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Dougals-Westwood: Layoffs and Another Lost Generations

Douglas-Westwood (DW),UK’s energy business strategy, research and commercial due-diligence services provider, commented on "Layoffs and Another Lost Generations?" in its May 4 edition of DW Monday. The oil & gas industry currently suffers a shortage of mid-career professionals primed for leadership & supervisory roles, the legacy of the last oil price downturn in the 1980s to mid-90s. At that time the industry endured significant job losses, and hiring came to a standstill. As a result of the limited talent added, the group of individuals advancing into supervisory or eventual leadership positions in the oil and gas industry is notably small. Since oil price started declining late last summer, layoffs in today’s industry are nearing 100,000 worldwide. Oilfield service companies Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, and Halliburton announced layoffs of around 20,000, 10,500, and 9,000 employees respectively, while E&Ps BP and Chevron each announced layoffs approaching 10,000 of their employees. According to […]

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US shale oil drillers move rigs to more productive areas -Goldman Sachs

SINGAPORE May 4 (Reuters) – In an attempt to increase productivity, shale oil drillers in the United States have begun moving rigs to more productive areas of the Permian and Eagle Ford basins, analysts at Goldman Sachs said. Data from oil services firm Baker Hughes Inc showed on Friday that the fall in U.S. oil rig count slowed last week, suggesting the collapse in drilling may be coming to an end as prices recover. "The county level rig data is showing potential signs of high grading with rig increases in some of the more productive counties of the Permian and Eagle Ford plays, despite the aggregate rig count still declining," analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a weekly report. The observation comes after the analysts in the past several weeks have said the rig data showed little evidence of high grading. High grading, with producers eliminating the least efficient […]

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Natural gas, renewables projected to provide larger shares of electricity generation

Republished 1:15 p.m. May 4, 2015 to correct an error in the graph. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2015 EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2015 (AEO2015) Reference case projects that electricity consumption will increase at an average annual rate of 0.8% from 2013 to 2040, nearly in line with expected population growth. Continuing a recent trend toward lower levels of carbon-intensive generation, natural gas and renewable generation meet almost all of the increase. Electricity generation from renewable sources provided 13% of U.S. electricity in 2013. In the AEO2015 Reference case, which reflects current laws and regulations—but not pending rules, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan —this percentage is projected to increase to 18% by 2040. Wind and solar generation account for nearly two-thirds of the growth in renewable generation. Solar is the fastest-growing renewable generation source, but wind accounts for the largest absolute increase […]

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The Shale Boom Has Already Gone Bust – At Least For Now

Andrew J. Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Astenbeck Capital Management LLC. Photographer: Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg The meteoric rise in U.S. oil production has ended, easing a global glut and driving a rebound in crude prices from below $50 a barrel, according to crude trader and hedge fund manager Andrew J. Hall. Oil production from Texas to North Dakota peaked at almost 10 million barrels a day in February and has been falling since then, Hall said in a letter Friday to investors in Astenbeck Capital Management LLC, his commodities hedge fund. A drastic reduction in drilling rigs is starting to shrink U.S. oil output, according to U.S. government data cited by Hall. That’s helped drive a 36 percent rally in the past six weeks, and prices will continue to rise because it will be harder for producers to ramp up than it was to cut back, Hall said in his […]

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Greenlight’s Einhorn slams oil frackers at Sohn conference

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Billionaire hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who often moves a stock simply by speaking its name, on Monday kicked off the year’s most prominent investment conference by laying out a case against oil frackers, arguing these companies drill "lots and lots of holes" and burn through plenty of cash. Einhorn, who often unveils so-called short-bets against companies at these events, cited Pioneer Natural Resources Co ( PXD.N ) as a particular offender at the 20th annual Sohn Investment Conference. "We call it the motherfracker," he said, prompting investors to kick the share price down as much as 5.3 percent. The company should trade closer to $78 a share, he said, not the $166.50 the stock is trading at now. "Pioneer is burning cash and its reserves are not growing," said Einhorn, who runs $11 billion Greenlight Capital, adding "Pioneer ought to stop touting estimates based […]

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Another rig company stumbles

Diamond Offshore, one of the largest rig companies in the world, is the latest in a long list of those in the energy industry to take a loss in a weak market. File Photo by project1photography/Shutterstock HOUSTON, May 4 (UPI) — One of the largest rig services companies in the world, Diamond Offshore Drilling, said Monday it lost $256 million during the first quarter of the year. Crude oil is trading in a bear market, forcing most major energy companies to spend less on exploration and production. That’s led to major profit losses for rig services companies ranging from Schlumberger to Halliburton. Diamond said Monday its net loss of $256 million for the first quarter compared to a net income of $146 million year-on-year. Three of its rigs are to be retired and scrapped. "We have continued to implement cost savings measures while maintaining our focus on safe operations […]

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Rig data show Oklahoma beats North Dakota

Oklahoma has more rigs in active service than North Dakota, a state at the heart of the U.S. shale oil boom. File Photo by Calin Tatu/Shutterstock. BISMARCK, N.D., May 4 (UPI) — Oklahoma has 20 percent more rigs in active service than North Dakota as shale activity in the United States evolves, state data show. XTO Energy, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, is the largest operator of active wells in North Dakota, with 14 percent of the 86 active wells in the state at the heart of the nation’s oil boom. Overall, the number of rigs in service in North Dakota is down 7.5 percent since the start of April. Last year, XTO said it owned 531,000 net acres in North Dakota and gross production in February 2014 was 44,516 barrels of oil per day. Federal data show state oil production in February 2014 was 953,000 bpd, about 24 […]

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Brent inches towards $67, despite weak China factory activity

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Brent crude edged towards $67 a barrel on Monday, reversing earlier losses after weak Chinese data reinforced views that stimulus measures would be rolled out for the world’s second largest economy. China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer, posted its biggest drop in factory activity in a year to 48.9 in April, a private business survey showed on Monday. The sub-50 point level indicates a contraction compared with the previous month. The data came on the heels of a top government think tank’s forecast that China’s economic growth could slow further to 6.8 percent in the second quarter. "The Chinese data is weaker but it seems the oil market has had a limited reaction. What the market really wants to see is supply being cut to match the demand level," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at Sydney’s CMC Markets. Oil supplies from the Organization of the […]

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Peak Russia + Peak USA means Peak World

Since around 2005 many countries have increased their oil production but more have decreased. But the combined production of the United States and Russia have kept the world on a slight uptrend since that time. World since 2000 World oil production jumped in 2011, hardly moved at all in 2013 but it was up by more than  1.5 million barrels per day in 2014. And after such a huge gain everyone and their brother were singing “peak oil is dead’. But if you scroll down through the 37 major world oil producers it becomes obvious that a majority of nations have peaked and most of them are in steep decline. The above chart is EIA data however the next four charts below are JODI data with the last data point February 2015. The data on all charts is thousand barrels per day. Spuds per Rig Permits & Spuds Continue reading […]

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Libyan protesters end strike at eastern port of Brega: spokesman

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Protesters have ended a strike at state-run Sirte Oil Co in eastern Libyan port of Brega which had forced the closure of the Irda gas field, a company spokesman said on Sunday. "We have reached an agreement with the protesters to end their strike," the spokesman said. The protesters had demanded jobs at the oil firm and had prevented staff from working at the company’s headquarters. It was not immediately clear whether the Irda field had resumed work. (Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; writing by Ulf Laessing ; editing by Jason Neely )

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