Category:

Saudi Arabia crude exports dip to 7.276 million bpd in July: JODI

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi talks to journalists before a meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, Austria, June 5, 2015. Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports dipped by 89,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July, while volumes used by local refineries and the country’s refined products shipments rose from a month earlier, official data showed on Sunday. The world’s biggest crude exporter trimmed its production by around 200,000 bpd in July pumping 10.361 million bpd, but Riyadh shows no signs of wavering on its strategy of defending market share and feeding a growth in global as well as domestic demand. The OPEC heavyweight shipped 7.276 million bpd in July down from 7.365 million bpd in June, figures published by the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI) showed. Monthly export figures are provided by Riyadh and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to JODI, which […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Nigeria gets financial lift from Chevron

Nigeria gets financial support for onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration campaigns from Chevron subsidiary. File photo by A.J. Sisco/UPI LONDON, Sept. 21 (UPI) — Nigeria’s national oil company said it secured more than $1 billion in financing for onshore and offshore drilling operations from a Chevron subsidiary. An agreement signed during the weekend in London envisions $1.2 billion for the development for 23 onshore and 13 offshore wells in Nigeria. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. said the funding is an integral part of an exploration and production financing program meant to address "the perennial challenge" on the part of the government’s support for upstream activities. The company said the projects could combine for between $2 billion and $5 billion in revenue for the federal government. Stage one, consisting of 19 wells, could deliver up to 21,000 barrels of oil and 120 million cubic feet of natural gas […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China steel, iron ore futures slip further on weak demand

A labourer welds steel bars at the construction site of a residential area in Taiyuan, Shanxi province March 15, 2010. Chinese steel rebar and iron ore futures both lost ground on Tuesday as traders worried about market prospects in coming months, with domestic demand still showing few signs of any seasonal improvement. Steel mills and iron ore miners are gathering in the coastal city of Qingdao this week for their annual China conference. The event is usually an opportunity for traders to make deals, but pessimism is expected to dominate this year’s proceedings. "There has just been no pick-up in demand at all recently and the market is still very cold," said a sales manager with a steel mill based in the city of Tangshan in Hebei province. "Our sales volume so far this season is pretty much the same as it was in the summer off-season – there […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China’s rising output, price rout deepen aluminum industry gloom

Aluminum ingots are piled up at a bonded storage area at the Dagang Terminal of Qingdao Port, in Qingdao, Shandong province June 7, 2014. Sinking aluminum prices and a ballooning surplus of the metal have deepened the industry’s worst crisis in years, intensifying pressure on high-cost smelters to embark on another round of production cuts to revive prices from their malaise. The 25 percent drop since last September has pushed benchmark London Metal Exchange prices to six-year lows, and the unprecedented plunge this year in premiums, surcharges paid for physical delivery, to their lowest in 3-1/2 years are the biggest test for producers’ margins since the 2008 financial crisis. More than 10 percent of smelting capacity outside of China, or 3.5 million tonnes of production, is running in the red with a combined LME and U.S. premium of $1,800 per ton, according to Wood Mackenzie data from second-quarter results. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

North Dakota rig count continues decline

The number of rigs engaged in exploration and production in North Dakota was down more than half from last year. Photo by David Gaylor/Shutterstock BISMARCK, N.D., Sept. 21 (UPI) — The number of rigs engaged in exploration and production in North Dakota, the No. 2 oil producer in the nation, is on a steady decline, state data show. Data from the North Dakota Industrial Commission show 67 rigs employed across the state, down about 3 percent from last week and 65 percent less than this date in 2014. The 196 rigs engaged in exploration and production activity on Sept. 21, 2014, was the highest in three years . Oil field services company Baker Hughes reported last week the number of rigs deployed across the United States fell 1.2 percent to 644 for the third-straight week of declines. Low crude oil prices mean energy companies have less capital to invest […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

U.S. propane inventories are at an all-time high

graph of weekly propane and propylene inventories, as explained in the article text U.S. inventories of propane and propylene reached 97.7 million barrels as of September 11, the highest level in the 22 years that EIA has collected weekly propane inventory statistics. In the first six months of 2015, U.S. propane and propylene inventories were 24.3 million barrels higher on average compared to the same period in 2014. In the past year, nearly all of the increase in inventories occurred in the Gulf Coast region (PADD3). As production of propane and other hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL) has grown, the ability to transport, store, and export these commodities has expanded . During the first six months of 2015, production of propane at natural gas plants was 31.3 million barrels, or 172,000 barrels per day (b/d), higher than during the first half of 2014. Exports increased by 33.3 million barrels (182,000 […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Suncor’s Fort Hills Deal Shows Slump Hitting Oil-Sands Assets

Suncor Energy Inc.’s bargain on a further 10 percent stake in its Fort Hills oil-sands project shows how the energy market crash is reducing asset values in one of the most expensive places on Earth to extract crude. Canada’s largest energy producer will pay Total SA C$310 million ($234 million) for an additional 10 percent share in the C$15 billion oil sands mine being built in northern Alberta, the companies said Monday. That’s less than a third of the value Teck Resources Ltd., another partner in the project, ascribes to its stake. Teck said its 20 percent is worth C$2.3 billion in a July release. The deal is also 31 percent less than the C$450 million Desjardins Capital Markets assumes a 10 percent stake in Fort Hills is worth. Desjardins based its estimate on a reduced long-term U.S. oil price of $80 a barrel starting in 2017, Justin Bouchard, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

The Surprisingly Big Market for Sand Just Collapsed

In New Auburn , Wisconsin, a desolate, little outpost carved from the rolling pine-tree forests that run into Lake Superior, the collapse in oil is wreaking havoc on every aspect of the economy. It’s not that there’s any oil here. None in fact for hundreds of miles around. What they’ve got is sand. Real good sand, piled high in giant mounds. And in what is a little-known offshoot of the shale oil revolution that swept across America over the past decade, the market for sand — the grit that props open the rocks and makes fracking possible — exploded too, transforming almost overnight what had been a sleepy industry that sold primarily to the likes of glass makers and golf courses. So when the shale boom went bust, it took down the sand industry with it. Prices have sunk almost a third to under $40 per ton. A winter […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Senate Democrats to Unveil Aggressive Climate Change Bill

Photo The Rosebud coal mine in Colstrip, Mont. A measure that Senate Democratic leaders plan to unveil on Tuesday would establish a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 2 percent each year through 2025. Credit Kristina Barker for The New York Times WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders on Tuesday plan to unveil a measure intended to signal their full-throated support of President Obama ’s aggressive climate change agenda to 2016 voters and to the rest of the world. The Democrats hope that the bill, sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell, of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, will demonstrate a new unity for the party on energy and climate change, and define Democrats’ approach to global warming policy in the coming years. The measure would establish as United States policy a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent each year through 2025 — a cut even […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Russian Government Readies for Prospect of $30 Oil

MOSCOW, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Russia’s government has been discussing ways to tackle the tough economic environment if oil falls to as low as $30 per barrel next year, RBC daily reported on Monday, citing government sources. That scenario was discussed at a government meeting chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev earlier this month, the newspaper cited two unnamed government sources as saying. The price of oil is crucial for the Russian budget, which normally generates half of its revenues from oil and gas sales. The Russian Economy Ministry forecasts that oil prices will average $52 per barrel in 2015 and $55 in 2016. On Friday, a deputy energy minister said if crude falls below $40 a barrel from around $50 currently, Russian oil production may drop. Oil prices rose by around one percent on Monday as U.S. drilling slowed and analysts estimated that $1.5 trillion worth of planned […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple