14th April 2025

Hello hello ladies and gents. Trust you had a great weekend. Here’s what went down in the oil & gas world while you were kicking back:

• ✂️ US drillers slash rigs

• 🤑 ADNOC mulling $9bn Aethon buy

• 👍 Iran and US talks “constructive”

• ⛏️ China keeps building coal

• ➕ plus Ecopetrol in trouble; BP & Chevron make GoA find; restarting Keystone; Pakistan’s possible oil riches; a new offer for Wood Group; warm temperatures means scorched weather maps in Europe; and barrels more.

Here goes…

📈 THE NUMBERS

Oil prices creeping back up in the mid $60’s. Keep going…

🗞️ WELL-HEADLINES

 🗽 North America

• ADNOC mulling $9bn Aethon buy - the UAE company is rumoured to be lining up a bid for Aethon's upstream and midstream gas assets in the Haynesville play in East Texas and Louisiana. Aethon is one of the largest privately held U.S. gas producers.

• BP & Chevron make GoA discovery - the deepwater find in the the western Green Canyon area is near to the producing Constellation field. No reserve estimates have been disclosed yet.

• US drillers slash rigs - in a knee-jerk reaction to lower crude prices, US O&G cos cut rigs by 9 last week to 480, the largest weekly decline since June 2023. With WTI prices hovering around $60/bbl, many drillers will be struggling to break-even.

• Refiners in no rush to invest- US refiners are unlikely to make the large investments needed to reconfigure their facilities to process domestically produced light crude according to a Reuters industry survey. Most US refineries were built to process heavy crude like that produced in Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, making them unsuitable to process lighter US shale oil.

• Keystone due online on Tuesday - the major Canada to US pipeline has been out of action since early last week due to a rupture and subsequent oil spill. It will restart at reduced rates.

🏰 Europe

• Sidara makes new offer for Wood Group - the latest bid values the British OFS at ~$320m, less than a year after offering ~$1.25bn. It’s been a bumpy ride for Wood Group shareholders as the company has lost ~85% of its value in 12 months.

• EU agrees to soften gas storage rules - currently EU countries have to have filled up their gas storage by 90% by 1st November to reduce the risk of shortages over winter, but this is being relaxed (to as of yet undefined levels) in an attempt to reduce pressure on gas prices.

🕌 The Middle East

• Energean lands Israeli gas supply contract - the company will supply a total of 12.5 bcm of gas over a 17 year duration, generating ~ $2bn in revenue. The gas is being used by Israeli utility Kesem Energy for a power station.

⛩️ Asia & Oceania

• Pakistan and Turkey eye up giant reservoir - the two countries have agreed to work together to try and develop the supposed huge resources offshore Pakistan. Some surveys have suggested that the waters may be home to the fourth largest oil & gas reservoir on the planet. Good luck to them.

🦁 Africa

• Chilled weekend in these parts

🗿 Central & South America

• Ecopetrol in the spotlight - Colombia’s national oil company is facing accusations of environmental damage, human rights violations, and unreported oil spills, as a whistle-blower has come forward with evidence. A "drill at all costs" mentality has helped support output levels but apparently at a large environmental and social cost.

• Venezuela halts crude cargoes - PDVSA has cancelled several permits that it had given to Chevron to export crude in April, days after the US put tariffs on Venezuelan oil and cancelled various sanctions exemptions. PDVSA said the move was made as it has no guarantee it will get paid due to the tightening US sanctions.

🌍 GEOPOLITICS & MACRO

• “Constructive” first round talks between Iran and the US - the talks were held in, and mediated by Oman, who shuttled messages in English between the two delegations based in separate rooms in Oman’s Foreign Minister’s home. The two teams did meet briefly on the way out, and a second round of talks are due next week. Meanwhile, the US Energy Secretary has said that the US could hit Iran’s oil exports with sanctions as it did during Trump’s first term.

• West considering lowering Russian price cap - the strategy has been fairly ineffective anyway, but has been made even more so by the recent oil price drop. The current price cap is $60/bbl (meaning EU and G7 nations are barred from buying Russian oil above that level), which is more or less where oil prices are today anyway.

💨 CARBON, CLIMATE, & OTHER ENERGY STUFF

• China plans to keep building new coal plants - while the West bankrupts itself trying to get to Net Zero, China’s government has confirmed it will keep building new coal power plants until 2027 (despite a previous commitment to phase down coal). Energy reliability and affordability wins out again…

• 300 SSE jobs at risk - the UK energy company is planning to make large job cuts, with its renewables division to bear the brunt. SSE cited “efficiency” as the reason for the redundancies, although it is no secret that renewables companies are having a hard time these days.

🛢️ BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

For our American friends, 18°C is a sweltering 65°F…Be careful out there everyone.

👋 BEFORE YOU GO

Any feedback, requests, terrible jokes? Please just ping a reply to this email and let rip. We read every word. 

Oh and if you could share us with your pals who might like a drop of us, then we’d be very happy.

Thanks for reading. Have a day out there. 🛢️🛢️

Was this forwarded to you? Both Barrels is a concise and irreverent oil, gas, and energy briefing, delivered to you daily. It’s free to subscribe.