10 July 2015 Bears flit in the woods Something has to give. So says the IEA, which uses its latest monthly Oil Market Report (OMR) to state boldly that the oil market is not out of the woods yet. In fact, the IEA sees the tree line stretching well out into next year.
10 July 2015 What oil price pullback? asks Pioneer On the face of it, the 16pc drop in US crude futures since May couldn’t have been more ill-timed for US independents.
07 July 2015 Oil service firms are cannon fodder in the war on costs There was a certain synchronicity about French service firm Technip’s cost restructuring plans coming out this week – a week that could be a pivotal moment for the oil service industry, containing clues as to how it got in such a bind and where it might go to from here.
03 July 2015 Watch out Qatar! US LNG exports are catching up US LNG export capacity under construction is nearly overtaking operational capacity in leading global exporter Qatar. The US surpassing Qatar would mark a complete turnaround in the global gas market.
02 July 2015 Africa’s benchmark challenge When drivers have to queue for hours to fill their cars amid a crippling fuel shortage in Africa’s largest oil producing nation, it is clear that something has gone wrong.
30 June 2015 You need a beer, an airline and a PSA There are few places in the world more welcoming than a semi-autonomous one. Particularly if there is oil to be found, you show up to find it and then the hosts say, “come on in, sit right down and how much land do you want, exactly?”
30 June 2015 Oil sands growth belies bleak outlook Canada’s oil sands output will grow steadily through 2020 on the back of a series of new start-ups, but the outlook turns sour soon after as operators defer new investments due to low oil prices.
30 June 2015 Decoding China Pt 12 Gasoline refining margins have taken a knock in the past week. But what do falling prices on the Chinese spot market in oil products signal? Not necessarily a great deal about consumption, it turns out. Chinese consumers are driving and spending more than ever before.
24 June 2015 Down and out in Abuja and Port Harcourt Nigeria’s new National Assembly convened this week, and heard a stark message from the country’s new president Muhammadu Buhari: There’s no money left.
23 June 2015 Saudi-Russian deal — more politics than oil An agreement signed by Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali Naimi and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak in St Petersburg last week created the fleeting impression that Saudi Arabia had convinced Russia to co-operate with Opec to defend prices.
18 June 2015 The elephant in the carbon war room The G20 group of countries' undertaking six years ago to phase out fossil fuel subsidies gave a significant boost to efforts to abolish artificial price support for one of the world's most powerful and wealthy industries. Despite the undertaking, subsidies have stubborn
17 June 2015 Bakken is US divestiture hot spot North Dakota’s Bakken region has become a hotspot for US independents looking to sell midstream assets such as pipelines to shore up their balance sheets to fund core drilling programs.
17 June 2015 Crude prices — dancing on the ceiling? Crude is becalmed. Having clawed off its January lows, Ice Brent has been caught at $62.50-70/bl for three months. But the next two weeks pose three challenges to both ends of that range; June could be the most important month for the crude price since December 2008, wh
16 June 2015 Streets not paved with gold "When it becomes serious, you have to lie," said Jean-Claude Juncker about secret meetings held to discuss the eurozone crisis. But the president of the EU could also have been commenting about government spending in Europe on construction projects.
11 June 2015 Demand recovery — case not proven Opec members held their output target at 30mn b/d when they met in Vienna last week. In the face of declared May production in the region of 1.8mn b/d higher than that, the admonishment to members to adhere to the “ceiling”, and the assertion that the 30mn b/d should be
