INDUSTRY NEWS
Oil hedges surge in third quarter as prices rise, Wood Mac says
U.S. oil companies in the third quarter locked in higher prices for more than twice the number of barrels they did in the previous three months as crude rose toward $60 a barrel, Wood Mackenzie says.
54 Things You Didn’t Know About Natural Gas
Like oil, natural gas is a prolific fossil fuel with many uses, however I feel that it floats unnoticed under the radar, particularly because it is so much easier to carpet bomb oil and coal into submission (as opposed to cute and cuddly natural gas) in the great anti-fossil fuel war of attrition.
Oil Prices Could Double If Middle East Conflict Escalates
Scarcity doesn’t really justify the upward price movement. There isn’t a shortage of oil in the world. But there could be, in the worst case, if missiles start flying between two of the world’s largest oil players: Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Keystone XL Opponents Make Last-Gasp Effort In Nebraska
Volunteers for Bold Alliance, an activist group that has been fighting the project since it was proposed nearly a decade ago, are knocking on doors in parts of the state to describe the threats that possible pipeline leaks could pose to groundwater.
Shale drillers to torment OPEC into next decade
OPEC sees no respite from shale’s onslaught before the second half of the next decade. Until then, the cartel will stick with the one weapon it still has to prevent another oil price collapse: austerity.
U.S. Oil Exports Setting New Records
U.S. exports of oil have been gradually rising since the export ban was lifted in late 2015, but have skyrocketed in the past month. The U.S. sent an average of just under 500 MBOPD abroad in 2016, which was, at the time, a record high.
Saudi Arabia needs $70/b oil next year to break even
Saudi Arabia will have to engineer a 34% increase in average oil prices next year if it is to balance its budget and avoid falling back on its dwindling foreign currency reserves, International Monetary Fund data showed Tuesday.
Oil prices continue streak, but ceiling may be approaching
The American Petroleum Institute reported after the market closed Tuesday that its data show crude oil inventories in the United States dropped about 5.1 million barrels. Gasoline storage levels fell 7.6 million barrels after motor club AAA said demand was resilient late in the season.
Haynesville Shale Gas: Overlooked, But Growing Again
Drilling activity in the Haynesville bottomed out in September 2016, at a mere 13 rigs. Since then, activity has more than tripled, with 46 rigs operating in the basin in September 2017. While this falls far short of the 160 rigs that were operating in the basin in the beginning of 2011, it is the highest rig count in the Haynesville since 2016.
U.S. oil exports boom, putting infrastructure to the test
Tankers carrying record levels of crude are leaving in droves from Texas and Louisiana ports, and more growth in the fledgling U.S. oil export market may before long test the limits of infrastructure like pipelines, dock space and ship traffic.
Exxon Mobil profits surge despite blow from Harvey
Exxon Mobil posted a 50 percent jump in profits in the third quarter amid rising energy prices -- even after absorbing a $160 million blow from Hurricane Harvey, which crippled some of its Gulf Coast facilities.
Microseismic monitoring helps producers aim for sweetest of sweet spots
Being able to picture that subsurface rock is critical to allowing operators to know not only where the fractures are and how they break but where the frac fluids and sands are going in the formation and where the crude and natural gas is being drained.
A New Oil Crisis Is Developing In The Middle East
There, two significant events unfolded over the past week. Each is certain to have an impact on how crude oil trades in the near-term.
Judge allows Dakota Access pipeline to keep running
The $3.8 billion pipeline built by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners has been operating since June 1, moving oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to a distribution point in Illinois. From there it can be shipped to the Gulf Coast and potentially lucrative markets abroad.
Apache scouts out more drilling locations in Alpine High
More than half of those spots, around 3,500, are in a so-called wet gas window, with 1,000 in a dry gas region and another 500 in the oil-rich Wolfcamp and Bone Springs play.
The Future For Oil Supply And Prices After The ‘Amazon Effect’ Stimulates Shale 2.0
While access to cheap capital matters, as do government permits, impediments and subsidies, it’s technology that creates supply (and demand too, but that’s another story, covered elsewhere). The world would not be awash in oil if we were still using the drilling technology of 1917.
Permian Hot Deals Meet The Market’s Cold Shoulder
Buying a ticket to Permian Basin production—already an expensive proposition last year—now carries an additional surcharge in 2017—investors’ ire.
ExxonMobil Dethroned As Top Energy Company
Gazprom dethroned ExxonMobil as the top energy company in the world, according to the 2017 S&P Global Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings. The rankings measure the financial performance of energy firms on four key metrics: asset worth, revenues, profits, and return on invested capital.
The End Of OPEC Is Near
OPEC, which has far exceeded the average life of cartels, is on the brink of failure. Though cracks have been developing in the cartel since the start of the current oil crisis, the group has managed to stay together so far.
The Driving Forces Behind Today’s Oil Markets
This year, hurricanes, geopolitics, the OPEC deal and U.S. interest rates have all been major factors. Inventory levels and global supply and demand are then influenced by these factors.