Shell Share Discussion Threads

[la forge] 07/1/2018 05:49

06 January 2018 06:07 PM

Mubasher: The number of active oil and gas rigs in the United States declined last week, as shown by the data of Baker Hughes

The total number decreased by 5 rigs to 924 rigs, which indicated an increase of addition of 259 during 2017.

US Oil rigs went down by 5 from 747 to 742, compared to 529 in the year before.

Meanwhile, the total number of gas rigs remained stable at 182, up from 135 a year ago.

[la forge] 06/1/2018 15:01

Oil's push in plastic dims as plant-based challenge grows
Fossil fuel sector wants larger role in plastics, but alternatives set to grow

By Anna Hirtenstein, Bloomberg News Published 11:50 pm, Friday, January 5, 2018

Coca-Cola is turning to plant-based plastics. Photo: Bloomberg / © 2013 Bloomberg Finance LP

Photo: Bloomberg
Image 1 of 4
Coca-Cola is turning to plant-based plastics.

Companies that make packaging from plants instead of fossil fuels are starting to challenge the oil industry's ambition to increase the supply of raw materials for plastics.

Use of bioplastics made from sugar cane, wood and corn will grow at least 50 percent in the next five years, according to the European Bioplastics Association in Berlin. German chemical giant BASF and the Finnish paper maker Stora Enso have stepped into the business to meet demand from the likes of Coca-Cola Co.

"Biochemicals and bioplastics could erode a portion of oil demand, much like recycling can erode overall virgin plastics demand," said Pieterjan Van Uytvanck, a senior consultant at Wood Mackenzie, an energy research group.. "It will become a larger portion of the supply."

Plastic packaging has left the world swimming in disused bottles, bags and wraps. There will be more plastic than fish in oceans by 2050, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Bioplastics make up about 1 percent of the plastics market, according the industry's organization in Europe. They are made by processing sugars from plants and tend to have a smaller carbon footprint than their conventional counterparts. Some are also designed to naturally degrade after use. Top producers include Sao Paulo-based Braskem, NatureWorks in the U.S. and Novamont of Italy.
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"Attitudes are evolving," said David Eyton, the head of technology at BP. "The question that faces the petrochemicals industry that has yet to really be answered is, 'How are people going to deal with some of the environmental impacts of petrochemicals?'R01;"

Oil companies make ethylene and other basic building blocks for plastic. They've been eyeing that market for growth as electric cars threaten to trim demand for gasoline.

Petrochemicals have taken off in the Houston area in recent years. Oil companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Chevron Corp. (in a joint venture with Houston refiner Phillips 66) are finishing multibillion-dollar projects along the Gulf Coast.

The International Energy Agency forecasts that plastics should boost petroleum demand.

"Petrochemicals will take center stage in driving oil demand," IEA analyst Tae-Yoon Kim said. "This is why oil majors are focusing on petrochemicals."

Company activity

But alternatives are appearing.

BASF set up a joint venture with Avantium Holding last year and is making bottles from cornstarch at a pilot plant. The partners are planning a plant with a capacity of 50,000 tons per year in Belgium. Coca-Cola has sold more than 50 billion so-called PlantBottles.

Stora Enso wants to reinvent itself as a renewable materials company. It sold close to 10 billion euros of paper and cardboard products last year and has a research center in southern Sweden where it's testing plastic that's 50 percent wood fiber.

Lego allocated $160 million to research more sustainable materials for its building blocks.

The new technology will have to compete against massive refineries that convert hundreds of thousands of barrels of every day into plastics.

"Alternative raw materials must be competitive," Stora Enso chief financial officer Seppo Parvi said in an interview in London, anticipating eventual price parity with crude plastics. "I'm confident we'll be able to do it."

Demand for bioplastics also needs to grow among retailers and consumers, according to Coke.

"It won't work if there's just one big consumer company like a Coca-Cola trying to drive suppliers," said Ben Jordan, Coke's head of environmental policy. "You need more demand out there in industry."

Jordan Blum of the Houston Chronicle contributed.

[fjgooner] 06/1/2018 14:58

US rig count down from 747 t0 742 even as crude prices hit multi-year highs.

[sarkasm] 06/1/2018 14:07

hoggy

once again hoggy cannot help but agree with you

but its the greedy 1 PERCENT that could do better

to provide the financing to improve things

NOT the 99 perecent being screwed and hanging on every one liner or media hype
in this consumer oriented society

Theres more than enough to go round providing the elitists or politicians do not destroy us first

its not the so called masses

i must admit, i am satisfied with the status quo
but i guess i am satisfied with my life
apart from having A FOOT IN THE GRAVE



Certainly wish better for the younguns

[2hoggy] 06/1/2018 13:14

sarkasm
Well is Africa big enough for you,as it has most of the wealth of the world in natural rescources,yet its politicians are so greedy that they will not share the wealth with the people who are in most need.Mugabe spent more on his houses than education,this is the real world.

Instead of creating better more modern countries through this wealth its squandered,they keep their countries poor,just look at South Africa and Zimbabwe for a couple of good examples who used to forward looking nations,not now.

My experiences with the third world are real and not from tv.

I remember a experiment they did with rats where they increased the population so much in a small contained area that they ended up killing one another until they reduced their numbers,is this to be our future if the population keeps increasing,remember humans are animals as well and can kill each other by the millions as has happened..

[waldron] 06/1/2018 12:57

CHUCKLE

DID YOU HAVE A MANFRIDAY

ROBINSON HOGGY

enjoy your weekend

[2hoggy] 06/1/2018 12:16

sarcasm

What you are not allowing for is that all these people on the planet want the lifestyles that we have.

Some years ago I was in Fiji and the local chiefs son was telling me that the people used to be quite happy with their lot until they got tv and then their whole attitude changed when they saw what the living standards were like in the west,they wanted the same without earning it.
These huts were as big as your shed with tv antennae sticking out

Another time in Asia in a very poor village,a house if you could call it that had a shiny new car outside and that was that mans main dream,never mind improving life for his family.

The rapidly expanding third world wants what we have and that's the crux of the problem,I think you being very idealistic about what could happen is not taking human greed into the equation.
You will end up with war eventually,unfortunately, especially over water..

[sarkasm] 06/1/2018 11:51

HOGGY

WAS IN AGREEMENT UNTIL YOUR LAST ALTERNATIVE,FALSE FACT


Theres enough land to be cultivated in AFRICA,SOUTH AMERICA ,ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
not even mentioning under the SEA

If they invested in the above areas rather than plan exploration of MARS AND THE MOON
and reduce defence spending

STOP PEOPLE MOVING INTO CITY AREAS AND ENCOURAGE SMALLER LOCALITIES OUTSIDE METRO
AREAS

[ariane] 05/1/2018 17:54

nice post buywell but perhaps alittle myopic as seems to be centred on uk

your view if we accept it, will take longer to impact other parts of the world

so i go for 10 or 20 years for things to substantially chane regarding oil and gas

in the meantime

Have a loverly weekend

[ariane] 05/1/2018 17:23

Your Money, Your America
'Drill, baby drill!' comes to oil safety regulator
by Matt Egan @MattEganCNN January 5, 2018: 11:42 AM ET
Your video will play in 00:30
The Trump administration wants to open virtually all federal waters to offshore drilling even as his administration pushes to relax regulations designed to prevent a repeat of the BP oil spill.

One of the key lessons from the BP oil spill, the biggest in American history, was to create a powerful agency charged with safeguarding offshore drilling.

Barely seven years later, this Interior Department regulator is changing its tune under President Trump. Instead of focusing exclusively on safety, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement now promotes pumping more offshore oil and gas.
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To help energy companies achieve that new goal, the agency is proposing changes to safety rules enacted after the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

Environmentalists and former officials worry that the pendulum may be swinging too far away from safety.

"It shows just how short our memories can be about the devastating consequences of the Deepwater Horizon accident," said Jason Bordoff, a Columbia University professor and former Obama energy official.

This shift by BSEE has taken on new urgency given the Trump administration's announcement on Thursday to roll back an Obama-era ban on new offshore drilling off the coasts of Florida and California. The move raised environmental concerns, including from Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott.

Related: Trump admin intends to roll back ban on offshore drilling

Safety regulator wants 'energy dominance'

BSEE's proposed revisions would ease certain safety reporting standards and remove requirements that safety devices get certified by independent third parties.

BSEE said the changes would help meet Trump's goal of "energy dominance" by ramping up domestic oil and gas output. "Reducing unnecessary burdens" of regulation should save the energy industry $228 million over a decade, the agency estimates.

Additionally, BSEE said it's working on a more consequential rewrite to a rule that was enacted to minimize the risk of a well explosion like the Deepwater Horizon one that killed 11 workers.

A draft of the rule obtained by The Wall Street Journal shows that BSEE wants to relax requirements to have backup plans for blowout preventers, valves used to prevent oil spills. It would also erase a requirement that BSEE confirm the number of pressure drillers used in new wells is "safe," according to the Journal.

A BSEE spokesman declined to comment on potential rule changes. He said the agency is required by law to ensure oil and gas resources are developed in a "safe and environmentally sustainable way."

BSEE Director Scott Angelle, a champion of the oil industry, last week called for a "paradigm shift" in regulation because he believes the agency "can actually increase domestic energy production and increase safety and environmental protection."

Related: America could become oil king of the world in 2018

BP oil spill could have been prevented

Although cutting regulations could reduce costs, Bordoff warned that a repeat of the BP oil spill would simultaneously be "terrible for the environmental, regional economies and the entire industry."

The presidential commission appointed to study the disaster concluded in 2011 that the explosion could have been prevented. The final report said the incident revealed risk management failures that "place in doubt the safety culture of the entire industry."

One of the recommendations was to create an independent safety agency to focus exclusively on offshore drilling safety. The commission noted inherent conflicts of interest in the old system, in which the safety regulator made money by leasing property to oil and gas companies.

Today, BSEE serves that role as the lead agency in charge of improving safety and preventing oil spills. Its staff of 850 conducts unannounced inspections, carries out investigations and does real-time monitoring.

The oil industry has complained that the response to the BP oil spill was too burdensome and needs to be dialed back to keep the U.S. competitive with Brazil, Mexico and other deepwater drillers. The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's lobby group, notes that oil and gas companies support over 10 million jobs.

Safety rules 'did not go too far'

Despite complaints about regulation, offshore oil production is strong right now. The Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for the vast majority of domestic offshore oil production, is expected to pump more oil than ever in 2018, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

"The safety regulations did not go too far. It's not burdensome," said William Turner, senior research analyst Wood Mackenzie. He said the rule changes may cut costs, but are unlikely to turn "red light projects into green lights."

While Gulf of Mexico production is poised to hit records, Wood Mackenzie warned that record output will be difficult to sustain because exploration activity has flatlined. It can take five to ten years to develop expensive deepwater projects in the Gulf.

"Unless we can get more ways to attract capital in the next few years," Wood Mackenzie senior manager Imran Kahn said, "the picture will not be rosy by any means."
CNNMoney (New York) First published January 5, 2018: 11:42 AM ET

[waldron] 05/1/2018 16:55

Shell A
2,530 -0.12%



Shell B
2,563 +0.08%

STILL STUCK IN THE 2475 to 2575 BOX

A WAITING GAME

A GAME AWAITING

[waldron] 05/1/2018 16:30

sarkasm
5 Jan '18 - 12:43 - 1916 of 1919
0 0 0
Energy and Environment
Without fanfare, oil companies just received a tax break on New Year’s Day
By Juliet Eilperin and Dino Grandoni January 5 at 6:00 AM

extract

The tax on companies selling oil in the United States generated an average of $500 million in federal revenue per year, according to the Government Accountability Office. The money, collected through a 9 cents-per-barrel tax on domestic crude oil and imported crude oil and petroleum products, constituted the main source of revenue for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.


TIME WILL TELL WHETHER THIS TAX IS REINSTATED

[la forge] 05/1/2018 16:12

I thought the oil price correlations were getting weaker especially Brent.

so a direct PERCENTAGE correlation move cannot be applied,especially as Shell now big
in trading and hedging oil and gas

Getting big in refining,pipelines to exporting terminals in the USA

Fracking is again in the news as is deep water exploration

SHELL IS MORPHING INTO DIFFERENT ANIMAL

Only 26days to go

[the white house] 05/1/2018 16:00

The UBS target was released with Brent at 58 bucks. At 67 bucks now that is a circa 15 % riseA straight 15% rise in their call takes it to a target north of GBP 30

[la forge] 05/1/2018 14:11

Heard on the street

someone on the RDSB advfn thread put the mockers on the sp

[sarkasm] 05/1/2018 12:43

Energy and Environment
Without fanfare, oil companies just received a tax break on New Year’s Day
By Juliet Eilperin and Dino Grandoni January 5 at 6:00 AM

An oil drilling rig is seen off the Pacific coastline. (Eugene Garcia/European Pressphoto Agency/Shutterstock)

Congressional Republicans allowed a tax on oil companies that generated hundreds of millions of dollars annually for federal oil-spill response efforts to expire this week — a move that amounts to another corporate break in the wake of lawmakers’ sweeping tax overhaul late last month.

The tax on companies selling oil in the United States generated an average of $500 million in federal revenue per year, according to the Government Accountability Office. The money, collected through a 9 cents-per-barrel tax on domestic crude oil and imported crude oil and petroleum products, constituted the main source of revenue for the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

The fund has at least $5.75 billion in reserve. Intended to help the government respond quickly to accidents on land or offshore, it was established in 1986 but only got a stable source of funding in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

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Your daily guide to the energy and environment debate.

The tax, which expired Sunday, had lapsed before but was renewed under the bipartisan 2005 Energy Policy Act. Federal officials recently had debated whether it should be expanded to apply to oil sands products.

Although GOP leaders opted not to renew the tax in December, they are considering reinstating it retroactively in an “extendersR21; bill that would revive several recently expired taxes. Industry officials noted that the U.S. Coast Guard or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could always ask Congress to reimpose it if either felt it was needed.

A White House official did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Environmentalists called the tax lapse another industry victory under President Trump at the expense of people and wildlife located near sites susceptible to spills.

“We see it as illustrative of the way in which Trump and the GOP continue to push giveaways for corporate polluters at any cost,” said Lukas Ross, a climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “They had a tax bill that disproportionately benefited the fossil fuel industry, and then they allowed a $500 million-a-year tax on that same industry to expire.”

But Randall Luthi, who represents offshore operators as president of the National Ocean Industries Association, suggested in an email that the tax was not critical at the moment. The cleanup trust fund “has never run out of money, nor will it in the near future,” he said.

Congressional Democrats, none of whom were at the negotiating table when Republicans hashed out the tax overhaul, are vowing to try to reinstate the oil tax.

“The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund ensures that when there is a spill, American taxpayers are not left holding the bag to clean up Big Oil’s mess,” Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who as a House member chaired hearings on the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, said in a statement. “We should have a robust trust fund — not just trust that oil companies will do nothing wrong — in case a disaster like the BP spill happens again.”

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Maria Cantwell (Wash.), respectively the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, have put forward a bill updating the 2005 energy law. Their proposal does not contain any tax provisions, however.

An extender package that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) introduced just before Christmas would reinstate the per-barrel tax as of Jan. 1 and push its expiration date to the end of 2018. “Discussions on how tax extenders should be addressed are ongoing,” committee spokeswoman Julia Lawless said in an email.

Oil and gas industry representatives have indicated that they would welcome changes to how revenue is collected for the trust fund. The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s largest lobbying group, opposes renewal of the per-barrel tax. The National Ocean Industries Association has proposed altering the way the fund is replenished.

“It would make sense for Congress to debate on whether the amount in the fund is currently enough to cover future spill removal and cleanup costs,” Luthi said, adding that lawmakers also could consider whether to establish a cap for the fund or a floor that would trigger the tax’s return.

The U.S. Coast Guard, which administers the fund, has a poor record of getting companies involved in a spill to repay money spent as part of the cleanup. In 2015, the GAO found that responsible parties were billed $272 million between 2011 and 2013 but that only $39 million was recovered.

The trust fund was heavily tapped after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which released more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. A fifth of the $5.5 billion in fines BP paid after the accident for violations of the Clean Water Act went to the fund.

Collin O’Mara, president and chief executive of the National Wildlife Federation, said he is optimistic that bipartisan support in the House and Senate will be strong enough to renew the tax. But he questioned why the administration would curtail response funds and alter safety rules at a time when it is pushing to expand oil and gas exploration on land and offshore.

“It’s indicative of a mind-set that safety’s a secondary concern,” O’Mara said Thursday.

Read more:

Trump administration plan would widely expand drilling in U.S. continental waters

Trump administration to overhaul safety-monitoring rules for offshore drilling


Juliet Eilperin is The Washington Post's senior national affairs correspondent, covering how the new administration is transforming a range of U.S. policies and the federal government itself. She is the author of two books—one on sharks, and another on Congress, not to be confused with each other—and has worked for the Post since 1998.
Follow @eilperin
Dino Grandoni is an energy and environmental policy reporter and the author of PowerPost's daily tipsheet on the beat, The Energy 202.
Follow @dino_grandoni

[waldron] 05/1/2018 12:25

analysis: Could 2018 mark a turning point for oil?
Jameel Ahmad


January 5, 2018 2:47 pm


Unrest in Iran continues to support the oil markets and helped push prices to two-year highs during the first week of January.

Could bulls continue their charge in the face of rising output from both Russia and the US?

FXTM’s Jameel Ahmad shares his outlook for the commodity this month.

December 2017

The current oil rally stems in part from December’s closure of the North Sea Forties Pipeline (FPS).

At full capacity, this crude oil conduit carries around 450,000 bpd and is responsible for delivering the oil underpinning the Brent benchmark — making it one of the most significant in the world.

The discovery of a hairline fracture and the pipe’s subsequent closure in early December was sufficient to spark supply concerns, and Brent crude rallied 1.6% when the news broke.

Pipeline issues remained a dominant theme throughout December. An explosion on the pipeline that serves Libya’s largest export terminal wiped at least 70,000 bpd from the nation’s production capacity.

This, coupled with the FSP issues and predictions of growing demand, played to investor concerns of undersupply and helped bolster the markets throughout December.

Read: Are global oil reserves so fragile that a pipe burst moves up prices?

January 2018

With both the FSP and Libyan pipes back online now, this week’s supply worries are likely the result of civil unrest in Iran, OPEC’s third largest producer.

At the time of writing, Iranian production remains unaffected by the protestors, suggesting that undersupply is unlikely to remain a dominant theme as we progress into Q1.

Indeed, despite the soaring oil markets making headlines this week, we’ve still seen the price settle lower for brief periods, and it is possible that we will start to see a price downturn as January progresses.

As ever, U.S. Shale remains a significant agitator of the oil markets, and reports that American output is now at its highest level in four decades sent prices into a short-lived dip on Tuesday 2 January.

With U.S production in December thought to be in the region of 9.75 million bpd, it won’t be long until the nation achieves its targeted 10 million bpd.

This may well spark concerns of a supply glut and will weigh heavily on buying sentiment.

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Russian production in 2017 will also be at the forefront of investors’ minds.

Despite Moscow’s commitment to OPEC-led production cuts last year, the nation still succeeded in producing a record average of 10.98million bpd in 2017.

This average includes a steady decrease since October, but the news will likely lead investors to question the effectiveness of OPEC’s production cuts if a major advocate of the scheme is still posting a year-on-year rise in production.

While the oil markets continue to find support from December’s unexpected supply issues and January’s geopolitical tensions, the effects of both are likely to be short lived.

Iranian production remains unchanged, and concerns around undersupply are unlikely to persist now that both the Libyan and North Sea pipelines are running at full capacity.

Ever increasing production from the U.S will continue to challenge OPEC’s attempts to rebalance the markets, and has the potential create a supply glut in 2018.

[waldron] 05/1/2018 12:25

CHEERS FELLA

[sogoesit] 05/1/2018 12:21

All o&g companies self-insure, or should, as liabilities tend to the unlimited.
The corollary is that insurers don’t insure such event risks with unknown liabilities.
(Drilling rigs do carry insurance but they are contractors and drilling contracts place liability for reservoir risk and blow-out on the operator.)
Following BP’s Macondo event most jurisdictions placed restrictions on standards thresholds and substantiality for companies that can act as operator.

[waldron] 05/1/2018 11:21

I WONDER WHAT INSURANCE COST THERE MIGHT BE TO COVER BP TYPE DISASTERS


WILL THERE BE AN EXTRA DISASTER TAX OR A SPECIAL FUTURE DISASTER FUND SET UP

AS ALWAYS TIME WILL TELL

[waldron] 05/1/2018 10:56

Shell A
2,531.5 -0.06%



Shell B
2,561.5 +0.02%

HAVE WE GOT A HEAD WIND AS WE APPROACH STRONG RESISTENCE AT 2575p

or will we get a tail wind into the 2575 to 2675p

all exciting stuff on the flight path as we approach February