Amazon Is Aggressively Pursuing Big Oil as It Stalls Out on Clean Energy
Jim Cooke, Gizmodo, April 8, 2019
In 2014, Amazon announced that it would power its rapidly expanding fleet of data centers with 100 percent renewable energy. Apple, Facebook, and Google made similar pledges two years before that, and pressure from consumers and environmental groups drove Amazon to follow suit. For the next two years, the tech giant made admirable strides toward achieving its goal, bankrolling large solar plants and wind farms. Then, it stopped. Amazon hasn’t announced any new deals to supply clean energy to its data centers since 2016, and it quietly abandoned plans for one of its last scheduled wind farms last year. Meanwhile, in 2017, according to internal company documents viewed by Gizmodo, Amazon undertook a concerted push to win over a new industry, perhaps best summed up by the name of a presentation at Amazon Web Services’ annual company Sales Kick-Off event that February: “Positioning for Success in Oil & Gas.”
Our Take: This is reality. The writer at Gizmodo is upset that Amazon isn’t following a “keep it in the ground” policy with regards to fossil fuels. The writers of Headlamp are not surprised that free market principles are driving Amazon’s business decisions. Oil and Gas could be the foundation of Amazon’s clean energy future.
Oil & Gas Discoveries On The Rise As Oil Majors Dive In
Rystad Energy, OilPrice.com, April 8, 2019
Oil and gas exploration is off to a flying start in 2019, with majors taking a bigger bite of the conventional resources discovered in the first quarter, according to Rystad Energy. Global discoveries of conventional resources in the first quarter reached a robust 3.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe). Most of the gains were recorded in February, posting 2.2 billion barrels of discovered resources – the best monthly tally on record since August 2015. “If the rest of 2019 continues at a similar pace, this year will be on track to exceed last year’s discovered resources by 30%,” says Taiyab Zain Shariff, Upstream Analyst at Rystad Energy.
One Question Remains As The US Moves Closer To Drilling In ANWR: How Much Oil Is There?
Michael Bastach, The Daily Caller, April 7, 2019
- ANWR could hold massive amounts of oil and natural gas, but findings from the only well drilled in the refuge have been kept secret for decades.
- The New York Times recently reported the test well findings were disappointing, but experts say one test well doesn’t tell the whole story.
- “I know for a fact it’s an oily area,” said a geologist that’s spent decades exploring the Alaskan Arctic, including ANWR.
Our Take: Opponents of ANWR who use the NY Times article to suggest that there is no oil there will do so disingenuously.
What Does the New Silk Road Mean For Oil and Gas? [GGP]
Natural Gas News, April 9, 2019
China is in the midst of an historic push to tie together at least 65 countries on three continents through new trade and infrastructure projects. Known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the plan encompasses more than 60% of the world’s population and nearly three quarters of its energy reserves. The scope of this ambitious effort, a 21st century version of the famous 7th century silk road that connected China to Europe, was chosen as the overarching theme of the 2019 International Petroleum, Technology Conference (IPTC) being hosted in Beijing this week. The gathering has attracted more than 2,400 professionals from 50 upstream companies to share new technical discoveries and address some of the industry’s most pressing issues. Exactly what the Belt and Road Initiative means for the future of energy supply remains somewhat undefined, but executives from China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Saudi Aramco—the conference’s two major sponsors and hosts—shed light on how they expect the arrangement to unfold in the years to come during IPTC’s opening session. Amid the backdrop of the initiative, Wang Yilin, the chairman of CNPC and IPTC’s honorary chairman, said the next decade will prove to be “a very critical period for the energy transformation in China.” There are two sides to the coming change as he sees it. The first is a call for hydrocarbon producers to take part in the development of low-carbon alternatives to oil and gas, while the other will demand that these producers continue to increase supplies of fossil fuels to meet the world’s rising demand. Managing this balance will steer the future of CNPC.
