25th July 2024

Morning all. Here’s your daily dose of all things oil, gas, and energy, without the hot air:

• 🤔 US E&P’s colluding with OPEC?!

• 🚢 Tanker capsizes off Philippines

• ✌️ Ukraine ready for peace talks

• ✒️ Maggie Thatcher on climate change

• ➕ plus Eni gets Nigeria sale approval; crude stocks still falling; Chinese solar is struggling under glut; getting richer from wind farms.

Here goes…

📈 THE NUMBERS

🗞️ WELL-HEADLINES

 🗽 North America

• US E&Ps colluding with OPEC?! - that’s what some US lawmakers seem to think. A bill - which has no chance of passing - has been introduced that would punish any US oil producers that are found colluding with OPEC to raise oil prices. OPEC can barely control oil prices and remain disciplined themselves, the idea that a large group of public US E&Ps could do so to materially impact oil prices is fanciful.

• Cenovus shuts units at Toledo refinery - its not clear how much of the 160 kb/d capacity is offline at the Ohio refinery or why Cenovus implemented the shutdown.

• Crude and gasoline stocks fall - crude inventories were down last week by 3.7 mmbbls (vs expectations of a 1.6 mmbbls draw), while gasoline stocks fell by 5.6 mmbbls (vs expectations of 0.4 mmbbls decline).

🏰 Europe

• Conoco expands its European LNG footprint - it has secured 0.75 mtpa of regas capacity at the Zeebrugge LNG terminal in Belgium for 18 years.

• OMV crossing its fingers at Haydn - the company is set to drill an exploration well at the offshore Norway gas prospect. The well is very close to where OMV drilled a duster last year at the Velocette prospect.

• Some Q2 earnings highlights: Total profits fall on lower refined product and gas sales; Centrica’s earnings decline on lower energy prices.

⛩️ Asia & Oceania

• Fuel tanker capsizes off Philippines - the vessel is carrying 1.4 million litres of fuel and went down in heavy rains caused in by Typhoon Gaemi. Responders are racing to save the crew and prevent a serious oil spill.

• Petronas secures land for major CCS project - the CCS hub in Malaysia is expected to have its first CO2 injection by 2029, and is intended to be used by Petronas and other industries across Asia Pacific to decarbonise.

🦁 Africa

• Eni achieves final sale approval for Oando sale - paving the way to complete the ~$500m sale of its onshore Nigeria subsidiary that was agreed nearly a year ago.

🗿 Central & South America

• BP bags licence for Venezuela / T&T development - Venezuela’s President Maduro signed the approval himself for BP to develop the giant Cocuina-Manakin gas field which straddles Venezuela’s and Trinidad & Tobago’s maritime borders.

🌍 GEOPOLITICS & MACRO

• Ukraine say’s it’s ready for peace talks - after a day of "very deep and concentrated" talks in China, Ukraine’s top diplomat said the country was ready to engage in talks with Russia. Hopes are that “neutral” China can mediate an agreement between the warring sides. The problem is that Ukraine says it will only negotiate on the condition of “full respect for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity” - i.e. it gets all the land back that Russia is currently occupying. I don’t see that happening…

• Stocks take a beating - US markets suffered their worst day since 2022 yesterday, with the S&P500 falling by 2.3%. Tech and AI stocks were hit particularly hard as Q2 earnings disappointed. After some crazy growth this year in certain tech stocks, a little correction comes as no surprise.

💨 CARBON, CLIMATE, & OTHER ENERGY STUFF

• China’s solar industry sounds the alarm - an industry group has said that the sector needs to consolidate to counter huge overcapacity. Too many companies producing too many panels have created a price war and a race to the bottom, pushing many solar manufactures into losses.

• The king is getting rich from offshore wind - profit’s from the UK Royal Family’s estate more than doubled to a record £1.1bn last year, driven by profits from offshore wind farms. So the king is making hundreds of millions from subsidized offshore wind farms that are paid for by the tax payer. Seems fair…Honestly, much of the renewables sector is taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Pure graft.

• Total acquires stake in OranjeWind offshore wind farm - the company said it will use the power from the under-development project in the Netherlands to power its European electrolyzer projects for making hydrogen. Total currently uses hydrogen in some of its refineries in Europe.

• GE Vernova to inspect every wind blade - after one of its blades disintegrated at an offshore windfarm in the US, causing shards of fiberglass to wash up on Nantucket’s beaches.

🛢️ BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

👋 BEFORE YOU GO 

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Thanks for reading. Have a day out there. 🛢️🛢️

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