported."We don't rule out discussing various issues," Novak was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency when asked if the OPEC+ meeting would discuss lower production quotas for Russia. (Reporting by Maxim Rodionov and Vladimir Soldatkin
Exxon Discussing Norway Asses Sale with Var Energi
Oil major ExxonMobil said on Friday it had signed an exclusivity agreement with Var Energi for negotiations regarding a possible sale of Exxon's Norwegian upstream assets.An acquisition of Exxon's production assets in Norway would cement Var Energi's position as the second largest petroleum producer in Norway after Equinor, excluding state-owned Petoro, which manages government stakes in offshore licenses.Reuters reported on Sept. 5 that Exxon had agreed to sell its stakes in around 20 partner-operated fields, two years after…
Chinese, Russian Majors Ink Arctic LNG Deal
Russia's second largest natural gas producer Novatek, Russian maritime shipping company specializing in petroleum and LNG shipping Sovcomflot, Chinese state-owned shipping and logistics services supplier company COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited, and the Chinese government owned investment fund Silk Road Fund, signed a four-party agreement to establish a joint venture Maritime Arctic Transport LLC.The focus of the Maritime Arctic Transport joint venture is to manage an icebreaking tanker fleet of Arctic ice-class vessels, comprising existing and new vessels…
Volatility Hits Tanker Market: Concordia
The tanker shipping market continued to be volatile during the first quarter of 2019, but at a higher level than in the corresponding quarter the previous year, said Concordia Maritime.After the sharp rise at the end of 2018, some tanker market segments have now slowed down again, said the international tanker shipping company. The main reason for this is the decision by OPEC and other major oil producers to cut production at the end of 2018 and start of 2019, this time by a total of about 1.2 million barrels of oil per day.In addition to the large output reduction…
Large Oil Firms Invest in Shale
Oil majors are readying themselves for the energy transition by investing in shale and waiting for renewable technology to be economical, said Rystad Energy, energy research and business intelligence company.A recent review of 2019 capital budgets reveals that oil majors are the only group to increase shale expenditure from 2018 to 2019.Big companies such as Chevron and ExxonMobil recently announced plans to significantly ramp up production in prolific shale basins, such as the Permian Basin spanning Texas and New Mexico.“Oil majors are spending more dollars on shale in an effort to evolve into renewables…
Russia's 2018 Oil Output Tops Record
Russian oil production rose to a post-Soviet record high of 11.16 million barrels per day (bpd) last year on an annual average basis, data from its energy ministry showed on Wednesday.The total surpassed the previous annual record average of 10.98 million bpd set in 2017.Russian oil output reached 555.838 million tonnes last year, against 547 million tonnes in 2017. Reuters uses a barrels-to-tonnes ratio of 7.33 to 1.All the Russian majors increased their oil production last month in yearly terms.Rosneft, the world's largest listed oil producer by output…
US Shale Producers Curb 2019 Spending
U.S. shale producers are slamming the brakes on next year's drilling with crude prices off 40 percent and mounting fears of oversupply, paring budgets that in some cases were set only weeks earlier.The reversal is alarming because blistering growth in shale fields has propelled U.S. crude output 16 percent to about 10.9 million barrels per day for 2018, above Saudi Arabia and Russia. Production has been expected to rise 11 percent more in 2019 as large oil firms and independents added wells this year.Shale producer Centennial Resource Development on Thursday joined rivals Diamondback Energy…
SHI Delivers Johan Sverdrup Offshore Platform On Schedule
South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has successfully completed the processing platform (P1) for Johan Sverdrup Field development and delivered it to Equinor according to the scheduled delivery date stated in the original contract.SHI has secured Contract worth 650 billion won ($ 5.84m) from a Norwegian energy company Equinor in 2015 to build the large oil production platform, measuring 136m long, 69m wide and 72m high, and weighing 28,100 tonnes.Reflecting the ‘Lessons Learned system’ developed from its previous experiences in large-scale offshore projects such as Shell Prelude FLNG…
TurkStream Gas Conduit Offshore Section Complete
The pipe-laying vessel Pioneering Spirit pipelaying vessel completed the construction of the offshore section of the TurkStream gas pipeline in the Black Sea. The TurkStream pipeline will carry Russian gas across the Black Sea to Turkey.The command to weld the final joint of the gas pipeline’s second string was given by Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkey.“Construction of TurkStream – a new gas pipeline connecting Russia and Turkey via the Black Sea – is entering its final stage.
Decommissioning Gets into Deep Water in GoM
LOC Group’s Houston office provides perspective on decommissioning developments in the Gulf of Mexico.The Gulf of Mexico basin covers approximately 1.6 million km2 and is one of the most important petroleum production regions in the world. A significant portion of the area is shallow continental shelf waters. These areas were developed first by oil companies, with deeper water development only being undertaken once the ‘easier’ sites had been exploited. Many years on, numerous shallow water platforms have been successfully…
