24th July 2024

Good morning ladies and gents. Here’s all you need to know in oil, gas, and energy today:

• 🤡 Why you should have no sympathy for jailed activists

• 🔥 Canadian fires still menacing

• 📈 China gas demand going strong

• 👑 The king’s biofuel Bentleys

• ➕ plus more M&A expected in the US; Shell quits major offshore wind project; Kuwait ramping up production; Netanyahu in the US.

Let’s take a look…

📈 THE NUMBERS

🗞️ WELL-HEADLINES

 🗽 North America

• Canadian wildfires continue to wreak havoc - more evacuations have been carried out but, despite the continued threat, oilsands production remains fairly stable, for now. An estimated 400 kb/d of output could be hit if the flames continue their march.

• US leads continued E&P M&A flurry - Rystad estimates there’s $147bn of upstream assets currently on the market, with $30bn of that in the US. The first 6 months of the year saw $118bn in transactions, compared with $191bn in the final six months of 2023 (which included mega deals like Exxon / Pioneer and Chevron / Hess). Still lots of cash to be splashed.

• Texas LNG and EQT sign tolling agreement - the Texas LNG plant in the Port of Brownsville will liquefy 2 mtpa of gas for EQT for 20 years when operations start in 2028.

• Zachry walks away from Golden Pass debacle - the bankrupt contractor, which previously won a multi-billion EPC contract at the facility, has reached a settlement with owners Exxon and QatarEnergy to step aside and to drop litigation. New contractors will now take over the job.

🏰 Europe

• Race against winter for Jotun FPSO - the vessel is being refurbished for Vaar Energi’s Balder X project offshore Norway but delays have meant that it may miss the summer weather window and have to be deployed next year. The project has also suffered a $3.7 billion cost overrun. Ouch.

• Vaar to fast track new Norwegian development - the company will FID in 2025 the 110 mmboe development of the cluster containing the Cerisa, Ofelia, Kyrre and Gjoa North fields.

• Some Q2 results highlights: Equinor beats profit forecasts and reduces renewable power growth projection; Repsol surpasses expectations and announces new share buybacks

🕌 The Middle East

• Kuwait’s output ambitions - after announcing a major new discovery last week, the country says it plans to increase oil production from current levels of 2.4 mmb/d to 4 mmb/d by 2035. This OPEC member clearly doesn’t think oil is going anywhere fast.

⛩️ Asia & Oceania

• China’s gas demand shows no sign of slowing - despite a stalling economy, the country’s gas demand is expected to grow by 6.5%-7.7% this year, potentially reaching 425 bcm, according to government statistics. China imports about 40% of its gas, mostly as LNG from Australia, US, and Qatar, and piped from Turkmenistan.

🗿 Central & South America

• New Fortress secures new financing - the LNG developer has closed a $700m loan to finance the construction of a second LNG unit at its Fast LNG project in Altamira, Mexico. The first unit started up last week.

🌍 GEOPOLITICS & MACRO

• Netanyahu in the US - this is the Israeli president’s first international trip since the October attacks and he is due to address Congress where he’ll presumably try to justify Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza. He’s also meant to meet Biden (has anyone seen Joe?!).

💨 CARBON, CLIMATE, & OTHER ENERGY STUFF

• King Charles’ biofuels Bentleys - the environmentalist king is retrofitting his two Bentleys to run on biofuels and is installing solar panels on Windsor Castle. On the other hand, the royal family has also just ordered two new helicopters. I wonder what fuel they use…

• Shell quits major offshore wind lease - in the latest evidence of majors rolling back their “renewable” plans, Shell is selling its interest in a JV with Scottish Power that had planned to build two giant offshore wind farms in Scotland with a combined capacity of 5GW. The bad news keeps coming for expensive and unreliable offshore wind.

• Activists shutdown major German airport - all flights from Cologne airport were temporarily suspended after a bunch of unemployed narcissists glued themselves to the runway. Should’ve just kept running the flights as normal.

🛢️ BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Whenever I hear of deranged hippies making everyone else’s lives miserable I like to think of this chart.

While they believe they have moral superiority - some hilariously even compare themselves to the Suffragettes and the Civil Rights Movement - the truth is that what these “environmentalists” call for (no more oil & gas investment) would lead to mass starvation.

The world’s poorest would die first.

They are not pro-climate, they are anti-human. Whether they realize it or not.

And that is why I have zero sympathy for those Just Stop Oil activities who were jailed for several years.

Hydrocarbons are life. A lack of them is death.

👋 BEFORE YOU GO 

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

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