Oil giants posturing

Since the collapse of the OPEC+ meetings and in the wake of seismic demand destruction from COVID-19, both Saudi Arabia and Russia have been in a battle of who will blink first with commitments to increase production in the hopes of forcing the other back to the table to recommence production cut discussions. However as of today, there has been no face saving solution for either to MBS or Putin to back down and even Trump's calls to OPEC/Russia...

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Shell acts to reinforce business resilience and financial strength

Shell acts to reinforce business resilience and financial strength 23 March 2020 Press release as follows: As the COVID-19 virus spreads across the world - seriously impacting people’s health, our way of life and global markets - Shell is putting the safety and health of our people and customers first, along with the safe operations of all our businesses. At the same time, we are taking decisive action to reinforce the financial strength and...

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COVID-19 North Sea Recovery by end 2020

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Which hydrocarbon sources are the highest Greenhouse Gas emitters?

The main culprit we are familiar with as a Greenhouse Gas ("GHG") is Carbon Dioxide CO2. However Methane CH4 is a worse polluter with 25 times the potency as a GHG than CO2. Below is a comparison of GHG emissions intensity by hydrocarbon source. This includes CO2 and CH4 emissions. Unsurprisingly, energy intensity processes needed to extract hydrocarbons are high on the emissions list. ...

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Total Makes a New Gas and Condensates Discovery in the North Sea

Total, Operator, and its partners have made an encouraging discovery with the Isabella 30/12d-11 well on the license P1820, located in the Central North Sea offshore UK, about 40 kms south of the Elgin-Franklin field and 170 kms east of Aberdeen. The well was drilled in a water depth of about 80 meters and encountered 64 meters net pay of lean gas and condensate and high-quality light oil, in Upper Jurassic and Triassic sandstone reservoirs....

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Forcing regime change in Venezuela

US attempts to force regime change in Venezuela continues despite the huge humanitarian crisis it is causing. The sanctions on the Maduro government have been absolutely crippling with oil output down from 2.5mmbbl/d down to sub-1mmbbl/d and falling - due to inability to invest to maintain production, striking PDVSA staff with pay uncertainty, inexperienced generals taking over and running over PDVSA as well and shrinking importer base for its crude. On this note, the situation is worsened with the US' latest sanctions of Russian Rosneft which...

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Lest we forget

With coverage of Iranian tensions diminishing and more recently overshadowed by COVID-19, we review the likely direction of travel in light of recent events. On 23rd February 2020, the country held its 11th parliamentary elections with Conservatives securing all 30 parliamentary seats in Tehran and winning control overt most branches of the State. This will continue the Conservatives run in parliament but does set the stage for a more extreme Presedential candidate from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to win in 2021. The country has been drastically...

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