The United Nations last December set a deadline of Oct. 1 for countries to submit pledges on what they’re prepared to do to rein in fossil-fuel emissions as part of their contribution to a new deal to fight climate change.
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. were among several U.S. oil and natural gas producers that had their outlooks or ratings cut by Standard & Poor’s as the industry suffers from weak crude prices, hurting their cash flow and liquidity. S&P cut ratings for Chesapeake Energy Corp., Denbury Resources and Whiting Petroleum Corp., while giving Exxon and Chevron "negative" outlooks, the ratings agency said Friday in a statement. Exxon “has substantially more debt than during the last cyclical commodity price trough in 2009, while upstream production and costs are at similar levels,” S&P analysts Thomas Watters and Carin Dehne-Kiley said. Oil prices have fallen 58 percent from last year’s peak, threatening $1.5 trillion in North America energy investments, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd. Oil has been stuck near $45 a barrel as U.S. crude stockpiles stay about 100 million barrels above the five-year seasonal average and OPEC pumps at near- record levels.
Saudi Arabia’s net foreign assets dropped to the lowest level in almost three years in August, as the world’s largest crude exporter grappled with oil prices below $50 a barrel. Net foreign assets held by the central bank fell for a seventh month in a row to $654.5 billion, compared with $661 billion in July, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency said in its monthly report.
Lukoil PJSC, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, plans to sign a deal on exploration and production with Iran following changes in the Persian Gulf nation’s tax laws. Vagit Alekperov, Lukoil’s billionaire chief executive officer, said he plans to meet with Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries gathers in Vienna in December.
Oil gained after Russian air strikes in Syria drew condemnation from the US and its allies, increasing tension in the Middle East. Futures in New York advanced as much as 2.2 percent. Russian planes are targeting Islamic State, al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front and other armed groups, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday. US data Friday may show the labor market is improving in the world’s biggest oil user, with 201,000 jobs added last month, according to a Bloomberg survey. “We need to start putting some geopolitical risk premium in the oil price,” Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland, said in a note. “There are many countries active in some way in Syria and it is not yet clear how each will react to the increasing Russian open military action.”
Russian oil output rose to a post-Soviet record last month as producers take advantage of the weak ruble to push ahead with drilling. The nation’s production of crude and condensate advanced to 10.74 million barrels a day, 1 percent more than a year earlier and topping a record set in June, according to data from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit.
Oil’s holding near $45 while the bad news keeps coming. For investor Jim Rogers, that’s usually a sign a rebound’s round the corner. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is still pumping near record amounts of oil, China’s imports have slowed and US crude stockpiles remain about 100 million barrels above the five-year seasonal average. Yet, US benchmark prices have held steady for more than four weeks since plunging to a six- year low at the end of August.
The speed at which oil wells spitting out their final drops of unprofitable crude will be shut may hold the key to an eventual rebound if prices fall further. Crude prices tumbling to $30 a barrel would threaten the profitability of about 206,000 barrels per day of production from older wells that produce minimal amounts of oil, according to a report.
A U.S. judge in Wyoming has blocked new rules that tighten controls over fracking on federal lands, granting a measure of relief to producers who would have faced higher costs at a time when profits already are strangled by low crude prices.
Somewhere amid the maze of wells that Murphy Oil Corp. has scattered across Texas’s sprawling Eagle Ford shale formation, Brett Pennington is carrying out a little experiment.
Oil rose amid signs of stabilisation in China, the world’s second-biggest user, and as US and OPEC production slowed.
Mexico’s flirting with the international oil industry got off on the wrong foot, but they finally have something going.
Norway’s bond market is feeling the squeeze and the country’s regional banks are the main victims.
A Texan investor who helped the Bass family turn a $50mllion oil inheritance into a $5billion fortune has died. Richard Rainwater had been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative brain disease,in 2009. The 71-year-old was known for looking for industries that were out of favour and seeking out partners he could back to form companies to bet on a recovery. The father-of-three passed away in Fort Worth, Texas, on Sunday.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. is letting go of about one in six employees, the latest blow to a workforce that enjoyed boom years under shale wildcatter Aubrey McClendon and shrank since his departure as the natural gas producer grapples with a downturn.
Oil is set for the lowest quarterly average price since the start of 2009 amid signs a glut of supplies is expanding in the world’s biggest consumer and OPEC producers are boosting output.
Norway’s krone strengthened from a 13-year low versus the dollar alongside the currencies of other commodity-producing nations as oil prices rebounded.
The inglorious end to Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s $7 billion search for oil in Alaska means billions of barrels of crude will probably remain locked away in Arctic waters from the U.S. to Russia -- at least as long as prices remain near $50 a barrel. Shell abandoned exploration off Alaska for the “foreseeable future” on Monday after it failed to find meaningful quantities of oil or natural gas. In Russia, sanctions over Ukraine have halted partnerships aimed at exploring offshore in the Arctic, while exploration in Greenland has been on hold since 2012 and activity in Norway is slowing.
Russia’s state-run energy giants Rosneft OJSC and Gazprom PJSC are delaying some offshore drilling by two to three years because of sanctions and weaker oil prices, according to the country’s Ministry of Natural Resources.
Oil giant BP Plc, which was said to be readying defenses for potential takeover offers, has a little- known ace in the hole: a disclaimer in its Macondo spill settlement that could tack $12.6 billion onto the price tag. A potential buyer might be forced to accelerate the payment of as much as two-thirds of the $18.7 billion in penalties the company agreed to pay the U.S. and several states, according to company filings. As it stands, BP has more than 15 years. An option that gives the federal government and some states the ability to demand faster payment in a takeover effectively hands them a veto over any deal. Together with the company’s exposure to Russia amid sanctions and the worst oil crash in decades, it amounts to a powerful deterrent to suitors, said William Arnold, a former banker and executive at Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Saudi Arabia has withdrawn as much as $70 billion from global asset managers as OPEC’s largest oil producer seeks to plug its budget deficit, according to financial services market intelligence company Insight Discovery. "Fund managers we’ve spoken to estimate SAMA has pulled out between $50 billion to $70 billion from global asset managers over the past six months," Nigel Sillitoe, chief executive officer of the Dubai-based firm, said by telephone Monday. "Saudi Arabia is withdrawing funds because it’s trying to cut its widening deficit and it’s financing the war in Yemen," he said, declining to name the fund managers. Saudi Arabia is seeking to halt the erosion of its finances after oil prices halved in the past year. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority’s reserves held in foreign securities have fallen about 10 percent from a peak of $737 billion in August 2014, to $661 billion in July, according to central bank data. The government is accelerating bond sales to help sustain spending.
The global oil glut may soon expand to the ocean.
Russia’s oil industry begins a critical battle over taxes this week. Losing may result in the first decline in crude production at the world’s largest energy exporter since 2008.
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush will unveil a national energy plan next week that is a key part of his pledge to spur 4 percent economic growth. The plan, which Bush will detail at a natural gas company near Pittsburgh, is the latest roll-out from the former Florida governor as he attempts to sell himself to voters as the policy heavyweight in the field and steer clear of the personal battles that have erupted in the nomination race as Donald Trump has risen in the polls. Bush’s team will give a sneak peak of the plan to donors on Monday, a day before the candidate discusses it publicly, according to an invitation obtained by Bloomberg. On Tuesday, Bush talks about the plan during a campaign event at Rice Energy Inc., a company based about 35 miles outside Pittsburgh that acquires, explores and develops natural gas and oil properties in the Appalachian Basin, said Tim Miller, a Bush campaign spokesman.
They long stood in the shadows of state- owned Chinese energy giants, small in size and clustered in an eastern province along the coast. Now, independent refiners are wielding growing clout in the global oil market. Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, the biggest of dozens of privately owned refiners known as “teapots,” illustrates how such processors may be coming into their own after for years depending on state-owned companies for oil. It began importing supply on its own this year after hiring two crude traders in Singapore, according to Shen Fan, a deputy general manager at Pacific Commerce Holdings Pte, its trading unit. China is widening access for teapots as part of its drive to encourage private investment in its energy industry. That may boost imports into the world’s second-biggest oil user, helping counter a glut that’s cut benchmark prices by half in the past year. The small plants account for almost a third of the nation’s processing capacity, and if Shandong Dongming is a guide, may attract cargoes from Latin America to West Africa and Australia.
