Big Oil Loses a Safe Space in Houston
Liam Denning, Bloomberg, March 14, 2019
Parameters dictate pathways, and while many of the delegates at CERAWeek are used to riding energy’s cycles, changing physics requires true evolution. Advantage lies chiefly in flexibility, with the oil and gas pricing, trade, and demand outlook more uncertain than they’ve been in a generation, possibly ever. Hence, we’ve seen majors such as Exxon and Chevron Corp. go all-in on short-cycle shale and smaller exploration and production companies struggling to remain relevant to investors. Their arch-challenge is climate change, impacting not just their balance sheets but also their license to operate. Maarten Wetselaar, integrated gas and new energies director at Royal Dutch Shell Plc, summed up the complexity of this, commenting that even if oil companies position themselves to be profitable as demand slows and peaks, “there’s a risk that you’ll be seen eventually as a profitable part of the problem.”
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Electricity and oil battle for future of transportation
Oil Prices Fall as Pace of OPEC Supply Cuts Slows
Christopher Alessi & Amrith Ramkumar, The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2019
- Oil prices fell Friday, pulling back from four-month highs as analysts weighed more signs that the pace of OPEC’s production cuts is slowing as crude prices extend their 2019 rebound.
- West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, dropped 1.2% to $57.91 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices closed at their highest level since Nov. 12 on Thursday and are up nearly 30% for the year, though they remain almost 25% off their October multiyear highs.
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Nunavut regulators to focus on oil and gas development next week in Iqaluit
Jane George, ArcticToday, March 15, 2019
The Nunavut Impact Review Board has scheduled a final public meeting March 18 to March 22 in the Nunavut capital as part its $2.5-million strategic environmental assessment, or SEA, in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. This meeting marks the final public step in the process before the NIRB turns to drafting its report and recommendations. For now, there’s still a moratorium on new oil and gas permits for at least three more years. In 2016, the federal government placed a moratorium on new oil and gas activities in all offshore Canadian Arctic waters and agreed to review this decision in 2021. Last October, the QIA and the NIRB released a preliminary report looking at oil and gas extraction off Baffin Bay, Davis Strait, called a “preliminary findings report.”
