OIL
Oilfield Services May Not Recover Until 2020
Oil & Gas 360, June 19, 2020
Global demand for oilfield services (OFS) is set for a massive 25% yearly drop in 2020.
The well servicing sector will be the first to recover, while long-lead segments will pick up much later
Global demand for oilfield services (OFS), measured in the total value of exploration and production (E&P) company purchases, is set for a massive 25% yearly drop in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19-caused downturn, a Rystad Energy analysis shows. Spending is expected to be $481 billion this year and the sector is likely to start its recovery in 2021, when it is forecast to tick up by just about 2%. The recovery will accelerate further in 2022 and 2023, with OFS spending by E&Ps reaching some $552 billion and $620 billion, respectively. Despite the boost, purchases will not return to the pre-Covid-19 levels of $639 billion achieved in 2019.
GAS
Chesapeake Energy, once a high-flying company, heads for a fall
Will Englund, The Washington Post, June 19, 2020
A company that bet as aggressively and as visibly as it could on America’s natural gas boom — and then bet some more, helping push that boom even further — has been unable to squirm free in the series of busts that followed and is in talks with its creditors that could lead to bankruptcy court.
MINING
Mine backers call report that says the Donlin Gold mine is too expensive to build ‘misinformation’
Krysti Shallenberger, Alaska’s Energy Desk, June 17, 2020
A recent report from a financial research firm says that the proposed Donlin Gold mine in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta will never be built. The mine could be one of the biggest gold producers in the world if completed, but the research firm says that it costs too much to actually build. But that firm can make a lot of money off of its report, and one of the mining companies strongly disagrees with its conclusion.
“It’s indicative of the power of misinformation when it spreads on the internet,” Lang said. His company points out inaccuracies in a line by line analysis:
NOVAGOLD Provides Comprehensive Response to Misleading and False Short-Seller Report
POLITICS
Why Renewable Energy Cannot Replace Fossil Fuels by 2050
Robert Lyman, Real Clear Public Affairs, June 2020
Bottom Line: Numerous environmental groups and countries have recently adopted a vision for 100% renewable energy by 2050. Activists purport to show that 139 countries could achieve this goal. But this renewable vision is based on an unrealistic assessment of the market readiness of a wide range of key technologies. Attaining the vision is not feasible today in technological, economic, or political terms.
Since hydrocarbons are energy-dense, portable, and storable, and they have many useful byproducts that create thousands of spin-off industries, there is no simple way to move from oil, coal and natural gas to renewables. The manufacturing of all renewables also requires massive amounts of fossil fuels and natural resources with proportionately little energy return.