Energy / Automotive News As Reported to 13 Feb 2023

OPEC daily basket price at US$83.56/bl, WTI Crude stood at $79.16/bl, Crude prices are softening
Total, BP, Shell, Exxon and Chevron have used their record profits and cash flow to significantly reduce debt since 2020, increased oil and gas and lower carbon investments.


Africa Oil Corp. announced that the Company repurchased a total of 530,400 Africa Oil common shares during the period of February 6, 2023 to February 10, 2023 under the previously announced share buyback program. The launch of Africa Oil’s normal course issuer bid (share buyback) program, announced by the Company on September 22, 2022, is being implemented in accordance with the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (MAR) and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2016/1052 (Safe Harbour Regulation) and the applicable rules and policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”), Nasdaq Stockholm, and applicable Canadian and Swedish securities laws.
During the period dated February 6, 2023 to February 10, 2023, the Company repurchased 235,400 Africa Oil common shares on the TSX and/or alternative Canadian trading systems. The repurchases were carried out by Scotia Capital Inc. on behalf of the Company. During the same period, the Company repurchased 295,000 Africa Oil common shares on Nasdaq Stockholm, and these repurchases were carried out by Pareto Securities on behalf of the Company.
All common shares repurchased by Africa Oil under the share buyback program will be cancelled. During the period dated February 6, 2023 to February 10, 2023, the Company cancelled 475,000 common shares repurchased under the share buyback program.Read More


DNO ASA, the Norwegian oil and gas operator, today reported the below transactions made under the Company’s share buyback program, which commenced 9 December 2022 and will end no later than 30 April 2023. For further information regarding the program, please see the Company’s stock exchange notification from 8 December 2022.Following the above transactions, the Company owns a total of 57,556,531 own shares, corresponding to 5.46 percent of its share capital. Read More


Woodside’s Annual General Meeting 2023 will be held on Friday, 28 April 2023 at 10:00 AWST /12:00 AEDT (21:00 CDT Thursday, 27 April) in Perth, Western Australia.

The closing date for receipt of director nominations is Tuesday, 21 February 2023. Read More


KBR announced its Board of Directors has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.135 per share on the company’s common stock, par value $0.001 per share, to be paid on April 14, 2023, to stockholders of record on March 15, 2023. Read More


Subsea7 S.A. announced the award of two contracts by Equinor for the Irpa and Verdande field developments, located in the Norwegian Sea. The combined project awards are defined as sizeable1. The two projects will be executed in a consortium between Subsea7 and DeepOcean.
The Irpa field development project, located in the Aasta Hansteen area at 1,350 metres water depth, involves a subsea tieback of approximately 80 kilometres to the Aasta Hansteen FPSO. The contract scope includes engineering, transportation and installation of a MEG pipeline, a production riser, umbilical, subsea structures and tie-ins.
The Verdande field development project, located in the Nordland Ridge area, involves a subsea tieback to the existing Skuld field and Norne FPSO facilities. The contract scope includes engineering, transportation and installation of a 7.5-kilometre pipe-in-pipe production pipeline, umbilical, flexibles, subsea structures and tie-ins.
Project management and engineering will commence immediately at Subsea7’s offices in Stavanger, Norway. Fabrication of the pipelines will take place at Subsea7’s spoolbase at Vigra, Norway and offshore operations are planned to take place in 2024, 2025 and 2026 utilising both Subsea7’s and DeepOcean’s fleet of vessels.
Monica Th. Bjørkmann, Senior Vice President for Subsea7 Norway said: “We are delighted to have been awarded these two contracts by Equinor. The awards continue our long-standing collaborative relationship with Equinor with a focus on safe, efficient and reliable operations.” Read More


TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team continues to lead the manufacturers’ standings after round two of the FIA World Rally Championship season at Rally Sweden, despite narrowly missing out on a podium finish following a closely-fought weekend on snow and ice.The extra points from the Power Stage mean that TGR-WRT remains in the lead of the manufacturers’ championship by 14 points. Rally Sweden was the debut for Takamoto Katsuta as part of the team’s three-car manufacturer line-up and the Japanese driver performed impressively on Friday morning when he was involved in the lead fight and won a stage. Read More


Moody’s – Defaults to remain high for APAC high-yield companies in 2023
Defaults among Asia-Pacific high-yield nonfinancial companies will stay elevated in 2023, amid moderate economic growth in the region, supported by a gradual recovery in China following its relaxation of COVID restrictions, and peaking global inflation, according to a new report by Moody’s Investors Service. “We forecast the default rate for APAC high-yield nonfinancial companies will decline to 7.0% for 2023 from 10.9% in 2022, remaining above the 10-year average of 4.4%,” says Clara Lau, a Moody’s Senior Vice President and Group Credit Officer. Global economic growth will continue to slow in 2023, with G-20 advanced and G-20 emerging economies forecast to grow by 0.2% and 3.1%, respectively. China’s real GDP growth will be at a low level of 4.0%, reflecting the time it will take for manufacturing and domestic consumption to recover to pre-pandemic levels, protracted weakness in the property sector, and declining export demand as global growth softens. Monetary policy will broadly remain tight in the near term, but the pace of interest rate increases will slow toward the latter part of the year. On the other hand, China and Japan will continue easing monetary policies to boost economic growth and maintain credit availability to support targeted sectors. Weak homebuyer confidence will keep Chinese property markets subdued, but the government’s recently enhanced measures to improve funding accessibility for some developers will slightly alleviate liquidity pressure in the sector. There were 23 rated defaults in 2022, all of which by Chinese property developers as the subdued market and funding access difficulties aggravated their liquidity and refinancing risks. Read More


Ellis Martin Report: Clean Air Metals Inc.’s (CVE:AIR) Abraham Drost Explains Why Green Hydrogen Fuel Cells Will Change the Landscape, Efficiency and Economics of Transportation Join Ellis Martin for a conversation with Abraham Drost, CEO and Director of Clean Air Metals Inc. . Clean Air Metals’ flagship asset is the 100% owned, high grade Thunder Bay North Critical Minerals Project, a platinum, palladium, copper, nickel project located near the City of Thunder Bay, Ontario and the Lac des Iles Mine owned by Impala Platinum. Mr. Drost is a Professional Geoscientist and a former President. Director and CEO of several successful natural resource companies over the course of his 35 year career. In this segment of the Ellis Martin Report we do a deep dive into the relevance and importance economically and efficiently of converting to green hydrogen as an energy source for Fuel Cell EVs. Read More


electric flying car

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai has approved the design of the new air taxi stations in Dubai, which will start operating within three years.The Dubai ruler approved the models of aerial taxi vertiports at the World Government Summit (WGS). He briefed potential partners identified by RTA to operate and invest in the crucial infrastructure required to bring the aerial taxi project to fruition by 2026.

Mattar Al Tayer, Director-General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of RTA, said: “The initial network of vertiports will connect four main areas of Dubai: Downtown Dubai (Burj Khalifa area), Dubai Marina, Dubai International Airport and Palm Jumeirah.” Read More


Geely backed electric car brand Zeekr said it is now valued at $13 billion after a $750 million raise from Chinese battery giant CATL and others.

Zeekr is not yet publicly listed, but Geely said in December the brand filed confidentially for an initial public offering in the U.S. Geely established the Zeekr electric vehicle brand in 2021. The company began delivering its Zeekr 001 coupe that October, and claims to have delivered more than 80,000 units since. Read More


IVECO and Plus, a leading global provider of highly automated driving and autonomous driving solutions, announced that the companies are starting public road testing of their jointly developed next generation highly automated trucks in Germany. As a part of the public road testing, the companies will collect road data to validate their autonomous truck’s operations and start designing the potential factory production. The PlusDrive-enabled IVECO S-WAY truck is designed to improve safety, efficiency, driver experience, and to provide a more sustainable option for fleets. “Germany is a leader and trendsetter in autonomous driving, so we are excited to launch our public testing program in a country that has long embraced technology innovation and the life-changing impact of safety solutions like highly automated trucks. This is an important phase in our plans to bring highly automated trucks to market,” said Marco Liccardo, Chief Technology & Digital Officer, Iveco Group.

The public road testing starts in Germany, and will expand to Austria, Italy, and Switzerland in the coming months. Each country’s unique roadways and driving conditions will expose the highly automated truck to a broad range of terrains, road gradients, weather conditions and driving scenarios. This will help to continuously expand the capabilities and features of Plus’s autonomous driving technology. Read More


IDV and HORIBA MIRA have confirmed the formation of a new partnership to unite their complementary capabilities in the rapidly developing Uncrewed Ground Vehicle (UGV) market. IDV will become the majority shareholder and will contribute to move HORIBA MIRA’s UGV platforms and technology to the next step of development, accelerating the technology roadmap and aiming to fulfil the growing and advanced requirements of the UK MOD and its allies. The venture will merge twenty years of pioneering experience collected by HORIBA MIRA in the use of remote control, teleoperated and autonomous vehicle technology in the defence sector. Based on its patented capability to navigate without GNSS, manage advanced off-road routing and self-identify and classify terrain and objects, when combined with IDV systems integration capability across a wide range of multi-terrain wheel or tracked platforms, the new partnership will develop state-of-the-art UGV solutions. Read More


Brent contract for April reportedly hit $86.39 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose to $79.72 a barrel.

Oil and Gas BlendsUnitsOil Price $change
Crude Oil (WTI)USD/bbl$79.06Down
Crude Oil (Brent)USD/bbl$85.69Down
Bonny LightUSD/bbl$86.09Up
Saharan BlendUSD/bbl$81.72Down
Natural GasUSD/MMBtu$2.55Up
OPEC basket 10/02/23USD/bbl$83.56Up
At press time 13 February 2023

Magirus Italia handed over the 42 turntable ladders to the top representatives of the Ministry of the Interior during a solemn ceremony at the headquarters of the Brescia Fire Department. These vehicles are part of a large order to Magirus Italia and testify the willingness of the Department of Home Affairs to use the latest firefighting technology to protect the public. The delivery includes 10 M42L-AS on Iveco S-Way, 3 M32L-AS NB on Magirus FF160 E32 low profile chassis and 29 M32L-AS on Iveco Eurocargo chassis. Magirus’ modern turntable ladders offer firefighters maximum flexibility and safety with consistent reliability. As a world leader in the firefighting industry, Magirus focuses on product innovation and quality to support firefighters worldwide during their operations.

With this choice, Italy has expressed a clear commitment to the safety of its citizens, and Magirus is pleased to be part of it. Read More


BMW Group is investing millions to make its plant in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, ready for the NEUE KLASSE, accelerating the production of pioneering electric vehicles.

Electric, circular, digital: the BMW Group is ushering in a new era of electromobility from 2025 with the NEUE KLASSE, the next generation of vehicles. With this in mind the company is continuously investing in the expansion of its global production network. The BMW Group is taking the next important step at its Mexican plant in San Luis Potosí. Three different models are already rolling off the production line there, and the BMW Group is now investing another 800 million euros and creating around 1,000 new jobs in the process. This is how the BMW Group is accelerating its production of electric vehicles. At the same time, it is underpinning its ambition for 50 per cent of global BMW vehicle sales to be fully electric before 2030. “We are creating around 1,000 new jobs.” Read More


Baker Hughes Rig Count
U.S. Rig Count is up 2 from last week to 761 with oil rigs up 10 to 609, gas rigs down 8 to 150 and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at 2.

Canada Rig Count is up 1 from last week to 250, with oil rigs up 2 to 161, gas rigs down 1 to 89.

RegionPeriodRig CountChange from Prior
U.S.A10 February 2023761+2
Canada10 February 2023250+1
InternationalJanuary 2023901+1
Rig Count Overview & Summary Count

OilandGasPress Energy Newsbites and Analysis Roundup | Compiled by: OGP Staff, Segun Cole @oilandgaspress.

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