Is A New Oil Price War Looming?
U.S. crude oil production broke another record in September, putting additional pressure on the OPEC+ group, which looks to keep oil prices above $80 per barrel by controlling “market stability.” The underwhelming OPEC+ meeting last week showed that there is dissent within the group about deeper cuts and production quotas. The Saudis rolled over their extra voluntary cut of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) and Russia – the leader of the non-OPEC allies in OPEC+ – pledged to deepen its supply cut to 500,000 bpd from 300,000 bpd. Some other OPEC+ producers announced additional voluntary cuts, which brings the total OPEC+ supply cut to 2.2 million bpd for the first quarter of 2024. That’s in addition to Russia’s 500,000 bpd cut via export reductions of 300,000 bpd of crude and 200,000 bpd of refined petroleum products, OPEC said. The OPEC+ supply decision, which the market found unconvincing, will likely erase the expected deficit early next year but leaves the question ‘what’s next’ unanswered, analysts say. Non-OPEC+ supply is growing at a faster pace than previously forecast and is being led by record U.S. crude oil production, which continued to soar despite a flat or falling rig count compared to this time last year. OPEC+ and its leader, Saudi Arabia, face the same oil dilemma – how to counter surging U.S. production and prevent it from unraveling the efforts of the alliance to prop up prices. Record-high U.S. oil production is a “huge problem” for OPEC+, Paul Sankey at Sankey Research told CNBC after last week’s OPEC+ meeting. The solution for Saudi Arabia could be to just flush the soaring non-OPEC+ output out by flooding the market with crude and thus sinking oil prices to levels below the U.S. profitability threshold, Sankey said. “We’ve more or less been saying potentially Saudi needs to just flush this thing out,” he told CNBC. The Kingdom is believed to have a production capacity of around 11.5 million bpd, and it’s currently producing around 9 million bpd. So Saudi Arabia could ramp up its oil output by around 2.5 million bpd – if it decided to – within six months, according to Sankey. The Saudis flooding the market with oil wouldn’t be all that surprising – they did so in 2014 and again in the price war in the early Covid days in 2020 when WTI oil prices went negative. Soaring U.S. oil production is becoming a “real problem for OPEC,” Sankey told CNBC. U.S. crude oil production hit a new monthly record of 13.236 million bpd in September, according to the latest data from the EIA released on Thursday. “The growth has not just been a Permian story. We’re seeing many shale basins that were flattish experiencing a revival,” Francisco Blanch, Head of Global Commodities and Derivatives Research at BofA, said on a call to discuss the bank’s energy outlook, as quoted by Reuters. BofA Global Research said last week in its 2024 outlook that “Recession, faster-than-expected US shale growth, and lack of OPEC+ cohesion are downside risks to oil prices.” Other non-OPEC+ producers are also ramping up production – including Guyana, Canada, and Brazil. Brazil was invited to join the OPEC+ alliance as of January 2024, but the biggest oil producer in South America will not have any quota and will not take part in oil production cuts. The lack of a unanimous group-wide cut with all members contributing is a concern about the OPEC+ unity, analysts say. “With the cuts only being supported by a handful of producers and with no additional cuts from Saudi Arabia, the failure to secure a group-wide agreement does not bode well for the group’s unity going forward – especially if demand continues to slow, forcing more unpopular and economically challenging decisions,” Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy, at Saxo Bank, wrote in a weekly note on Friday.
Saudi Prince Says Oil Output Cuts Could Extend Beyond March
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg on Monday that OPEC+ production cuts could extend beyond March 2024 if the market requires it, criticizing commentators for failing to understand the output deal. On November 30, eight members of the expanded cartel announced voluntary cuts of around 2.2 million barrels per day for the first-quarter of next year, including Saudi Arabia’s current voluntary cuts of 1 million barrels per day, as well as Russia’s 500,000 bpd voluntary cuts. That leaves us with “additional”, “voluntary” cuts of less than 900,000 bpd not already been priced in. Additional voluntary cuts were pledged from Iraq, UEA, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman. The market’s reaction to the OPEC+ voluntary cuts announcement was a further decline in oil prices. According to Reuters, investors were bearish on the crude ahead of the OPEC+ meeting and had already priced in their anticipation that cuts would not be enough to move prices higher. The Saudi energy minister has criticized the market’s response to the OPEC+ announcement, accusing commentators of wanting to be “conspiratorial” and failing to understand the deal. The Saudi prince suggested that this would change once “people see the reality of the deal”. The prince emphasized that the 2.2 million in output cuts would be delivered. “I honestly believe that the 2.2 million will overcome the usual inventory build that usually happens in the first quarter,” he told Bloomberg, noting that “we wanted the market to know there would be a phased-in approach” because the cartel does cannot predict what the market situation will be in the first three months of the New Year. That required the cartel to “be careful about what language we use”. In other words, curbs on OPEC+ production will be phased out only after consideration of market conditions.
ONGC and OIL in talks with BAPCO, JAPEX, and Mitsui to boost oil and gas production
State-run ONGC and Oil India (OIL) are in talks with Japan Petroleum Exporation (Japex), Mitsui and Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) to collaborate on enhancing domestic exploration and production (E&P) activities. “Indian National Oil Companies (NOCs) (ONGC and OIL) have executed several agreements with International Oil Companies (IOCs) (ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies) for collaboration in E & P activities and are also in discussions with BAPCO, JAPEX and Mitsui,” Oil Minister H S Puri said in response to a starred question in Rajya Sabha on Monday. Detailing the efforts made by the government to enhance India’s production of crude oil and natural gas, the Minister said the government has increased the net geographical area under exploration from 2.5 lakh square kilometres (SKM) to 5 lakh SKM. Besides, the “No Go” areas in exclusive economic zones (EEZ) have been reduced by almost 99 per cent, so 10 lakh SKM areas are now accessible in EEZ for E&P activity. “Total operational area (active) under various licensing regimes is 3,27,456 SKM which includes exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons like Coal Bed Methane (CBM),” he added. Scaling up production Last month, ONGC organised roadshows in Abu Dhabi and Singapore, eyeing partnerships with global oil and gas companies for 25 offshore facilities in the next three years. The Maharatna company is embarking on an expedited development of multiple offshore fields over the next three years. Its objective is to establish more than 25 offshore facilities, layover 1,000 km of sub-sea pipelines, and create associated infrastructure, requiring an investment of $11 billion. The CPSU has increased its capex on E&P activities during FY24 to around Rs 10,000 crore, which is around one-third of the E&P major’s total capex for the fiscal year. Besides, it will incur a capex of around 10,000 crore annually for the next five years on exploration. On the other hand, OIL has plans to increase E&P operations to drill more than 60 wells in the current financial year from 45 in FY23. The company, which was accorded the Maharatna status last month, aims to surpass 4 million tonnes (MT) in crude oil production and 5 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas output by FY25. E&P activity Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG) has signed a total of 311 production sharing contracts (PSC) involving 29 discovered fields, which includes one PSC signed for Panna & Mukta fields and 28 blocks under pre-NELP exploration blocks as well as 254 under the NELP regime with national oil companies and Private (both Indian and Foreign)/ Joint Venture companies. Also, thirty Revenue Sharing Contracts (RSCs) have been inked under DSF (Discovered Small Field)-2016 involving 30 Contract Areas. Since 2017, seven Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) rounds have been successfully concluded with the award of 134 exploration blocks covering 2,07,691 sq. km. area for E&P activities.
Latest Cuts Leave OPEC with Fewer Options
Last week, OPEC and its partners from OPEC+ agreed to deepen and extend their production cuts into the first quarter of 2024. The move, almost unanimously seen as a means to propping up oil prices, did not have the desired effect. After an initial jump, benchmarks slid again, with Brent crude dipping below $80 per barrel on Monday morning in Asia. So, it seems that the cuts have, at least for now, failed in their purpose. Of course, the tighter supply may yet be felt on the market, but in the meantime, OPEC—and OPEC+—seems to be running out of options. And those that are left are painful ones. “The market is going to test Opec+ and whether $80 a barrel is really a floor they can defend,” Raad Alkadiri, an analyst with Eurasia Group, told the Financial Times. “The cuts being billed as ‘voluntary’ undermines the psychological impact for the market a little, but if the full cut is realized, its impact on the market should not be discounted.” Indeed, part of the reason oil prices went lower rather than higher last week despite the OPEC+ announcement was the suspicion that some of the cuts will remain so only on paper. The suspicion emerged after reports that OPEC members had internal disagreements about the production level they should be free to pursue. The total cuts for the first half of 2024 are set at 2.2 million barrels daily, equal to about 2% of global supply. A few years ago, this would have been reason enough for traders to pile into oil futures. Now, this is not the case. Some, such as Reuters’ Clyde Russell, argue that this indicates that oil demand is not as strong as OPEC says it is. Others, such as energy analyst Paul Sankey, suggest OPEC could do a U-turn and sink prices to neutralize the rising output of U.S. drillers. Physical oil demand and its relation to the oil futures market are at the heart of it all. OPEC has been upbeat about that, just as the International Energy Agency has been increasingly pessimistic about it, recently forecasting peak demand growth before 2030. At the same time, there has been a multitude of reports and forecasts projecting weak economic growth for the world in the immediate future. With such projections, it is easy to understand why traders are turning bearish after the initial shock of the latest war in the Middle East wears out. It’s even easier to understand after Bloomberg reported that as much as a fifth of what we collectively think of as traders are actually computer algorithms. Commodity trading advisors use algorithms to track the market and place bets on various commodities. In oil, the trading volume of these algorithm-driven trades constitutes 70% of the total daily average volume on a given day, per data from JP Morgan and TD Bank, cited by Bloomberg. This means that the futures market has got even more divorced from the physical market for oil than before. And that, in turn, means that OPEC could be driven to desperation as algo traders, which Bloomberg notes are trend followers and trend exaggerators, ignore any attempt by the cartel to control oil supply, and, as a result, prices. This would prove a dangerous situation, especially for U.S. producers that have set another production record this year even though growth has been slower and more moderate than in previous growth years. Indeed, this is what Paul Sankey suggested to CNBC last week: that Saudi Arabia may simply decide to reverse course and open the taps to flood markets with oil. The question is whether it can afford to do so with all its expensive energy transition plans. On the other hand, OPEC in general, and Saudi Arabia specifically, can simply cut even deeper if the price of oil in the first quarter of 2024 comes across as unsatisfactory. It would be a risky move, given the market reaction to this latest cut. But it could be the less risky move compared to the above alternative. According to Reuters’ Russell, a big part of the market’s skeptical reaction to the cuts was the news about internal disagreements in OPEC. Apparently, these suggest that not all members of the group would actually follow through with their cuts. On the other hand, many OPEC members have been underproducing even with their original quotas—and prices have still declined. It is certainly a complicated situation for OPEC. The more often it cuts production, the more traders would question the outlook on oil demand, as suggested by the latest cuts. On the other hand, there is a divide between the physical market and the futures market. The physical market looks quite healthy based on seaborne oil volumes, which are up by 1.86 million bpd so far this year, per Kpler data cited by Russell. The futures market appears to be dominated by automatic trading, which affects prices in a major way. In any case, next year will be interesting to watch on the OPEC front.
India, China skip signing renewable power pledge at COP28, 118 countries sig
India and China have not signed the global renewable and energy efficiency pledge at this year’s Conference of Parties (COP28) climate summit, held in Dubai. The pledge was to triple the global renewable energy target by the year 2030. Meanwhile, a total of 118 nations have pledged to triple green energy. The Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge commits to tripling worldwide installed renewable energy generation capacity to at least 11,000 GW and to double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements to more than 4 percent by 2030. Nearly 1,00,000 delegates from 198 countries are participating in the global conference, which commenced on Thursday and will run through December 12. On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed to host the UN climate conference in India in 2028. He also launched a ‘Green Credit Initiative’ focused on creating carbon sinks through people’s participation. Participating in multiple high-level events on the second day of the UN climate conference (COP28) in Dubai, the Prime Minister said rich nations should completely reduce their carbon footprint “well before” 2050 and give all developing countries their fair share in the global carbon budget. He also urged countries to deliver a concrete outcome on finance to help developing and poor nations combat climate change at COP28.
Proposed 5% Biogas Blending With Natural Gas Can Cut LNG Imports Worth USD 1.17 Billion: IBA
The proposed 5 per cent blending of biogas with natural gas supplies in the country can cut LNG imports worth USD 1.17 billion annually, says a study by the Indian Biogas Association (IBA). The study comes against the backdrop of the government’s recent mandate to blend one per cent biogas with piped natural gas (PNG) supplies in the country from April 1, 2025 under the compressed biogas blending obligation (CBO) scheme. The biogas blending is proposed to be further increased to 5 per cent by fiscal year 2028–29. According to the study, this blending initiative gels well with the government’s macro-level move to make India a gas-based economy, with a target to increase the current share of gas in the energy mix from 6 per cent currently to 15 per cent by 2030. The IBA estimates show that 5 per cent blending of biogas with natural gas can reduce LNG imports worth USD 1.17 billion. This can also bring down per capita CO2 emissions by two per cent, benchmarked to the 2019 figure, which was 1.9 metric tonne of CO2 per person in India. Additionally, the body says preventing organic waste going to landfills can bring innumerable benefits. The CBO scheme shall encourage investment of around Rs 375 billion and facilitate the establishment of at least 750 compressed bio gas (CBG) projects by 2028–29, as per government estimates. This is going to improve India’s energy security, as it is currently heavily reliant on imported natural gas to meet its energy needs. Blending biogas with PNG and CBG can help reduce this dependence, which is invaluable. Biogas blending has the potential to demonstrate a positive correlation with agricultural income growth too, which is the case with ethanol as well. Every additional large-scale plant can ensure that almost 1,000 acre of nearby biogas plant area can be converted into organic agriculture. Biogas can be produced from various organic waste sources, such as agricultural waste, municipal solid waste, and food waste. his can create new economic opportunities for farmers, waste management companies, and other stakeholders involved in biogas production. Blending of biogas with natural gas will streamline the market for biofuels, making it more investor-friendly by reducing capital and operational costs, the body says. It also needs to be emphasised that selling biofuels in the market will become smoother, and the ecosystem will benefit from increased investor confidence, IBA stated.
Govt’s green hydrogen push to cut fossil fuel imports by INR 1 trillion
The mission aims to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and feedstock and create export opportunities for Green Hydrogen and its derivatives to help the world fight climate change. Green Hydrogen is considered a promising alternative for enabling India’s transition to renewable energy and achieving Net Zero emissions by 2070. Hydrogen can be utilized for long-duration storage of renewable energy, replacement of fossil fuels in industry, clean transportation, and potentially also for decentralized power generation, aviation, and marine transport. The Mission outcomes projected by 2030 are: * Development of green hydrogen production capacity of at least 5 MMT (Million Metric Tonne) per annum with an associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125 GW in the country * Over Rs. 8000 billion in total investments * Creation of more than 0.6 million jobs * Cumulative reduction in fossil fuel imports worth over Rs 1000 billion * Abatement of nearly 50 MMT of annual greenhouse gas emissions At present, India has only two hydrogen refuelling stations – one each at Indian Oil’s R&D Centre, Faridabad, and the National Institute of Solar Energy, Gurugram. NTPC is going to start the operations of India’s first public green hydrogen fuelling station this month in Ladakh, which will be used to supply fuel to five hydrogen fuel cell buses India’s first hydrogen fuel bus was launched in Ladakh in August this year and has been carrying out trial runs in the region. In January 2023, the Union Cabinet approved Rs 197.44 billion for the National Hydrogen Mission. The amount included Rs 174.90 billion for the Sustainable India Green Hydrogen and Technologies (SIGHT) programme, Rs 14.66 billion for pilot projects, Rs 4 billion for research and development, and Rs 3.88 billion for other mission components.
Russia Takes Control of Iraq’s Biggest Oil Discovery for 20 Years
Preliminary estimates suggested that Iraq’s Eridu oil field holds between 7-10 billion barrels of reserves. Senior Russian oil industry sources spoken to exclusively by OilPrice.com last week said the true figure may well be 50 percent more than the higher figure of that band. In either event, the Eridu field – part of Iraq’s Block 10 exploration and development region – is the biggest oil find in Iraq in the last 20 years, and Russia wants to control all of it, alongside its chief geopolitical ally, China. This is in line with Moscow and Beijing’s objective of keeping the West out of energy deals in Iraq to keep Baghdad closer to the new Iran-Saudi axis and to “end [the] Western hegemony in the Middle East [that] will become the decisive chapter in the West’s final demise,” as exclusively related to OilPrice.com. The approval last week by Iraq’s Oil Ministry for Inpex – the major oil company of key U.S. ally Japan – to sell its 40 percent stake in the Block 10 region that contains the huge Eridu discovery leaves the way clear for Lukoil to take total control of the entire oil-rich area. Lukoil had held a 60 percent stake in the entirety of Block 10, with the remainder held by the Japanese firm. However, from March it has been looking for ways to push Inpex out of the Block, and with it the last remnants of Western influence in the area. March saw Iraq’s state-owned Dhi Qar Oil Company (DQOC) formally approve the development of Block 10’s reserves, including for the whole Eridu field. Block 10 lies in the southeast of Iraq, approximately 120 km west of the key oil export route from Basra, and just south of the huge oil fields in and around Nassirya. The contract for Block 10 awarded to Lukoil and Inpex back in 2012 in Iraq’s fourth licensing round gives a relatively high remuneration per barrel rate of US$5.99, although at that point the vast Eridu field had not been discovered. In 2021, after some preliminary testing, Iraq’s Oil Ministry said it expected peak production of at minimum 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Eridu by, at that point, 2027. The senior Russian oil industry sources exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com last week, believe peak production could run at least 100,000 bpd higher than the previous figure, contingent on whether the new reserves estimates are correct, although given delays in development since 2021, the date at which that will be achieved is now toward the end of 2029. Back in 2021 – at least before the U.S. formally withdrew from Iraq by ending its ‘combat mission’ there at the end of December – it was clear that Washington knew what Russia and China were up to long term in the country, and how the U.S. was being manipulated by Iraq. In a moment of insight, the then-U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dana Stroul, said: “It’s […] clear that certain countries and partners would want to hedge and test what more they might be able to get from the United States by testing the waters of deeper co-operation with the Chinese or the Russians, particularly in the security and military space.” This view could equally have been aimed, not just at Iraq, but also at most other countries in the Middle East at that time – most notably Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. That said, this profound insight had no effect on Washington at that point, and posed no impediment at all to either Russia or China’s continued drive to entirely push the U.S. out of the Middle East, as analysed in depth in in my new book on the new global oil market order. For Iraq, the endgame has been apparent from Russia’s effective takeover of the oil and gas industry of the country’s troublesome semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north. This occurred in the chaos that followed the brutal put-down of the region after 93 percent of its inhabitants voted for full independence from Iraq in September 2017. Russian control over Iraqi Kurdistan was secured via the state’s corporate proxy, Rosneft, through three means, as also analysed in full in my new book. Subsequent to this, Russia has manipulated the region into such a toxic standoff with the central Iraq government in Baghdad that the final stage of the plan to effectively incorporate the Iraqi Kurdistan region into the rest of Iraq, is now proceeding at full throttle. Given this, Russia and China are now moving to secure their dominance over the rest of Iraq, with the removal of Inpex from the vast Eridu field being only the latest example of their broader strategy at work. Multiple field exploration and development deals, plus countless lower-profile ‘contract-only’ agreements, with Russian and Chinese firms allow the two countries plenty of scope to leverage these out into a harder geopolitical presence across the country, including into the very fabric of its key infrastructure. At a recent Iraq Cabinet meeting, it was agreed that the country should now give its full support to rolling out all aspects of the wide-ranging ‘Iraq-China Framework Agreement’ signed in December 2021, but agreed in principle more than a year before that. This agreement is very similar in scope and scale to the all-encompassing ‘Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement’, as first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article on the subject and fully examined in my new book. A key part of both deals is that China has first refusal on all oil, gas, and petrochemicals projects that come up in Iraq for the duration of the deal, and that it is given at least a 30 percent discount on all oil, gas, and petrochemicals it buys. Another key part of the Iraq-China Framework Agreement is that Beijing is allowed to build factories across the country, with a corollary build-out of supportive infrastructure. This includes – importantly for its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ –
IOC raises Panipat refinery expansion cost by 10 per cent, pushes completion deadline by a year
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation’s top oil firm, has revised the estimates of cost of expanding the Panipat refinery in Haryana by 10 per cent to Rs 362.25 billion and pushed back completion deadline by more than a year to December 2025. IOC is expanding its 15 million tonnes a year refinery, about 100-km north of New Delhi, to 25 million tonnes. In a stock exchange filing, the firm said its board has approved “revision in cost of the project for capacity expansion of Panipat Refinery from Rs 329.46 billion to Rs 362.25 billion and revision in completion schedule of the project from September 2024 to December 2025.” Besides expanding the capacity to turn crude oil into value-added fuels such as petrol, diesel and ATF, IOC is also setting up a polypropylene unit and a catalytic dewaxing unit. Polypropylene is used in packaging, plastic parts for various industries including the automotive industry, and textiles. Catalytic dewaxing is used in base oil production IOC owns and operates nine of the country’s nearly two-dozen refineries. The total capacity under its operations is 70.1 million tonnes per annum. In its latest annual report, the firm says, “By 2026, our approved projects will significantly increase our crude oil refining capacity from the current 70.05 million tonnes per annum to 87.9 million tonnes.” In August, the company had awarded a contract to McDermott International Ltd to provide a suite of services for further expansions of olefins and polymers production at Panipat refining and chemical complex.
GAIL seeks $1.8 bn from former Gazprom unit
State-owned Gail India on Friday said it has initiated legal proceedings against a former unit of Russian energy giant Gazprom for non-delivery of LNG and has sought USD 1.817 billion in damages. In a stock exchange filing, the gas utility said it has filed an arbitration claim before the London Court of International Arbitration for “non-supply of LNG cargoes under long-term contract.” GAIL in 2012 signed a 20-year deal to buy as much as 2.85 million tonnes per annum of liquefied natural gas (LNG) with Russian energy giant Gazprom. The deal was signed with Gazprom Marketing and Singapore (GMTS), which at the time was a unit of Gazprom Germania, now called Sefe. The Russian parent gave up ownership of Sefe after Western sanctions were imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine last year. Sefe had stopped supplying LNG to the Indian company in June last year to meet its own demand. GAIL in the filing said it has sued “SEFE Marketing & Trading Singapore Pte Ltd (erstwhile Gazprom Marketing and Trading Singapore Pte Ltd)” and has sought “up to USD 1.817 billion and alternative relief including non-monetary reliefs.” The claim was filed on Friday, the filing added. Originally, GAIL had signed up with the German subsidiary of Gazprom, and a step-down company based in Singapore for sourcing of gas. After the invasion, the German government took over the company and the supplies got hindered as the German government debarred the company from picking up any cargo from Russia. GAIL believes the contract was a portfolio contract and supplies cannot be stopped in anyway. If there were problems in sourcing from Russia, the supplier should have arranged for the cargo from other destinations. Sefe resumed normal supplies in April this year. GAIL signed a 20-year deal with Gazprom Marketing and Singapore (GMTS) in 2012 to buy 2.85 million tonnes per annum of LNG. Supplies started in 2018 and the full volume was to reach in 2023. GMTS had signed the deal on behalf of Gazprom. GMTS was moved to Gazprom Germania, now called Sefe. But in early April last year, Gazprom gave up the ownership of the German unit without giving a reason and placed parts of it under Russian sanctions. This followed the West slapping sanctions on Russia for its February 24 invasion of Ukraine. It invoked force majeure and stopped supplies to India from June 2022.