OIL
OPEC chief sees oil market moving closer to balance before key meeting
Oil & Gas 360, July 13, 2020
The oil market is getting closer to balance as demand gradually rises, OPEC’s secretary general said on Monday, two days before the group and ally Russia meet to decide whether to ease output curbs from August. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, known as OPEC+, have been cutting output since May by 9.7 million barrels per day after the coronavirus crisis destroyed a third of global demand and caused a price collapse. After July, the cuts are due to taper to 7.7 million bpd until December although a final decision has yet to be taken. A panel called the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meets on Wednesday to recommend the next level of cuts.
Iran Expands Oil Production Capacity
Irina Slav, OILPRICE.Com, July 13, 2020
Iran is taking a step that would seem counterintuitive in an environment of subdued demand for oil and oil products: it is boosting its oil production capacity, Bloomberg reports, citing a statement by oil minister Bijan Zanganeh.
GAS
Are Gas Pipelines Really Impossible to Build?
Nikos Tsafos, Center for Strategic & International Studies, July 8, 2020
Two contradictory trends appear to be happening at the same time: on the one hand, there is growing opposition to building new natural gas pipelines, and it seems they are becoming impossible to construct; on the other, U.S. natural gas production and consumption keeps growing, and this gas is being transported on the nation’s pipeline system. What explains this disconnect? One innocuous explanation is geography: both things are true, but they are not true at the same place. The country is indeed producing and consuming more gas, but gas is not flowing in some areas because there are no or insufficient pipelines to bring it there. There is evidence for that possibility: lack of infrastructure is one reason gas is being flared in the Permian, and the Northeast is well known for its inadequate infrastructure, which is why Massachusetts still imports liquefied natural gas (LNG).
MINING
Novagold sues J Capital for short report
Shane Lasley, North of 60 Mining News, July 10, 2020
Novagold Resources Inc. is taking the offensive against J Capital Research USA LLC, a company that released a fallacious report on Novagold in what is being considered a “short-and-distort” attack against the company that owns a 50% stake in the 39-million-ounce Donlin Gold project in Southwest Alaska. Basically, a short-and-distort scheme is when an investor or group of investors takes a short position in a company – a means of profiting from the decline of a company’s share price – and then publishing a negative report on the company that causes enough panic amongst shareholders to create selling of the company’s shares.
POLITICS
Joe Biden Tries To Clean Up His Fracking Mess
David Blackmon, Forbes, July 11, 2020
When it comes to energy policy, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has a lot of cleaning up to do as he now begins to move into general election mode in his campaign. The clean-up job will not be easy. During the primary season, as he worked to secure the votes of his Party’s left-leaning voter base, Mr. Biden has promised at various times to enforce a policy of “no new fracking” in his administration; to end the use of oil and natural gas in the United States; and to end new drilling on federal lands in the U.S. While promises like those and others played well to the voters in Party primaries around the country, they have the potential to come back to haunt Biden during the general election in key swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Mexico, where the industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and the state governments rely heavily on income from oil and gas taxes.