Showing posts with label Oil and gas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oil and gas. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Media missives from ADIPEC 2023

With ADIPEC 2023 drawing to a close last week, the Oilholic capped a fascinating and engaging week with a rounding off piece for Forbes on the criticality of scaling up technology - and, of course, backing it up with petrodollars and willpower, if a meaningful energy transition is to be achieved. To this end, this blogger had great conversations with ABB, AiQ, AspenTech, AVEVA and Avaada Group. (More here)

Yours truly also hit the airwaves to discuss the various soundbites coming out of the conference and various developments in Abu Dhabi, all in the midst of a very volatile crude oil market riddled with demand concerns, supply-side tightening and geopolitical complications. The final broadcasting call before departing was with Asharq Bloomberg News, with this blogger's week out in Abu Dhabi peppered with plenty of other missives via the keyboard for Forbes, the Motley Fool, and of course via this blog. 

All blog entries for each ADIPEC day may be found here

Some commentary on Shell's share price direction via the Motley Fool may be found here. And here are selected Forbes copies in chronological order based on soundbites and insight from ADIPEC 2023. 

  • Emirati COP28 President Calls For A "Just, Orderly, Equitable And Responsible" Energy Transition, October 2, 2023.
  • India "Will Manage" And Won't Panic If Oil Rises Above $100, Says Energy Minister, October 3, 2023.
  • Abu Dhabi To Unveil World’s Fourth Largest Solar Farm "Very Soon", October 4, 2023.
  • Oil Futures Slump Further On Uncertain Global Demand Outlook, October 5, 2023.
  • Abu Dhabi In First Wind Farm Launch As 2GW Solar Project Nears Completion, October 8, 2023.
  • 4 Middle East Geopolitical Scenarios That May Hike Oil Market Risk Premiums, October 9, 2023.
  • Scaling Technology And Willpower Critical For 'Fast-Tracking' Global Energy Transition, October 10, 2023.
And that's a wrap. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'!

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Rigzone click here.
To email: journalist_gsharma@yahoo.co.uk  

© Gaurav Sharma 2023. Photo: Gaurav Sharma on Asharq Bloomberg TV on October 4, 2023 © Asharq Bloomberg 2023.

Tuesday, July 04, 2023

Back on a road (err...flight path) well travelled!

It's nearly time for BA706 - a very familiar British Airways flight number as far as the Oilholic's travels go. For after a gap of over three years in earnest, the Oilholic is back on a 'crude' road (err...flight path) well travelled and heading to the 8th International OPEC Seminar in Vienna, Austria. The core subject for deliberations is "Towards a sustainable & inclusive energy transition" and yours truly is looking forward to a fascinating few days of international dialogues. 

One must say, waiting for a flight to the Austrian capital once again for an OPEC gathering after gap years spent in the "in-house" corporate world brings a renewed sense of excitement and anticipation, eagerness to reconnect with old friends in energy analysis community and make new friends. 

Prevalent energy market conditions are miles apart from where we were in a pre-Covid world in March 2020 (scene of the last crime....err...visit). And who can forget the negative WTI oil price that followed in April 2020. Furthermore, energy transition is high on the agenda in a changed (hopefully pragmatic) world. So cheers to it all. 

To warm up, and prior to embarking on this journey, yours truly has fired a few missives via Forbes. Based on the Oilholic's reading of the current market situation and macroeconomic climate, oil prices remain rangebound and stuck in $70s for Brent (More here). 

And here are yours truly's thoughts on Shell's dividend hike and return to 'crude' basics. If sustainable investment trusts, learning more about Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions and OPEC's June meeting are topics of interest, you can find your way there via the Oilholic's Forbes profile (details below). But that's all for now, and for the moment folks. Am BACK! So keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here
To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here
To follow The Oilholic on Rigzone click here

© Gaurav Sharma 2023. Photo © Gaurav Sharma, July 4, 2023.

Wednesday, March 04, 2020

Crude arrival in Vienna in the age of Coronavirus

The Oilholic has arrived in Vienna for the 178th 'Extraordinary' meeting of OPEC Ministers, only to be told that analysts and journalists will not be allowed into the Secretariat to mitigate chances of the spread of the coronavirus.

It seems the conference and its goings-on would be 'live streamed', and all of us would be moved to the confines of a meeting room at the Palais Hansen Kempinski with no media briefings and contact with oil ministers. Still old friends and diehards have turned for some outdoor coffee and cookies outside OPEC HQ.
 And here's the agenda for the next few days:
That's all for the moment folks! More from Vienna soon; but in the interim, keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.
To email: gaurav.sharma@oilholicssynonymous.com

© Gaurav Sharma 2020. 

Friday, December 06, 2019

OPEC+ announces deeper cuts of 500kbpd

It's official - OPEC+ has decided to "deepen its cuts" by ~500,000 barrels per day (bpd), thereby upping its output reduction from 1.2 million bpd, 1.7 million bpd.

And if the new chief OPEC powerbroker Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is to be believed, and every participant well...err....participates, the market could well be looking at a real terms cut of 2.1 million bpd. 

That is wishful thinking and will be severely tested as the Saudis say OPEC+ compliance would be keen monitored. To this effect, OPEC will have an extraordinary meeting of ministers in March 2020, on top of its regular meeting in June. 

For its part Saudi Arabia will up its cuts "voluntarily" to 400,000 bpd (+167,000 bpd) bringing its headline production down to 9.744 million bpd. Errant Iraq has promised to cut 50,000 bpd. Nigeria, Libya and Iraq remain exempt, but Nigerian Minister Timipre Marlin Sylva said his country would be cutting production "voluntarily."

There seems to be no shortage of volunteers. Here are two other key quotes:
  • "Signal we want market to take is that we are collectively showing readiness to rebalance the market, prevent heavy inventory buildup in Q1 2020," - Abdulaziz bin Salman.
  • "Russia wants to avoid any oil market turbulence in 2020. We are not concerned with US shale, seeing signs of shale slowdown," - Russian Oil Minister Alexander Novak. 

Finally, the Saudi Minister sounded pretty peeved about getting a "battering from the media" about the Saudi Aramco IPO, adding that the company's valuation would hit $2 trillion very soon. And that's that; more composed thoughts upon the Oilholic's return to London, but that's all for the moment from OPEC folks! Keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

© Gaurav Sharma 2019. Photo: Saudi Oil Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman speaks at the conclusion of the OPEC+ meeting in Vienna, Austria © Gaurav Sharma December 6, 2019.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Why drone attacks on Saudi Aramco haven’t sparked sustained oil price spike

The Oilholic returned from researching enhanced oil recovery in rural Pennsylvania on Friday (September 13), only to wake up to a tumultuous weekend, and week, for the oil market in that order. For in the small hours of Saturday morning, multiple drone and alleged missile attacks, claimed by Houthi rebels, hit Saudi Aramco’s crude processing facilities in Abqaiq and the Khurais oilfield. 

The attack took out 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of Saudi production capacity. Going by the last Platts survey, the Kingdom pumped 9.77 million bpd in August, implying the attack created a 58% drop in production at the very least when measured against last month's production levels.

The situation remains unpredictable, and as yours truly told the BBC – were it not for US production serving as a buffer, current oil pricing scenario and modelling would be very different.

The Americans remain the world's largest oil producer pumping in excess of 12 million bpd, and the country’s production could rise to 13.4 million bpd at some point in 2020. That is what has largely kept the market sane. Predictably, Brent futures shot up 20% to $71 per barrel at the Asian open on Monday but the uptick did not last. As the week’s trading came to a close on Friday (September 20), a look at benchmark prices - ironing out the week’s volatility - says it all. Brent closed at $64.28 per barrel, up $4.06 or 6.84% while the WTI closed at $58.09 per barrel, up $3.24 or 5.9% on the week.

The said movement is hardly the stuff of bullish dreams; even if the week belonged to the longs, short-sellers did not take as big a hammering as some feared. And consumers need not be overly concerned for now at least. As the Oilholic said on ITN/Channel 5 News, the physical crude market’s response and its domino effect on fuel prices depend not on the here and now, but on where from here? Lot depends on the Saudi and US response to the attack that both parties near instantaneously blamed on Iran which backs the Houthi rebels.

If the Saudis, in concert with the Americans, hit sites in Iran, then that could lead to a wider conflict in the Persian Gulf and some very real turmoil associated with it; not just knee-jerk price reactions of the sort we saw in the immediate aftermath of the revolt.

It is here that the market could see a sustained geopolitical risk driven uptick in oil prices for $10 to $15 per barrel. Plausibly, you will see prices at the pump rising given that retailers pass an oil price rise near instantaneously but are pretty slow in cutting them in the event of a price drop. And of course governments who in many cases take two-thirds of the price we pay per litre at the pump, might have some serious thinking to do as well.

For now an eerie calm prevails, with the market soaking in verbal salvos between Riyadh, Washington and Tehran. Logical conclusion is that an attack of this magnitude cannot go unanswered or Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the power hungry favourite son of Saudi King Salman, would look weak. Finally, here are the Oilholic’s thoughts in detail on Forbes summing up the turbulent trading week. That’s all for the moment folks! Keep reading, keep it 'crude'! 

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

© Gaurav Sharma 2019. Photo 1: Gaurav Sharma on BBC News at Six on September 15, 2019 © BBC, Photo 2: Gaurav Sharma on 5 News on September 16, 2019 © ITN

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Thoughts From Baker McKenzie’s Oil & Gas Institute 2018

Earlier today, the Oilholic was delighted to attend the Baker McKenzie 2018 Oil & Gas Institute; an event that grows bigger by the year, and has become a true 'crude' fixture in Houston.

From Big Oil getting to grips with Big Data to capital raisings in mature jurisdictions, emerging market legal considerations to mergers and acquisitions - there was plenty on the agenda to for everyone. Of course lurking in the background to it all is the direction of the oil price and US President Donald Trump's re-imposition of sanctions on Iran, the Israeli-Iranian tussle in Syria, OPEC and all the rest. It's pushed Brent crude above $77 per barrel and WTI above $71. 

While every US shale player would gladly accept the current prices; quite like the Oilholic, few at the Institute felt the elevated prices would last. Given there are several variables in the equation - including, but not limited to, what OPEC would do next month, what sort of levels US producers are likely to record, how many Iranian barrels are likely to be knocked off the market, etc. - getting carried away by the bulls would not be a good idea. 

To quote, Jim O'Brien, Chair of Baker McKenzie's Global Energy, Mining & Infrastructure Practice Group and one of the architects of the Institute, the US oil patch is "feeling good" about itself at the moment, but at the same time there is a fair degree of realism that a return to $100 prices is unlikely.

In fact, one of the key takeaways from the Institute was how oil and gas players, both large and small, were aiming to achieve breakeven at prices as low as $30. 

Underpinning that drive would be digitisation across the board enabled by big data, AI, automation and robotics coming together to bring about the kind of process efficiencies capable of making a tangible difference to the operating expenditure of oil and gas companies. Touching on this very subject was a keynote speech by Paulo Ruiz Sternadt, boss of Siemens-owned Dresser-Rand. (Full Forbes report here)

Representatives of Baker McKenzie, BP, Accenture, Shell and many others also touched on the topic. LNG, employment diversity and private equity in the business were other subjects under discussion, as was the topic of investing in Mexico (Forbes post here) and the latest developments in Saudi Arabia. All in all, another interesting afternoon of deliberations. But that's all for the moment from Houston folks. Keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Google+ click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

© Gaurav Sharma 2018. Photo: Delegates at the Baker McKenzie 2018 Oil & Gas Institute in Houston, Texas, USA © Gaurav Sharma 10 May, 2018.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Two summits, one 'crude' venue

Holy mackerel! Was there an almighty crush, or was there an almighty crush getting into Helferstorferstrasse 17 this morning. 

So many scribes and analysts, or in the case of yours truly, those who wear both hats, trying to get in before the whole jamboree began. 

Not bad for a place struggling to get this crude world's attention, according to some, to attract so many people. Of course, it’s not a regular occurrence that non-OPEC Russia’s Energy Minister and the Saudi Energy Minister hold a joint press conference after an OPEC ministers’ meeting ends; that's exactly what is on the agenda today. In the morning we’ll have the OPEC ministers’ meeting and then in the afternoon, we will have the OPEC and non-OPEC ministers’ meeting.

So here's to more than 150 of us all trying to get that elusive crude exclusive, including, if the Oilholic may add, quite a few Russian journalists here to cover the 2nd OPEC and non-OPEC ministers meeting after the 172nd OPEC meeting ends. 

And if you were in any doubt whether or not, its a done deal here, Saudi Oil Minister Khalid Al-Falih has said Opec's plan was to "stay steady" and go through the next nine months of oil production cuts. (Here's the full report). 

"The drawdown of inventories has clearly begun. OPEC and non-OPEC producers will work to bring inventories down to 5-year averages," Al-Falih added, saying he looks forward to working with non-OPEC colleagues.

That's all from Vienna, for the moment folks! More shortly! Keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Google+ click here.
To follow The Oilholic on IBTimes UK click here.
To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

© Gaurav Sharma 2017. Photo: Media Scrums at OPEC Secretariat, Vienna, Austria © Gaurav Sharma 2017.