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Ecopetrol SA, Colombia’s biggest oil company, would hand over about $4 billion to the government in exchange for control of another state-sponsored outfit, the electric utility giant known as ISA. The deal, as investors from Bogota to New York see it, has all the markings of a cash-strapped federal government forcing a state-run company to bail it out. View the full article
The Nordic country’s oil and gas industry has been keen for new acreage to offset an expected decline in production toward the middle of the decade. The Barents is estimated to hold more than 60% of the undiscovered resources off Norway, according to the nation’s petroleum directorate. View the full article
The situation could worsen as Big Oil makes another round of deep spending cuts, leaving consequences both for the oil market, which needs more supply from the OPEC cartel in the coming years, and the economic stability of a region that’s dependent on petroleum revenue. View the full article
With the need for more oil supply evident, traders expect the OPEC+ coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, will agree to increase crude production when it meets on March 4, reversing some of the output cuts made last year. But it’s unclear if the group will act vigorously enough. View the full article
Oil fell the most since November with a stronger dollar and concerns surrounding inflation weighing on crude’s best start to the year on record. Yet, the U.S. crude benchmark still managed to post a nearly 18% gain this month as inventories worldwide tighten and pockets of demand return. View the full article
Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation strongly disputed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announcement that it failed with respect to its permit application to conduct seismic studies in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the company said in a statement. View the full article
Last year’s crash in oil prices and China’s rapid rebound from the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic set the stage for a flurry of crude purchases. However, stockpiling has leveled off as oil prices rebounded and storage space runs out. View the full article
Jennifer Granholm was confirmed as Secretary of Energy, putting the former Michigan Governor at the head of agency that will play a key role in implementing President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate agenda. View the full article
In practical terms, the oil sands revision clipped Exxon’s future growth prospects until oil prices rise, costs slide or technological advances make it profitable to drill those fields. View the full article
The project would be the first of its kind in the Mediterranean, Energean CEO Matthaios Rigas said at a conference Wednesday. View the full article
The oil futures curve is continuing to indicate tightness. The market is in a backwardation of almost $6 a barrel for the next 12 months, a structure that indicates scarce supplies. View the full article
Occidental has long held more pipe space than it needs from the Permian, in the hope that its shale business would eventually grow big enough to make use of it. But last year’s oil-price crash, and, more recently, the winter freeze in Texas, caused the company to cut investment and production in an effort to prioritize near-term cash flow for debt reduction. View the full article
The company will sell most of its non-operated upstream assets in the UK central and northern North Sea to NEO Energy, according to a statement Wednesday. NEO is an oil producer backed by Norwegian private equity firm HitecVision AS. View the full article
“I’m still a strong believer that demand is going to come back strong, both on airlines and also driving around the world once we get herd immunity,” Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield said on a conference call Feb. 24. View the full article
Key players in the oil market have been talking up the rising prices in the coming months, with some even floating the prospect of $100 crude in the next year or two as the global economy recovers from the pandemic. View the full article
Without Keystone XL, rail will become a more important way for Canadian oil to reach U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, which need the heavy crude to replace declining supplies from Mexico and Venezuela. And more rail traffic means greater derailment risk. View the full article
Deb Haaland’s assurances during her nomination hearing appeared to provide little comfort to Senate Republicans, who argued that the Democratic lawmaker’s criticism of fracing, support for pipeline protesters and endorsement of the Green New Deal make her unfit for a job that includes overseeing energy development on federal land. View the full article
With the takeover by Chrysaor expected to complete by the end of March, Premier Oil will start trading under its new name, Harbour Energy Plc, on April 1. Putting behind it a multibillion-dollar debt pile, the firm should be well-positioned to ride the recovery in oil demand and boost investor returns. View the full article
The world’s largest oil company is mulling asset disposals as a way of maintaining its $75 billion of annual dividend payments, almost all of which go to the Saudi government. That payout -- the biggest of any listed company in the world -- became harder to sustain after the coronavirus pandemic caused crude prices to plunge last year. View the full article
Oil has surged this year after Saudi Arabia pledged to unilaterally cut 1 million barrels a day in February and March, with Goldman Sachs Group predicting the crude rally will accelerate as demand outpaces global supply. View the full article
After four years of bruising trade battles with Donald Trump, the Biden administration already has canceled a permit for TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline and threatened new “Buy American” provisions for government procurement contracts. View the full article
Hayal Ahmadzada, Socar’s chief trading officer, said the glut of excess oil stocks that built up in 2020 in response to the pandemic will be fully drawn down by the summer. At the same time, soaring prices for steel used in pipes, wells and fittings as well as the high cost of capital for producers will crimp a meaningful supply response by an already hobbled industry even as demand returns. View the full article
A robust recovery in demand from the Covid-19 pandemic had pushed prices to the highest settlement in more than a year last Wednesday, and Goldman sees the rally accelerating as consumption outpaces supply from OPEC and shale. View the full article
Proponents of expanded renewable forms of energy (and opponents of fossil fuel energy, including petroleum) have taken this catastrophe as an opportunity to demonize natural gas, suggesting that falling natural gas supplies were the primary source of the loss of power supply. View the full article
The market is likely underestimating the impact from an unprecedented polar blast that hit the central U.S. last week, while some 40 million barrels of February oil output, largely from the Permian basin, will not be produced due to the recent Texas freeze. View the full article
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About this blog
I started this blog to express what I sense about the highs and lows of the oil realm, while cautiously analysing historical data, taking into account the geo-political development at the time of recording them.
I got into this field, having been a passive observer of fluctuations of crude oil prices and their global consequences for years.
Then, when on the day of Great Oil Crash in April, 2020, I made a decision to make my own blog, with the motto, ‘analysing data that really matters’.
Having come from an academic background in mathematics and physics, I analyse data using my own tools, created with JavaScript and Python, taking my decision on board while making decisions.
