The Theo T tanker has left NuStar Energy LP's dockside facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, along the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico, Mary Rose Brown, a spokeswoman for NuStar, said in an e-mail. The ship is carrying a cargo of oil and condensate to Italy from ConocoPhillips's wells in south Texas that was sold to Swiss trading house Vitol Group.
A campaign by oil explorers including Continental Resources Inc., Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. to lift the 1970s-era export prohibition culminated in a Dec. 18 congressional decision to end the ban.
Vitol, which owns stakes in refineries from northern Europe to Australia, has a second cargo of U.S.-sourced crude scheduled to depart a Houston port within days.
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http://peak-oil.org/peak-oil-review-28-dec-2015/
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5. The Briefs
OPEC forecast: Oil prices will take decades to recover and will still not reach the peak seen in recent years, according to the latest World Oil Outlook from OPEC. In the group's latest outlook on supply, demand and prices to 2020 and 2040, OPEC predicted that a barrel of oil would cost (in real terms) around $70 by 2020 and $95 by 2040, a far cry from a high point of $114 a barrel last seen in June 2014 before prices began to plunge. (12/24)
The $20/barrel low-cost price for early next year has been predicted since the autumn by Goldman Sachs. Now the International Monetary Fund has hinted that global prices could fall this low when Iran increases its oil exports in the wake of the lifting of international sanctions. Iran reckons it could increase its output by around one million barrels a day into a global market that is already oversupplied by up to two million b/d. (12/23)
In Finland, price negotiations between Russia's Gazprom and Finland's Gasum, ongoing since early 2014, have been concluded. The Finnish government has agreed to buy Gazprom's 25% stake in Gasum. Competitiveness against coal in power generation remains Gasum's primary challenge in the Finnish market, where gas demand has been on a downward trend in recent years due to plunging coal prices. In 2014, Finland consumed 2.8 billion cm of gas, down from 5 billion in 2005. Finland is currently dependent on Russia for its entire gas supply. (12/21)
In southeastern Nigeria, as many as 100 people were killed by an explosion at a gas plant. The blast happened on Thursday when a truck was discharging butane gas at the facility in Nnewi town in Anambra state while customers were refilling their gas bottles. (12/25)
Nigeria will reduce gasoline costs and scrap a fuel subsidy under a pricing mechanism to come into effect during January. Africa's biggest oil producer relies on fuel imports to meet domestic needs since its refineries produce a fraction of the 445,000 barrels per day they're capable of processing. (12/26)
Nigerian President Buhari asked lawmakers to approve the country's biggest ever budget on Tuesday as he looks to revive an economy hit by collapsing oil prices. Buhari outlined plans for the government to spend $30.8 billion in 2016, an increase of about 20 percent from this year. Africa's largest oil producer usually derives two-thirds of government revenue from the commodity. (12/22) Buhari also hinted for the first time that he would accept a devaluation of the national currency, the naira. (12/23)
PDVSA downer: A leading contractor for Venezuela's state oil company and another businessman were arrested by US authorities on charges of bribing foreign government officials, wire fraud and money laundering, the first arrests made in the US as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the company. (12/22)
Mexico's Pemex hopes to start 2016 with a plan to become leaner and more efficient. The state-owned oil producer is set to announce job cuts for next year as part of the plan to restructure the company and to synchronize itself to industry standards. Oil output at Pemex in 2015 will drop to the lowest in 25 years as a series of accidents and budget cuts curbed supply. The company is nearing $100 billion in debt and recently posted a record loss of about $10.2 billion in the third quarter. (12/24)
The total US rig count declined by nine this week to 700 with 538 rigs drilling for oil (down 3) and 162 rigs drilling for natural gas (down 6) amid depressed energy prices. A year ago, a total of 1,840 rigs were active. (12/24)
US exports: It took years to lift a ban on most US oil exports. It took a week for the first shipment to be announced. Enterprise Products Partners LP will load 600,000 barrels of domestic crude onto a tanker in the Houston Ship Channel during the first week of January. It sold the cargo to merchant trading giant Vitol Group, which will probably send it to Europe. (12/24)
US exports: OPEC's biggest producers probably don't need to worry about their sales being challenged by US crude exports to Asia, yet. US West Texas Intermediate oil must drop to $4 – $6 below Dubai crude, the benchmark for Middle East supply, for it to become competitive according to South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. (12/23)
Budget cutting: In a sign that U.S. energy producers think oil and gas prices will languish through next year, several are slashing their already slimmed-down budgets even more. ConocoPhillips plans to cut spending next year by 55 percent, when compared with its 2014 budget, to $7.7 billion. Marathon's 60 percent cut to a $2.2 billion budget for 2016 is even steeper. The low-price trend has already triggered a massive wave of asset write-downs. (12/26)
Shell has lowered its 2016 capital spending plan by $2 billion to $33 billion, pending a shareholder vote on the matter in January 2016. (12/23)
ConocoPhillips, one of the pioneers of foreign investment in the Russian oil and gas industry, has completed a full retreat from the country by selling out of its Polar Lights joint venture with Rosneft. Conoco's decision to exit from Russia after more than 25 years highlights the challenges facing foreign investors in the country's energy sector, which has been hit by recent political tensions and the tumble in oil prices. (12/22)
Bankruptcies among oil and gas companies have reached quarterly levels last seen in the Great Recession, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. At least nine U.S. oil and gas companies that accounted for more than $2 billion in debt have filed for bankruptcy in the fourth quarter. (12/25)
Lower tax revenues because of job losses in energy and related sectors due to the collapse in oil prices will hit the budgets of oil-producing states through the remainder of this fiscal year and next, Moody's Investors Service said Monday. Oklahoma revised down its revenue projections last Tuesday for the remainder of the current fiscal year by 8 percent, and by 13 percent for the next fiscal year. Moody's analysts expect to see a similar dynamic in Alaska, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas, with those states having to dip into budget reserves to meet shortfalls. (12/22)
US natural gas prices are so low that drillers are shutting in production, a once unfathomable development. This choking back of production suggests that prices could be at an absolute bottom. Still, that is not to say that prices will rebound substantially anytime soon. The supply overhang will likely linger with late-fall storage levels at all-time highs. (12/24)
In metro Los Angeles, officials in the San Fernando Valley have declared a state of emergency in the Porter Ranch neighborhood there, where more than 1,600 residents have been displaced by a massive natural-gas leak now entering its ninth week. It may take until March to stop the methane flowing from an old oil field used to store natural gas. The utility, a unit of Sempra Energy, says it has made six unsuccessful efforts to stop the leak, which appears to be coming from a well rupture about 500 feet below the surface. (12/22)
The Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments in early December on whether state or local governments have the authority to restrict hydraulic fracturing. A lower court threw out restrictions imposed by five Colorado cities and challenged by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. (12/24)
Traffic on the US rail network continues to weaken in a sign of the slowdown spreading across the industrial economy and efforts by firms to reverse the unplanned build-up of inventories throughout the supply chain. For the first 49 weeks of 2015, traffic has fallen 2.1 percent compared with the same period in 2014, though the rate of decline during the second half of the year is more than double the first-half decline. (12/24)
Automated driving: Ford is in talks with Google on an autonomous-driving venture. The talks are intended to help Ford accelerate its efforts to bring autonomous cars to market. Any agreement wouldn't be exclusive to Ford, and Google continues to talk with other auto makers. (12/22)
Automated driving: Toyota is developing a high-precision map generation system that will use data from on-board cameras and GPS devices installed in production vehicles in order to aid the safe implementation of automated driving. The new system will go on display at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2016 in Las Vegas next month. (12/22)
Wind energy credits: Congressional moves to keep the U.S. government funded through the middle of 2016 included an extension of subsidies for renewable energy programs. Wind power in the U.S. expanded more than 6 percent in 2015 alone. (12/22)
Low oil prices vs. emissions: The IEA analyzed the impact on greenhouse-gas emissions if global oil prices remain below $50 a barrel for the rest of the decade, pulling down coal and natural gas prices as well. The answer is complicated: on one hand, low prices will accelerate the shift from coal to cleaner gas for producing electricity, cutting carbon emissions. On the other, inexpensive fossil fuels will also undercut sales of electric vehicles, boost the cost of renewable-power subsidies, encourage the use of oil for chemical feedstocks and, most critically, make the payoff less attractive for efficiency upgrades. (12/22)
Climate Change: A majority of US Republicans who had heard of the international climate deal in Paris said they support working with other countries to curb global warming and were willing to take steps to do so, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday. The desire for action is notable for an issue that has barely made a ripple on the campaign trail among 2016 Republican presidential candidates. (12/23)
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