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Earlier this month, a top Shell executive warned that the Trump administration’s animosity towards offshore wind risks complicating investment decisions for oil and gas as well. Uncertainty was the word Collette Hirstius used. Uncertainty has become the dominant sentiment in energy circles—and it’s not just because of Trump. Speaking to the Financial Times, Shell’s Hirstius said that “I think uncertainty in the regulatory environment is very damaging. However far the pendulum swings one way, it’s likely that…
ExxonMobil has restarted the gasoline-producing fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) at its massive Beaumont, Texas, refinery, two days after an unexpected shutdown temporarily disrupted operations, according to sources familiar with the plant. The 120,000-barrel-per-day FCCU went offline Tuesday night following a malfunction, prompting flaring visible across the refinery complex. The company notified the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that flaring would continue for roughly 24 hours. Exxon confirmed neither the cause nor the duration…
Oil prices edged higher over the past week, after a bullish OPEC+ move while expanding strategic oil stocks in China have continued removing extra barrels from global markets, even though Thursday saw some paring of those gains on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks. Previously, there was speculation that OPEC+ was considering accelerating the return of the April 2023 tranche of voluntary output cuts from 137 thousand barrels per day (kb/d), which would result in a 12-month process, to 500kb/d, which would remove the remaining tranche in just…
We are at a time when there seems to be far more conflict than in the past. At least part of the problem is that slowing growth in the world economy is making it more difficult to repay debt with interest, especially for governments. A related issue is that government promises for pensions and healthcare costs are becoming more difficult to pay. Donald Trump is trying to make numerous changes that are distasteful both to other countries and to many people living within the US. What is going wrong with the economy? In my view, major cracks are developing…
BP has started up the Murlach oil and gas field in the UK North Sea, the sixth major project the supermajor has launched so far this year, as part of its goal to have ten new oil and gas fields operational by 2027. Murlach adds a peak net production of around 15,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) to the BP-operated Eastern Trough Area Project (ETAP) in the central North Sea, a hub that has been operating for 27 years, the supermajor said on Thursday. The Murlach project received government and regulatory approvals in 2023…
