Following a discouraging 2017 Arctic exploration campaign, oil companies plan to nearly double exploration drilling offshore Norway with a focus on more mature areas of the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), according to preliminary company drilling plans. Up to 50 exploration wells, including such to delineate previously made discoveries, could be drilled offshore Norway in 2018,… Read more »
Monthly Archives: December 2017
U.S. And China Agree On North Korea Sanctions Enforcement
The United States and China will jointly monitor the implementation of sanctions on North Korea, Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun reported, citing U.S. officials. The monitoring system will seek to make sure China is in fact taking part in the sanctions and that the U.S. and China military commands have direct communication. The two will share… Read more »
U.S. Bank Freezes $22B Assets Of Kazakhstan’s Oil Fund
In a rare move, Bank of New York Mellon has frozen US$22 billion worth of assets held by Kazakhstan’s sovereign oil wealth fund as part of a years-long legal battle between Kazakhstan and Moldovan investors in Kazakh oil and gas assets, a source told Reuters on Thursday. Moldovan businessman Anatolie Stati and his son Gabriel… Read more »
Saudi-U.S. Nuclear Talks To Start In Weeks
Saudi Arabia will initiate talks with the U.S. administration within a few weeks about the participation of U.S. nuclear energy companies in the Kingdom’s first civilian nuclear energy project. That’s what Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said in an interview with Reuters, adding that reaching an agreement with the U.S. will allow U.S. companies to bid… Read more »
The 5 Oil Factors To Watch In 2018
Oil prices are set to close out the year somewhere around 15 percent up, and the oil market looks more stable than it has in years. But what does 2018 have in store? Most analysts believe more of the same – inventory declines, some shale growth, a gradual increase in the oil price and eventually… Read more »
Canadian Oil Prices Plunge To $30
Oil from Canada’s oil sands is now selling at a $27-per-barrel discount relative to WTI, the sharpest difference in more than four years. Western Canada Select (WCS), a benchmark for oil from Alberta’s oil sands, has plunged in December, falling to just $30 per barrel at the end of this past week. WCS typically trades… Read more »
Putin Pleased As Desperate UK Turns To Russian Natural Gas
We said two days ago that it’s been a tough week for anybody who needs to heat their home or put gasoline in their cars in Britain. The litany of negative events and mishaps includes extremely low temperatures, the shutdown of the Forties pipeline due to a hairline crack and an explosion at one of… Read more »
Key Pipeline Closure Amplifies OPEC’s Efforts
OPEC’s continued efforts to draw the global oil glut down to its five-year average are receiving an unexpected shot in the arm by an oil pipeline outage. But this time, it’s not the usual suspects of Libya, Nigeria, or Iraq. It’s a shutdown of a major oil pipeline in the North Sea, which is expected… Read more »
World Bank To Cut Off Oil & Gas Funding
As part of its support to countries to meet their Paris Climate Agreement targets, the World Bank said on Tuesday that it would stop financing upstream oil and gas projects after 2019. The World Bank will only make exceptions to consider possible support for financing upstream gas “in the poorest countries where there is a… Read more »
Brent Pipeline Closure Confuses Oil Markets
The closure of one of the most important pipelines in the oil market sent Brent prices soaring on Monday, with one analyst claiming it was “one of the most significant unplanned crude oil shortages we have seen this year”. Oil prices have since lost those gains, with markets apparently recovering from the original price shock…. Read more »
