Offshore Oil Wells, Ports Shut as Hurricane Sally Advances on U.S. Gulf
Energy companies, ports and refiners raced on Monday to shut down as Hurricane Sally grew stronger while lumbering toward the central U.S. Gulf Coast, the second significant hurricane to shutter oil and gas activity over the last month.The hurricane is disrupting oil imports and exports as the nation's sole offshore terminal, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), stopped loading tanker ships on Sunday, while the port of New Orleans closed on Monday.The U.S. government said 21%, or nearly 396…
Robotics: Autobots Transform in the Offshore Energy Sector
Robots and robotics have slowly been entering our lives, in various shapes and forms (and fictional characters), from self-driving household vacuum cleaners to highly automated manufacturing systems. Now they’re heading for the offshore world – in just as many shapes and forms.There could be a lot to gain from robotics, but platforms and offshore wind turbine structures are also very challenging places to put them on. For oil and gas, key drivers are around safety and cost . For the offshore wind sector…
ConocoPhillips to Reverse Most Output Cuts by End of Q3
ConocoPhillips said on Thursday it expects production curtailments in the current quarter to be roughly half as much as last quarter and will restore most of its output by the end of September, after the oil and gas producer slashed about a third of its output in April as oil prices plunged 41%.The company restored part of its curtailed volumes earlier in June, as crude prices recovered some of the historic losses they took when lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus sapped fuel demand.ConocoPhillips' total production…
Chevron Diversity Ratio to Improve as Layoffs Progress
Oil major Chevron Corp expects to reduce the dominance of white males in company management during cost-cutting this year, upping the share of senior level jobs held by women and ethnic minorities to 44% from 38% last year, the company said in a statement.Like most of its peers in an industry struggling with the collapse of oil prices this year, Chevron is cutting spending, consolidating business units, and has asked some managers to reapply for their jobs.Figures from the end of last year show that less than a quarter of Chevron's U.S.
Chevron CEO Sees Continued 'Choppy Economic and Price Activity'
The chief executive of U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp on Monday said the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has it planning for "choppy" oil prices and economic activity globally.Chevron said on Monday it would buy oil and gas producer Noble Energy Inc for about $5 billion in stock, the first big energy deal since the coronavirus crisis started."The crystal ball is cloudy right now," Mike Wirth said in an interview. "There’s so much uncertainty on the trajectory of the pandemic, the…
Indonesia's Pertamina Expects up to 180,000 bpd from Rokan Block when It Takes Over from Chevron
Indonesian state oil company PT Pertamina expects to produce 170,000-180,000 barrels per day (bpd) at the Rokan block when it takes over in August next year, the chief executive of Pertamina Hulu Energi, Budiman Parhusip, said on Wednesday.The government decided in 2018 that the operation of Rokan, Indonesia's second-biggest crude oil producing block, would be transferred to Pertamina when Chevron Pacific Indonesia's contract expires in August 2021.Pertamina previously estimated that the block's output would drop to 140…
U.S. Oil Firms Hit Brakes on Return-to-work as Virus Cases Soar
U.S. energy companies slammed the brakes on returning staff to their Houston offices as COVID-19 cases soared and top hospitals warned they could soon run out of beds for the most severely ill patients.A record number of new illnesses in Texas this week spurred local officials to impose restrictions as new cases topped 5,000 on two days in a row. Intensive care unit (ICU) beds were 97% full at Houston's Texas Medical Center, which said it may soon move to surge ICU capacity assignments…
Kazakhstan: No Shutdown Planned for COVID-19-hit Tengiz Field
Kazakhstan has no plans to shut down oil production at its biggest oilfield, Tengiz, despite the novel coronavirus outbreak among its workers, the Central Asian nation's energy minister said on Wednesday.Kazakhstan's chief sanitary doctor said last week the field's operator, Chevron-led Tengizchevroil, might have to suspend operations if a plan to curb the spread of the virus at the site fails.But Energy Minister Nurlan Nogayev told a briefing there was no immediate risk of such measures being taken."The matter of shutting down the field is not being considered…
Qatar Petroleum to Cut Spending by 30%
Qatar Petroleum will slash its spending by around 30% this year in the face of the sharp drop in oil and gas prices due to the coronavirus epidemic, its Chief Executive said on Thursday.Speaking during a webcast organized by the U.S-Qatar Business Council, Saad al-Kaabi however said that plans to sharply expand Qatar Petroleum's liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity by the middle of the decade remain on track."We are going through budget revisions... In June we will be somewhere in the range of 30% reduction in expenditure…
Petrobras Sees No Need to Cut Oil Production
Brazil's state-run Petrobras sees no need for cuts in oil production, executives say, as the market for its crude remains robust in China, while domestic demand for fuel picks up amid social distancing fatigue in Latin America's largest economy.On a Friday earnings call with analysts, executives credited the company's strong relationship with independent refineries in China's Shandong Province, known as "teapots,"' for allowing Petrobras to export a record amount of crude in recent months, even as some economies are effectively shut.
Chevron Cuts Spending, Says Asset Sales Lift Profits
Chevron Corp on Friday slashed its capital spending plans by another $2 billion as the coronavirus pandemic guts demand for oil and gas, while delivering a year-over-year 38% increase in profits.Global fuel demand has crashed by a third while many people shelter at home for an indefinite period. Major oil companies have largely reported losses as an oil glut and a shortage of storage space sends prices to historic lows.Earnings at Chevron beat Wall Street expectations and were $3.6 billion in the first quarter…
Exxon Posts First Loss in 30 Years on $3 Bln Writedown, Oil Plunge
Exxon Mobil Corp on Friday posted its first quarterly loss in three decades on plunging oil demand and collapsing prices, reporting a $610 million quarterly deficit after a nearly $3 billion inventory writedown.Global fuel demand has tumbled by a third on coronavirus-related lockdowns and business shutdowns. Oil giants largely have reported losses on weaker margins and writedowns from an oil glut that has sent prices to historic lows.All of Exxon's businesses posted lower year-over…
Woodside Watching Supermajors' Woes for Opportunities
Woodside Petroleum is keeping a close eye out for assets that might come up for grabs from the oil supermajors amid the oil market rout, seeing itself in a position to bid, Chief Executive Peter Coleman said on Friday.The head of Australia's top independent gas producer said, however, deals were unlikely until the third or fourth quarter of this year."We are watching closely the super majors," Coleman told reporters on a conference call the day after Woodside's annual meeting.He said…
Shell Cuts Dividend for First Time Since World War Two
Royal Dutch Shell cut its dividend for the first time since World War Two on Thursday as the energy company retrenched in the face of an unprecedented drop in oil demand due to the coronavirus pandemic.Shell also suspended the next tranche of its share buyback program and said it was reducing oil and gas output by nearly a quarter after its net profit almost halved in the first three months of 2020.Shell's shares in London dropped 6.7% in early trading on Thursday, underperforming rival BP."Given the risk of a prolonged period of economic uncertainty…
When Oil Became Waste
A week of turmoil for crude, and more pain to comeThe magnitude of how damaged the energy industry is came into full view on April 20 when the benchmark price of U.S. oil futures, which had never dropped below $10 a barrel in its nearly 40-year history, plunged to a previously unthinkable minus $38 a barrel.In just a few months, the coronavirus pandemic has destroyed so much fuel demand as billions of people curtail travel that it has done what financial crashes, recessions and wars…
Diamond Offshore Files for Bankruptcy
Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas on Sunday, after the company recently skipped making an interest payment and said it had retained restructuring advisers.The Houston-based contract drilling company's filing, one of 15 of its group companies seeking protection under Chapter 11, said day rates and demand for its services had "worsened precipitously" this year amid a "price war" between OPEC and Russia and the steep drop in oil demand caused by the…
U.S. Oil Firms' Quarterly Reports to Show Depths of Slump
Investors are in for more bad news on the energy front in the coming weeks as a host of the sector's biggest companies report quarterly results following the historic collapse in oil prices.Forecasts for U.S. energy sector earnings this year have dropped along with oil prices, weighing on shares along with worries over debt, layoffs and possible bankruptcies.Analysts see a 58.9% year-over-year decline in energy earnings for the first quarter, steeper even than the 37.7% decline they projected at the start of the month, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
OPEC+ Debates Biggest Ever Oil Output Cut as Virus Destroys Demand
OPEC and allies are working on a deal for an unprecedented production cut equivalent to around 10% of global supply, an OPEC source said after U.S. President Donald Trump called on oil nations to stop the oil rout caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The meeting of OPEC and allies such as Russia has been scheduled for Monday, April 6, Azeri's energy ministry said, but details were still thin on the exact distribution of production cuts. Oil prices have fallen to around $20 per barrel from $65 at the start of the year as more than 3 billion people went into lockdown because of the virus…
Chevron Lummus Global Lands 'Sizeable' Deal with Asian Refiner
Oilfield services firm McDermott International has informed that its Chevron Lummus Global (CLG), McDermott's joint venture with Chevron, has been awarded a sizeable contract by a Southeast Asian refiner.The contract is for for the license, engineering, and supply of proprietary catalyst and equipment for its Lubricant Base Oil Group II Project to be built in Southeast Asia. McDermott defines a sizeable contract as between USD $1 million and USD $50 million.The new 5,200-barrels-per-day unit will employ CLG's state-of-the-art lubricant base oil technologies for premium lube base oil production.
Shell Cuts Capex, Suspends Share Buyback
Oil major Shell lowered capital expenditure for 2020 by about $5 billion on Monday and suspended the next tranche of its share buyback plan, as the company tries to weather a hit from the recent oil price crash. The company said it would reduce 2020 cash capital expenditure to $20 billion or below from a planned level of around $25 billion, adding that the initiatives would contribute $8 billion-$9 billion to free cash flow on a pre-tax basis. Shell also said underlying operating costs will be cut by $3 billion to $4 billion per annum over the next 12 months compared to 2019 levels.
