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Global Energy Advisory

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Saudi Arabia was in the spotlight this week, after a string of arrests on corruption allegations and muscle flexing in the direction of Iran. The so-called anti-corruption sweep toppled former and current ministers and several members of the Saudi royal family, sparking worry about a possible destabilisation in OPEC’s largest oil producer.
It has emerged in the meantime, however, that the operation might be primarily focused on money-gathering: to date, some $800 billion in assets of the people arrested have been frozen by the government and some observers have suggested the money will become state property, to go into propping up the government coffers.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia is baring its teeth at Iran, accusing it of a direct military attack after earlier this week the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a missile at Riyadh, which the Saudi anti-missile system intercepted. The White House is backing the Saudis in their claims against Iran. Tehran has said the missile attack came in response to Saudi intervention in Yemen. This intervention, initiated two years ago, is a heavy load on Crown Prince Mohammed.
All these events have been bullish for oil prices but the latest from Saudi Arabia may have an opposite effect. Satellite imaging services provider Orbital Insights has released data suggesting Saudi Arabia has been lying about the state of its crude oil inventories. While Riyadh has been reporting a decline in these since early 2016, Orbital Insight data suggested a slight increase.
That data only comes from storage tanks on the ground, while Saudi Arabia also stores crude abroad, at foreign ports, and underground tanks. If stockpiles declined there then the Orbital data is irrelevant. If the Orbital data does indeed show cheating on the numbers, the OPEC production cut deal could well be dead in the water.
Deals, Mergers And Acquisitions
• French Total has bought the LNG exploration and production assets of Engie for $1.45 billion. The assets include a liquefaction plant in Louisiana, a number of long-term sales and purchase agreements, a fleet of LNG carriers, and access to re-gasification terminals in Europe. The deal also involves an additional consideration of $500 million if oil prices improve in the next few years.
• Australian Elk Petroleum has finalised the acquisition of the Greater Aneth oil filed in Utah, for a total $160 million. The seller is Resolute Energy Corp, which had a 63 per cent stake in the field, which is among the biggest CO2 enhanced oil recovery projects in the country. Its remaining recoverable reserves after a 30-year productive life are about 300 million barrels.
• China Energy Investment Corp. has signed preliminary agreements to invest $83.7 billion in U.S. LNG storage, power generation, and chemical production projects. The investment will be focused on West Virginian and was agreed during President Trump’s visit to China as part of his Asian tour.
• Noble Energy has agreed to sell 30,200 acres in the Denver-Julesburg Basin to SRC Energy for $608 million. The assets produce an average 4,100 bpd of oil equivalent from 600 drilling locations.
• Anadarko is selling its Moxa gas field in Wyoming for $350 million. The field’s output has been in decline since last year, with peak production at 96 million cubic feet daily. This has now, a year later, fallen to 72 million cubic feet daily. The company did not mention the name of the buyer.
Tenders, Auctions And Contracts
• Mexico’s tender for an oil and gas marketing firm was declared void this week, as it failed to attract any bids. The government organised the tender to pick a marketer that will sell the oil and gas produced under new contracts. Until 2013, when Pemex had a monopoly of the Mexican oil and gas market, the marketing of Mexican oil and gas was the charge of a Pemex unit, P.M.I. Comercio Internacional.
• The state oil companies of Iraq and Iran are discussing joint oil field development in Iraq, local media reported-two days after news of another ongoing negotiation concerning the possibility of shipping crude oil from Kirkuk fields to an Iranian refinery.
Discovery And Development
• China is preparing to launch the world’s largest offshore drilling rig in the South China Sea, to explore for gas hydrates, a potentially promising source of energy of which there may be vast reserves, according to scientific investigations. The Blue Whale 2 is a floating platform and can operate in 11,000 feet of water. What’s more, it can drill at depths of 50,000 feet, which is unprecedented.
Source: Oilprice Report for 10/11/17.

• Nigerian Oranto Petroleum has started exploration activities in South Sudan in partnership with geophysical survey services provider BGP. The Nigerian company has pledged $500 million for the exploration project, which contains an oil and gas block with reserves estimated at over 3 billion barrels of crude oil.
• Shell has started the construction of a $6-billion petrochemical complex in Pennsylvania, whose main feedstock will be natural gas form shale plays in the area. The complex will include three polyethylene plants with a combined annual capacity of 1.6 million tons, plus a steam cracker with a capacity equal to that of the polyethylene plants.
• UK-based Tower Resources plans to resume its exploration activities in Cameroon after a $2.76-million capital injection. The company is exploring for oil in the Thali license area, which has estimated oil-in-place resources of 39 million barrels. Drilling could begin as soon as next year, so the company can take advantage of the low prices for oilfield services while they last.
Regulatory Updates
• The chairwoman of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Lisa Murkowski, has released a bill that would open the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling if passed. The bill envisages at least two large-scale lease sales over the next ten years, spanning a minimum of 400,000 acres each. Surface development, however, should not exceed 2,000 acres, according to the bill. Environmentalists are unhappy about the legislation, arguing that recent leases sales in the North Slope have failed to yield any significant finds.
Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict
• The Niger Delta Avengers have announced an end to the ceasefire they had agreed with the Nigerian government and now once again oil infrastructure is fair game for the militant group despite calls from local community chiefs for its members to lay down their arms.
• Protests from local communities continue in Peru and are likely to continue to affect all natural resources industries present in the Andean country. Late last month, indigenous villagers ended a 43-day protest that had halted production in Peru’s largest oil block after signing a deal with the government. Protesters demander cleaning up oil pollution and from government to commit to including tribes in talks on long-term oil drilling plans, and the government accepted the terms. It is not announced why the protests were renewed. Oilfield in question, Block 192 is operated by Canadian Frontera Energy Corp but has not produced any oil from it since three indigenous tribes seized oil wells in mid September.
• The latest offshore tax haven leak, the Paradise Papers, could cause a headache for Glencore as they reveal the company hid its ownership stake in SwissMarine Corporation when it was negotiating its takeover of XStrata. Also, according to leaked documents, Aberdeen, Scotland-based Ithaca Energy is said to have set up a shell company in Bermuda in 2012 to purchase its share in a $50-million North Sea oil production platform.

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NSCDC’s Anti-Vandal Squad Uncovers Artisanal Refinery In Rivers Community

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The Anti-Vandal Squad of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Rivers State Command, has uncovered yet another local refinery situated at Adobi-Akwa settlement in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The State Commandant, Basil Igwebueze, disclosed this while speaking to journalists shortly after the tour of the Illegal site.
Represented by the Head, Anti-Vandal Squad, CSC Peters Ibiso, Igwebueze said the squad made the discovery following a tipp off, expressing regret that no arrest was made as the  boys fled the site upon sighting the squad.
The cammandant’s representative took the newsmen across a tick forest of about 6-7 kilometers from the main town.
The team sighted where the pipeline vandals tapped into the Well Head of yet to be ascertained multinational company, connected their galvanised pipes to several cooking pots, heat up the crude to produce Automotive Gas Oil (AGO).
In his words, “Upon receiving a tip-off, the Anti-Vandal operatives swung into action to uncover this illegal oil bunkering site. They were in this forest for two days having cordoned the area, unfortunately, the perpetrators upon sighting our men took to their heels, but investigation is still ongoing to effect the arrests of such defiant elements”.
The Anti-Vandal Unit Head further narrated the operation techniques of the operators of local illegal refineries from the point of extraction of crude through vandalism of oil pipelines to cooking in various ovens where the content is subjected to high temperature and transmitted through pipes to reservoirs for storage and onward trans- loading to buyers.
While insisting that the command would not relent in the fight against illegal dealings in petroleum products, he urged the public to have more trust in the NSCDC by providing actionable intelligence that would enhance possible arrest of economic saboteurs in the State.
“Our commitment to continuously work in tandem with the prosecutorial mandate of the corps in order to rid the State of economic saboteurs remains unchanged. We value our informants and most especially the intelligence driven tip-off received from time to time.
“It is also our duty to ensure that our source of information are not disclosed so as to protect our informants. It is therefore our delight that the public will continue to have confidence and trust in us as we together protect the nation’s critical national assets and infrastructure from dare devil vandals”, he stated.

By: Lady Godknows Ogbulu

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Oil Fund Withdrawals Suggest Extended Price Rally

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The world’s largest crude oil exchange-traded fund has bled over $2 billion in less than a year. And it i
s not due to investors finding greener pastures elsewhere with other ETFs; it is the siren call of soaring prices that is prompting this mass exodus.
The WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil exchange-traded commodity had assets under management of some $2.5 billion last summer, according to Bloomberg. Now, the publication reports, this is down to $396 million, with withdrawals accelerating over the past few days.
In that, withdrawals seem to be following price trends. Brent earlier this month topped $90 per barrel and, after a short pause earlier this week, is back above that threshold again following the latest Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip amid reports about a possible ceasefire.
While it is true that prices are currently driven higher mainly by geopolitical events, fundamentals are also at play. A growing number of forecasters are updating their predictions for benchmarks this year on expectations of resilient demand and increasingly tighter supply. And investors are following the trend.
Even those who have not sold their ETF holdings in order to invest more directly in the rally are benefitting. That same WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil ETC generated returns of over 13 percent during the first quarter of the year as opposed to an average 8.8% gain in the S&P 500.
The WisdomTree exchange-traded commodity became the world’s largest oil fund at the beginning of last year. The fund saw inflows of over $1 billion, which poured in as the deflation in oil prices that had begun in late 2022 extended into the new year. Now, the trend has reversed and it has reversed strongly.
The WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil ETC is not the only fund seeing outflows. The U.S. Oil Fund, which used to be the world’s biggest oil fund before the WisdomTree inflows last year and is now the world’s biggest oil fund once again, also saw a flurry of investor exits as benchmarks climbed higher.
According to Bloomberg, the fund’s assets under management currently stand at $1.3 billion, down from some $5 billion during the pandemic.
In further evidence that oil makes money, the Middle East is about to become the only region in the world with three trillion-dollar sovereign wealth funds. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is worth $993 billion, Bloomberg reported in March, while the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the Kuwait Investment Authority are breathing down its neck.
Meanwhile, investment in transition-related stocks is on the decline, according to data reported by Reuters. The S&P Global Clean Energy Index is down by 10% since the start of the year. In comparison, the S&P 500 Energy Index, which comprises Big Oil names, has gained 16.3%.
The data shows that investors are growing wary of all the promises made by transition advocates as evidence mounts that these were not based on due diligence. Wind and solar stocks suffered a crash last year when this first became clear.
Now, we are witnessing a continued awakening among investors to the challenges and the realistic potential of transition technology and alternative energy sources.
“With conventional energy having its own bull run, I think the alternative funds will struggle for the foreseeable future, and we shall see what the election brings”,  the Managing Director of capital markets at Phoenix Capital Group Holdings told Reuters.
The comment summarizes the challenging situation for alternative energy investment and highlights the rebound of interest in oil and gas, much to the chagrin of decision-makers on both sides of the Atlantic.
In both Europe and the U.S., things can get even worse for the transition after the respective elections—in June for European Parliament and in November for U.S. President. It will certainly be an interesting year in energy.
Slav writes for oilprice.

By: Irina Slav

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CNG Initiative: FG Targets 25,000 Jobs, $2.5bn Investment 

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The Programme Director and Chief Executive, Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiatives, Michael Oluwagbemi, has announced the Federal Government’s plan to target over 25,000 jobs and $2.5 billion worth of investment by 2027.
Oluwagbemi made this known during the Presidential CNG stakeholders’ engagement workshop held at BOVAS Auto-Gas Filling Stations, Ajibode Bus-Stop, in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, at the weekend.
He stated that the initiative, which was part of palliative measures to ease the burden of the removal of fuel subsidy, would attract enormous investment and job creation as well as impact positively on the lives of Nigerians.
Meanwhile, he called on Nigerians to embrace the new initiatives by the Federal Government as part of palliatives to cushion the effect of the removal of fuel subsidy in the country.
“On October 1, 2023, when the President gave his speech, he announced that the Presidential CNG initiatives are going to be rolled out as part of palliatives on the removal of fuel subsidy.
“One of our major concerns is to make sure that the transition for the transportation sector is a cheaper, safer, and more reliable source of energy.
“In the coming weeks, we are going to be announcing the conversion incentives programme which will enable Nigerians currently using PMS and Diesel fuel vehicles to be able to convert their vehicles at designated places across the country at a discounted price based on certain pre-qualification under the palliative programme of the Federal Government”, he said.
On the value chain of the initiative, Oluwagbemi explained that the Federal Ministry of Finance is acquiring tricycles and buses that would be assembled and manufactured in Nigeria, with more than five automobile firms being activated.
“The value chain of the programme starts with every one of us. From the point of converting your vehicle, you have created the demand for natural gas.
“If your vehicle is converted by technicians and refuelled by autogas workshops across the country, then you are creating jobs for civil engineers and technicians. You’re creating jobs for the upstream in terms of upstream activities associated with oil and gas.
“And in line with the programme, the Federal Ministry of Finance is acquiring a number of tricycles and buses that will be assembled and manufactured in Nigeria. More than five of our automobile firms have been activated. So, you can see that in terms of job creation, the opportunities for Nigerians are enormous.
“The President has said we need to convert one million vehicles by 2027. We need 1,000 conversion shops and we need over 3,000 filing stations just like this. You can imagine the level of investment required for this.
“In order to sustain one million vehicle conversions by 2027, we need 25,000 technicians. So, the job creation potential is an opportunity for job creation in addition to our gross domestic product, $2.5 billion worth of investment to be mobilised in the next four years and of course more than $25 billion added to our GDP”, he said.
Oluwagbemi further called on Nigerians to embrace the new initiatives by the Federal Government as part of palliatives to cushion the effect of the removal of fuel subsidy in the country.
The representative of BOVAS Filling Station, a private investor in the Presidential CNG Initiatives, Temitope Samson, said, “We have worked with the regulators, we are also working with the Presidential Initiatives on CNG to make sure that standard safety is adhered to. We have also worked with the Standard Organisation of Nigeria to ensure that we have a standard accepted internationally.
“Our role is to ensure that there is availability of CNG across the nation, and to also ensure we have enough kits and tanks that are converted for people to use as many as possible, and to ensure safety and to train others so that anywhere they get to, they have very safe conversion”.
Recall that last year, President Bola Tinubu approved the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas initiative(PCNG-i)
This initiative aims to not only introduce more than 11,500 new CNG-enabled vehicles and provide 55,000 CNG conversion kits for existing vehicles that depend on Premium Motor Spirit but also promote local manufacturing, assembly, and job creation.

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