The oil and gas industry has cut $200 billion from investments this year as low prices discourage new projects, leading to cuts in crude supplies equal to half the daily output of Saudi Arabia, according to the kingdom’s Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman.
Apache Corp., the oil and natural gas company worth more than $18 billion, has received an unsolicited takeover approach, according to people familiar with the matter.
Andy Hall and Daniel Yergin think oil prices are bottoming out. Hedge funds agree.
Oil halted its three-day decline near $45 a barrel as Saudi Arabia sees low prices spurring demand growth.
Dubai stocks dropped into a bear market, leading declines across most Middle Eastern equities after a U.S. labor report increased expectations that the Federal Reserve will lift interest rates this year, pushing Brent crude lower.
Oil markets will continue to be oversupplied for as long as five years as producers in the Middle East ramp up output, according to Mohammed Al-Shatti, Kuwait’s representative to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
If President Barack Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL is a sign of things to come, TransCanada Corp.’s main rival might want to take note.
Oil demand will soon reflect the “attractiveness” of the current level of crude prices, and Asia will be a vital engine of economic expansion for decades, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said. OPEC’s chief joined him in seeing Asia as the main hub for growth.
Carbon capture and storage projects need a $60 to $80 price for carbon dioxide to justify building them, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said. That’s more than five times the current price of C$15 ($11.27) a ton in Alberta, Canada, where the oil company began commercial operations for a CCS project Friday.
A former BP Plc engineer pleaded guilty to deleting text messages in what the US said was an attempt to hide spill rate estimates during the biggest offshore oil disaster in US history. Kurt Mix faced as long as 20 years in prison if convicted at trial. Instead, he was sentenced to probation and community service Friday as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Mix was the first of four men charged with crimes tied to the 2010 catastrophe and its aftermath.
Suncor Energy Inc. is stepping up its hostile $3.3 billion bid for Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. by asking Alberta regulators to strike down the target’s new shareholder rights plan aimed at preventing its takeover. The Alberta Securities Commission will hold a hearing on Nov. 26 to consider the so-called poison pill adopted by the Canadian Oil Sands board last month, Suncor said in a statement Friday. The hearing follows Suncor’s application for an order to cease the new rights plan. Canadian Oil Sands vowed to protect its shareholders. The Canadian Oil Sands shareholder plan calls for 120 days to consider bids. Because Suncor’s offer is open for acceptance only until Dec. 4, unless extended or withdrawn by Suncor, it would not be a permitted bid under the new plan, Canadian Oil Sands said last month.
Oil & Natural Gas Corp.’s second-quarter profit fell 11 percent as slumping crude prices eroded revenue at India’s biggest energy explorer. Net income fell to 48.4 billion rupees ($736 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30 from 54.4 billion rupees a year earlier, the state-owned company said in a statement Friday. The average of 25 analyst estimates in a Bloomberg survey was 46.6 billion rupees. Sales gained 1 percent to 205.6 billion rupees.
Faced with the collapse in oil prices, the two dominant North Sea producers are taking opposite approaches to bolster dwindling investment: The U.K. is offering carrots, while Norway is wielding a stick. Britain plans to extend the 1.3 billion pounds ($2 billion) of tax cuts granted to producers in March after more than one in three fields was rendered uneconomic by the slump in crude. In contrast, Norway has shunned incentives and warned companies that scrapping projects could hurt their chances of getting new Arctic licenses. The differing strategies highlight the divide between depleted British waters and the untapped potential and larger reserves on the Norwegian side of the North Sea. Norway can afford to be uncompromising, while the U.K. struggles to extend the life of aging and higher-cost fields.
Oil major BP said it plans to start production from a new natural gas discovery in Egypt in 2018. The company said it also aims to double its production from the country by the end of the decade. The Atoll offshore field will be developed with two initial wells connected to existing infrastructure.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s profit beat analyst estimates after it deepened cost cuts to cope with crude prices near the lowest in six years. It reported adjusted earnings of 10 cents a share, compared with the average 9-cent loss estimated by 16 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The third-quarter net loss was C$111 million ($84.3 million), or 10 cents a share, compared with profit of C$1.04 billion, or 94 cents, a year earlier, the Calgary-based company said in a statement Thursday. “We continue to make significant progress in reducing costs,” Steve Laut, President of Canadian Natural, said in the statement. “At the same time, our average production has increased 11% despite a very significant drop in capital program spending.”
A slump in crude oil prices pushed OMV Petrom SA into a third-quarter loss and risks damaging the largest Romanian oil company’s entire production for this year. The loss amounted to 43 million lei ($10 million), compared with a profit of 1.02 billion lei in the same quarter of last year, the company said in a statement on its website Thursday. The nine-month net income fell 59 percent to 999 million lei from 2.4 billion lei a year earlier, it said. “In the first nine months of 2015, the group’s financial performance was severely affected by the approximate 50 percent drop in oil prices,”’ Chief Executive Officer Mariana Gheorghe said in the statement.
The Keystone XL review suddenly looks like a priority for the Obama administration, and cheap oil may be part of the reason. After dragging its feet for years to dodge one of the most contentious energy issues during President Barack Obama’s time in office, the administration took only a couple of days to deny a TransCanada Corp. request to pause the process while the company sought approval in Nebraska. The collapse of crude prices in the face of the US shale boom has lowered gasoline prices, weakening an argument for the $8-billion project that resonated with American voters. This has paved the way for Obama to focus on one issue that’s very dear to him: climate change.
Even with oil prices possibly past the low point, and production falling from outside of OPEC, there aren’t enough signs to say a full recovery is in the works, Kuwait’s oil minister said. Oil ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries need until next month to decide if the rebound is for real, and if it’s not, any production cuts shouldn’t fall only on OPEC’s shoulders, Ali Al-Omair said in an interview in Riyadh on Wednesday. Brent crude rose 2.5 percent in October, after falling 11 percent the month before, amid signs production is falling in the U.S. As the U.S. wilts, demand for OPEC’s crude will grow in 2015, ending two years of retreat, the International Energy Agency estimates. OPEC meets Dec. 4 in Vienna.
Libya’s oil output dropped below 400,000 barrels a day after the divided country’s internationally recognized government in the east closed a port run by a rival administration in the west, in a push to assert control over more energy assets and exports. Production fell after crude exports halted at the port of Zueitina, Mohamed Elharari, a spokesman for the National Oil Corp.’s management in the western city of Tripoli, said Wednesday by phone. Libya pumped 430,000 barrels a day in October, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Zueitina will be closed until further notice, and tankers seeking to load crude there must now register with a rival NOC management loyal to the internationally recognized government based in eastern Libya, according to a Petroleum Guard spokesman Ali al-Hasy. Vessels registered with the NOC administration in Tripoli, seat of an Islamist-backed government, are “illegitimate” and won’t be permitted to load at Zueitina, he said.
Oil traded near $48 a barrel before US government data forecast to show crude stockpiles increased for a sixth week in the world’s biggest consumer. Futures gained as much as 0.7 percent in New York after advancing 3.8 percent Tuesday. Inventories probably expanded by 2.5 million barrels in the US, keeping supplies more than 100 million barrels higher than the five-year seasonal average, a Bloomberg survey shows before an Energy Information Administration report Wednesday. Crude may never rise to $100 a barrel again, according to Vitol Group, the world’s largest oil independent trader.
In a record downturn for the oil industry, cash is everything to companies and dividends are everything to their investors. One tool is helping Europe’s three biggest producers preserve both, but there’s a long-term price to pay. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and BP Plc will retain $8 billion a year in cash by giving investors the option of receiving payouts in shares instead, according to Jean-Pierre Dmirdjian, an analyst at Liberum Capital Ltd. That’s equivalent to about 8.5 percent of total cash and equivalents currently on their books, making the so-called scrip dividend a vital tool as companies curb spending to ride out the slump in oil prices.
Det Norske Oljeselskap ASA, the oil company controlled by Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Roekke, deepened losses in the third quarter after booking an impairment due to lower crude-price assumptions.
Libya’s Petroleum Facilities Guard halted crude shipments from Zueitina port indefinitely amid the escalating conflict between the divided country’s two rival administrations, putting the OPEC member’s oil exports at risk.
Brazil’s daily oil production has fallen by about 500,000 barrels as oil workers strike for the third day to protest austerity measures by state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA that are resulting in job losses, the country’s main oil union said Tuesday.
U.K. government bonds became the worst performer among sovereign-debt markets over the past month as investors adjusted positions before growth and inflation forecasts due from Bank of England policy makers meeting in London this week.
