OIL
Cost
challenges in a US$20/bbl world: A new
approach is needed to ensure supply sector resilience
Wood Mackenzie, May 5, 2020
How will US$20/bbl affect the oil and gas supply chain? It’s going to get tough, very tough. The service sector is already on the ropes but will be first port of call when operators look to save money. IOCs and NOCs need to recognize they’ll want a functioning, reliable service sector when things pick up, as they will. I talked it all through with Andy Tidey, Head of our Performance Improvement team. Covid-19 has already disrupted the supply chain. The ability of service companies to manufacture and deliver equipment and supply personnel to industry sites is seriously compromised by restrictions on travel and movement of people.
GAS
Hidden
threat: Japan has only 2-week stockpile of LNG
Suguru Kurimoto, Financial Times, May 5, 2020
The coronavirus outbreak has raised a new risk for Japan: a potential cut-off of its crucial liquefied natural gas supply that would plunge large portions of the country into darkness. Because LNG is poorly suited for long-term storage, Japan only has a two-week stockpile. Yet the country depends on the fuel for 40 per cent of its electric power generation, and all of the LNG it uses is imported from the Middle East and south-east Asia.
MINING
Clean
energy progress after the Covid-19 crisis will need reliable supplies of
critical minerals
International Energy Administration, May 6, 2020
As the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed many countries into some form of lockdown and hit mining operations across the globe, the risks around clean energy supply chains, including those of minerals, have come into sharper focus. Peru’s copper-mining activities, which are responsible for 12% of global production, ground to a halt because of the country’s confinement measures. South Africa’s lockdown disrupted 75% of the global output of platinum, a key material in many clean energy technologies and emissions control devices, although the country later allowed mines to operate at 50% capacity. Although prices for many important minerals have fallen as global demand has slumped, recent developments have highlighted a number of reasons why the world should not take secure supplies for granted.
POLITICS
From the Washington Examiner, Daily on Energy:
DEMOCRATS SEEK TO BLOCK FOSSIL FUELS FROM PANDEMIC RELIEF: Their effort comes just days after the Trump administration expanded the eligibility for its Main Street loan program in a way that benefits oil companies struggling from cheap prices and low demand.
The bill introduced Tuesday by 30 House members and nine senators would preclude fossil fuel companies from accessing any relief funding administered by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve.
The measure, led by California Congresswoman Nanette Diaz Barragan and Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, also targets several other ways the White House has sought to help oil companies. For example, the bill would block new fossil fuel leases on federal lands during the coronavirus national emergency, restrict the interior secretary’s ability to reduce royalty rates, and cap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at current levels.
COVID 19
Key Alaska lawmakers disagree on whether Legislature must reconvene to approve CARES Act relief
Anchorage Assembly approves plan to give financial assistance to small businesses and renter