Midstream merger mania just getting started

The 60pc collapse in crude prices has kicked-off what’s expected to be a busy period in energy mergers and acquisitions.

19 2月 2015

Kazakh travails

Think Kazakhstan and you may well think Kashagan — delay following delay, the bathos of the start up and immediate shutdown, the eye-watering pipeline replacement costs, and a breakeven price of $100/bl in a $50/bl environment. All very sad for the shareholders of Eni,

18 2月 2015

Ugandan irony

The offer for sale of the 40,000 bl of crude produced in Uganda during appraisal well testing represents a landmark for the nascent crude-producing nation. The country has been the coming thing in African oil for longer than it might care to recall, so having something

17 2月 2015

Budgetary battles

It’s the time of year when US lawmakers summon federal regulators to Capitol Hill to defend their annual budget requests, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is not immune.

17 2月 2015

Libya through the looking glass

‘Oil gains on Libya violence’ has become a familiar headline since 2011, so it’s becoming hard to discern who is still taken by surprise by reports of field closures, protests blocking terminals, skirmishes and bombings.

16 2月 2015

Weakened resistance

A flu epidemic first picks off the weak, the impoverished and others pre-disposed to infection. An oil price collapse does pretty much the same.

13 2月 2015

Bad luck for Goodluck

If it’s a difficult time to be in the oil business anywhere, it’s plain miserable to be in Nigeria.

11 2月 2015

Swings and roundabouts

IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven’s presentation of the Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR) yesterday was almost racy, by the yardstick of IEA events anyway.

09 2月 2015

Staying the course

The official data provided — or not — to the Opec secretariat by member countries each month are always gnomic. Never mind the veracity — or lack thereof — what are the messages being sent to fellow members and the wider market?

09 2月 2015

Tempest in a Teapot

US history buffs will recall that the Teapot Dome oilfield in Wyoming was the center of an infamous bribery scheme in the early 1920s that shook then-president Warren Harding’s administration.

06 2月 2015

It isn't easy being green

BP and Shell just can’t catch a break. While earnings are being squeezed by falling crude prices, it’s also open season on the companies’ public standing. Oddly enough, both look better placed to tackle the former than the latter, despite the huge reshaping of the indus

06 2月 2015

Fill ‘er up

As storage levels at the US pricing and delivery hub of Cushing, Oklahoma continue to swell, the immortal words of Yogi Berra come to mind.

04 2月 2015

Union cause, union effect

The first nationwide strike of US refinery workers since 1980 is in its early days since beginning in the wee hours of 1 February. That’s when negotiators with the United Steelworkers (USW) union gave the word that they had been unable to reach an agreement with lead re

04 2月 2015

Collateral damage

Lower oil prices are deemed to be good for the wider global economy, even if economists argue about how many $/bl less on fuel costs equates to one percentage point of GDP growth. Yet the casualty list of those wounded by tumbling values is populated not just by oil com

04 2月 2015

Morale and debt

When Helge Lund stepped down as the chief executive of Norway’s state-controlled oil company Statoil last October to assume the same role at UK energy firm BG Group from March this year, Brent crude traded at about $85/bl.

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