19th August 2024

Hello dear reader. Here’s what hit the wires over the weekend in the industry that makes the world go round:

• 🇩🇪 Germany’s self-flagellation

• ✝️ RIP to the Big Dog

• ✂️ Saudi trimming oil spending

• 🌑 Lights out in Lebanon

• ➕ plus troubles at Gulfaks; all eyes on Jackson Hole; rig count slips; DNO’s going shopping; Red Sea detours support oil demand; Eni going big in Indo; Colombia bans coal exports to Israel.

Let’s go…

📈 THE NUMBERS

🗞️ WELL-HEADLINES

 🗽 North America

• RIP to an OG oilman - Autry Stephens, the billionaire founder and chairman of Endeavor Energy, has died at 86 after a battle with cancer. He is credited as one of the pioneers of horizontal drilling in the Permian that ultimately transformed the global energy landscape. And he also loved dogs - big green flag.

• Fatal pipeline explosion in Plaquemines Parish - a worker lost his life when a gas pipeline in a marshy area of Louisiana exploded. The cause of the tragedy is unknown.

• Oil rig count slips by 2 - the fleet is now at 483. Meanwhile, gas rigs rose by one last week to 98.

🏰 Europe

• Problems at Gulfaks C - Equinor has stopped production at the North Sea platform and evacuated some workers after an unspecified well incident. Thankfully it sounds like everything is under control.

• DNO has cash to burn - the Norwegian indy is looking to bulk up in Norway, the UK, and elsewhere. The company has also increased its dividend and is preparing for a new wildcat in the NCS.

🕌 The Middle East

• Saudi trimming oil spending - Goldmans forecasts that Saudi will spend about 73% of its planned $1 trillion in capex between now and 2030 on non-oil sectors, up from an earlier forecast of 66%. The kingdom will keep up the tempo on gas, however, but will need to plug a $25bn funding gap every year for its ambitions projects.

• Red Sea detours adding 500 kb/d to fuel oil demand - vessels avoiding the mayhem of the Red Sea and taking the longer journey around South Africa are significantly increasing fuel oil demand, according to Trafigura. Greenpeace should go and protest outside the Houthi offices.

• Nationwide blackout in Lebanon - even critical infrastructure like airports and ports lost power as the country’s power stations ran out of fuel. The fuel shortage is not a result of the Middle East conflict but rather rampant economic mismanagement in Lebanon.

⛩️ Asia & Oceania

• Eni kickstarts Indo drilling campaign - the Italian IOC has identified 280 bcm of gas resources in its portfolio across Indonesia, which is a major source of growth for the company in the coming years.

• Scarborough legal challenge dropped - the climate-related litigation had threatened to derail Woodside’s $12.5bn gas development in Australia.

🗿 Central & South America

• Hammerhead incoming - Guyana expects the Exxon consortium will submit its development plan for its seventh offshore oil project early next year. Hammerhead is due to begin production in 2029 via another FPSO, at a rate of ~150 kb/d. Boom time in Guyana.

• Oil spill off Venezuela - an oil spill, which looks to have come from Venezuela's El Palito refinery, has spread across 87 square miles and contaminated a bay off the country's north-central coast in the Caribbean Sea. Sort it out Venezuela. It’s this sort of stuff that gives our sector a bad name.

🌍 GEOPOLITICS & MACRO

• Gaza peace deal on the rocks - US Sec of State, Antony Blinken, has arrived in Israel as Israeli PM Netanyahu says chances of a peace deal between Israel and Hamas are “not high”. Qatar, the US, and Egypt are mediating the deal but have so far failed to make much progress after months of on-off negotiations.

• All eyes on Jackson Hole - after a turbulent few weeks in markets where things looked like they were going off a cliff, before recovering entirely, all eyes will be on a Fed meeting this week for hints about possible interest rate rises later this year.

💨 CARBON, CLIMATE, & OTHER ENERGY STUFF

• German demolishes nuclear power station - Germany continued its self flagellation over the weekend by destroying the cooling towers of one of its world class, zero carbon nuclear power stations.

• Miners feeling the pain of sinking iron ore prices - China’s stalling property sector has pushed global iron prices down to their lowest levels in two years, causing problems for some of the world’s largest mining houses like BHP, Rio Tinto, Vale and Fortescue.

• Colombia bans coal exports to Israel - in an attempt to put pressure on Israel over its war in Gaza. Colombia is the biggest supplier of coal to Israel and the sixth-largest seaborne coal exporter in the world. But this will be about as effective as the UK Parliament voting on a Gaza ceasefire.

🛢️ BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

👋 BEFORE YOU GO 

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

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