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The drumbeat towards peak oil demand is accelerating, but since much of the acceleration is happening outside of the United States, its cadence is muted.

To be clear, the developed world passed peak oil demand a decade ago and has for years been forecast to continue reducing its demand. Increasing demand in industrializing countries, particularly China and India, each with a population tantamount to that of the OECD, slightly overpowers declines in the developed world, and as a result, global demand continues to increase. In its 2015 World Energy Outlook, the IEA forecast 1.5% y/y increase outside the OECD, -1.2% y/y in the OECD, and an overall growth of 0.5%. Global peak demand will likely occur while developing world demand is still growing. Increased decline in the first world could crest demand, but merely slowing the growth in the rest of the world is the more likely to tip the global balance to plateau then decline.

Demand for oil is dominated by transportation (cars, trucks/trains, planes and boats) and industry (plastics, fertilizers, steam/heat). Passenger vehicles comprise about 25% of global oil demand and thus are the number one target for major emissions reductions. When the IEA released its 2015 World Energy Outlook mentioned above, not a country on the planet had stated plans to ban new sales of oil-fueled cars. Only Japan and Portugal had even created incentives for electric vehicles. In 2016, three European countries outlined plans to end sales of new gasoline and diesel engines. Before the year was over, IEA revised its OECD forecast downward to -1.3% per year.

In 2017 a rash of targets to constrain fossil fuels for cars led Forbes to declare it to be “The Year Europe Got Serious about Killing the Internal Combustion Engine.”

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Why Trump Decided To Back Down On Iran

November 5, 2018

Why Trump Decided To Back Down On Iran

The Trump administration has finally faced up to what many knew all along: It won’t be able to take Iran’s oil exports down to zero.

The U.S. is set to grant waivers to eight countries, allowing them to continue to import some level of oil from Iran, on the condition that they ratchet down their purchases in the months ahead. The full list of the countries will be released on Monday, but they will surely include China, India, South Korea and Japan, which are four of Iran’s top buyers.

“The reported awarding of waivers by the US for up to eight countries to continue buying Iranian oil, on the basis that they reduce volumes, shows that in the short term at least the Trump administration has set aside the goal of trying to cut Iran’s oil exports to zero,” Peter Kiernan, lead analyst of energy at the Economist Intelligence, said in a statement.

Convincing countries to zero out imports from Iran was always going to be tricky. On the one hand, even if the Trump administration had a free hand, it would be technically difficult to achieve. Iran continues to discount its crude, offer cargoes in barter deals, use currencies other than the U.S. dollar, and otherwise ship oil using a variety of furtive means. Iran was always going to be able to maintain some level of exports.

More importantly, however, the oil market is simply too tight to zero out Iranian supply. Notwithstanding the latest plunge in oil prices – down more than 15 percent in the past month – the market is still tight.

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Oil, Gas Drilling In Canada Set For A Decline

November 4, 2018

Oil, Gas Drilling In Canada Set For A Decline

Drilling for oil and gas in Canada will likely decline by 5 percent in 2019, the Petroleum Services Association of Canada has forecast, blaming pipeline capacity shortages and the resultant discount in Canadian heavy to the West Texas Intermediate benchmark for the outlook.

The PSAC said it expected oil and gas companies to drill 6,600 new wells next year, which would be down from 6,980 this year and the lowest number of new wells in three years. Yet over the year, drilling will increase, the PSAC forecast, as the volume of oil transported by rail, for lack of enough pipelines, continues to grow.

On the good news front, the discount at which Western Canadian Select trades to West Texas Intermediate is seen to narrow from the current over US$50 a barrel to about US$24.50 a barrel, with the average WTI price for 2019 projected at US$69 a barrel.

The National Energy Board of Canada recently released a report forecasting that oil and gas production will continue to increase while domestic consumption declines thanks to energy efficiency. Natural gas, along with hydropower and other renewable sources, will come to account for a bigger share of the country’s energy mix while oil production grows for exports.

In the next 20 years, NEB expects crude oil production to grow by as much as 58 percent while natural gas production expands by 33 percent, both helped by improving extraction technology that will maintain the industry’s competitiveness.

Not all believe, however, in this competitiveness. In fact, industry executives are quite disgruntled about the discount at which WCS is trading to WTI as well as by the high carbon taxes they are obliged to pay. The combination of factors has eaten into their bottom lines and will likely continue doing it as no new pipeline projects are coming on line any time soon and producers are forced to resort to costlier oil-by-rail options.

Iran’s Top Oil Customers Resist U.S. Calls For Zero Imports

November 2, 2018

Iran’s Top Oil Customers Resist U.S. Calls For Zero Imports

Just a few days before U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports return on November 5, the keywords about how much of Iran’s oil will come off the market are ‘lack of clarity’.

On the one hand, it’s unclear how much Iranian oil will really be removed from the market, considering that Iran has already started to switch off transponders on board of some of its cargoes, although ship-tracking data on the tankers that can be tracked shows that Iranian oil exports are falling, but not as steeply as the market and analysts were expecting just a month or two ago.

On the other hand, it’s unclear whether the United States would grant any waivers, with U.S. Administration officials giving mixed signals.

Yet, one thing is clear, and here analysts were right—Iran’s top two single largest oil customers, China and India, will continue to import Iranian crude. Although China and India’s Iranian oil intake in recent months has fluctuated, and although some of their companies most exposed to the U.S. financial system have drastically reduced or outright stopped imports from Iran (like India’s Reliance Industries), the countries saw their imports in the first three weeks of October increase or hold steady around the volumes from recent months.

According to S&P Global Platts trade flow data, Iran’s oil shipments to China between October 1 and 21 averaged 800,000 bpd, up from around 600,000 bpd average for September. Last year, average Chinese imports of Iranian oil were 602,500 bpd, Platts has estimated.

About half of China’s crude oil and condensate imports from Iran in October, around 400,000 bpd, were bound for a storage hub in Dalian in northeastern China, according to Platts sources and shipping data. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has reportedly leased some storage capacity at Dalian.

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U.S. And OPEC Flood Oil Market Ahead Of Midterms

November 2, 2018

U.S. And OPEC Flood Oil Market Ahead Of Midterms

OPEC and the U.S. are together adding enormous volumes of new supply, which together have softened the oil market.

In October, OPEC hiked oil production to the highest level since 2016, back before the oil production cuts went into effect, according to a recent Reuters survey. The higher output, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, come just as Iranian oil is going offline. Also, Libya saw a sharp rebound in production, although the country is not part of the OPEC+ production cuts.

The 15 countries in OPEC produced an average 33.31 million barrels per day in October, the highest since December 2016. That was also up 390,000 bpd from September. “Oil producers appear to be successfully offsetting the supply outages from Iran and Venezuela,” said Carsten Fritsch of Commerzbank.

Russia, which is not part of OPEC but part of the OPEC+ coalition, continues to produce at post-Soviet record highs.

Iran lost 100,000 bpd in October, due to buyers cutting back as U.S. sanctions near, but the losses were more modest than many analysts had expected. In fact, despite the hardline rhetoric from Washington, the U.S. is poised to grant waivers to several countries that are unable to cut their imports of Iranian oil to zero.

That was largely predictable. Top importers of Iranian oil, including India, China and Turkey, could not slash their purchases to zero without incurring a significant economic cost. The U.S. pressed these countries, but ultimately had to back down. “We want to achieve maximum pressure but we don’t want to harm friends and allies either,” U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said on Wednesday. He recognized that some “may not be able to go all the way, all the way to zero immediately.” The admission is notable since Bolton is widely known as one of the most extreme hardliners when it comes to Iran.

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Trump: There’s Enough Oil To Offset Iran Loss

November 1, 2018

Trump: There’s Enough Oil To Offset Iran Loss

President Donald Trump has determined there was enough crude oil and oil products supply globally to offset any loss of supply from Iran after U.S. sanctions enter into force next week.

In a memorandum, Trump said “there is a sufficient supply of petroleum and petroleum products from countries other than Iran to permit a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products purchased from Iran by or through foreign financial institutions.”

The memorandum also mentioned there was enough spare production capacity globally to allow for any necessary production increase. Amid growing worry about the global economy, however, the necessity for any production increases in oil has been questioned by analysts and Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Khalid al-Falih, although Falih also separately said the Kingdom will continue to boost production this month.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the world’s top three producers—Russia, the United States, and Saudi Arabia—pumped 33 million bpd combined in September. A month later, Russia’s production alone hit another post-Soviet record of 11.41 million bpd.

These figures are in line with the sentiment expressed by President Trump and expectations by some observers that the effect of the sanctions’ entry into effect on prices will be moderate. This is what the Congressional Research Service’s top Iran expert Kenneth Katzman said, commenting on Trump’s memorandum, as quoted by the Washington Examiner.

Recent reports that Iran’s oil exports ahead of the sanctions were higher than earlier estimated also provided fuel for expectations of a moderate price effect, as did the news that Washington has granted India a waiver from the sanctions, obviously satisfied with the nation’s efforts to reduce its imports from Iran.

Sanctions against Iran will enter into effect on November 5 at midnight, a day before the mid-term elections in the United States. Keeping a lid on oil prices ahead of the vote has been a priority for the Trump administration.

World’s Cheapest Natural Gas Market Could Be Facing A Shortage

November 1, 2018

World’s Cheapest Natural Gas Market Could Be Facing A Shortage

A natural gas shortage in Canada is expected to last through the winter months, forcing gas users ranging from industrial forces to local governments to seek alternative fuel sources and strategies for slashing consumption and conserving the gas they have. The shortage stems from this month’s pipeline explosion near Prince George, British Columbia.

In the aftermath of the explosion, FortisBC, one of British Columbia’s largest utilities, says that their supply of natural gas will be reduced by a whopping 50 to 80 percent throughout the coldest months of the year. This sudden squeeze will necessitate a lot of unforeseen expenditures on alternative fuel sources. This is a cost that will be passed directly onto consumers, affecting everything from the price of gas and heating to even the price of vegetables, among other subsequent price hikes.

Natural gas has service has already been restored to the province in the wake of the October 9th disaster, and pipeline owner Enbridge says that it will have the section of the pipeline that ruptured back online by the middle of November. The National Energy Board, however, has mandated that Enbridge limit pressure in the ruptured line, and a smaller line nearby will also remain running below capacity until the spring of next year. As a safety measure, pressure levels will be kept at 80 percent along the entire length of the damaged pipeline up to the United States border.

The shortage is occurring in what is one of the cheapest natural gas markets in the world. Canadian gas has been hit hard by competition from the United States and limited pipeline infrastructure, which has only been made worse by the Prince George explosion. After the announcement that FortisBC’s pipes would remain running under capacity through the winter, gas prices fell to a five-month low last week.

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Canada Lacks A Successful Energy Strategy

November 1, 2018

Canada Lacks A Successful Energy Strategy

“Canada has no energy plan beyond pedal-to-the-metal export of its non-renewable energy assets.”

That’s the bottom line of a recent opinion piece in Calgary Herald by David Hughes, an earth scientist and research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Canada needs a long-term energy plan to wean itself from fossil fuels and move to renewable energy, Hughes writes.

While Canada will continue to rely on oil and gas in the foreseeable future, the country is currently exporting its oil at rock bottom prices, and continues to push for a pipeline—the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion—to export it to Asian markets. However, Canadian oil won’t fetch much higher prices in the world’s fastest-growing oil market Asia, as the federal government and Alberta province hope, Hughes argues.

The costs for sending Alberta’s heavy oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast are lower than the transportation costs to sell said oil to Asia via an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline and then oil tankers. Alberta’s oil can sell in the United States for $2-$5 per barrel more than it would sell in Asia, according to Hughes.

Two pipelines to the United States with double the capacity of Trans Mountain are currently under development. These two new pipelines would ease pipeline takeaway constraints before 2022, the earliest possible completion date for the Trans Mountain expansion, if it goes ahead, Hughes says.

Therefore, the current push to save the Trans Mountain Expansion Project and sell off the Alberta oil as fast as possible “makes little sense,” he wrote. e

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Cold Snap Could Send Natural Gas To $5

October 31, 2018

Cold Snap Could Send Natural Gas To $5

The natural gas market is looking rather tight, even as U.S. production continues to set new records.

Inventories fell sharply last winter, leaving the country a little light on stocks heading into injection season. That did not concern the market much, with record-setting production expected to replenish depleted inventories.

However, the past six months has not led to surging stockpiles, and inventories replenished at a much slower rate than expected. We are about to enter the winter heating season with inventories at their lowest level in 15 years. For the week ending on October 19, the U.S. held 3,095 billion cubic feet (bcf) of natural gas in storage, or 606 bcf lower than at this point last year, and 624 bcf below the five-year average.

(Click to enlarge)

The reason for this is multifaceted, with seasonal weather playing a role, but also structural increases in demand. “Hot summer weather, LNG liquefaction demand, exports to Mexico, and the industrial sector have all mitigated the impact from a 8.7 bcf/d YoY production growth surge this summer,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a recent note. Low inventories and potential deliverability risks led the investment bank to hike its price forecast for the first quarter of 2019 to $4 per MMBtu, up from a prior estimate of just $3.40/MMBtu.

Coal shutdowns have led to a lot of fuel switching. Moreover, new gas-fired power plants have opened up and continue to do so. The U.S. also became a sizable LNG exporter in 2016, and exports will continue to climb in the years ahead with more terminals coming online. New pipeline interconnections with Mexico should also lead to more shipments from Texas to the U.S.’ southern neighbor.

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UK Fracking Pauses, Again

October 31, 2018

UK Fracking Pauses, Again

For the second time in two weeks since Cuadrilla started fracking at an exploration site in northwest England—resuming hydraulic fracturing in the UK for the first time in seven years—the company had to stop operations on Monday due to a micro seismic event measuring above the threshold requiring a halt.

Cuadrilla confirmed that a micro seismic event measuring 1.1 on the Richter scale was detected at about 11.30 a.m. local time on Monday, while the team were hydraulically fracturing at the Preston New Road shale gas exploration site in Lancashire, the company said in a statement today.

According to regulations, in case of micro seismic events of 0.50 on the Richter scale or higher, fracking must temporarily be halted and pressure in the well reduced.

“This is the latest micro seismic event to be detected by the organisation’s highly sophisticated monitoring systems and verified by the British Geological Survey (BGS). This will be classed as a ‘red’ event as part of the traffic light system operated by the Oil and Gas Authority but as we have said many times this level is way below anything that can be felt at surface and a very long way from anything that would cause damage or harm,” Cuadrilla said.

“Well integrity has been checked and verified,” the company said, noting that in line with regulations, fracking has paused for 18 hours.

Cuadrilla had paused fracking at the site on Friday morning after a 0.76 on the Richter scale micro seismic event was recorded, the latest of some dozen seismic events since fracking started, but the first that was above the 0.5 threshold.

The seismic event on Monday was the strongest yet to be recorded since Cuadrilla started fracking at the exploration site two weeks ago, on October 15.

Anti-fracking activists say that there have been now 27 seismic events since October 15, Blackpool Gazzette reports.

Iran’s Worst Nightmare Is Coming True

October 30, 2018

Iran’s Worst Nightmare Is Coming True

In what must seem like a nightmare scenario for Iran, not only is another U.S. president leveling sanctions against its economy, and particularly that economy’s lifeblood, its oil sector, but the current U.S. president has admittedly made it his mission to drive Tehran to its knees over what he sees as non-compliance over the 2015 nuclear accord between western powers and Tehran.

As recently as the start of this month, the oil markets narrative was that perhaps President Donald Trump had pushed a bit too hard by reimposing sanctions against Iran. Oil markets, for their part, were jittery while both global oil benchmark Brent and U.S. Benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures hit four-year highs largely on supply concerns. Some predicted that $100 per barrel oil by the end of the year was imminent, while Tehran maintained a defiant tone, stating that neither Saudi Arabia nor OPEC would be able to pump enough oil to compensate for the loss of Iranian barrels, estimated between 500,000 bpd and 1 million bpd.

Now, what a different just a few weeks can make. Oil prices are now trending downward, falling for a third consecutive week as global stock markets tumbled and oil markets focused on a weaker demand outlook for crude going forward. Brent crude fell 2.7 percent last week and is down 10.5 percent from its October 3 high of $86.74. WTI ended the week down some 2.2 percent and has now dropped around 12 percent from its recent high of on October 3. Moreover, in a sign of things to come, hedge-fund and money managers are trimming their bets that crude oil prices will rise.

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Big Oil Won’t Spend Despite Fat Profits

October 30, 2018

Big Oil Won’t Spend Despite Fat Profits

Higher oil prices are expected to leave the oil industry flush with cash, but the “capital discipline” mantra remains. Market watchers have wondered whether top oil executives would eschew with tight-fisted spending plans once their pockets fattened up again.

“We’re laser focused on disciplined free cash flow generation and strong execution. Discipline means, we’re not chasing higher prices by ramping up activity,” ConocoPhillips’ CEO Ryan Lance told investors on an earnings call. “By staying disciplined, we generate strong free cash flow, which we then allocate in a shareholder-friendly way.” He went on to stress how committed the company was to boosting the quarterly dividend and share buyback program.

Conoco beat analysts’ estimates, earning $1.36 per share in the third quarter, eight times the earnings from the $0.16 per share a year earlier. Conoco also saw soaring production in the big three shale areas – the Permian, Eagle Ford and Bakken – with output up 48 percent to 313,000 bpd. Lance said that the company still wants to “optimize” its portfolio, which includes $600 million in asset sales.

Conoco’s experience highlights an important industry trend, which is prioritizing profits over growth and size. Lance pointed out that the last time earnings were this good was back in 2014. “Brent was over $100 per barrel and our production was almost 1.5 million barrels of equivalent oil per day. So we’re as profitable today as we were then, despite prices being 25% lower and volumes being 20% lower,” Lance told investors. “So bigger isn’t always better. That’s why we’re focused on per share growth and value, not absolute volume growth.”

Norwegian oil company Equinor (formerly Statoil) echoed that sentiment.

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Is A Diesel Crunch Coming?

October 29, 2018

Is A Diesel Crunch Coming?

The new ship fuel regulations coming into force at the start of 2020 are set to create an initial confusion on the refining market and crude oil and oil product trade flows, analysts and industry experts say.

We are now just 14 months away from January 1, 2020—the start date which the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set for the new rules on using only 0.5-percent or lower sulfur fuel oil on ships, unless said ships have installed the so-called scrubbers—systems that remove sulfur from exhaust gas emitted by bunkers.

Analysts, experts, and industry representatives are divided as to how great of an impact those new rules will be and whether there will be enough middle distillates—which include diesel and the lower sulfur marine gasoil—to meet demand for both land use, in road transportation, agricultural machinery and industry, and for use on ships at sea.

One way to comply with the IMO rules is to have scrubbers installed, which requires upfront costs, but later these would pay off with the expected much lower price of high-sulfur fuel oil.

The other way is using fuel that contains 0.5 percent sulfur. These fuels are basically in the same middle distillate product category like road diesel or jet fuel.

Some analysts have started to warn that the competition for those middle distillates could lead to shortages of diesel, resulting in price spikes. The other camp says that with diesel demand slowing in Europe and possibly reaching plateau in demand in China, there will be enough middle distillates around.

Amid expectations of fuel prices spikes in a presidential election year, the Trump Administration is seeking to slow down the 2020 introduction of the new ship fuel rules.

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Is The Oil Supply Glut Set To Return?

October 29, 2018

Is The Oil Supply Glut Set To Return?

Is the oil market tightening too much or is a glut on the verge of making a comeback?

There were a series of mixed messages from both OPEC and the IEA in recent days, offering a muddy outlook for the oil market. First was the TASS interview with Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih. His main message was that Saudi Arabia has enough spare capacity to cover for any shortfall related to Iran, although he noted that any further unexpected outages – from, say, Venezuela, Libya or Nigeria – would test the cartel’s abilities.

Libya appears to be doing its part for now. Mustafa Sanalla, the head of Libya’s National Oil Corp., said that Libya is aiming to increase production to 1.6 million barrels per day by the end of 2019, which would mark the highest level since the Arab Spring and civil war began in 2011.

Al-Falih remains confident that the market is well-supplied. But separately, he said that OPEC is in “produce as much as you can mode.” Meanwhile, a technical committee working within OPEC suggested that it would prepare options for 2019, which could include a production cut in order to prevent a supply glut from re-emerging. OPEC+ announced plans to increase production by 1 million barrels per day in June, but the deterioration of the global economy in recent weeks “may require changing course,” the committee said.

Despite his confidence in the TASS interview, al-Falih sounded a bit more concerned about too much supply when he spoke to Saudi media, admitting that he was worried about rising inventories. “We (have) entered the stage of worrying about this increase,” Al-Falih said. Indeed, the U.S. has seen a sharp increase in inventories lately. Crude stocks are up more than 28 million barrels since mid-September.

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Why Oil Prices Could Still Go Lower

October 29, 2018

Why Oil Prices Could Still Go Lower

Crude markets had a panic attack in August and September that sent prices soaring. Sanity is now returning. Prices have fallen but are likely to move even lower over the next few months.

The panic attack was caused largely by Trump’s August 7 announcement that sanctions would be re-imposed on Iran. Anxiety about the effect on oil supply and prices was reasonable but the reaction was hysterical.

From August 15 to October 1, Brent December futures spreads increased $3.01 (175 percent) from $1.72 to $4.73. Brent prices increased $15.53 (22 percent) from $70.76 to $86.29 (Figure 1).

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 1. Brent Dec spreads collapsed from $4.73 to $1.52 since Oct 1 & are now less than when price rally began after announcement to re-impose Iran sanctions in mid-August. Front-month Brent down from $86.29 to $76.17 but still higher than $70.76 Aug 15 price. Source: Barchart and Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.

Then spreads and prices collapsed. By October 24, spreads had fallen from $4.73 to $1.52, less than when the price rally began. Front-month Brent price decreased from $86.29 to $76.17. Prices and spreads recovered slightly on October 24 closing at $76.89 and $1.76, respectively.

It seems unlikely that the correction is over. The timing depends on how long it takes for markets to fully recover from what Vitol’s Ian Taylor calls the supply fear factor. After 6 weeks of fear, markets must adjust to the reality that the “oil market is adequately supplied for now.”

Clearly markets are concerned about more than just Iran. Falling or uncertain output from the problem children Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria, and take-away constraints from the Permian basin are critical.

Iran, however, is different because it is a completely artificial supply crisis. It was a choice made by Donald Trump and his advisors. Markets are used to the uncertainty of its problem children but not to the apparent certainty of an executive decision. The reaction was consistent with the cause—certain and linear.

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