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Chinese Refiner Halts US Oil Purchases, May Use Iran Oil Instead

July 8, 2018

Chinese Refiner Halts US Oil Purchases, May Use Iran Oil Instead

With the US and China contemplating their next moves in what is now officially a trade war, a parallel narrative is developing in the world of energy where Asian oil refiners are racing to secure crude supplies in anticipation of an escalating trade war between the US and China, even as Trump demands all US allies cut Iran oil exports to zero by November 4 following sanctions aimed at shutting the country out of oil markets.

Concerned that the situation will deteriorate before it gets better, Asian refiners are moving swiftly to secure supplies with South Korea leading the way. Under pressure from Washington, Seoul has already halted all orders of Iranian oil, according to sources, even as it braces from spillover effects from the U.S.-China tit-for-tat on trade.

“As South Korea’s economy heavily relies on trade, it won’t be good for South Korea if the global economic slowdown happens because of a trade dispute between U.S and China,” said Lee Dal-seok, senior researcher at the Korea Energy Economic Institute (KEEI).

Meanwhile, Chinese state media has unleashed a full-on propaganda blitzkrieg, slamming Trump’s government as a “gang of hoodlums”, with officials vowing retaliation, while the chairman of Sinochem just become China’s official leader of the anti-Trump resistance, quoting Michelle Obama’s famous slogan “when they go low, we go high.” Standing in the line of fire are U.S. crude supplies to China, which have surged from virtually zero before 2017 to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July.

Representing a modest 5% of China’s overall crude imports, these supplies are worth $1 billion a month at current prices – a figure that seems certain to fall should a duty be implemented.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ready for more punishment: Investors load up on oil share offerings

March 6, 2016

Ready for more punishment: Investors load up on oil share offerings

The $9.2 billion investors paid to snap up new equity offerings from U.S. oil companies in 2016 proves those investors are indeed ready for more punishment.

The amount is in line with the pace of such equity offerings in 2015 even as the mood in the oil markets has grown more dour. In June of last year I wrote:

New investors in U.S. oil company shares must believe they are catching the bottom and will have a very profitable ride up from here. This demonstrates that OPEC’s work is not done and accounts in part for the decision to leave production quotas unchanged. OPEC’s next task is to convince those making new investments in oil that rather than catching a bottom in oil prices, they have caught a falling knife.

A lot of investors did end up catching a falling knife as oil careened downward from about $60 a barrel last summer to Friday’s close of about $36. Investors this year may still find that the knife is falling, though it admittedly doesn’t have as far to fall this time around. Still, it seems they misunderstand OPEC’s strategy or believe that that strategy will fail. As I said in the same piece:

The cartel must dampen enthusiasm for investment for the long term if the organization’s members are going to benefit. A crippled U.S. oil industry without friends in the investment world is the only way to assure that rising prices won’t simply lead to a stampede back into U.S. shale deposits.

It seems that the oil industry still has friends in the investment world and that OPEC’s work is therefore not yet done. The big question then is: Will OPEC stay the course or relent with a production cut this year to raise prices?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Stunning Drone Footage Of The Midwest Flooding Wreaking Havoc On US Oil

January 2, 2016

Stunning Drone Footage Of The Midwest Flooding Wreaking Havoc On US Oil

After the first deadly winter storm this season, now come the floods: the near-record water level across the U.S. Midwest has disrupted everything from oil to agriculture, forcing pipelines, terminals and grain elevators to close. This is the worst flood in the region since May 2011, when rising water on the Mississippi and its tributaries deluged cities, slowed barge traffic and threatened refinery and chemical operations and is just shy of the worst flood of breaking 30-year records.

According to Bloomberg, the floods have killed at least 20 people and shut hundreds of roads across Missouri and Illinois, according to AccuWeather Inc. Rain-swollen rivers will set records in the Mississippi River basin through much of January. Fifty miles (80 kilometers) of the Illinois River remain closed, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as five miles of the Mississippi River.

Additionally, the Coast Guard issued a high-water safety advisory for 566 miles of Mississippi River between Caruthersville, Missouri, and Natchez, Mississippi. It also instituted high-water towing limitations near Morgan City, Louisiana, for vessels heading south that are 600 feet or shorter, it said in a statement.

And while water levels have started to recede in some areas, closures and restrictions remain in place for safety, said Jonathan Lally, a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard. “The high water is kind of moving in a big glob and it’s on its way down,” he said Friday in a telephone interview from New Orleans.

The impact of the flood has hit farmers, with hog producers in southern Illinois calling other farmers, hoping to find extra barn space to relocate pigs. Processors are sending additional trucks to retrieve market-ready pigs, she said. In one case, an overflowing creek took out electricity and made roads impassable, causing 2,000 pigs to drown.

But the flood’s most adverse economic impact may be on oil,  which may see an even greater increase in stockpiles as a result, pushing the price of oil even lower.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

The Dismal Thing Schlumberger CEO Just Said about US Oil

October 18, 2015

The Dismal Thing Schlumberger CEO Just Said about US Oil

2016 to be brutal. Then, dreams of “potential spike in oil prices”

An engineer in the oil industry, who’d sold his house in Houston and bailed out after finding work in another state, just told me this:

A young civil engineer that I am working with is looking for more permanent, stable work. He talked with a head hunter today. The head hunter suggested that the young engineer stay where he is. He said he had 30,000 resumes in his database of engineers who were looking for work right now. Just amazing. I don’t know how many engineers there are in Houston. 200,000? 300,000?

I then called a friend of mine who works for Jacobs. Well, he no longer works there. He was laid off. A very seasoned engineer. He said he was glad I left Houston and that things were looking grim. Fluor and Technip had also laid off a lot of engineers. He said he heard that Fluor, which goes after megaprojects, had laid off 30 Process Engineers – which is what I am.

This is a bad indication. We are the first line of engineers on a project. Then, as the project moves forward, instrument, estimating, electrical, and structural engineers are brought on. If process engineers (chemical engineers) aren’t being used, that means there are fewer projects coming up to keep them busy.

So what happened to the hopes for a recovery?

Three months ago, Paal Kibsgaard, CEO of oil-field services giant Schlumberger, figured the oil industry in the US had bottomed out. But on Friday during the earnings call, he changed his tune.

The business environment “clearly got worsened in the third quarter,” he said. It’s going to get even worse in the US in the fourth quarter. And 2016 is going to be very tough. He doesn’t see a recovery until 2017.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Managers bunk down at U.S. refineries as strike enters third week

February 15, 2015

Managers bunk down at U.S. refineries as strike enters third week

(Reuters) – U.S. oil refinery managers are going to the mats, literally, during the biggest fight with union workers in 35 years, bedding down for a third strike week that experts and some employees say raises concerns over safety and operations.

At the 135,000 barrel-per-day refinery just outside of Toledo, Ohio, run by BP Plc and Husky Energy Inc, most of the nearly 300-person staff have been calling the refinery home since Feb. 9. For the last week, they have slept on recently purchased mattresses inside rental trailers to rapidly respond to any problems and avoid striking workers, sources say.

On Tuesday, a van full of washing and drying machines gingerly cut through about a dozen United Steelworkers carrying pickets and walking a strike line at the facility’s front gate.

Those efforts underscore how far operators are willing to go to retain normalcy in the face of the largest national U.S. refinery strike since 1980. And as more replacement workers join the ranks here and the other eight refineries where strikes have occurred, more questions are arising about potential safety and production risks from an extended walkout.

While such warnings may seem a self-serving negotiating tactic, even some on the other side of the line are concerned. John Ostberg, a non-union control engineer who works in the main computerized control center at Toledo, quit his job on Monday weeks before he was scheduled to retire.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

More on Bakken Production, Choke Theory – Peak Oil BarrelPeak Oil Barrel

November 28, 2014

More on Bakken Production, Choke Theory – Peak Oil BarrelPeak Oil Barrel.

The US Petroleum Supply Monthly just came out with production data for every state and territory. US supply was up 168,000 bpd to 8,864,000 bpd in September. The biggest gainers were North Dakota, up 53,000 bpd to 1,185,000 bpd and Alaska up 79,000 to 477,000 bpd. Alaska  was way down in both July and August and are just recovering from that.  There was only one big loser, New Mexico, down 18,000 bpd. Texas was up only 9,000 barrels per day which was surprising. The Gulf of Mexico was down 3,000 bpd.

The Choke theory and why I ain’t buying it.

North Dakota publishes a Daily Activity Report Index of all permits and other well activity in the Bakken as well as the rest of North Dakota. In this report is a list of all producing wells completed as well as wells released from confidential (tight hole) status. Wells usually stay on this list from a few days to a few months, but the average is only a few weeks.

I have collected this data from October 2013 to present and found some startling results. But some have said this data means nothing, that wells are usually choked off by the driller so therefore we can gain nothing from the data. But looking at the individual wells that just doesn’t make any sense. No, I agree that the driller chokes but that he would not gradually choke more according to increasing well number.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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