Energy News Digest, Oil and Gas, 8th Feb. 2022. OPEC daily basket price stood at $93.42 a barrel on Tue, 6th February 2022
Windfall tax on energy giants in the UK is gaining momentum, Labour party MPs arguing that while households are hit with ultra high gas prices and energy bills are set to spike more than 50% in April. Oil companies are reporting billions profits.
Saudi Arabia, believes there will still be a market for its crude decades from now and plans to boost its production capacity while some other oil companies are limiting investments in oil in the energy transition, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, told TIME in an interview published on Sunday. Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco targets to increase its oil production capacity to 13 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027 from 12 million bpd now. It also aims to boost natural gas production to use more gas for domestic electricity production at the expense of dirtier fuels, including the burning of oil. Read More
Renewable energy will never be 100% green, says expert. “There are no zero emission energy supplies because you have to manufacture the devices, the installation, you have to manufacture them,” says Professor Jacques Treiner. Even if we could build 100 per cent clean energy supplies, we can’t yet rely on solar or wind as our main sources of energy. “There is no knob that you can turn that makes the thermonuclear reactions in the sun more intense or less intense when we need more or less electricity. For the wind, it is the same. These energies are inexhaustible. But we don’t control the flow.” The key is learning how to store energy better, Professor Jacques Treiner concludes. “Today when it comes to using renewable energies on a large scale, we don’t know how to store energy. If we knew how to do it, on the days of high production, we would stock it and we would use it during moments of low production. But we do not know how to do that on a massive scale. And so, we cannot, at the moment, envisage an electrical mix that is 100% renewable energy.” Read More
Stellantis N.V. announced that its Full Year 2021 Results will be released on Wednesday, February 23, 2022. A live webcast and conference call of the Full Year 2021 Results will begin at 2:00 p.m. CET / 8:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday, February 23, 2022. Read More
Bentley’s first-ever Battery-Powered Electric Vehicle (BEV) will be developed and built in the UK with the company committing to investing £2.5 billion in sustainability over the next ten years. The announcement is a major boost for the UK economy and also helps secure Bentley’s first step into electrification at the production plant, where all Bentley models are built and 4,000 colleagues work.
The first BEV is scheduled to roll off the production line in 2025 and will mark a significant moment in Bentley’s long and illustrious history. It is also a critical step in the company’s Beyond100 strategy – the ground-breaking plan launched in 2020 that will ensure Bentley is exclusively electric and end-to-end carbon neutral by 2030. The significant investment programme will also result in a complete transformation of Bentley’s entire product portfolio, and the historic Crewe Campus, by embedding an industry-leading greenfield facility into a world-leading, next generation digital, low environmental impact, high-value advanced manufacturing facility. Read More–>
Production and delivery of the Nissan Roox has been suspended following the discovery that its airbags may not perform as expected under certain conditions during crash tests. We have now confirmed the cause and determined the countermeasures and will restart production and deliveries on February 11. We will also submit recall notifications in the coming days for vehicles already on the market. Reason for action: There is a possibility that the driver-side airbag cannot fulfil regulatory requirements under certain conditions during front collision testing. Read More
Economic policies in the euro area have forcefully supported household incomes and protected corporate balance sheets. High levels of vaccination and increasing adaptation to the pandemic have also helped to foster a strong economic recovery. The challenge now is to coordinate the normalization of economic policy in the face of elevated uncertainty, including the evolution and legacies of the pandemic, as well as ongoing geopolitical tensions. Agility will be key, as policies become increasingly targeted to contain scarring and mitigate a potential rise in inequality and poverty. Once the expansion is firmly underway, highly indebted countries in particular will need to reduce their debts. Credible plans to achieve this should be announced now. In addition, European Union fiscal rules need reform, including consideration of an EU-level climate fund. Read More
BP boasts BIGGEST profits in eight years: British oil giant records £9.5BILLION gains while public suffers sky-high fuel bills and cost-of-living crisis – as calls grow for windfall tax on energy firms Read More
Energy giant Shell posts ‘momentous’ £12BILLION profits as millions face soaring bills and cost-of-living crisis – sparking calls for windfall tax on power companies. Shell increased its profits nearly fourteen-fold to £12billion amid soaring oil and gas prices – with the energy giant last week revealing a bumper three months on the same day that the UK price cap was set to rise by around £650. Read More
Electricity from solar is cheaper than sourcing it from coal-fired power plants, according to a new article published in the journal Energy and Environmental Materials. The authors of the peer-reviewed study from the University of Surrey in the UK point out that even if no other argument, such as fighting climate change, is accepted for the switch from fossil fuels to renewables, then economics should be reason enough to embrace clean energy. Read More
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) reported fourth-quarter 2021 earnings of $2.6 billion, or $1.98 per share, compared with a fourth-quarter 2020 loss of $0.8 billion, or ($0.72) per share. Excluding special items, fourth-quarter 2021 adjusted earnings were $3.0 billion, or $2.27 per share, compared with a fourth-quarter 2020 adjusted loss of $0.2 billion, or ($0.19) per share. Special items for the current quarter were primarily comprised of non-cash impairments related to the company’s existing investment in APLNG and noncore assets in Lower 48, partially offset by a gain on Cenovus Energy (CVE) equity.
Full-year 2021 earnings were $8.1 billion, or $6.07 per share, compared with a full-year 2020 loss of $2.7 billion, or ($2.51) per share. Excluding special items, full-year 2021 adjusted earnings were $8.0 billion, or $6.01 per share, compared with a full-year 2020 adjusted loss of $1.0 billion, or ($0.97) per share.
In addition, ConocoPhillips today announced a $1 billion increase in expected 2022 return of capital to shareholders to a new total of $8 billion, an increase of more than 30% over 2021. The company declared both an ordinary dividend of 46 cents per share and a second-quarter variable return of cash (VROC) payment of 30 cents per share, a 50% increase over the first-quarter VROC. Combined, the targeted 2022 ordinary dividend and VROC represent a more than 50% increase in cash return to shareholders compared to 2021. Read More
| Oil and Gas Prices | Units | Price $ | change |
| Crude Oil (WTI) | USD/bbl | $91.52 | Down |
| Crude Oil (Brent) | USD/bbl | $92.96 | Down |
| Bonny Light | USD/bbl | $94.66 | Down |
| Natural Gas | USD/MMBtu | $4.40 | Up |
| OPEC basket 06/02/22 | USD/bbl | $93.42 | Up |
| Region | Period | Rig Count | Change from Prior Count |
| U.S.A | 4th February 2022 | 613 | +3 |
| Canada | 4th February 2022 | 218 | +1 |
| International | January 2022 | 841 | +7 |
OilandGasPress Energy Newsbites and Analysis Roundup |Compiled by: OGP Staff, Segun Cole @oilandgaspress.
Disclaimer: News articles reported on OilAndGasPress are a reflection of what is published in the media. OilAndGasPress is not in a position to verify the accuracy of daily news articles. The materials provided are for informational and educational purposes only and are not intended to provide tax, legal, or investment advice.
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