Happy Monday crew. This is Both Barrels, your daily dose of all things oil, gas, and energy, without the hot air.

Here’s what hit the wires over the weekend:

• 🤡 California sues IOCs

• ⛽ Tight diesel markets

• 🥴 RFK wants to ban fracking

plus a lot more. Let’s get to it…

📈 The numbers

🗞️ Well-headlines

 🗽 North America

• Revealing his energy ignorance for all to see, US Presidential wannabe RFK has said that he will ban fracking if he comes into office. Take a look at Bottom of the Barrel for some of the consequences of this brainless stance.

• Pipestone Energy’s second largest shareholder, GMT Capital, says it intends to vote against an all-stock merger with Strathcona Resources as the deal undervalues the company.

• The US oil rig count crept up again last week, climbing by 2 to 515. The gas rig count increased by 8 to 121. Both new oil rigs were added in the Permian. Despite high oil prices, the count is still a long way short of its 2014 peak of 1,609.

• The World Petrochemical Conference has kicked off in Calgary. O&G big dogs including Exxon and Aramco’s CEOs will be there to discuss how to decarbonise operations, among other things. “We’ll phase out emissions, not oil and gas”, Alberta Premier Smith told delegates at the opening ceremony.

🏰 Europe

• Norwegian seismic specialists TGS and PGS are merging to create a company with a market cap of ~$2.6bn.

• Equinor is moving forward with the $370m development of its Erin gas field, offshore Norway. The field, which was discovered way back in 1978, is estimated to hold 27.6 mmboe of recoverable reserves with first gas expected in 2025.

• Shell has kicked off drilling at its Jackdaw gasfield in the UK. At peak, Jackdaw is expected to contribute ~6% of the UK’s total gas output. The £500m development is due to start production in 2025.

• Shell, Eni, and Perenco are among companies awarded licences in the UK’s first ever carbon licencing round. The licences for CO2 storage at depleted O&G reservoirs could store up to 10% of UK annual CO2 emissions.

🕌 The Middle East

• If big O&G contracts is your thing, here’s a list of the largest 5 in August in the Middle East. Those are some serious numbers.

⛩️ Asia

• A slow news day over in Asia…

📍Everywhere else

• Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG facilities in Oz are operating at full tilt today despite ongoing strikes and a technical fault last week that knocked of ~20% of supply at Wheatstone. Strikes are due to run until at least the end of the month.

• Libya’s NOC has said that its oil exports haven’t been impacted by the tragic floods last weeks. It had closed the ports ahead of the storm but reopened them by Tuesday. Libya’s oil production currently sits at ~1.2 mmb/d/

• Brazil may start exploring the Equatorial Margin in search for new oil. It’s a 2,200 km stretch of deepwater prospects along Brazil's northern and northeastern coast, but is also a biodiversity hot spot.

🌍 Geopolitics & macro

• The global diesel market is tightening as refiners have struggled to keep up with high demand over the summer. European refineries have been running at lower utilization than usual due to heatwaves, and many have been focusing on other products instead like jet fuel and gasoline.

• A paper submitted to the EU has warned that the block could become as dependent on China for lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells as it has been on Russia for gas. Indeed, the idea that low carbon technologies will bring “energy independence” is a myth. Same old game, new players.

💨 Carbon, Climate & other energy stuff

• Ahead of a UN get-together, climate protests have taken place in 54 countries around the world calling for an end to hydrocarbons. What many of these middle-class muppets don’t seem to get is that in a world without hydrocarbon investment, billions of the world's poorest would quickly perish from starvation, cold, and poverty. Yet they think they hold the moral high ground...

• California is trying to sue several oil majors and the API for allegedly covering up the environmental risks of hydrocarbons. No matter that Governor Newsom and his cadre of bureaucrats are all happy customers of the same companies they are suing.

🛢️Bottom of the barrel

A fracking ban is a really, really bad idea.

In other news, cocaine is expected to overtake oil as Colombia’s largest export, with annual revenues for the white stuff hitting an estimated $18.2bn.

Let’s be honest, it probably never left top stop.

👋 Before you go

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Thanks for reading. Have a top week. 🛢️🛢️