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"Biden Targets Another US Pipeline For Shutdown After 'Begging' Saudis For More Oil" - Zero Hedge Monday Nov 8th

Tom Nolan in Oil (General)

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-And-Russia-Discuss-Oil-Market-Collaboration-In-Rare-Talk.html

U.S. And Russia Discuss Oil Market Collaboration In Rare Talk

By Irina Slav - Nov 11, 2021, 9:00 AM CST

  • Senior energy ministry officials from Russia and the United States discussed oil markets on the sidelines of COP26
  • Face-to-face meetings between Russian and U.S. government officials are a rarity
  • The meeting between Sorokin and Turk suggests that the Biden administration is actively looking for ways to boost oil supply

Senior energy ministry officials from Russia and the United States discussed the stabilization of oil markets on the sidelines of the COP26 conference in Glasgow.

According to a statement issued by the Russian Energy Ministry, deputy minister Pavel Sorokin and his U.S. counterpart David Turk talked about bilateral cooperation regarding international energy markets and multilateral action within the G20 group to stabilize global oil markets.

As news agency TASS noted in a report, face-to-face meetings between Russian and U.S. government officials are a rarity because of tense bilateral relations resulting from U.S. sanctions. In energy, such meetings are even rarer as much of the sanctions are targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry.

In this context, the meeting between Sorokin and Turk suggests that the Biden administration is actively looking for ways to boost oil supply after direct pleas and demands to OPEC+ failed to yield anything productive.

Russia produces over 10.8 million bpd of crude oil as of October. This makes it the second-largest producer after the United States, which, according to the latest EIA weekly petroleum status report, pumped 11.5 million bpd in the first week of November.

Russia is also a major exporter to the United States: in August, it became the second-largest oil exporter to the country, after Canada. According to a Bloomberg report at the time, the increase came on the back of stronger fuel demand, which prompted refiners to look for gasoline-rich feedstocks, of which Russia produces ample quantities.

The meeting could also be seen as the next logical step after U.S. officials discussed oil markets with Saudi Arabia, probably to convince the decision-makers in Riyadh to boost production.

The Biden administration has signaled repeatedly that it was trying to find a way to push prices lower without going into much detail about the tools it was considering using, only mentioning that they are using all that is available.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Hedge-Funds-Take-Profits-But-Believe-Oil-Prices-Will-Continue-To-Rise.html

Hedge Funds Take Profits But Believe Oil Prices Will Continue To Rise

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 10, 2021, 6:00 PM CST

  • Hedge funds have been liquidating their long positions in order to take profits from the recent oil price rally
  • The liquidation of long positions was driven by a desire to take profits ahead of the Fed policy announcement and OPEC+ meeting
  • Overall, hedge funds remain bullish on oil prices in the short term

Portfolio managers are still betting on higher oil prices in the short term, despite liquidating some of their long positions to take profits from the price rally in recent weeks.   Hedge funds reduced their net long position—the difference between bullish and bearish bets—in Brent Crude and WTI Crude for a fourth week running in the week to November 2. The decline in the net long, however, was mostly driven by a liquidation of longs rather than an opening of short positions as money managers sought to take profit before the Fed policy announcement and the OPEC+ group’s decision on oil supply. 

Overall, in the week to November 2—the latest reporting week in the Commitment of Traders (COT) report—hedge funds continued to believe that oil prices could go higher. 

Portfolio managers’ positioning in the most actively-traded petroleum futures and options contracts still points to a prevalent bullish sentiment in the market, which is also reflected in the latest forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the latest outlooks on oil demand by major investment banks and oil companies.  

In the week to November 2, hedge funds sold the equivalent of 45 million barrels in the six most important petroleum-related contracts, according to estimates by Reuters market analyst John Kemp based on the latest COT report. 

Related: The Oil Price Rally Is Far From Over But the sales were overwhelmingly driven by liquidation of longs, not new shorts, suggesting that portfolio managers took a breather and took profits after the October rally in oil prices. 

“In energy the net selling of WTI and Brent extended to a fourth week with the combined net long being reduced by 27k lots to a two-month low at 573k lots. Brent longs were already being reduced before the price on October 26 fell short by 4 cents in touching the 2018 high, and since then long liquidation has picked up,” Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank, said on Monday, commenting on the COT report. 

“With all fuel products also being hit by profit-taking the total 50k lots reduction was the biggest sector reduction since August,” Hansen added. 

While profit-taking dominated the oil market in the days preceding the Fed policy announcement and the OPEC+ meeting on November 3 and 4, respectively, the positioning data still points to generally bullish market sentiment. 

The world’s largest investment banks echo this bullish stance, with many predicting oil could reach $90, $100, or even $120 a barrel over the next six months, on the back of a rebound in air travel, gas to oil switching amid high natural gas prices, and a full comeback of Asian demand.

Related: Oil Rally Reverses On Signs Of Cooling Demand

Global oil demand has already topped 100 million barrels per day (bpd) last seen before the pandemic, supermajor BP said earlier this month.

“We are at or about 2019 levels now,” Russell Hardy, CEO at the world’s biggest independent oil trader, Vitol, told the online Reuters Commodities Trading Conference this week, as carried by Bloomberg. 

Demand is set to continue rising into next year, Hardy added. 

“Crude oil prices have risen over the past year as result of steady draws on global oil inventories, which averaged 1.9 million barrels per day (b/d) during the first three quarters of 2021,” the EIA said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) published on Tuesday.  

The EIA expects Brent Crude prices will remain near current levels for the rest of 2021, averaging $82 a barrel in the fourth quarter. Next year, Brent is set to average $72 per barrel amid higher production from OPEC+, U.S. shale, and other non-OPEC+ countries that will outpace slowing growth in global oil consumption. 

“We forecast global stock builds starting in the spring of 2022, which likely will reduce some of the tightness in the market that may be contributing to high front-month prices,” the EIA noted.

The OPEC+ group and its leader Saudi Arabia continue to justify the decision to keep the market tight with an expected stock build within just a few months. But the current tightness in supply makes hedge funds and investment banks bullish on oil in the short term.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Gregory1972    + 30

GT

19 hours ago, Boat said:

Tom lies, but he’s just part of the deep state. Everybody knows the US imports and exports far above their consumption. The US has gas and oil by the wazoo. The US is net FF independent from the rest of the world. So yea, reversing a policy that allows exports would instantly drop consumers price for fuel in the US. We receive millions of barrels of oil per day from the Canadians that we don’t need. The EIA has the complete list by country including the Saudi, Russia, Venezuela, Iraq etc. Kinda like the election, Capital riots and Texas killer policy energy. The far right is full of it.

Tom, you're part of the Deep State.. damn!  I was trying to join them when I worked for the DOE.  I think I'll try again..  Can I use you for a reference?  And what's their benefits package like?

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Rosneft-Sees-Possible-Supercycle-In-Oil-And-Gas-Markets.html

Rosneft Sees Possible Supercycle In Oil And Gas Markets

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 12, 2021, 9:00 AM CST

  • Rosneft CEO: ''We may witness a new super cycle on the oil and gas markets''
  • The rebound in global demand for oil and gas and the gap between supply and demand could lead to structurally higher crude prices

Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin said that the rebound in global demand for oil and gas and the gap between supply and demand could lead to a new supercycle for oil and gas

The rebound in global demand for oil and gas and the gap between supply and demand could lead to a new supercycle for oil and gas, Rosneft’s chief executive Igor Sechin said on Friday.

“Despite the uncertainty in the global economy due to the difficult epidemiological situation, we observe a rapid growth in demand for traditional energy resources,” Sechin said in a statement, commenting on Rosneft’s Q3 earnings and the outlook for the future.

“As structural discrepancies between supply and demand on global energy markets are further revealed, we may witness a new super cycle on the oil and gas markets. Under these conditions, the Company holds responsible to the consumers of our energy products and increases investments into the new projects,” the top executive of Russia’s largest oil producer said.

Rosneft’s CEO became the latest oil industry official to say that already high oil and gas prices could rise even further.

At the end of last month, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said that crude oil production capacity was dwindling globally, and more investments in new production are needed urgently.

Earlier this week, Nasser said that the world would see its level of spare oil production capacity dwindle next year as jet fuel demand returns to pre- or near-pre-crisis levels.

“Expanding capacity in our industry takes around 5-7 years, and there is not enough investment in the world to increase capacity, this is a huge concern,” Nasser said at the Nikkei Global Management Forum, as carried by Reuters.

Global annual upstream spending needs to increase by as much as 54 percent to $542 billion if the oil market is to avert the next supply shortage shock, Moody’s said last month.

“Our analysis demonstrates that upstream companies will need to increase their spending considerably for the medium term to fully replace reserves and avoid declines in future production,” Moody’s Vice President Sajjad Alam said.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Energy-Industry-Strikes-Back-At-Democrats-Oil-Export-Ban-Proposal.html

Energy Industry Strikes Back At Democrats' Oil Export Ban Proposal

By Irina Slav - Nov 12, 2021, 10:00 AM CST

Energy industry insiders have slammed a proposal by a group of Democratic Senators to ban U.S. oil exports in a bid to rein in retail fuel prices.

"That proposal does absolutely nothing to alleviate higher prices or to make prices lower than in any sort of relative sense," petroleum economist Karr Ingham from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and creator of the Texas Petroleum Index told Fox News.

"The economics of that are pretty clear. And if the suggestion on the part of the administration is that in implementing a ban on U.S. crude oil exports makes US domestic crude oil prices lower and therefore, for example, U.S. gasoline prices lower, that's pure folly, that is not the effect," Ingham added.

A group of Senators led by Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Jack Reed wrote a letter to President Biden urging him to "consider all tools available at your disposal to lower US gasoline prices. This includes a release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and a ban on crude oil exports."

The senators also blamed OPEC+ for the state of U.S. retail fuel prices, which have reached the highest on record in California.

"As the United States work[s] to boost the development of clean and renewable energy over the long-term, we must ensure that Americans are able to afford to fill up their cars at the pump in the meantime," the Democratic senators wrote in the letter.

"Implementing a crude oil export ban does absolutely nothing," TAEP's Ingham said. "And it probably makes prices higher, not lower."

"The key to this is allowing U.S. oil and gas producers to do what they do best to simply get out of their way. Let them go to work," Ingham told Fox News. "Remove as much uncertainty as can be removed from the legislative, regulatory, and economic environment and let them get back to the business of growing U.S. domestic crude oil production energy production as rapidly as they can."

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Crude-Oil-Is-Back-And-It-Isnt-Going-Anywhere.html

WATCH VIDEO

Crude Oil Is Back, And It Isn’t Going Anywhere

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 11, 2021, 7:00 PM CST

Pressured by investors and society, the global oil industry is looking for ways to stay in the game by meeting the world's growing demand for energy, including crude, with the lowest carbon emissions possible.  

Such a feat by an industry so entrenched into our existence could surely secure its position even in a green future. Have they recovered enough from the pandemic to take on this monumental challenge?

Oil Demand Is Back 

A year and a half after the 2020 COVID crisis began, analysts, forecasters, industry executives, and investment banks have been forced to acknowledge that the pandemic did not, in fact, sound the death knell for global oil demand. 

Consumption has roared back to pre-crisis levels—or is at worst merely weeks away from reaching them. It has become evident for all observers—even reluctant ones, including the harsh critics of the 'keep it in the ground' camp—that the world will not move away entirely from oil—at least not for decades to come.  

According to supermajor BP, global oil demand has already topped 100 million barrels per day (bpd) last seen before the pandemic.

"We are at or about 2019 levels now," Russell Hardy, CEO at the world's biggest independent oil trader, Vitol, told the online Reuters Commodities Trading Conference this week, as carried by Bloomberg. 

And crude oil demand is set to continue rising into next year, Hardy added. 

Earlier this week, Saudi Aramco's CEO Amin Nasser said that the world would see its level of spare oil production capacity dwindle next year as jet fuel demand returns to pre- or near-pre-crisis levels. Little spare capacity amid continued underinvestment in oil and gas should be "a huge concern" for the market going forward, Nasser said, echoing the sentiment of many executives in the industry. 

Even Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), highlighted this week in a video call with a senior Japanese official "the need for additional investment to meet future demand, explaining that the demand for oil and natural gas will not drastically decrease even through our path towards transition to renewable energy," per the statement from the Japanese foreign ministry. 

Industry Looks To Cut Emissions, But Oil Will Be Needed For Decades

Although it has been demonized by activists in recent years, it will be the oil industry that will meet the world's demand for energy for years and decades to come. Fossil fuels still account for 80 percent of total global energy consumption, while hundreds of millions of people in developing countries still do not have access to any energy source at all.

Some supermajors, such as Shell, have said their own oil production has already peaked. All international oil companies are boosting investments in reducing their emissions and are using the cash from profitable oil and gas projects to invest more in lower-carbon energy sources. 

It's not easy to be a supermajor these days—investors, activist shareholders, and environmentalists want accountability and lower emissions, but the world still runs on fossil fuels and will continue to need oil and gas for decades, whenever peak oil demand occurs. 

Shell, for example, operates in an environment of "significant hostility and demonization of our sector," and "I realize it finds its way also in the asset manager world and it finds its way in the asset owner world," CEO Ben van Beurden said on the Q3 call last month, commenting on shareholder activism. 

"But let's also be very clear, the world still needs oil and gas…And I think, therefore, it is not only legal, it is legitimate and necessary that oil and gas products are being provided and they better be provided by companies that, first of all, know how to do it, have a very responsible attitude to doing so and indeed have a strategy to use some of that cash, not just to fund shareholder distributions, but also to transition the company to a better, a cleaner, a lower carbon slate," van Beurden added.  

ExxonMobil, for its part, is investing $15 billion in a lower-carbon future, as the U.S. supermajor is "taking a leading role in providing the products that enable modern life, reducing carbon emissions and developing needed technologies to advance a lower-carbon emissions future," CEO Darren Woods wrote in a post this week. 

Not All Crude Is Equal

The industry is looking at cutting emissions from operations, and many companies have pledged to achieve net-zero emissions from their operated assets at some point over the next 30 years. 

Yet, not all oil projects have the same carbon footprint, so operators have different pathways in their efforts to cut emissions. 

Some of the differences are striking, according to crude carbon intensity calculations recently launched by S&P Global Platts. 

According to the estimates of 14 major oilfields globally, Johan Sverdrup in Norway has the lowest upstream carbon intensity of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent, followed by another project offshore Norway—Ekofisk. 

Johan Sverdrup's operator Equinor says that a barrel of oil produced at the giant field in the North Sea emitted 0.17 kilograms of CO2 in the first year. That's almost 100 times lower CO2 emissions than the global average of 18 kg CO2 per barrel, mainly due to the use of hydroelectric power from shore, the Norwegian major says.  

The Cold Lake oil sands field in Canada has the highest carbon intensity of the 14 oilfields, followed by Kirkuk in Iraq, according to S&P Global Platts. The Bakken in North Dakota has the third-largest carbon intensity of the fields in the analysis. 

The major U.S. shale fields, the Permian and the Eagle Ford, as well as Saudi Arabia's giant Ghawar oilfield, have carbon intensity around the global average, per S&P Global Platts estimates. 

Companies that can meet the anticipated and ongoing need for crude oil with lower emissions could have more staying power than those producing oil and gas with higher emissions. 

But lower emissions or not, oil demand isn't going anywhere just yet, and the world will need oil and gas companies to fulfill that demand.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Options-Traders-Are-Betting-On-300-Oil.html

Options Traders Are Betting On $300 Oil

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 12, 2021, 1:00 PM CST

  • Options traders traded the equivalent of 5 million barrels of Brent at $250 and $300 call options
  • The resurgent activity with bets on $100 or $200 oil shows that more traders are getting into the energy market amid the global energy crunch

Adventurous options traders placed bets this week on oil prices hitting $250 and even $300 per barrel, betting for the first time this year that oil could exceed $250, ICE Futures Europe data cited by Bloomberg showed.

On Thursday, options traders traded the equivalent of 5 million barrels of Brent at $250 and $300 call options.

Call options give traders the right—but not the obligation—to buy assets at a certain price, the so-called strike price, by a certain date. 

The amounts of call options at triple-digit strikes have soared in recent weeks, suggesting that more speculative traders are attracted by potential quick profits from options trades, which are relatively low-cost ways to speculate on the direction of an asset.

While $250 per barrel bets are the first call options traded this year, some traders have already bet on $200 and $215 oil in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg data.

Last month, exchange trade data showed that as oil prices hit multi-year highs, some speculative traders were betting on the options market that oil could exceed $100 a barrel by the end of this year and even reach a record $200 per barrel by the end of 2022. 

The resurgent activity with bets on $100 or $200 oil shows that more traders are getting into the energy market amid the global energy crunch, and more of those speculators are bullish on oil prices.

$100 a barrel oil is no longer an outrageous bet, as it was at the start of this year, and even some investment banks believe that crude prices could hit the triple digits as soon as in the middle of next year.

Most recently, Bank of America said that Brent Crude prices could rise to as much as $120 per barrel in the first half of 2022 due to the global gas crisis, booming air travel with international flights returning, and a comeback of Asian demand.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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RichieRich216    + 454

RK

This has now gotten to the point where it is absurd…

Washington D.C. bubble of idiotic tone-deaf fools are going against any kind of normalcy in any industry. They pushed this infrastructure bill as urgent yet brain dead Biden has yet to sign it into law!

These WOKE Corporations and hedge funds are adding to the problem of buying into not providing financial investment to energy companies by the threat of Board of Directors replacement. Black Rock is the most egressive of them. 

Black Rock should be broken up, and other companies that have too much say within the being a private sector.

This should include Facebook, Google, and Twitter! 

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

TN

17 hours ago, RichieRich216 said:

This has now gotten to the point where it is absurd…

Washington D.C. bubble of idiotic tone-deaf fools are going against any kind of normalcy in any industry. They pushed this infrastructure bill as urgent yet brain dead Biden has yet to sign it into law!

These WOKE Corporations and hedge funds are adding to the problem of buying into not providing financial investment to energy companies by the threat of Board of Directors replacement. Black Rock is the most egressive of them. 

Black Rock should be broken up, and other companies that have too much say within the being a private sector.

This should include Facebook, Google, and Twitter! 

The companies you mentioned literally own the world.  The elite families behind them...most are hidden in Vanguard which "owns" Blackrock.

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

TN

19 hours ago, Tom Nolan said:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Options-Traders-Are-Betting-On-300-Oil.html

Options Traders Are Betting On $300 Oil

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 12, 2021, 1:00 PM CST

  • Options traders traded the equivalent of 5 million barrels of Brent at $250 and $300 call options
  • The resurgent activity with bets on $100 or $200 oil shows that more traders are getting into the energy market amid the global energy crunch

Adventurous options traders placed bets this week on oil prices hitting $250 and even $300 per barrel, betting for the first time this year that oil could exceed $250, ICE Futures Europe data cited by Bloomberg showed.

On Thursday, options traders traded the equivalent of 5 million barrels of Brent at $250 and $300 call options.

Call options give traders the right—but not the obligation—to buy assets at a certain price, the so-called strike price, by a certain date. 

The amounts of call options at triple-digit strikes have soared in recent weeks, suggesting that more speculative traders are attracted by potential quick profits from options trades, which are relatively low-cost ways to speculate on the direction of an asset.

While $250 per barrel bets are the first call options traded this year, some traders have already bet on $200 and $215 oil in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg data.

Last month, exchange trade data showed that as oil prices hit multi-year highs, some speculative traders were betting on the options market that oil could exceed $100 a barrel by the end of this year and even reach a record $200 per barrel by the end of 2022. 

The resurgent activity with bets on $100 or $200 oil shows that more traders are getting into the energy market amid the global energy crunch, and more of those speculators are bullish on oil prices.

$100 a barrel oil is no longer an outrageous bet, as it was at the start of this year, and even some investment banks believe that crude prices could hit the triple digits as soon as in the middle of next year.

Most recently, Bank of America said that Brent Crude prices could rise to as much as $120 per barrel in the first half of 2022 due to the global gas crisis, booming air travel with international flights returning, and a comeback of Asian demand.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/300-oil-frankly-it-could-go-much-higher

$300 Oil? "Frankly, It Could Go Much Higher"

Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Friday, Nov 12, 2021 - 11:49 AM

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

This is Part 1 of an exclusive interview with Doomberg, the collective that runs the Doomberg Substack. During this interview series, we discuss oil, Bitcoin, the coming Fed chair swap, fiscal policy, politics, uranium and more.

Doomberg publishes skeptical analyses through the hard money/Austrian lens and its objective is to be funny without being silly, to teach without being self-indulgent, and to provoke without being polarizing. They publish 10-12 pieces a month, which you can read for free here....

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Bidens-Baffling-Oil-Policy-Faces-Backlash-From-All-Sides.html

Biden’s Baffling Oil Policy Faces Backlash From All Sides

By Irina Slav - Nov 14, 2021, 6:00 PM CST

  • President Biden is in a tight spot when it comes to energy 
  • The White House continues to face critique from both environmentalists and the oil and gas industry
  • If energy demand continues to grow at the current pace, switching from pragmatism to an all-out renewables agenda will be a huge challenge

President Joe Biden and his administration hardly planned for everything that happened this year. In fairness, no administration could have planned for it: soaring oil and gas demand, tight supply, rising prices fueling inflation that has quickly gone from nothing to worry about to the biggest worry for many.

Yet that's not the worst of it for the Biden administration. The president came into office with the pledge to set the United States on a course towards a lower-carbon energy future. This would have been a challenging task even under the best of circumstances, the U.S. being one of the biggest polluters in the world. With the energy crunch, the task becomes almost impossible.

It is no wonder, then, that when Biden started calling on OPEC to boost crude oil production, nervous about rising gas prices at American filling stations, he instantly attracted accusations of hypocrisy. After all, he was pushing an energy transition agenda, he was clearly not in favor of boosting domestic oil production, and one of the first executive orders he signed was the one that killed the Keystone XL pipeline. 

The White House's climate envoy, John Kerry, got asked about Biden's energy policy at the COP26 summit in Glasgow last week. How could the president urge OPEC to pump more oil while campaigning for the phase-out of fossil fuels, the media asked Kerry.

"He's asking them to boost production in the immediate moment," Kerry said in response, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. "And as the transition cuts in, there won't be that need as you deploy the solar panels, as you deploy the transmission lines, as you build out the grid."

Kerry's statement is in line with Biden's own defense of his latest moves in the energy area.

"On the surface, it seems like an irony," Biden said earlier this month, referring to his call on OPEC+ to add more oil production while heading for COP26 to discuss the reduction of global emissions. "But the truth of the matter is ... everyone knows that idea that we're going to be able to move to renewable energy overnight ... it's just not rational."

Recognizing that the renewable energy transition will not—cannot—happen overnight is a commendable demonstration of pragmatism. It is also a recognition of the fact that people need energy right now, and they must get it from any available source. That the sources at this moment are mostly fossil fuels is an unfortunate fact of life that we simply have to accept and continue working to reduce the demand for these fossil fuels.

This seems to be the line the Biden administration is following, and even its critics would likely agree that it is a pragmatic one. The thing is, however, that pragmatism and hypocrisy are not mutually exclusive. Biden's energy policy has already sparked protests from climate activists, calling for an end to U.S. fossil fuel exports and a ban on fracking. Interestingly enough, a group of congressmen also recently called on the White House to ban oil exports but for a different reason: the legislators argued a ban on exports would ensure a more adequate supply for the domestic market.

Related: Metals Will Be The Oil Of The Future

President Biden is in a tight spot when it comes to energy. When he took office, the plan was to steer the U.S. towards a lower-carbon future using the Democrats' majority in Congress. In reality, the majority is so flimsy that passing any climate-related legislation has been a challenge that has involved a lot of compromises. And then came the energy crunch, which nobody expected. Suddenly, the U.S. needed more of all fossil fuels.

It is an ironic twist that the first year of Biden's presidency is also the first year in which coal consumption in the country is set for a rise since 2014. And it will be a substantial rise: the Energy Information Administration has forecast the U.S. will consume 20 percent more coal than last year.

Yet using coal to generate electricity more affordably is a pragmatic move even if it leads to a rise in U.S. emissions. The rise, the administration would probably argue, will be a temporary problem, and once the crunch is over, we'll go back to our low-carbon agenda.

Yet this is where the bigger problem flashes a fin. The current energy crunch is not only a result of supply shortages. It is also a result of rising energy demand. U.S. producers appear to be unwilling to ramp up production of crude oil to levels that would lower prices at the pump. Gas producers are having a field day exporting a record amount of their product to Asia, where buyers are looking for a bargain—and U.S. gas is a bargain. 

If demand continues to grow at the current pace, switching from pragmatism to energy transition will continue to be a challenge. Over the short term, the challenge will be especially tough: inflation is driving up the prices of renewables, too, and threatening a lot of planned capacity addition projects with cancellation because of surging material and component costs.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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2 minute OILPRICE.COM Video - Nov 12th Friday  https://youtu.be/bbAhHgeo4PE

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OPEC Cuts More Off 2021 Global Oil Demand Forecast

#opec #bidenOopec #oilprices #oildemand As the White House continues to prod OPEC for more oil production to alleviate high prices, OPEC’s latest MOMR shows a downward forecast for oil demand for the fourth quarter.

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/BP-Oil-Gas-Will-Be-Needed-For-Decades.html

BP: Oil & Gas Will Be Needed For Decades

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 15, 2021, 3:00 PM CST

  • BP CEO Looney: Oil and gas will have a role to play in the energy system for decades to come
  • Any scenario, even the International Energy Agency’s Net-Zero by 2050 scenario, predicts that there will still be demand for oil in 2050

Oil and gas will have a role to play in the energy system for decades to come, BP’s chief executive Bernard Looney said on Monday, adding that the industry should try to produce hydrocarbons with the lowest emissions possible.

Any scenario, even the International Energy Agency’s Net-Zero by 2050 scenario, predicts that there will still be demand for oil in 2050, Looney told CNBC on the sidelines of the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu Dhabi.

According to the IEA’s Net-Zero by 2050 scenario, in a world on track to achieve net-zero emissions within three decades, global oil demand would drop by 75 percent to 24 million barrels per day (bpd), from around 90 million bpd in the pandemic year 2020 and around 100 million bpd in the pre-pandemic 2019.

“So any objective person that looks at this from an objective standpoint is going to say hydrocarbons have a role to play,” Looney told CNBC.

As the world will not be moving away entirely from oil and gas, the question becomes “what do you do about that”, BP’s top executive noted.

“What you do about that is try to produce those hydrocarbons in the best way possible,” Looney said. 

“It may not be popular to say that oil and gas is going to be in the energy system for decades to come but that is the reality,” he told CNBC.

BP, like most European majors, is now pitching itself as an integrated energy company looking to transform into a broader energy firm from an international oil major.

BP has said it would cut its oil and gas production by 40 percent by 2030 through active portfolio management and no exploration in new countries. Shell said earlier this year that its oil production peaked in 2019, while Italy’s Eni sees its oil production peaking in 2025.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Oman-OPEC-Not-Worried-About-Potential-US-SPR-Release.html

Oman: OPEC+ Not Worried About Potential U.S. SPR Release

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 15, 2021, 1:30 PM CST

The OPEC+ group is not concerned about a possible release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), according to Oman's Energy Minister Mohammed Al-Rumhi cited by FXStreet.

U.S. President Joe Biden is considering a possible release from the strategic American crude stockpiles as a way to bring down high gasoline prices. No decision has been made yet amid debates within the Administration, but calls for a release from the SPR have become louder in recent days.

As of Friday, the Biden Administration was not decided whether the U.S. should act now to try to reduce the highest gasoline prices in America in seven years or to wait for the market to run its course. Some officials at the U.S. Department of Energy are reportedly against an SPR release, while some White House aides part of the talks favor a release and even the "nuclear option" of a crude oil export ban, sources with knowledge of the ongoing debates told Bloomberg on Friday.

On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the Biden Administration to tap the strategic reserve.

"We're here today because we need immediate relief at the gas pump and the place to look is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," Democrat Schumer said at a news conference in New York, as carried by Reuters.

The U.S. Administration and the Democrats are increasingly concerned about the impact of the highest gasoline prices in seven years on American households and their purchasing power.

As of November 15, the national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $3.415, according to AAA estimates.

Analysts say that a release from the SPR would only have a short-term effect on supply in the U.S. and no major effect on the global market.

Yet, talk of a potential SPR release and the growing pressure on President Biden to address high gasoline prices weighed on international crude oil prices early on Monday, with both benchmarks down by 1.3 percent and WTI Crude trading below $80 at $79.73.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/OPEC-Raised-Oil-Production-By-More-Than-400000bpd-In-October.html

OPEC+ Raised Oil Production By More Than 400,000bpd In October

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 16, 2021, 9:00 AM CST

  • The OPEC+ group raised its October oil output by 490,000 barrels per day in October
  • Saudi Arabia’s oil production rose to 9.8 million bpd in October
  • Russia pumped 9.91 million bpd in October
  • Secondary sources: the cartel has been undershooting its collective production quota

Led by production increases in Saudi Arabia and Russia, the OPEC+ group raised its October oil output by 490,000 barrels per day (bpd), TASS news agency quoted the International Energy Agency as saying in its monthly report on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia’s oil production rose to 9.8 million bpd in October from 9.68 million bpd in September, with the Kingdom still complying with its quota. Russia pumped 9.91 million bpd in October, up from 9.82 million bpd in September, with a compliance rate of 92 percent, TASS notes.

The compliance of the OPEC+ group was at 116 percent last month, with OPEC complying 124 percent and the non-OPEC countries part of the deal complying 103 percent.

The high over-compliance of the ten OPEC members bound by the pact is due to a large extent to the inability of several OPEC producers to pump to their quotas.

OPEC’s crude oil production rose by 217,000 bpd to 27.453 million bpd in October, but still fell short of the cartel’s share of the 400,000-bpd total output hike of the OPEC+ group, according to the secondary sources in OPEC’s monthly report published last week.

Under the OPEC+ deal, the ten OPEC members bound by the OPEC+ pact should be raising their combined production by 254,000 bpd each month.

Yet, estimates from secondary sources in OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) continued to show what analysts, tanker-tracking firms, and previous OPEC monthly reports showed: the cartel has been undershooting its collective production quota—mostly because of a lack of capacity at some members to pump crude to their respective quotas.

While OPEC’s top producer and the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, pumped nearly in perfect alignment to its quota and raised crude production by 110,000 bpd, several African members not only fell short of their quotas, but they also saw their respective output drop in October compared to September. Nigeria, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea saw their output decline last month. The steepest drop was in Nigeria, whose production fell by 45,000 bpd to 1.354 million bpd, per OPEC’s secondary sources. Nigeria’s output was more than 200,000 bpd below its cap of 1.6 million bpd. 

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/crude-oil

WTI crude futures traded around $81 a barrel at the end of Tuesday’s session, as demand concerns were offset by prospects of tight inventories, while worries over raising coronavirus cases in Europe mounted. The International Energy Agency said in its monthly report the oil market rally may ease off as high prices could provide a strong incentive to boost production, particularly in the US. Last week, OPEC cut its world oil demand outlook for the fourth quarter by 330,000 barrels per day from the previous month’s forecast, as higher energy prices dampened demand return. Also, some governments in Europe are re-imposing lockdowns due to a surge in Covid-19 infections, while China is battling the spread of its biggest outbreak caused by the Delta variant. .

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Tom Nolan    + 2,441

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https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/banning-us-crude-exports-would-likely-raise-gasoline-prices-not-lower-them-ihs-markit

Dear Joe, Banning US Crude Exports Would Likely Raise Gasoline Prices... Not Lower Them; IHS Markit

Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Nov 16, 2021 - 12:26 PM

While The White House keep telling us it has lots of "tools" (to deal with near record high gasoline prices), it appears in reality their options are limited.

A month ago we detailed Goldman's warning that releasing oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) "could perversely prove inflationary instead."

Confirming what Goldman suggested, Stephen Nalley, the head of the EIA, told a Senate Hearing today that an SPR release would bring the price of a barrel of oil down only around $2....

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footeab@yahoo.com    + 2,129

footeab@yahoo.com

On 11/12/2021 at 3:56 PM, Tom Nolan said:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Options-Traders-Are-Betting-On-300-Oil.html

Options Traders Are Betting On $300 Oil

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Nov 12, 2021, 1:00 PM CST

  • Options traders traded the equivalent of 5 million barrels of Brent at $250 and $300 call options
  • The resurgent activity with bets on $100 or $200 oil shows that more traders are getting into the energy market amid the global energy crunch

Adventurous options traders placed bets this week on oil prices hitting $250 and even $300 per barrel, betting for the first time this year that oil could exceed $250, ICE Futures Europe data cited by Bloomberg showed.

On Thursday, options traders traded the equivalent of 5 million barrels of Brent at $250 and $300 call options.

Call options give traders the right—but not the obligation—to buy assets at a certain price, the so-called strike price, by a certain date. 

The amounts of call options at triple-digit strikes have soared in recent weeks, suggesting that more speculative traders are attracted by potential quick profits from options trades, which are relatively low-cost ways to speculate on the direction of an asset.

While $250 per barrel bets are the first call options traded this year, some traders have already bet on $200 and $215 oil in recent weeks, according to Bloomberg data.

Last month, exchange trade data showed that as oil prices hit multi-year highs, some speculative traders were betting on the options market that oil could exceed $100 a barrel by the end of this year and even reach a record $200 per barrel by the end of 2022. 

The resurgent activity with bets on $100 or $200 oil shows that more traders are getting into the energy market amid the global energy crunch, and more of those speculators are bullish on oil prices.

$100 a barrel oil is no longer an outrageous bet, as it was at the start of this year, and even some investment banks believe that crude prices could hit the triple digits as soon as in the middle of next year.

Most recently, Bank of America said that Brent Crude prices could rise to as much as $120 per barrel in the first half of 2022 due to the global gas crisis, booming air travel with international flights returning, and a comeback of Asian demand.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

Far as I am concerned, options trading should be banned outright for everything.  It is not only gambling, but it also destroys businesses who get caught up in it even though THEY are not gambling.

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