ADIPEC panel sessions to be hosted by yours truly

The Oilholic will be moderating and speaking on the following panel sessions at ADIPEC 2023. Join if you can for some fantastic industry dialogues with great subject matter experts. 

October 3, 2023: Decarbonisation Strategic Conference 

Tuesday, October 3, 2023 @11:45am UAE

Carbon tax vs. subsidies: What is the best regulatory method to accelerate emissions reduction?

(Click image to enlarge for details)

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October 2-4, 2023: Digitalisation in Energy Innovation Sessions

Monday, October 2, 2023 @13:00pm UAE

The twin transition: policy alignment between the green and digital agendas

Panel:

Andrei Covatariu, Co-Chair, Task Force on “Digitalization in Energy”, Vice-Chair of the Group of Experts on Energy Efficiency, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

Allyson Anderson Book, Chief Sustainability Officer, Baker Hughes 

Leonid Zhukov, VP of Data Science, BCG-X and Director of BCG Global AI Institute, BCG

Gaurav Sharma, Energy Market Analyst & Senior Contributor, Forbes

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Tuesday, October 3, 2023 @14:00pm UAE

EV charging: driving new energy business models powered by data insights

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Wednesday, October 4, 2023 @14:30pm UAE

Future cyber security solutions: towards a ‘zero-trust’ energy system

1-on-1 discussion: 

Saravan Penubarthi, CTO, AIQ

Gaurav Sharma, Energy Market Analyst & Senior Contributor, Forbes

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© Gaurav Sharma 2023. Photos: © Adipec, dmg events 2023.

Back at HUG19 talking energy cybersecurity

The Oilholic is back in The Hague, Netherlands for the 2019 installment of Honeywell Users Group EMEA; the annual European jamboree of the global software industrial company's automation and optimisation unit - Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS).

Everything from state-of-the-art plant processing systems to virtual reality kit for health and safety happen to be on display, and every year the event gets bigger, because the energy and petrochemical world's appetite for big data and cost optimisation is getting voracious by day.

Advanced analytics, digital optimisation of throughput, cloud solutions - you name it. To quote our old friend - Jason Urso, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of HPS, "It not the data that's big, it's what you do with it that matters."

In a mammoth two-hour long keynote and presentation to kick-off the event's first morning, Urso touched on how Honeywell's old workhorse of a plant control system - the TDC 3000 - can benefit from deployment of its digital twin his team have been aggressively promoting in recent years.

To the uninitiated on the plant control front, basically Urso and his team are saying, if you want a swanky new control system, by all means go for, but the existing infrastructure can indeed be "digitally optimised" and upgraded; reducing the need for everything from multiple clunky servers to a messy mass of cables. And no its not getting too cloudy in the age of Big Data, because the usage of cloud computing and off premise data storage (where permissible by law) is growing.

Of course, as digital techniques proliferate, so does the worry, and in HPS' case, the opportunity of cybersecurity. In sync with that sentiment, HPS is notching up its cybersecurity offering and there is form here. In 2018, the company launched its dedicated cybersecurity consulting outfit to help customers rightly spooked about the growing threat.

It seems 12 months on, that dedication has multiplied several times over via its - Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity platform, which "simplifies, strengthens and scales cybersecurity for asset-intensive businesses and critical infrastructure facing cyber threats."

According to Jeff Zindell, HPS' Vice Present of Cybersecurity, the offering can be scaled to match cyber-requirements and budgets, and the allied customer support that goes with it. With over 50% of HPS' client base being in the energy and petrochemicals sphere, it is easy to fathom where it sees the demand coming from.

Zindell describes the new unified suite of applications, services and products as a "natural step to take to address a range of end-user requirements from asset discovery and monitoring to fully managed services.

In what would be music to margin squeezed downstream and midstream players' ears, Zindell said the unified suite will also bring down costs alongside optimisation of cybersecurity mechanisms.

Plenty to chew on, and some images from the exhibition you to look at, but that's all from The Hague on this visit. Next stop Dubai and Fujairah via London Heathrow; keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2019. Photo 1: Jason Urso, Vice President and CTO of HPS, discusses Honeywell TDC 3000's digital twin options. Photo 2,3 & 4: Honeywell virtual reality headsets, kits and flow management and monitoring equipment © Gaurav Sharma, Oct 24-25, 2019, The Hague, Netherlands.    

Brent’s flat feeling likely to linger

It’s been that sort of a month where the Brent futures contract seems to set record low after low in terms of recent trading prices. Earlier this week, we saw the price plummet to a 26-month low and lurk above US$102 per barrel level remaining largely flat. In the Oilholic’s opinion there is room for further connection yet.

The only reason the price has stayed in three figures is down to demand from refineries in India and China, met largely by West African crude. The jury is still out on whether a $100 price floor is forming, something which is not guaranteed. Macroeconomic climate remains a shade dicey and much might depend on how China’s fares.

With the Brent prices falling 5.6% in month over month terms, last week Bloomberg reported that Chinese refiners bought 40 cargoes of West African crude to load in September, equating to about 1.27 million barrels a day. As the Indians bought another 27 cargoes over the biggest monthly drop in prices since April 2013, the total volume purchased lent support to the price or the $100 floor would have almost certainly been breached. Geopolitics is not providing that much of a risk driven bearish impetus, even hedge funds have finally realised that by reducing bullish bets on Brent by 12.5% to just 63,079 contacts in the week beginning August 19, as wiser heads appear to be prevailing of late.

From price of the crude stuff to those trying to make money on it – as some in the UK oil & gas sector have suggested that London-listed exploration and production (E&P) firms might be down the dumps. Investec analyst Brian Gallagher clearly isn’t one of them. In a note to clients, he said the sector should not be feeling sorry for itself. 

“Brent has been above $100 per barrel all year and broadly above $100 per barrel for three years now. Performance of E&P companies generally has just not been up to the mark from an operational and exploration perspective. Unique events have also disrupted narratives. Valuations are however becoming tempting again and we maintain bullish views on Amerisur and Cairn.”

Aside from these two, market valuations are still pricing in exploration barrels, which Investec analysts don’t necessarily disagree with. “Nevertheless, if you want to trade discovered barrels, you’ll have to wait for lower levels in Amerisur, Genel, Ophir and Tullow, in our view,” Gallagher added.

Sticking with corporates, here’s the Oilholic’s latest interview for Forbes with Barbara Spurrier, Finance Director of London’s AIM-listed Frontier Resources on the subject of potential barrels in Oman’s Block 38. Yours truly also recently interviewed Alexis Bédeneau, Head of IT at Primagaz France, a company owned by international conglomerate SHV Group on the crucial subject of cybersecurity and IT process streamlining within the oil & gas sector.

Finally, a Fitch Ratings report titled “European Union has Little Chance of Cutting Reliance on Russian Gas” rather gives away the concluding argument. The agency opines that Europe is unlikely to be able to reduce its reliance on Russian natural gas for at least the next decade and potentially much longer. 

“At best the EU may be able to avoid significantly increasing its gas purchases from Russia. Any attempt to improve energy security by reducing European reliance on Russia would require either a significant reduction in overall gas demand or a big increase in alternative sources of supply, but neither of these appears likely,” Fitch said.

European shale gas remains in its infancy and Fitch believes it will take “at least a decade” for production to reach meaningful volumes. By that point, of course it would probably only offset the decline in production from Europe's conventional gas wells and won’t be a US-style bonanza some are imagining. 

Piped gas imports to Europe from markets other than Russia are also likely to remain limited. Fitch opined that the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline is the only viable non-Russian pipeline under consideration. This could provide 31 billion cubic metres of gas per annum by 2026, but that’s not enough to cover the incremental increase in gas demand the agency expects over the period, let alone replace any supplies from Russia!

Additionally LNG supplies will rise, but the market is unlikely to be large enough to gain market share against Russian gas. A candid and brutal assessment, just the sort this blogger likes, but maybe not the policymakers with camera facing soundbites in Brussels. That’s all for the moment folks! Keep reading, keep it ‘crude’!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2014. Photo: Oil tanker in Bosphorus, Istanbul, Turkey © Gaurav Sharma, March 2014.