OIL
OIL EXECUTIVES FORECAST PEAK DEMAND, FEAR BIDEN WILL MAKE IT WORSE: Most executives (66%) from 154 oil and gas companies polled by the Dallas Fed said they believe U.S. oil production has peaked, according to a survey released Wednesday.
In comments attached to the survey, oil executives from companies active in Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana, expressed alarm about the state of the industry, especially if Joe Biden were to become president.
“A Biden administration would wreak havoc on our industry,” said one executive from an exploration and production firm. “It would put us out of business.” A second executive said, “A Biden administration would absolutely kill our industry.”
Another executive said, “we are in a period of energy transition away from fossil fuels,” and predicted “going forward, large investment pools of capital will not invest in petroleum.”
GAS
Amid growing concern over Arctic petroleum, big European lenders have confidence in Russia’s new grand LNG project
Atle Staalesen, The Barents Observer, September 21, 2020
A document obtained by the news agency shows that several of the world’s biggest lenders line up for participation in the major energy project now unfolding on the shore of great Gulf of Ob. The Arctic LNG 2 project will be one of the biggest industrial projects in the Arctic ever. By 2024, almost 20 million tons of liquified natural gas is to be annually produced and exported from the remote tundra of Gydan.
MINING
Tesla is getting into the mining business, buys lithium claim on 10,000 acres in Nevada
Fred Lambert, elektrek, September 23, 2020
Tesla is now officially getting into the mining business with a lithium claim on 10,000 acres in Nevada. At the Battery Day event yesterday, as part of its entire new battery supply strategy, Tesla announced that it is developing its own lithium processing method. Drew Baglino, SVP of engineering at Tesla, said: “We are going to use a new process that we will pioneer. It’s a sulfate-free process again, we skip the intermediate. It will result in a 33% reduction in lithium cost.” They didn’t go into too many details about that process. CEO Elon Musk added: “What is the best way to take the ore and extract the lithium and do so in an environmentally-friendly way? We have been looking at from a first principle physic standpoint instead of just the way it has always been done. We found that we can actually use table salt, sodium chloride, to basically extract the lithium from the ore. Nobody has done this before to the best of my knowledge.”
POLITICS
Congressional delegation: Resource development can be lifeline for Southeast
Peter Segall, The Juneau Empire, September 24, 2020
Southeast Alaska was hit harder than most other parts of the state by the COVID-19 pandemic, the state’s congressional delegation told a digital conference room Wednesday morning. The delegation spoke to the Southeast Conference Annual Meeting, held digitally this year, and the state’s senators and representative offered their vision of an economic recovery for the region. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young, both Alaska Republicans, spoke together, opening with an update on the delegation’s efforts in Washington. “Southeast was hurt probably more than any other part of the state,” Young said, citing the lackluster tourism and fishing seasons over the summer.