Cheniere Expects Rising LNG Demand with Vaccine Rollout
Cheniere Energy Inc, the top U.S. liquefied natural gas producer, on Wednesday raised its full-year adjusted earnings forecast, predicting higher demand for the fuel as COVID-19 vaccinations boost economic recovery.Lockdown measures implemented to curb the pandemic slashed demand for energy and hurt prices for natural gas in 2020. But with economic recovery in Asia, particularly in China, fuel sales have picked up.Shares rose 1% to $70.37 in midday trading, a more than two-year high."We expect continued LNG demand improvements as COVID vaccines are distributed and global economic activity continues to strengthen…
Coronavirus, Consolidation Taking Toll On Energy Jobs
Oil and gas companies worldwide are taking an axe to their employment rolls, shedding workers to survive what is expected to be a prolonged stretch of weak demand.Exxon Mobil Corp said it will cut its workforce by 15%, or about 14,000 people, along with oil majors Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.All told, more than 400,000 oil and gas sector jobs have been cut this year, according to Rystad Energy, with about half of those in the United States, where several big exploration companies and most large oil service companies are headquartered.Coronavirus has devastated swathes of the global economy…
Total Keeps Dividend But Cuts Investment Target
Total trimmed its 2020 investment target on Friday after a sharp drop in third-quarter net profit, though the French oil and gas producer maintained its dividend.The company cut its investment target to $13 billion from $14 billion and said it was keeping a lid on operating costs too, even as it strives to grow in renewable energy and electricity markets.Energy companies were hit hard by COVID-19 lockdowns and the related collapse in fuel demand.The price of Brent crude has largely stayed above $40 a barrel since June…
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…
China Starts Construction of Southern Part of China-Russia East Gas Pipeline
Construction has started on the southern portion of the China-Russia East natural gas pipeline, which carries supplies from the Power of Siberia system in Russia, China Oil & Gas Piping Network Corp (PipeChina) in a statement on Tuesday.This portion starts at Yongqing in China's northern province of Hebei and ends at Shanghai in eastern China. The full China-Russia East system is a 5,111-km (3,176-mile) pipeline pumping natural gas from the Siberia region in Russia to China.Once launched in 2025, the southern…
PipeChina to Buy $56B Worth of Pipelines
China took a major step in the reform of its national oil and gas pipeline network, with newly formed PipeChina agreeing to buy pipelines and storage facilities valued at 391.4 billion yuan ($55.9 billion).Under the deal, PipeChina, known formally as China Oil and Gas Pipeline Network, will take over oil and gas pipelines and storage facilities from state-owned energy giants PetroChina and Sinopec, in return for cash and equity in the pipeline company.The creation of PipeChina is aimed at providing neutral access to the country's pipeline infrastructure…
Santos Flags $560 Mln Impairment Charge on Virus-led Oil Slump
Australia's Santos said on Tuesday it will book non-cash impairments of up to $560 million after tax, joining a number of global energy majors forced to write down assets after a coronavirus-induced slump in oil prices.The country's second-largest independent gas producer expects to record non-cash charges of between $490 million and $560 million after tax in its 2020 interim results, it said in a statement.Most of the impairment charges relate to Santos's Gladstone Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in its Cooper basin fields in Queensland…
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 rate of development of effective vaccines and government policy interventions to try to manage risk between here and there. It's a fluid environment.
Gazprom Neft Sells Its First Arctic Oil Cargo to China
Russia's Gazprom Neft has sold its first ever Arctic oil cargo to China to ChemChina, two sources familiar with the deal told Reuters on Thursday.This week, Gazprom Neft said it had sent 144,000 tonnes of light Novy Port oil grade to the Chinese port of Yantai on the Bohai Sea from Russia's north-western city of Murmansk, using the Northern Sea Route (NSR) through Russia's Arctic waters.The Delta Hellas vessel used part of the NSR, a route requiring icebreakers and ice-class tankers, Refinitiv Eikon data showed, sailing west from Murmansk to reach Suez and then China.Gazprom Neft said this week the delivery took 47 days, without pro
Woodside's Revenue Slumps More than Expected
Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd reported a worse-than-feared 29% drop in quarterly revenue, hit by weak spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices, but said it still expected to book a net profit in the first half.The hit came due to the double whammy of a global gas glut and a slump in demand with the coronavirus pandemic, and sent the company's shares down more than 2% while its peers were all trading higher."It's been a very difficult time for our industry and some external challenges are just simply beyond our control…
Shale Pioneer Chesapeake Energy Files for Bankruptcy
Chesapeake Energy Corp filed for Chapter 11 on Sunday, becoming the largest U.S. oil and gas producer to seek bankruptcy protection in recent years as it bowed to heavy debts and the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on energy markets.The filing marks an end of an era for the Oklahoma City-based shale pioneer, and comes after months of negotiations with creditors. Reuters first reported in March the company had retained debt advisers.Chesapeake was co-founded by Aubrey McClendon, an early and high profile advocate of shale drilling who died in 2016 in a fiery one-car crash in Oklahoma while facing a federal probe into bid rigging.
ConocoPhillips CEO Says Surprised by Quick Rebound in Oil Prices
ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Ryan Lance on Wednesday expressed surprise at the quick rebound in U.S. oil prices that slipped into the negative territory in April and said he expects prices to remain volatile in the near term.Oil is now trading at near $40 per barrel, almost double of $20 it averaged in April, the same month prices had briefly slumped to minus $38 per barrel due to low demand as countries halted travel to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, while top producers agreed to pump full bore."We were surprised it came back this strong this quickly…
New Hospital Planned for Russian Village Building Novatek's LNG Plant
Russia's Arctic region of Murmansk plans to build a new temporary hospital in a village where a vital liquefied natural gas supply plant is being built after an outbreak of the new coronavirus.Murmansk governor Andrey Chibis said the authorities had contained the outbreak in Belokamenka, where Russian gas producer Novatek is building the plant, and construction of the plant had not been suspended.But the Murmansk region, which borders Finland and Norway, must be prepared for a possible second wave of the virus, he said."We clearly understand that the virus is likely to stay for a long time," Chibis told Reuters by telephone.
Norway Gov't Cuts Its Oil Price Assumption for 2020
The Norwegian government has cut its oil price assumption for 2020 to 331 Norwegian crowns ($32.17) per barrel from 476 crowns last October, a revised budget showed on Tuesday.Norway is Western Europe's largest oil and gas producer, with petroleum accounting to about 40% of its exports and about a fifth of the state's revenues.Oil prices fell as global oil demand has slumped by about 30% as the coronavirus pandemic has curtailed movement across the world, leading to growing inventories globally. ($1 = 10.2875 Norwegian crowns) (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)
Aker Braces for Oil Price to Stay Low for Long
Aker ASA, a major investor in Norway's oil and oil service industries, is preparing its businesses for an extended period of low crude prices, its chief executive said on Friday"I don't expect the oil market to come into balance during the next couple of years... due to the underlying supply and demand mechanics being impacted by storage (overhang)," Oeyvind Eriksen told Reuters.Aker, the largest shareholder of oil and gas producer Aker BP as well as Aker Solutions and Kvaerner, is considering investing more in renewable energy, but has not yet made a final decision, he added.
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 Woodside was watching how…
Centrica Pauses Spirit Energy Sale, Scraps Dividend. Shares Hit Record Low
Britain's largest energy supplier Centrica canceled its 2019 dividend and cut costs in anticipation of an increase in nonpayments by customers and a drop in demand due to the COVID-19 outbreak, sending its shares to record lows.The government has ordered sweeping measures to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, shutting down much of the economy and raising the prospect of mass job losses.Shares in the company hit 34.35 pence on Thursday, morning, their lowest level since the company's inception in 1997."We also expect to see an increase in working capital outflows and customer bad debt…
Diamondback Cuts Drilling Activity as Oil Prices Tumble
Diamondback Energy Inc said on Monday it was reducing drilling activity immediately, as the oil and gas producer tackles one of the steepest declines in oil prices in decades.Oil prices lost as much as a third of their value on Monday in the biggest daily rout since the 1991 Gulf War, after Saudi Arabia signaled it would hike output to win market share at a time when the coronavirus epidemic has left the market oversupplied.The company's shares were down nearly 22% in light premarket trading amid a broader fall in oil and gas related stocks.Diamondback expects to drop two rigs in April and a third later in the second quarter.
Saudi Aramco Launches Largest Shale Gas Development Outside US
Saudi Aramco is launching the biggest shale gas development outside of the United States to boost domestic gas supply and end the burning of oil at its power generation plants, Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser told Reuters on Monday.The world's top crude oil exporter has for years battled for market share with rapidly expanding shale oil producers in the United States, which in just a decade have developed capacity to pump millions of barrels per day of oil from rock formations that were previously too costly to tap.Saudi Arabia fought a price war aimed at putting the U.S.
Russia Leads E&P Race in Arctic Region
Russian and Norwegian exploration and production (E&P) operators have been expanding their operations in the Arctic continental shelf, which is estimated to hold vast deposits of hydrocarbons and rare earth minerals.Warming temperatures in the Barents Sea and northern coastline of Russia are giving an added impetus to resource development in this region, according to GlobalData.GlobalData's report, ‘Arctic Exploitation’, discusses how Russia is keen on hydrocarbon appraisal and development from the Arctic region…
