8th January 2025

Alright, alright, alright. It’s 2025 and damn it’s good to be back.

I hope your festive hangovers have faded and you’re all ready for another year in the wild, wonderful world of hydrocarbons.

Without further ado, here’s what hit the wires today in all things oil, gas, and energy:

• 🇺🇸 Gulf of America

• 🤝 Alaska LNG’s big breakthrough

• 🪦 Tanker graveyard

• 🤡 Net-Zero Banking Alliance bust

• ➕ plus P66 splashes $2.2bn; Troll hits new highs; Murphy’s Vietnam success; UK’s Pyrrhic victory; Repsol returns to Libya; Cairn ramping up in India; Total shuts Gryphon; and barrels more.

Let’s go…

📈 THE NUMBERS

2025 has got off to a strong start with crude reaching ~mid $70s and Henry Hub popping to $3.6/mmBtu. Long may it last!

But spare a thought for European gas consumers and their wallets…

🗞️ WELL-HEADLINES

 🗽 North America

• P66 in $2.2bn Permian purchase - the US oil refiner has acquired various pipelines and distribution systems from EPIC NGL. “This transaction optimizes our Permian NGL value chain…and is expected to deliver attractive returns ” said CEO Mark Lashier.

• Alaska LNG mega project finds developer - a unnamed firm will “privately lead and fund the development” of the $44bn 20 mtpa Alaska LNG project, which will include an 807-mile pipeline from the North Slope to the LNG export facility in Nikiski.

• Alberta and Enbridge join forces - the regional government signed an agreement with infrastructure major Enbridge to boost the Canadian province’s pipeline capacity, focusing on reducing red tape for pipeline construction.

• Flowco looking for 2 bil - the US oil services provider is hoping it will be valued at $2bn in its imminent IPO.

• $850m for US O&G methane reduction - the US DoE grants for 43 projects will help small oil and gas operators reduce, monitor, measure, and quantify methane emissions.

🏰 Europe

• Troll hits new highs - Norway’s stalwart gas field, which first came onstream back in 1996 and provides 11% of the EU’s total gas needs, reached a new record high production in 2024 of 42.5 bcm thanks to various upgrades. As is often the case in this industry, big keeps getting bigger.

• Trump takes a swing at the UK - if anyone was in any doubt about what the incoming US President thinks of UK energy policy, have a look at his post below. UK O&G production has fallen from 4.4 mmboe/d in 2000 to just ~1.3 mmboe/d today…

• Galp CEO resigns - Filipe Silva has suddenly left the role after a little over a year as CEO. The reason has not been disclosed but rumors have been flying that Mr Silva was having a not-so-secret affair with one of his employees.

• Triton back on stream - after a two month technical outage, production at the FPSO in the UK has restarted. Serica said its production in H2 2024, as a result of the outage, “was clearly disappointing”.

• Total shuts down Gryphon - the IOC has ceased operations at the UK North Sea gas hub. Nobel Upstream, which owns stakes in fields tied back to the hub, lamented the decision saying that planned wells in the area will now never be drilled.

• AkerBP and PXGEO partner on seismic - the pair are aiming to “deploy an innovative seismic acquisition technology” across the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

🕌 The Middle East

• All quiet over here today.

⛩️ Asia & Oceania

• Murphy hits pay in Vietnam - the US indy has discovered an unspecified quantity of oil with its Hai Su Vang-1X exploration well in the offshore Cuu Long basin.

• Cairn ramping up in India - the country’s largest private E&P is investing $4bn in the coming years to increase production to ~300 kboe/d from ~120 kboe/d today.

🦁 Africa

• South Sudan back onstream - the financially beleaguered country is set to resume oil production from key fields after neighboring Sudan lifted force majeure on exports through a critical pipeline.

• Libya’s back - after shutting down operations in 2014 due to the civil war, Repsol has restarted exploratory drilling in the north African producer.

🗿 Central & South America

• Contractors lining up for $2bn Buzios bid - 5 companies are said to be in the race to supply Petrobras with a rigid riser-based subsea configuration for the major Buzios-11 pre-salt project in Brazil.

🌍 GEOPOLITICS & MACRO

• The Gulf of America - Trump has said he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico, and reiterated plans to buy Greenland and the Panama Canal. He also said he’d revoke Biden’s recent offshore drilling ban “on day one”. Trump’s going to provide so much content for this newsletter in the coming years and I couldn’t be more delighted.

• Laters Trudeau - Canada’s horribly unpopular and anti-oil & gas PM Justin Trudeau has resigned. Trudeau has in the past called for a “phase out” of oil sands and said there is “no business case for LNG”. He also recently introduced the much maligned O&G emissions cap.

• John Hess optimistic about oil markets - the Hess CEO said he sees the oil market as balanced this year, rather than oversupplied, despite concerns about Chinese demand and non-OPEC supply growth.

💨 CARBON, CLIMATE, & OTHER ENERGY STUFF

• The collapse of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance - JPMorgan has become the latest major bank to quit the finance climate coalition, following a raft of exits by other global banks. The UN-brokered alliance’s stated objective is “aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.” The world is waking up to the folly of net-zero.

• Wind becomes UK’s largest source of power in 2024 - for the first time ever, wind has surpassed gas in the UK as the largest source of power across a whole year. Shame that the UK also has the most expensive industrial electricity prices of any country on earth (4x more than the US). Hmmm, I wonder if that’s a coincidence.

🛢️ BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Ever wondered what it looks like to take apart an LNG tanker?:

👋 BEFORE YOU GO

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

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