Morning crew. To wrap things up at the end of another mad week, here’s what hit the wires today:

• 🥊 OPEC hits back at the IEA

• ❄️ Arctic route open for business

• ⚛️ Uranium prices reach decade highs

plus a lot more. Have a top weekend all:

📈 The numbers

WTI has broken through $90/bbl to end a strong week for crude prices.

Meanwhile, uranium prices hit decade highs on a supply crunch of its own.

🗞️ Well-headlines

 🗽 North America

• Freeport LNG has reportedly had to cancel 4 LNG cargoes due to outages this week. Feed gas to the facility is still about 45% lower than usual, having fallen to just 15% of its normal levels earlier in the week.

• US shale drillers are reaching horizontal well lengths of up to 3 miles in search of greater productivity!

• Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is expected to unveil a major energy policy proposal at a speech next week in Texas. Reports suggest that he plans to ramp up domestic O&G production and roll back some of Biden’s green policies.

🏰 Europe

• Russia’s Gazprom has delivered it’s first LNG cargo to China via the Arctic Northern Sea Route. The route, while passing through challenging environments, avoids the Suez Canal and reduces the distance from ~21,000 kms to ~13,000 kms, cutting the journey time from ~1 month to ~2 weeks.

• ConocoPhillips has secured a 15-year 1.5 mtpa LNG regas capacity deal at the Gate Terminal in the Netherlands. Conoco is on a drive to expand its global LNG footprint.

🕌 The Middle East

• Qatargas has re-branded to QatarEnergy LNG to reflect its “continued commitment to LNG as a critical source of energy for decades to come”. The name doesn’t really roll off the tongue but it makes sense for one of the world’s top 3 LNG suppliers.

⛩️ Asia

• China’s refinery throughput rose to a new record of 15.23 mmb/d in August, up 19.6% from a year ago, as the sector attempts to keep up with high domestic gasoline and kerosene demand. Chinese air travel has nearly doubled since last year (when it was hit by Covid curbs), also reaching a new record high last month.

📍Everywhere else

• Early indications are positive at an exploration well test at Total’s giant Venus oilfield, offshore Namibia, in the closely watched Orange basin. The field could hold up to 5 mmboe of recoverable reserves.

• Nigeria’s power grid has suffered a “total system collapse” with power generation falling to zero early yesterday morning before being partially restored. Authorities blamed a fire but Nigeria’s ramshackle grid has failed at least 4 times in the past year, forcing many businesses and households to rely on expensive private generators.

• Shell has given the financial go-ahead for the development of the giant Manatee gasfield offshore Trinidad & Tobago. The 10 tcf field is set to supply the Atlantic LNG facility which is running short on feed gas and operating well below capacity. Note, this isn’t FID.

• Total and Petrobras sign an MoU to develop low-carbon hydrogen and renewable power in Brazil.

🌍 Geopolitics & macro

• OPEC has resoundingly hit back at the IEA’s forecast earlier this week that hydrocarbon demand will peak this decade. OPEC said such thinking is “ideologically driven, rather than fact-based…extremely risky and impractical…dangerous…would lead to energy chaos and dire consequences” and ignores that “fossil fuels continue to make up over 80% of the global energy mix, the same as 30 years ago, or that the energy security they provide is vital.” AMEN. It’s worth reading the whole, brief statement here.

💨 Carbon, Climate & other energy stuff

• China has voiced its concerns about whether the EU’s upcoming Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) will comply with WTO rules. The CBAM is an EU tax on carbon-intense imports like steel and cement. The EU says the CBAM, which is due to kick in in 2026, will comply with WTO as it applies the same carbon price to imports as it does to domestic production. Might China respond with some new tariffs of its own?

• Uranium prices have hit highs not seen since before the 2011 Fukushima disaster. A combination of growing demand for the fuel as nuclear energy increases in popularity, and supply challenges in Nigeria and Canada, have driven the price up by over 100% since early 2021.

🛢️Bottom of the barrel

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