natural gas closes at highest price since December 2022; gasoline inventories at a ten month high; distillates inventories at an eleven month high with distillates demand at a 39 week low
US oil prices finished higher for a third straight week after the Biden administration imposed new sanctions on Russian oil producers, tankers, intermediaries, traders and ports, hoping to complicate the incoming administration's push for peace in Ukraine…after rising 4.9% to $73.96 a barrel last week following the enactment of a fiscal stimulus program in China, and on forecasts for higher heat oil demand in the US, the contract price for the benchmark US light sweet crude for February delivery slid 1% on world markets early on Monday, on a strong dollar and trader caution ahead of several US economic reports due out during the week, but rallied to nearly $75 in New York on a 1.1% drop in the U.S. dollar following a report that Trump was mulling tariffs that would only be applied to critical imports, but reversed again to settle 40 cents lower at $73.56 a barrel as bearish economic news from the US and Germany offset bullish support from a weaker U.S. dollar and forecasts for increased heat oil demand…oil prices continued to decline overseas for a second straight session on Tuesday, driven by technical corrections following last week's rally, expectations of ample supply, and a stronger U.S. dollar, but reversed their early declines in New York trading, supported by near term weather forecasts for frigid weather and increased heat oil demand, and expectations that global demand would be boosted by China’s economic stimulus, and settled 69 cents higher at $74.25 a barrel, driven by concerns over limited supply from Russia and Iran due to Western sanctions, and expected higher Chinese demand….oil prices rose in Asia on Wednesday, as tightening supplies from Russia and OPEC members, coupled with declining U.S. crude oil inventories, spurred market optimism, but traded lower in New York in light of large increases in U.S. oil product inventories, and settled 93 cents lower at $73.32 a barrel as a stronger dollar and large builds in U.S. fuel inventories pressured prices….oil prices fell in Asia on Thursday as traders digested data showing an unexpected increase in U.S. product inventories, then edged higher as traders factored in firm winter fuel demand expectations, in spite of fuel inventories and macroeconomic concerns, and settled 60 cents higher at $73.92 a barrel as cold weather gripped parts of the US and Europe, boosting winter fuel demand….oil prices rose in Asian trading on Friday, as cold weather in the U.S. and Europe heightened hopes that demand for heating fuels would increase, then surged as traders focused on potential supply disruptions due to more sanctions on Russia and Iran, and settled $2.65, or 3.6% higher at $76.57 per barrel, after the Biden administration imposed fresh sanctions targeting Russian oil producers, tankers, intermediaries, traders and ports, aiming to hit every stage of Moscow's oil production and distribution chains, leaving oil prices 3.5% higher for the week…
meanwhile, natural gas prices rose for the first time in three weeks and finished at a new two year closing high on a series of progressively colder weather forecasts….after finishing 0.9% lower at $3.354 per mmBTU last week as traders turned bearish after Friday’s delayed natural gas storage report indicated an inventory withdrawal that was well below expectations, the price of the benchmark contract for natural gas for February delivery opened 33.0 cents higher Monday morning, supported by strong demand and below average temperatures covering much of the country, and settled 31.8 cents higher at $3.672 per mmBTU after a volatile trading session as winter storms battered the eastern half of the country, causing output to decline as some oil and gas wells and pipes froze-off amid power outages…however, February natural gas opened 12.8 cents lower Tuesday, as an overnight shift in weather models led to the contract's pull back, then slid further through mid day trading to settle down 22.3 cents at $3.449 per mmBTU, as the European weather model trended warmer while traders tracked multiple cold weather systems impacting North America….natural gas prices opened 11.9 cents higher on Wednesday, as overnight forecasts remained supportive, then dipped to an intraday low of $3.548 after the EIA reported a disappointing withdrawal from storage, but resumed rising to settle 20.2 cents higher at $3.651 per mmBTU as freezing wells cut output amid forecasts for more heating demand than was previously expected…natural gas prices opened 1.2 cent higher on Thursday and trended higher throughout the morning, as persistent cold gripped much of the country and pipeline freeze-offs hindered production, and settled with a 5.0 cent gain at $3.701 per mmBTU on extreme cold and rising heating and LNG feedgas demand…natural gas prices rallied early Friday, fueled by updated weather outlooks that added a significant number of heating degree days to forecasts, then pushed higher through midday to briefly top $4 on support from colder weather forecasts and continued production freeze-off disruptions, before settling 28.8 cents higher at $3.989 per mmBTU, the highest closing price since late December 2022, as forecasts continued to support wintry weather and dwindling storage inventories into late January, leaving natural gas prices 18.9% higher for the week
The EIA’s natural gas storage report for the week ending January 3rd indicated that the amount of working natural gas held in underground storage fell by 40 billion cubic feet to 3,373 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our natural gas supplies 3 billion cubic feet, or 0.1% below the 3,376 billion cubic feet of gas that were in storage on January 3rd of last year, but 207 billion cubic feet, or 6.5% more than the five-year average of 3,166 billion cubic feet of natural gas that had typically been in working storage as of the 3rd of January over the most recent five years….the 40 billion cubic foot withdrawal from US natural gas storage for the cited week was less than the 53 billion cubic foot withdrawal from storage that was forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll ahead of the report, and much less than the 104 billion cubic feet that were pulled out of natural gas storage during the corresponding week in January of 2024, and also much less than the average 93 billion cubic foot withdrawal from natural gas storage that has been typical for the same early January week over the past 5 years…
The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA
US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending January 3rd indicated that even after a big decrease in our oil exports, we needed to pull oil out of our stored commercial crude supplies for the seventh consecutive week, and for 19th time in twenty-seven weeks, as an increase in domestic demand for oil that the EIA could not account for was again a factor...Our imports of crude oil fell by an average of 479,000 barrels per day to average 6,428,000 barrels per day, after rising by an average of 455,000 barrels per day over the prior week, while our exports of crude oil fell by an average of 776,000 barrels per day to average 3,078,000 barrels per day, which, when used to offset our imports, meant that the net of our trade of oil worked out to a net import average of 3,350,000 barrels of oil per day during the week ending January 3rd, an average of 279,000 more barrels per day than the net of our imports minus our exports during the prior week. At the same time, transfers to our oil supplies from Alaskan gas liquids, from natural gasoline, from condensate, and from unfinished oils averaged 578,000 barrels per day, while during the same week, production of crude from US wells was 10,000 barrels per day lower at 13,563,000 barrels per day. Hence, our daily supply of oil from the net of our international trade in oil, from transfers, and from domestic well production appears to have averaged a total of 17,491,000 barrels per day during the January 3rd reporting week…
Meanwhile, US oil refineries reported they were processing an average of 16,902,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending January 3rd, an average of 44,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil that our refineries reported they were processing during the prior week, while over the same period the EIA’s surveys indicated that a net average of 102,000 barrels of oil per day were being pulled out of the supplies of oil stored in the US… So, based on that reported & estimated data, the crude oil figures provided by the EIA appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports, from transfers, from oilfield production, and from storage during the week ending January 3rd averaged a rounded 691,000 barrels per day more than what our oil refineries reported they used during the week. To account for that difference between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just plugged a [ -691,000 ] barrel per day figure onto line 16 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet, in order to make the reported data for the supply of oil and for the consumption of it balance out, a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil”, thus indicating there must have been an error or omission of that magnitude in the week’s oil supply & demand figures that we have just transcribed….However, since most oil traders react to these weekly EIA reports as if they were accurate, and since these weekly figures therefore often drive oil pricing and hence decisions to drill or complete oil wells, we’ll continue to report this data just as it’s published, and just as it’s watched & believed to be reasonably reliable by most everyone in the industry…(for more on how this weekly oil data is gathered, and the possible reasons for that “unaccounted for” oil supply, see this EIA explainer….there is also an old twitter thread from an EIA administrator addressing these ongoing weekly errors, and what they had once hoped to do about it)
This week’s net average 102,000 barrel per day decrease in our overall crude oil inventories came as an average of 137,000 barrels per day were being pulled out of our commercially available stocks of crude oil, while an average of 35,000 barrels per day were being added to our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the fifty-sixth SPR increase in the past sixty-three weeks, following nearly continuous SPR withdrawals over the 39 months prior to the current attempt to refill the SPR… Further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicate that the 4 week average of our oil imports rose to 6,618,000 barrels per day last week, which was 1.4% more than the 6,526,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week period last year. This week’s crude oil production was reported to be 10,000 barrels per day lower at 13,563,000 barrels per day because the EIA’s estimate of the output from wells in the lower 48 states was 19,000 barrels per day lower at 13,116,000 barrels per day, while Alaska’s oil production was 9,000 barrels per day higher at 447,000 barrels per day, all of which was included in the national total.….US crude oil production had reached a pre-pandemic high of 13,100,000 barrels per day during the week ending March 13th 2020, so this week’s reported oil production figure was 3.5% higher than that of our pre-pandemic production peak, and was also 39.8% above the pandemic low of 9,700,000 barrels per day that US oil production had fallen to during the third week of February of 2021.
US oil refineries were operating at 93.3% of their capacity while processing those 16,902,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending January 3rd, up from their 92.7% utilization rate of a week earlier, and close to typical for this time of year….the 16,902,000 barrels of oil per day that were refined this week were 2.3% more than the 16,518,000 barrels of crude that were being processed daily during week ending January 5th of 2024, but statistically equal to the 16,897,000 barrels that were being refined during the prepandemic week ending January 3rd, 2020, when our refinery utilization rate was at 93.0%, then somewhat low for this time of year…
Even with the increase in the amount of oil being refined this week, the gasoline output from our refineries was again lower, decreasing by 81,000 barrels per day to 8,883,000 barrels per day during the week ending January 3rd, after our refineries’ gasoline output had decreased by 959,000 barrels per day during the prior week.. This week’s gasoline production was 8.0% less than the 9,656,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily over the week ending December 29th of last year, but virtually matched the gasoline production of 8,887,000 barrels per day during the prepandemic week ending January 3rd, 2020….at the same time, our refineries’ production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) decreased by 167,000 barrels per day to 5,204,000 barrels per day, after our distillates output had increased by 99,000 barrels per day during the prior week. After that production decrease, our distillates output was 0.7% more than the 5,167,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending January 5th of 2023, but 2.0% less than the 5,310,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the pre-pandemic week ending January 3rd, 2020…
Even after this week’s decrease in our gasoline production, our supplies of gasoline in storage at the end of the week rose for the eighth consecutive week, increasing by 6,330,000 barrels to a ten month high of 237,714,000 barrels during the week ending January 3rd, after our gasoline inventories had increased by 7,717,000 barrels to a twenty-four week high during the prior week. Our gasoline supplies rose by less this week than last because the amount of gasoline supplied to US users rose by 313,000 barrels per day to 8,481,000 barrels per day, and because our imports of gasoline fell by 210,000 barrels per day to 455,000 barrels per day, while our exports of gasoline fell by 135,000 barrels per day to 843,000 barrels per day.…But after twenty-six gasoline inventory withdrawals over the past forty-eight weeks, our gasoline supplies were still 3.0% below last January 5th’s gasoline inventories of 244,982,000 barrels, and were still about 1% below the five year average of our gasoline supplies for this time of the year…
Even with this week’s decrease in our distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels rose for the sixth time in sixteen weeks, increasing by 6,071,000 barrels to an eleven month high of 128,938,000 barrels during the week ending January 3rd, after our distillates supplies had increased by 6,406,000 barrels during the prior week.. Our distillates supplies rose this week as the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of domestic demand, fell by 54,000 to a 39 week low of 3,178,000 barrels per day, and as our exports of distillates fell by 62,000 barrels per day to 1,359,000 barrels per day, while our imports of distillates rose by 3,000 barrels per day to 200,000 barrels per day...After 28 inventory withdrawals over the past 51 weeks, our distillates supplies at the end of the week were 2.6% below the 132,383,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on January 5th of 2023, and about 4% below the five year average of our distillates inventories for this time of the year…
Finally, even after the big decrease in our oil exports, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage fell for the 18th time in twenty-six weeks, and for the 30th time over the past year, decreasing by 959,000 barrels over the week, from 415,601,000 barrels on December 27th to 414,642,000 barrels on January 3rd, after our commercial crude supplies had decreased by 1,178,000 barrels over the prior week… After this week’s decrease, our commercial crude oil inventories slipped to about 6% below the most recent five-year average of commercial oil supplies for this time of year, but were still about 29% above the average of our available crude oil stocks as of the first weekend of January over the 5 years at the beginning of the past decade, with the big difference between those comparisons arising because it wasn’t until early 2015 that our oil inventories had first topped 400 million barrels. After our commercial crude oil inventories had jumped to record highs during the Covid lockdowns in the Spring of 2020, then jumped again after February 2021’s winter storm Uri froze off US Gulf Coast refining, but then fell sharply due to increased exports to Europe following the onset of the Ukraine war, only to jump again following the Christmas 2022 refinery freeze offs, our commercial crude supplies have somewhat leveled off since, and as of this January 3rd were 4.1% less than the 432,403,000 barrels of oil left in commercial storage on January 5th of 2024, and 5.7% less than the 439,607,000 barrels of oil that we had in storage on January 6th of 2023, but 0.3% more than the 413,298,000 barrels of oil we had left in commercial storage on January 7th of 2022…
This Week’s Rig Count
For a quick snapshot of this week's rig count, we are again including below a screenshot of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes…in the table below, the first column shows the active rig count as of January 10th, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week’s count (January 3rd) and this week’s (January 10th) count, the third column shows last week’s January 3rd active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Friday and the number running on the Friday before the same weekend of a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting period a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 12th of January, 2024…
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Gulfport Energy Well Explodes in Guernsey County, OH – No Injuries --Marcellus Drilling News - Around 5:37 p.m. last Thursday, an explosion and fire at a well pad in Guernsey County, Ohio, resulted in a half-mile evacuation around the site. No extensive damage and no injuries were reported according to a local fire official. According to a statement issued by Gulfport Energy, a storage tank ignited that was located at the Groh pad, a pad drilled in 2012 (14 years ago). The local Antrim fire department (that responded) is located about 1.5 miles from the pad. Salt Fork State Park is 5.7 miles away, which local antis are having a hay day with. Read More“Gulfport Energy Well Explodes in Guernsey County, OH – No Injuries”
Superlight Crude Production Takes Off in Eastern Ohio's Utica Shale -Marcellus Drilling News - We’ve been covering the emergence of Ohio Utica oil over the past couple of years (see our Utica oil stories here). Other news outlets are beginning to notice the oily Utica. The experts at RBN Energy published a post on Friday announcing, “Condensate Production Takes Off in Eastern Ohio’s Utica Shale.” Condensate is another word for superlight crude oil. The RBN post analyzes recent oil drilling in Ohio, the potential for more growth through the second half of the 2020s, and the impact of Ohio’s increasing oil output on Midwest midstreamers and refiners
Hit The Lights - Condensate Production Takes Off In Eastern Ohio's Utica Shale -The Marcellus/Utica is a natural-gas-and-NGLs play, right? Almost entirely, yes. But a handful of dogged, innovative E&Ps have been producing fast-rising volumes of superlight crude — better described as condensate — in the Utica Shale’s “volatile oil window” in eastern Ohio. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss recently ramped-up drilling-and-completion activity in that swath of the Buckeye State, the potential for more growth through the second half of the 2020s, and the impact of increasing output on Midwest midstreamers and refiners. Few would have guessed it a quarter-century ago, but the Marcellus/Utica region in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia is now one of the world’s most prolific and vital natural gas production areas, with output currently topping 32 Bcf/d and decades of reserves yet to be tapped. The overlapping shale plays generate hundreds of thousands of barrels of NGLs per day that are consumed in the Northeast and Midwest, piped or railed away to other U.S. and Canadian markets — or piped to the Marcus Hook export terminal near Philadelphia and shipped overseas. What’s less well-known is that parts of the Utica play — mostly in a few counties in eastern Ohio — also produce relatively modest amounts of crude oil, almost all of it condensate with an API value (or viscosity) of 55 to 59 degrees. More recently, at least a couple of E&Ps in the Utica have been producing small volumes of “heavy condensate” with an API value of 49 to 52-degrees — still far lighter than West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which has an API of about 40 degrees. (Despite the wide variation in the viscosity of condensate being produced in the Utica today, all condensate barrels in the play are currently fungible — though that may change, as we’ll discuss later.) In the Pre-Shale 2000s, crude oil/condensate production in the three Marcellus/Utica states — the last gasp of output from conventional oil and gas wells drilled years earlier — was flat-lining at de minimis levels. But a sharp rise in drilling-and-completion activity pushed Ohio production alone to a peak of 80 Mb/d in the fall of 2015 and a pre-COVID peak of 87 Mb/d in the summer of 2019 (from only 14 Mb/d in 2012; see Figure 1 below). And, as we’ll get to later, production has been on a tear since the winter of 2021-22, more than doubling from a post-pandemic low of 48 Mb/d to 108 Mb/d in September, the latest EIA data available. The “first-phase” rise in crude/condensate production in Ohio (2013-15) was largely a side-effect of gas-and-NGL-focused drilling and completions. E&Ps invested heavily in developing the acreage they had assembled and working to rapidly increase their gas and NGL production as new gathering pipelines, gas processing plants, de-ethanizers, takeaway pipelines and other supporting infrastructure came online. The mid-decade crash in energy commodity prices forced investment and production gains to pause. But by the late 2010s, a concerted effort was underway to wring more condensate from Utica wells in eastern Ohio. In June 2017, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and privately held Encino Energy formed a joint venture (JV) called Encino Acquisitions Partners (EAP) to pursue oil and gas acquisition opportunities in the Lower 48. (CPPIB initially committed up to US$1 billion to the effort and took a 98% ownership interest in the JV, with Encino Energy committing $25 million and taking 2% and the responsibility for operating the assets EAP acquired.) In July 2018, EAP announced that it had agreed to purchase then-Chesapeake Energy’s Utica Shale assets in Ohio for US$2 billion. (Chesapeake announced in January 2024 that it would acquire Southwestern Energy for $11.5 billion in stock and assumed debt, and on October 1, the deal closed and the newly merged company was named Expand Energy.) The CPPIB/Encino deal, which closed in October 2018, gave the JV — now often referred to as EAP Ohio due to its geographic focus — more than 900,000 net acres (yellow- and red-shaded areas in Figure 2 below) spanning the condensate, liquids-rich and dry-gas windows of the play. While the purchase price was based largely upon the value of the gas and NGL production and reserves, EAP Ohio believed there was significant additional value to be realized by exploiting the crude oil/condensate trapped within the condensate/volatile-oil window, especially within four eastern Ohio counties: Carroll, Columbiana, Guernsey and Harrison (blue oval in Figure 2). In addition to increasing its drilling activity in the four-county area noted above, EAP Ohio has grown its leasehold by nearly 300,000 acres (to a total of about 1.2 million acres) and — most important — worked to perfect its well designs, completion techniques and the like to maximize production. There’s a lot to all this, of course, but the E&P’s now-fine-tuned approach involves, among other things:
- Employing highly efficient multi-well pads — most now with four or five wells per pad — and drilling wells more quickly.
- Drilling longer laterals, with many of the newest now exceeding three miles.
- Optimizing well spacing and the depth of horizontal well placement.
- Using slickwater fracs without gel and deploying more than a ton of frac sand per foot.
Also, in April 2024, CPPIB announced a “follow-on equity investment commitment of US$300 million,” with the first $150 million to be funded that month. The pension board said at the time that the investment “supports EAP’s accelerated development of the Utica oil play,” which it described as “one of the highest-return oil growth plays in North America.” EAP Ohio has said it is now routinely developing wells with initial production (IP) rates of more than 1.5 Mb/d and often exceeding that mark. The E&P’s early start in exploiting the Utica’s volatile oil window in eastern Ohio — and the financial commitments that CPPIB and Encino Energy have made — have resulted in EAP Ohio being far and away the #1 crude oil/condensate producer in the state, with steadily rising output through the first three quarters of 2024. As shown by the bars to the far left in Figure 3 above, EAP Ohio produced about 41 Mb/d of oil/condensate in Q1 2024 (blue bar), followed by 43 Mb/d in Q2 (orange bar) and 46 Mb/d in Q3 (green bar), according to well production data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR). In the July-through-September period, EAP Ohio accounted for 45% of the oil/condensate produced in Ohio, while the next five in the lineup accounted for another 50%. These other producers were #2 Ascent Resources, with Q3 production of about 22 Mb/d; #3 EOG Resources (12 Mb/d), #4 Infinity Natural Resources (10 Mb/d), #5 Expand Energy (4.5 Mb/d, thanks to Southwestern’s involvement in the Utica); and #6 GulfPort Resources (4.2 Mb/d). ODNR data indicates that the vast majority of oil/condensate production by these five E&Ps occurred in the same four counties where EAP Ohio has been active (Carroll, Columbiana, Guernsey and Harrison) plus a considerable amount of activity by several producers in adjoining Noble County. Admittedly, these aren’t Permian- or Bakken-like volumes, and no one is suggesting the Utica Shale will be the next big thing in crude oil production. What at least some E&Ps are saying, however, is that the IP rates of many of the new wells they are drilling and completing in eastern Ohio come close to matching those of the best parts of the Permian, meaning they can be highly profitable. In upcoming blogs in this series, we’ll discuss these five runner-up producers, including EOG Resources, which has been touting its success — and potential for further growth — in Utica condensate production for the past several quarters. We’ll also examine the possibility that two grades of Utica condensate will emerge, each with their own prices: “regular” condensate with an average API of 58 degrees and heavy condensate with an average API of 52 degrees (and a range of 48 to 54 degrees). Further, we’ll look at the various ways Utica condensate is transported to refineries (pipeline, rail, truck and barge) and how refineries (mostly in the Midwest) are using the superlight commodity.
Register Support for M-U Hydrogen Hub at Scoping Hearing or Online -Marcellus Drilling News - Last August, MDN told you that the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) officially received its first $30 million from the Bidenistas (see EQT & Others Enter “Phase 1” of Hydrogen Hub; DOE Cuts $30M Check). ARCH2 is getting $925 million from a $7 billion pot. ARCH2, one of seven projects to win approval, was selected specifically because it will use Marcellus/Utica shale gas as the feedstock to create hydrogen (so-called “blue” hydrogen). The project got an official HQ last year at the West Virginia University (WVU) Innovation Corp. center in Morgantown, West Virginia (see ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub Gets an Official Headquarters in Morgantown, WV). Residents from WV, PA, and OH who want to register their concerns, opposition, or (most importantly) support for ARCH2 and the projects that are part of the plan can do so either at an online scoping hearing on Jan. 16 or by submitting comments via email (or in writing) by Mar. 3.
28 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Dec 2 – 8 -- Marcellus Drilling News - For the week of Dec 2 – 8, permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica bounced back nicely. There were 28 new permits issued last week, more than doubling the 12 issued the week before (and matching the 28 issued three weeks ago). The Keystone State (PA) issued 18 new permits, with eight going to EQT spread across three counties: Jefferson, Lycoming, and Washington. Chesapeake Energy (now Expand Energy) received four permits, all of them in northeastern PA’s Wyoming County. CNX Resource scooped up two permits, both in Westmoreland County. The final four permits were singles issued to Blackhill Energy (Bradford County), XPR Resources (Centre County), Inflection Energy (Lycoming County), and Olympus Energy (Allegheny County). ALLEGHENY COUNTY | ANTERO RESOURCES | ASCENT RESOURCES | BLACKHILL ENERGY | BRADFORD COUNTY | CENTRE COUNTY | CHESAPEAKE ENERGY | CNX RESOURCES | EOG RESOURCES | EQT CORP | HARRISON COUNTY | INFLECTION ENERGY | JEFFERSON COUNTY (PA) | LYCOMING COUNTY | OLYMPUS/HUNTLEY & HUNTLEY | WASHINGTON COUNTY | WESTMORELAND COUNTY | WETZEL COUNTY |WYOMING COUNTY (PA) | XPR RESOURCES
No Change in M-U, Nat’l Baker Hughes Rig Counts 2nd Week in a Row - Marcellus Drilling News - The venerable Baker Hughes national rig count was 589 active rigs last week—which is unchanged FIVE weeks in a row. Very unusual. The Marcellus/Utica rig count was a combined 34 last week—the same number for FOUR weeks in a row. The national count remains rangebound between 581 and 589 since June 2024 (except for Sep. 13, when it hit 590 for a single week). The M-U remained static last week, with PA at 15 rigs, OH at 9 rigs, and WV at 10 rigs.
DEP Did Over 107,000 Inspections, Found 35,237 Violations, Responded To 410 Emergencies In 2024 To Protect PA's Environment, Public Safety -- On January 6, the Department of Environmental Protection reported its staff conducted over 107,000 inspections to protect Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to clean air, pure water, and a healthy and safe environment. During those inspections, DEP identified 35,237 violations, and resolved 32,699 of them, including some from 2023.DEP also responded to 410 environmental emergencies, like spills from traffic accidents to chemical fires. The emergencies included a sewage pipeline break in Lycoming County, multiple abandoned mine subsidence incidents in Luzerne County, and helping to coordinate disaster responses during Tropical Storm Debby. After such emergencies, DEP staff return to the site to assess and implement necessary cleanup measures, such as removing contaminated soil or filling an abandoned mine subsidence with concrete to make it more stable(opens in a new tab).DEP inspections include both scheduled and unscheduled on-site visits to permitted facilities, as well as document reviews to verify compliance with environmental laws and regulations. These inspections—whether on-site or operational—ensure that air emissions stay within air quality standards, drinking water remains safe, and rivers and streams are protected from pollution. DEP’s efforts to hold polluters accountable also included investing civil penalties into Pennsylvania communities. In Beaver County, DEP, and the Beaver County Environmental Mitigation Fund, awarded more than $4.7 million to fund community projects in areas affected by the Shell petrochemical facility. In Washington County, DEP secured more than $1.6 million from legacy pollution from the site of a former zinc smelter, which will fund community projects once the final cleanup of the site is complete. Click Here for DEP's announcement.DEP’s Oil and Gas Program conducted over 47,736 inspections during 2024-- 24,216 inspections of unconventional shale gas facilities, 17,347 conventional oil and gas wells and 6,173 site and client inspections, through December 27, 2024.DEP issued 7,296 violations to conventional oil and gas well owners, far exceeding the 6,860 violations issued in 2023, 5,416 violations issued in 2022 and 4,514 violations in 2021 [Read more here].DEP also issued 495 compliance orders, consent agreements and took other enforcement actions against conventional operators.The most frequent violation continues to be abandoning and not plugging conventional wells. DEP issued 850 violations for conventional well abandonment through December 20 in 2024. DEP issued 512 violations for abandoned wells in 2023.DEP has only seen an increase in noncompliance by the conventional oil and gas industry, confirming yet again its conclusion that the conventional industry’s culture of non-compliance is an “acceptable norm.” Read more here. DEP issued 1,129 violations to unconventional shale gas well owners and issued 131 compliance orders, consent agreements and other enforcement actions.DEP took 129 enforcement actions against shale gas companies in 2023. DEP issued 42 violations to 12 shale gas well owners for abandoning and not plugging their wells in 2024, through December 21, sometimes dating back 42 months. Read more here.In 2023, DEP issued or continued 20 violations to 10 shale gas well owners for abandoned and not plugging their wells. Read more here.Visit DEP’s Oil & Gas Compliance Reporting Database and Inspection Reports Viewer webpages to search their compliance records by date and owner.
Diversified Buys Another 300 Wells Plus Pipelines in WV & Va. - Marcellus Drilling News - Diversified Energy, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (also assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. Earlier today, the company announced another deal to buy more assets in the Appalachian region.’
MVP Runs Full, Gives Appalachia Natural Gas Prices More Exposure to Winter Demand Spikes -- The 2 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is running at capacity for the first time since it came online in June, allowing more Appalachian Basin natural gas to reach the Southeast and price closer to downstream premiums. Natural Gas Intelligence's (NGI) spot Transco Zone 5, St. 165 daily natural gas price graph showing historical market volatility compared to MVP natural gas deliveries to the Transco, Cherrystone interconnect. The 303-mile pipeline from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia has provided one of the few new linkages out of the Appalachian Basin. Underscoring the difficulty in adding egress out of the prolific Marcellus and Utica shale formations, it took an act of Congress to finish the pipeline. This week, more than 10 years after the project first went to federal regulators for approval, the full impact of its completion finally could be seen in gas flows.
CO2 from Gas-Fired Plants Record High, Yet Overall Emissions Down --Marcellus Drilling News -- -- For the first time, over 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) was discharged from U.S. gas-fired power plants in a single year in 2024. It marks a new pollution threshold for the world’s largest gas producer and consumer of natural gas. Yet, because natgas has replaced coal and other higher-polluting sources of electric power, U.S. power emissions from all fossil fuels were up only 0.5% in 2024 from 2023, to 1.64 billion tons. And get this: Overall emissions from all sources were down 19% last year versus 2015. Using natural gas to produce electricity makes the country “greener,” something the media ignores.
“Green” New England Burns NatGas, Coal, Oil to Keep the Lights On --Marcellus Drilling News -- Liberal New England, one of the bluest (Democrat) areas of the country, continues to do the opposite of what they preach. For years, New England states like Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut have blocked new natural gas pipelines that would carry Marcellus molecules from a few hundred miles away into their states, claiming they seek to phase out fossil energy to be more “green.” Yet, as of this morning, 41% of the electricity flowing through New England’s grid comes from fossil fuels—natural gas (33%), oil (7%), and coal (1%). Another 4% comes from burning garbage and wood, which emits as much or more carbon dioxide as fossil fuels! How much electricity is being produced from solar and wind right now in New England? A piddly 9%.
AccuWeather Says Cold Blast in Northeast Could Stop M-U Drilling - AccuWeather meteorologists who specialize in predicting the weather for the natural gas industry issued a statement to Rigzone saying several Arctic blasts will send waves of bitterly cold air across much of the eastern United States starting last weekend. The meteorologists said the “deep freeze could impact natural gas production and operations in the Northeast.” They specifically mentioned the Marcellus Shale by name, stating new shale drilling and flows from wells to pipelines “could be impacted by bitterly cold air.”
AccuWeather Says Deep Freeze Could Impact Northeast Natural Gas Production AccuWeather expert meteorologists say several Arctic blasts will send waves of bitterly cold air across much of the eastern United States starting this weekend. That’s what a media advisory sent to Rigzone by the AccuWeather team this week stated, adding that the “deep freeze could impact natural gas production and operations in the Northeast”. “The blasts of cold air are expected to trigger a surge in heating demand, leading to higher energy and utility bills,” the advisory warned. In the advisory, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alan Reppert said, “we expect Marcellus Shale natural gas production areas in the Northeast could be impacted by bitterly cold air”. “This deep freeze could slow or even stop drilling and operations at times. The demand for natural gas and heating will likely surge across the eastern half of the country starting this weekend, as temperatures plummet across the Northeast, Midwest, and much of the Southeast,” Reppert added. “We also expect parts of Europe to be impacted by very cold air later this week and possibly into next week, which could increase the demand for natural gas exports,” he continued. “The combination of cold weather impacts and heating demand in the United States and Europe will likely cause natural gas prices to remain elevated into next week,” Reppert went on to note. The media advisory stated that AccuWeather expert meteorologists say the waves of cold air could lead to the coldest January in the United States as a whole since 2011. “Should the cold wave evolve to its full potential, temperature departures could plunge to 30 to 40 degrees below the historical average from the Midwest to the interior Southeast for several days during the first to second full week of January,” the advisory warned. In the advisory, AccuWeather Senior Director of Forecasting Operations Dan DePodwin said, “in the Southeast (Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida), this January could end up being the coldest since January 2018, which was 4.3 degrees below the historical average”. “In an extreme scenario where the cold lingers past the middle of January, January 2025 could be the coldest since January 2014 in this region, which was six degrees lower than the historical average,” he added. “The last two Januarys in the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan) have been well above the historical average spanning 1991-2020. January 2023 was 6.3 degrees above and January 2024 was 4.2 degrees above,” he continued. AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Expert Paul Pastelok says waves of extreme cold could send AccuWeather RealFeel temperatures tumbling to 10-20 degrees across parts of northern Florida, the Gulf Coast, and the Southeast late next week, the advisory stated. “Pastelok says AccuWeather RealFeel temperatures could plummet to -30 degrees in parts of the northern Plains and Upper Midwest late next week,” the advisory warned. Pastelok noted in the advisory that “the key here is that the Arctic outbreak will involve many days and not just be a quick one to three day event”. “A trainload of Arctic high-pressure areas will move southward into the U.S. from the northern Plains to the Southeast states with the pattern,” he warned.
BHE’s Eastern Gas Pipe Proposes Expansion to Flow M-U Gas to D.C. --Marcellus Drilling News -- It’s always a red-letter day here at MDN HQ when we happen across a new pipeline project in the Marcellus/Utica region. Today is one of those days! Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in December to beef up three existing compressor stations in Centre County, Clinton County, and Franklin County in Pennsylvania, and one existing compressor station in Loudoun County, Virginia, with the aim of flowing more Marcellus molecules to the Washington, D.C. area.
DC Circuit Sides with FERC Approval of 24-Mile Gas Pipe in Indiana --Marcellus Drilling News -- In June 2021, MDN told you about CenterPoint Energy, a power generator looking to shutter portions of its coal-fired generation fleet and build two natural gas combustion turbines in Indiana (see Will New 460 MW Gas-Fired Plant in Indiana Get Approved?). The two units would provide a combined 460 megawatts (MW) of electricity as a backup to CenterPoint’s wind, solar, and battery storage. Antis tried to strangle the project by challenging a 24-mile pipeline that would feed it (see Antis Attack Pipe Expansion to Feed NatGas to Indiana Power Plants). Finally, after nearly four years and multiple appeals, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision yesterday that sided with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in an appeal of the agency’s decision approving the pipeline. In other words, FERC was correct to approve it, and now (finally) the project can go forward.
National Grid, Con Edison urge FERC to adopt gas pipeline reliability requirements The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should adopt reliability-related requirements for gas pipeline operators to ensure fuel supplies during cold weather, according to National Grid USA and affiliated utilities Consolidated Edison Co. of New York and Orange and Rockland Utilities.In the wake of power outages in the Southeast and the near collapse of New York City’s gas system during Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022, voluntary efforts to bolster gas pipeline reliability are inadequate, the utilities said in two separate filings on Friday at FERC.The filings were in response to a gas-electric coordination meeting held in November by the Federal-State Current Issues Collaborative between FERC and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.National Grid called for FERC to use its authority under the Natural Gas Act to require pipeline reliability reporting, coupled with enforcement mechanisms, and pipeline tariff reforms.“Such data reporting would enable the commission to gain a clearer picture into pipeline reliability and identify any problematic trends in the quality of pipeline service,” National Grid said. “At that point, the commission could consider using its ratemaking, audit, and civil penalty authority preemptively to address such identified concerns before they result in service curtailments.”On pipeline tariff reforms, FERC should develop tougher provisions forforce majeure events — an unforeseen occurence that prevents a contract from being fulfilled — reservation charge crediting, operational flow orders, scheduling and confirmation enhancements, improved real-time coordination, and limits on changes to nomination rankings, National Grid said.FERC should support efforts in New England and New York to create financial incentives for gas-fired generators to enter into winter contracts for imported liquefied natural gas supplies, or other long-term firm contracts with suppliers and pipelines, National Grid said. Con Edison and O&R said they were encouraged by recent efforts such as North American Energy Standard Board’s Gas-Electric Harmonization report, a FERC and North American Electric Reliability Corp. Winter Storm Elliott report and NARUC’s Gas-Electric Alignment for Reliability efforts. “Further, since Winter Storm Elliott, we have observed noticeable improvements in winter weather operations with our upstream pipeline and suppliers, including earlier information-sharing with pipeline customers and enhancements by pipelines to address real-time operational risk,” the utilities said. However, “efforts to address the root of the problem — gas system performance during cold weather — have stalled,” they said.
Cheniere Produces First LNG in CCL Stage 3 - Cheniere Energy, Inc. has produced the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the first train of the company’s Corpus Christi Stage 3 Liquefaction Project (CCL Stage 3). Cheniere said in a news release that the commissioning process continues to progress and that it expects substantial completion of Train 1 to be achieved at the end of the first quarter of 2025, over six months ahead of the guaranteed completion date. Upon substantial completion, Bechtel Energy, Inc. will transfer the care, custody and control of the completed train to Cheniere, according to the release. CCL Stage 3 consists of seven midscale trains, with an expected total production capacity of over 10 million metric tons per annum (mtpa) of LNG. Upon the substantial completion of all seven trains of CCL Stage 3, the expected total production capacity of the Corpus Christi liquefaction facility will be over 25 mtpa of LNG, Cheniere said. Full notice to proceed on CCL Stage 3 was issued to Bechtel by Cheniere in June 2022. In October 2024, Cheniere set a voluntary, measurement-informed Scope 1 annual methane intensity target for its liquefaction facilities. The Scope 1 methane target leverages data from its multi-scale emissions measurement and mitigation programs. The methane target is consistent with the requirements to achieve Gold Standard under Cheniere’s membership in the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Oil & Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0, according to an earlier statement from the company. Cheniere said it aims to consistently maintain a Scope 1 annual methane emissions intensity of 0.03 percent per metric ton of LNG produced across its two U.S. Gulf Coast liquefaction facilities by 2027. The company’s methane target was guided by its Quantification, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (QMRV) projects, which included data from approximately 50 aerial measurements of Cheniere’s operations at its liquefaction facilities performed over a 16-month period. “Cheniere’s LNG plays a critical role in meeting the world’s growing need for secure and reliable energy, while supporting the transition to a lower-carbon future,” Cheniere President and CEO Jack Fusco said. “Our methane emissions intensity target reflects our commitment to leverage measurement-informed emissions data to improve the climate competitiveness of our LNG and ensure the long-term resilience of our business”. In the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024, Cheniere generated revenues of approximately $3.8 billion and $11.3 billion, as well as net income of approximately $0.9 billion and $2.3 billion, according to its most recent earnings release. Cheniere’s net income decreased approximately $808 million year-over-year in the third quarter. The decreases were primarily attributable to "unfavorable variances related to changes in fair value of our derivative instruments,” the company said. The decreases were partially offset by lower provisions for income tax, as well as lower net income attributable to non-controlling interests.
Exports From New LNG Terminal Begin as U.S. Cements Position as Market Leader - Exports from America's eighth liquefied natural gas facility began this week, highlighted by an LNG carrier departing for Europe. This reinforces the US' position as the world's leading LNG exporter and provides tailwinds for President-elect Donald Trump as he urges Europe to increase US energy product purchases in his upcoming second term. Venture Global, one of the largest US LNG developers, shipped its inaugural cargo of LNG from its Plaquemines export facility in Louisiana via a company-owned carrier named "Venture Bayou."According to Bloomberg ship tracking data, the newly built carrier is en route to deliver the first LNG cargo from Plaquemines to the German utility company EnBW. The shipment is expected to arrive in early January. Venture Global wrote in a statement cited by Bloomberg that the Plaquemines will "produce and export LNG while construction and commissioning continue for the remainder of the project's 36 trains and associated facilities." Plaquemines has several long-term customers, including European utility Electricite de France SA, Polish energy firm Orlen SA, China's Sinopec and Cnooc Ltd., and Shell plc.When the Plaquemines LNG facility becomes fully operational, expected in late 2025 or early 2026 according to Venture Global's project timeline, it will rank among the world's largest LNG export plants, further securing the US' position as the world's top LNG exporter. This development is pivotal, as US LNG has been offered to Brussels as a replacement for Russian piped NatGas.Venture Global CEO Mike Sabel wrote in a statement: "In just five years, Venture Global has built, produced and launched exports from two large-scale LNG projects which has never been done before in the history of the industry."The potential LNG export boom will likely please President-elect Trump, who recently threatened Europe with tariffs unless it increased its purchase of US energy products next year. Also, Venture Global has filed for an initial public offering, with JPMorgan analysts estimating the enterprise value is around $100 billion.In response to Trump's comments about the US-EU LNG trade, Goldman analysts said US LNG could "theoretically" replace piped Russian NatGas to the EU.
U.S. Natural Gas Demand Poised for Growth in 2025 as LNG Buildout Ramps Up - After a year highlighted by construction delays and sluggish regulatory processes, new U.S. LNG export capacity is coming online in 2025, bringing with it added natural gas demand on the Gulf Coast. Graph showing developing LNG projects along the Gulf Coast through 2030. But, whether that new demand translates to higher prices or proves slower to emerge largely depends on how LNG developers navigate persistent industry challenges as projects ramp up toward commercial operations. NGI’s Patrick Rau, senior vice president of research and analysis, said Plaquemines LNG and incremental demand from Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Corpus Christi Stage 3 project could boost feed gas demand by 3 Bcf/d by the end of 2025.
U.S. LNG ‘Golden Era’ Expected to Last Longer as Trump Takes Office - - President Trump’s second term is poised to accelerate the U.S. LNG buildout and expand global trade of the super-chilled fuel at a time when energy flows have dramatically shifted and demand is also set to surge. Charts showing Canada, Mexico and U.S. LNG export projects under development and their capacity. “We’re in the middle of a golden age for U.S. LNG. I think there’s clearly interest in developing more capacity,” said Jason Feer, global head of business intelligence at Poten & Partners. “People have signed with projects that haven’t reached a final investment decision (FID), that’s an expression of interest. “I think the Trump administration is going to do whatever it can to encourage that,” he told NGI.
U.S. Natural Gas Prices Surge 10% as Winter Storms Hit Output and Demand (Reuters) — U.S. natural gas futures soared about 10% to a one-week high in volatile trade on Monday as winter storms battered the eastern half of the country, causing output to decline as some oil and gas wells and pipes froze. More than 323,000 homes and businesses were without power from Missouri to Virginia Monday afternoon. That was down from a total of more than 409,000 customers affected by the storm. In addition to the winter storms, energy traders said gas prices also gained support from near-record gas flows to U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants and forecasts for colder weather and higher heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. Front-month gas futures for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 31.8 cents, or 9.5%, to settle at $3.672 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), their highest close since Dec. 30. With big price swings in recent weeks, Monday's gain was only the biggest daily percentage increase since prices jumped by 12.0% on Dec. 30. Financial firm LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states rose to 105.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) so far in January, up from 103.8 Bcf/d in December. That compares with a record 105.3 Bcf/d in December 2023. But since output hit a 10-month high of 106.0 Bcf/d on Dec. 30, supplies were on track to drop by around 3.4 Bcf/d to a preliminary six-week low of 102.6 Bcf/d on Monday, due mostly to freezing wells and pipes, known in the energy industry as freeze-offs. Those output declines from freeze-offs so far this winter were much smaller than in recent years. But with the coldest weather still to come, analysts said freeze-off declines will likely increase in coming days. In past winters, freeze-offs slashed gas output by around 16.5 Bcf/d from Jan. 8-16 in 2024, 19.4 Bcf/d from Dec. 21-24 in 2022 and 20.4 Bcf/d from Feb. 8-17 in 2021, according to LSEG data. Meteorologists projected weather in the Lower 48 states would remain mostly colder than normal through Jan. 21 with the coldest days expected later this week. LSEG forecast average gas demand in the Lower 48, including exports, would ease from 147.0 Bcf/d this week to 146.7 Bcf/d next week. Those forecasts were higher than LSEG's outlook on Friday. On a daily basis, LSEG projected total gas use could reach 155.5 Bcf/d on Jan. 7, falling well short of the daily record of 168.4 Bcf/d on Jan. 16, 2024 during another brutal winter freeze. The amount of gas flowing to the eight big U.S. LNG export plants rose to an average of 15.1 Bcf/d so far in January, up from 14.4 Bcf/d in December. That compares with a monthly record high of 14.7 Bcf/d in December 2023. Gas was trading around $14 per MMBtu at both the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) benchmark in Europe and the Japan Korea Marker (JKM) benchmark in Asia.
U.S. Natural Gas Futures Surge 6% on Freezing Wells, Northeast Price Spike (Reuters) — U.S. natural gas futures jumped about 6% in another volatile day of trade on Wednesday on forecasts for more heating demand than previously expected and as freezing wells cut output. Extreme cold in the Northeast, meanwhile, boosted spot gas prices to their highest since January 2024. Front-month gas futures for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 20.2 cents, or 5.9%, to settle at $3.651 per million British thermal units. The market has experienced fierce price swings over the past couple of weeks with nine of the past 10 trading days moving up or down by more than 5%. That compares with an average daily price move of around 3.7% in 2024. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said utilities pulled 40 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas out of storage during the week ended Jan. 3. Analysts noted that withdrawal was small due to mild weather during the New Year's holiday week. It was smaller than the 53-Bcf withdrawal analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with a decrease of 104 Bcf during the same week last year and a five-year average draw of 93 Bcf for this time of year. EIA released the storage report one day early due to a National Day of Mourning for former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Thursday. Analysts projected the next three storage reports for the weeks ended Jan. 10, 17 and 24 could show utilities pulling over 200 bcf of gas out of storage each week due to extreme cold expected to last until at least late January. If correct, that could wipe out the current surplus of gas in storage, which stands at 7% over the five-year average, by the end of January. In the spot market, extreme cold in the Northeast boosted next-day gas prices to their highest since January 2024 at the Eastern Gas hub in Pennsylvania and in New York.
US natgas prices soar 8% to two-year high on colder forecasts, record LNG feedgas — U.S. natural gas futures soared about 8% to a two-year high on Friday on forecasts for colder weather and higher heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected, and record gas flows to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants. Front-month gas futures NG1! for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 28.8 cents, or 7.8%, to settle at $3.989 per million British thermal units, their highest close since Jan. 4, 2023. That topped the front-month's near two-year closing high of $3.946 from a couple of weeks ago on Dec. 24. But in such a volatile market, that gain was only the biggest daily percentage increase since Jan. 6 when prices jumped over 9%. Ten of the last 12 trading days saw moves up or down of over 5%. That compares with an average daily price move of around 3.7% in calendar 2024. For the week, the front-month was up about 19%, its biggest weekly percentage gain since September, after sliding about 11% over the past two weeks. Analysts projected the next three storage reports for the weeks ending Jan. 10, 17 and 24 could each show utilities pulling over 200 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas from inventories to meet soaring heating demand. Some analysts said withdrawals this month could top the current record high of 994 bcf set in January 2022, according to federal energy data. Those storage withdrawals could wipe out the current surplus of gas in storage, which stands near 7% over the five-year average, by the end of January. That would be the first time stockpiles would fall below the five-year average since January 2022. Financial firm LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states slid to 102.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in January, down from 103.8 bcfd in December. That compares with a record 105.3 bcfd in December 2023. Since daily output hit a 10-month high of 106.0 bcfd on Dec. 30, supplies were on track to drop by around 5.9 bcfd to a preliminary eight-week low of 100.1 bcfd on Friday. The amount of freeze-offs, however, was lower than the 6.2 bcfd projected on Thursday. Cold weather output declines so far this year have been much smaller than previous winters. Freeze-offs cut gas output by around 16.5 bcfd from Jan. 8-16 in 2024, 19.4 bcfd from Dec. 21-24 in 2022, and 20.4 bcfd from Feb. 8-17 in 2021, according to LSEG data. Meteorologists projected weather in the Lower 48 states would remain mostly colder than normal through Jan. 25, with the coldest days still to come. LSEG forecast average gas demand in the Lower 48, including exports, would rise from 148.3 bcfd this week to 149.3 bcfd next week before easing to 147.0 bcfd in two weeks. The forecasts for this week and next were higher than LSEG's outlook on Thursday. On a daily basis, LSEG said total gas use so far this winter peaked at 158.8 bcfd on Jan. 8 and would reach 159.0 bcfd on Jan. 21, which would fall short of the daily record high of 168.4 bcfd on Jan. 16, 2024. The amount of gas flowing to the eight big U.S. LNG export plants rose to an average of 15.0 bcfd so far in January, up from 14.4 bcfd in December. That compares with a monthly record high of 14.7 bcfd in December 2023. On a daily basis, LNG feedgas was on track to climb from 15.3 bcfd on Thursday to a preliminary 15.5 bcfd on Friday as flows to Venture Global's 2.6-bcfd Plaquemines plant under construction in Texas rise to a record 0.8 bcfd. That total feedgas would top the current daily record of 15.4 bcfd on Jan 6.
U.S. Natural Gas Markets (and Prices) Now Linked with Rest of World -Marcellus Drilling News --- According to CME Group, the worldwide natural gas market has evolved, and trading activity has grown in the past few years. The trading volume of Henry Hub Natural Gas (NG) futures during non-U.S. hours has more than doubled from a couple of years ago. We are truly interconnected worldwide. However, there are implications and consequences to being interconnected. Namely, the U.S. gas market is less shielded from global events due to the global linkage created by our LNG exports. It becomes imperative for U.S. gas traders to understand and monitor what’s happening around the globe and how world events may cause volatility. Traders need to monitor for sudden shifts in global demand-and-supply balance, changes in weather patterns, and geopolitical risk.
Joe Biden blocks some new offshore drilling ahead of Donald Trump takeover - President Biden has blocked new offshore drilling for oil and gas in several parts of the country about two weeks before President-elect Trump takes office. Biden has announced he’ll block new drilling off the entire East Coast, as well as California, Oregon and Washington state. The president’s move also blocks some drilling off Alaska’s coast in portions of the Northern Bering Sea and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. “Drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. It is not worth the risks,” Biden said in a statement. “As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren,” he added. Biden’s effort does not target areas that are major hubs for fossil fuel development — the vast majority of U.S. offshore oil and gas production comes from the central and western Gulf of Mexico, which is unaffected by Monday’s announcement. According to the Interior Department, industry activity in the area Biden blocked off has historically been “very low,” and there is no active oil and gas exploration or production in the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the effort could be an effort to prevent expansions from taking place under President-elect Trump, who has promised to promote domestic energy production and “drill baby drill.” “This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Monday. “Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.” Oil industry groups also blasted the decision, which represents the largest area ever formally taken off the table for drilling by a president. “American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it,” said Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas lobbying group. “We urge policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing,” Sommers added. While Trump could try to reverse Biden’s move to protect more than 625 million acres, it’s not clear whether he would be successful. During his first term, Trump tried to undo a similar move to protect certain areas from drilling issued under former President Obama, but was stopped by a judge, who ruled that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act gives presidents the right to block drilling in certain areas but not to reinstate it. While Trump was largely supportive of oil and gas during his first term, he also blocked drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
President-elect Trump pledges to unban oil drilling after Biden move --President-elect Trump blasted President Biden’s decision to block oil drilling across large swaths of the U.S.’s coastlines, saying he will “unban it.” “It’s ridiculous; I’ll unban it immediately,” Trump said during an interview Monday with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. However, it’s not totally clear whether he’ll be able to do so. During his previous term, Trump tried to reinstate drilling in areas blocked off by former President Obama, but he was blocked from doing so in court. In 2019, a judge ruled that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act gives presidents the right to block drilling in certain areas but not to reinstate it. Nevertheless, in the interview with Hewitt, Trump asserted he would be able to reverse Biden’s action. “I have the right to unban it immediately,” he said. “When I see somebody saying he’s going to ban 625 million acres, he doesn’t know what that is. He doesn’t even know what 625 million acres would look like, and we can’t let that happen to our country,” Trump added. Biden’s move to ban new drilling in more than 625 million acres represents the largest-ever area where a president has blocked drilling. However, Biden’s move applies to areas that have low, if any, levels of offshore drilling. It did not apply to the central and western Gulf of Mexico where most U.S. offshore drilling occurs.
What to know about Biden’s new offshore drilling restrictions - President Biden’s move to bar drilling across the U.S.’s East and West coasts, while splashy, may not have significant climate or energy impacts in the years ahead. Because very little oil and gas is drilled in these places to begin with, the move is mostly symbolic — at least in the near term. On Monday, Biden barred new drilling off the East and West coasts of the U.S. and in a portion of Alaska and the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. The move leaves the central and western Gulf of Mexico in play. The action received significant political attention, garnering praise from environmentalists and being decried by industry and Republicans. But its actual effects are expected to be limited because very little offshore drilling actually occurs outside the Gulf. “I think the overall impact of the drilling ban on future U.S. production levels will be rather small,” said Andrew Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates, in an email. He noted the Gulf of Mexico is the area “where oil producers want to drill since it is most likely to contain commercially recoverable amounts of oil and natural gas.” Meanwhile, there is currently no drilling off the Atlantic Coast and some sparse drilling off the Pacific Coast. Lipow said he believes the industry has little interest in drilling off the coast of California due to its “adversarial relationship with the oil industry” and noted that the hurdles for the East Coast are even higher. “Even if the industry decided to drill in that area today, they must contend with building pipeline and receiving infrastructure to on shore facilities in states that already have significant local opposition,” he wrote. In the near-term, the government does not have any plans to sell the rights to drill anywhere except for the Gulf. While these plans are likely to be revised by Trump, it’s not clear whether he would plan to open up the areas blocked by Biden in the immediate future, or whether the industry has an appetite to drill there. “The industry’s near-term focus has been the Gulf of Mexico,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents both offshore oil and gas and offshore wind companies. “We’ve got a lot of major projects coming online. We still have some running room for the Gulf of Mexico to discover more resources and bring more oil and gas online,” he said. However, Milito said he opposes Biden’s move because in the long term, “you’ve got to find new places to find and discover oil and gas.” “The Pacific is understood to contain massive amounts of oil,” he said. “We just want to make sure that we’re not taking options off the table for the long term.” For his part, Trump has condemned the move, vowing to “unban it immediately.” However, any bid to do so could face legal hurdles. During his previous term, Trump tried to resume drilling in areas blocked off by former President Obama, but he was prevented from doing so in court. In 2019, a judge ruled the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act gives presidents the right to block drilling in certain areas but not to reinstate it. But it’s not clear whether any future court decisions will follow the same logic, with Trump and his allies saying the incoming president does have the right to reverse Biden. “We don’t see any reason why the president shouldn’t have the authority to amend or rescind these types of decisions,” Milito said.
API issues statement opposing further restrictions on US offshore E&P -The American Petroleum Institute (API) has released the following statement from President and CEO Mike Sommers on reports that the Biden administration will move to ban new oil and natural gas activity across millions of acres of federal waters:“American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it. Congress and the incoming administration should fully leverage the nation’s vast offshore resources as a critical source of affordable energy, government revenue and stability around the world. We urge policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing.”According to the US Energy Information Administration, US offshore production accounts for 14% of total US crude oil production, or nearly two million barrels of oil per day. Robust offshore oil and natural gas development could generate over $8 billion in additional government revenue by 2040, the API noted. The API also said that: “Reversing this politically-motivated decision should be a top priority for Congress.” In addition, the trade association is also urging the incoming administration to draft a new five-year offshore leasing program, “changing course from the weakest offshore program in history under the Biden administration.”
Oil companies pay record $5.6M settlement after FTC alleges illegal coordination -- Three oil companies will pay a record penalty to settle allegations that they illegally coordinated before a merger between them was complete, the federal government announced on Tuesday.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that companies XCL Resources Holdings, Verdun Oil Company II and EP Energy LLC (EP) will pay a record $5.6 million in the civil case. A legal complaint made public Tuesday said that Verdun, which was under common management with XCL at the time, purchased EP. It says that under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust act, the companies needed to abide by a waiting period before transferring any control from one business to another — but that they transferred “significant operational control” of EP to XCL and Verdun during this period.It particularly accused XCL of halting EP’s oil development activities “at a time when the United States was experiencing significant supply shortages and spiking crude oil prices.”The Hill has attempted to reach the companies for comment.As oil and gasoline prices spiked in 2021 and 2022 amid COVID-related economic factors and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Democrats frequently accused the energy industry of price gouging. The industry has denied such allegations, and largely, analysts attributed price jumps to economic factors.The FTC, meanwhile, has in recent years given the oil and gas industry significant scrutiny,accusing one firm of colluding with foreign producers and also probing proposed mergers.President-elect Trump, meanwhile, has said he would loosen FTC scrutiny of the oil industry,The Washington Post reported earlier this year.
Exxon predicts a $700 million hit to profit due to lower oil prices - Exxon Mobil Corp. said earnings took a hit from lower crude prices and narrowing refining margins during the final three months of 2024. Oil prices lowered earnings at Exxon’s production division by about $700 million while refining margins reduced profit by a further $500 million compared with the third quarter, Exxon said in a statement Tuesday. Natural gas prices provided a lift of about $200 million while chemical margins shrank. Exxon’s guidance doesn’t take into account operational performance or changes in production levels but is a sign that the fourth quarter was a tough one for Big Oil. Investors are concerned about the Chinese economy amid ample global crude supplies. Exxon indicated it will report a $400 million gain from fourth-quarter asset sales, along with charges of the same amount.
Enbridge pipeline oil spill near Madison prompts calls for disclosure -A spill of over 1,600 barrels of crude oil near Dane County went undisclosed to the public for a month, a delay caused partly by Wisconsin's limited rules for notification.The Enbridge pipeline leak in November highlights a gap in transparency that environmental groups say the state can and should close. “I just think anytime we're dealing with an oil spill in a place like Wisconsin, with so many water bodies — we have 10,000 rivers, lakes and streams — and with a third of the state relying on groundwater as their source of drinking water, if there's a spill, tell the public immediately,” said Rob Lee, a staff attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates. “Just announce it. It doesn't matter if it's two tablespoons or two gallons or 2 million, right? Tell people.”The Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge reported a spill near the Jefferson County town of Oakland to state and federal regulators on Nov. 11. The matter was publicized only after Enbridge filed a report with the federal government a month later outlining the full details of the spill.Initially the spill was considered to be relatively small — 126 gallons of oil, or about the same size as a large household aquarium tank.But in mid-December, the company estimated the spill involved nearly 70,000 gallons of oil, the equivalent of 1,650 barrels. A report filed on Dec. 11 with the federal agency overseeing interstate pipelines indicated the spill was entirely contained on Enbridge property.The federal report said Enbridge personnel initially discovered a malfunctioning flange gasket was causing oil to leak. After repairs were made, a follow-up investigation determined the spill was much more widespread than initially thought.Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner said the company immediately reported the spill as required and briskly commenced cleanup with supervision from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.“Local government and state officials also visited the site and expressed no elevated concerns as the release and the associated impacts were contained to Enbridge property,” Kellner said. “We remain in contact with local elected officials.”A half-dozen adjacent landowners were informed about the spill on Dec. 11 and Dec. 12, according to documents filed with the DNR as part of the cleanup process. Officials in the town of Oakland said they were informed about the extent of the spill on Dec. 13.Lisa Moen, administrator in Cambridge, which is 4 miles from the spill site, told the Cap Times in an email that Enbridge never contacted her city's government about the spill.A contractor helping Enbridge with cleanup filed a report to the DNR on Dec. 29 that said the spill affected groundwater but only on company land. Tests have shown no elevated chemical levels in the water of a half-dozen local landowners, according to documents Enbridge filed with the DNR. The town of Oakland and Jefferson County Health Department have asked residents to monitor their water for any discoloration and odor. The DNR also reported there does not yet appear to be any oil in a nearby creek or in nearby Lake Ripley, though the agency recommended Enbridge to continue to monitor the waterway.The incident is smaller than a 2007 spill near Exeland, in northwestern Wisconsin, the largest such event in state history. That incident occurred when an Enbridge crew mistakenly ruptured an existing pipeline while installing a new one.
Trump Aims to Revive 1,200-Mile Keystone XL Pipeline Despite Major Challenges --Donald Trump plans to restart the Keystone XL pipeline, a stalled project designed to transport oil from Canada to Nebraska, according to Straight Arrow News. Originally proposed by Canadian firm TC Energy in 2010, the project faced repeated policy shifts: rejected under President Obama in 2015, approved by Trump in 2017, and canceled again by President Biden in 2021. The pipeline, designed to transport oil from Alberta to Nebraska, is no longer in development. TC Energy abandoned the project in 2021 and dismantled existing infrastructure. According to a recent Politico report citing an anonymous source, Trump aims to prioritize the pipeline's revival early in his presidency, framing it as a strategic move to strengthen his pro-fossil-fuel agenda and overturn Biden's policies. However, restarting the project faces considerable obstacles. Any new effort would require fresh permits and a committed company to take on construction, according to Straight Arrow News. The original permits are invalid, and interest might be low due to robust oil production in both the U.S. and Canada. Furthermore, Canada has developed alternative export routes, reducing the immediate need for additional pipeline infrastructure.
After a Long Slide, Alaska's Crude Oil Production Appears Primed for Rebound - Alaska North Slope (ANS) crude oil production has been sliding for years — decades really — but that is poised to change in the second half of the 2020s. Two long-planned ANS projects — Pikka and Willow — are slated to start up in 2026 and 2029, respectively. By the early 2030s, these and other projects in the works could return North Slope production to levels not seen since the turn of the century. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss these projects and our new, long-term forecast for ANS oil production — a topic in our upcoming Future of Fuels report. Let’s start with the main source of Alaska’s crude oil production: Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope. As we discussed in Keep Holding On, more than a half-century ago the 49th state was seen as the next big thing for U.S. oil. Massive oil deposits were discovered at Prudhoe Bay in the late 1960s –– and that promise soon became reality. With the completion of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, AK, in 1977, ANS production took off like a rocket and by 1988 it exceeded 2 MMb/d. Not only did Alaska account for one-quarter of total U.S. crude oil output that year, it also briefly knocked Texas off its perch as the #1 oil-producing state. Alaskan oil didn’t give the U.S. “energy independence” -– a rallying cry in the Ford, Carter and Reagan years –– but it helped. The physical characteristics of the North Slope’s medium sour-ish crude, with a 31.5 API gravity and about 1% sulfur (generally the cutoff we use to differentiate sweet and sour crude), were (and are) a plus. West Coast refineries were configured to run it, and the crude was — and is — very marketable in Asia too. However, as shown in Figure 1 above, the picture quickly turned gloomy. Alaskan oil production peaked in 1988 and has headed downhill ever since as additional rounds of investments for new production ceased to materialize (see A Change Is Gonna Come). By 1995, Alaskan crude production had fallen to less than 1.5 MMb/d, and by 2000 it was down to less than 1 MMb/d. The slide didn’t end there. By the 2010s, production was hovering around 500 Mb/d, and in September 2024 (the most recent EIA stats available) it stood at about 408 Mb/d — or only 3% of total U.S. output (down from a peak of around 25% in 1988), which in August was at 13.4 MMb/d (right end of orange line in Figure 2 below). The issue isn’t that Alaska is running out of oil — far from it, as significant reserves still exist under the frozen tundra on the North Slope. However, Alaska’s energy industry has been thwarted by federal policies (most of the reserves were located on federally controlled land) as well as competition from shale producers in the Lower 48 who were largely unhindered by similar restrictions. As Alaskan production fell, the pace of crude oil flows through the 48-inch-diameter TAPS pipeline slowed considerably. The short explanation is when the pipeline was running close to its full, 2.1-MMb/d capacity in the 1980s, the crude flowed quickly and remained warm. Now, with flow rates of just over 400 Mb/d, the crude flows more slowly and cools off to uncomfortably low temperatures, which further slows the pace of the oil. Trips from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez that used to take only 4.5 days now can take four times as long. More importantly, at these low rates, the pipeline was approaching levels (estimated at 300-350 Mb/d) below which the oil could not flow due to freezing, which would raise the possibility of a full system shutdown (see The End?). But as we said in the intro to today’s blog, things are set to change thanks to the ongoing bump-up in ANS production and two larger projects that we believe will ramp up Alaska’s oil production through the late 2020s. ConocoPhillips announced December 17 that it had begun producing oil from its Nuna project (green-shaded area in Figure 3 below), which is expected to produce 20 Mb/d once it reaches peak production. Nuna, located east of the Colville River near the village of Nuiqsut, is part of the larger Kuparuk River field, which began producing oil in 1981.As for the two new projects, we’ll begin with Pikka (pink-shaded area in Figure 3), which is located west of Prudhoe Bay (beige-shaded area) within the Nanushuk oil play — the biggest conventional onshore oil discovery in the U.S. in decades when Armstrong Oil & Gas and Repsol drilled a successful discovery well in 2013. (Oil Search, an E&P based in Papua New Guinea, acquired Armstrong’s 49% stake in Pikka in 2018 and merged with Australia’s Santos Ltd. in December 2021; Repsol retains the other 51%.)The Nanshuk oil play is a formation and a layer of the earth’s crust estimated to date back 100 million years. It holds as many as 1.2 billion recoverable barrels of light oil and Santos — Pikka’s future operator — has said the project can access 400 MMbbl. Pikka production is expected to start in the first half of 2026 and could ramp up to 80 Mb/d by the end of 2027 or early 2028.So far, construction has gone well. Santos reported in its Q3 earnings in October that the company’s $2.6 billion Phase 1 project is now 67% complete and six months ahead of schedule. Twelve wells have been drilled, seven stimulated, and six flowed back. The company reported that its well tests were successful and in line with expectations.Much bigger and more impactful than Pikka, ConocoPhillips’s $8 billion Willow project (blue-shaded area in Figure 3) is also located within the Nanushuk oil play, just west of Pikka and in the northeast corner of the National Petroleum Reserve, which was set aside for petroleum development in 1923 and is roughly the size of Indiana — about 23.5 million acres. (Willow’s gravel footprint is only about 385 acres.)ConocoPhillips said Willow has 600 MMbbl of recoverable reserves and that production is expected to peak at 180 Mb/d around 2031; first oil at Willow is expected in 2029. The company acquired the Willow-area leases in 1999 and has been working on its development strategy — including a rigorous permitting process — since 2017. In March 2023, ConocoPhillips received required approvals from the Biden administration and in November of that year a federal judge upheld those approvals. The following month, the company announced it had made a final investment decision (FID) and started ice-road construction. When the project is complete, it will have 200 wells.We’ve got our eyes on other developments too. The most prominent among these is a project by Australia’s Energy 88, which began drilling on its Icewine East acreage (aqua-shaded area in Figure 3) in 2023. An independent analysis has found the assets could hold more than 1 billion barrels (1,000 MMbbl) of recoverable oil from multiple zones. In 2024, Energy 88 discovered an oil-bearing reservoir play by drilling and logging at Icewine 1 and Hickory 1. The company, which released a timeline for development on December 30 (see Figure 4 below), now calls the developments by a single name: Project Phoenix. Put simply, we believe 2024 will turn out to have been the nadir for Alaskan oil production. Although existing fields will continue to experience natural declines, the addition of Nuna will boost volumes slightly in 2025, while the startup of Pikka in early 2026 will push production to 490 Mb/d by 2028 (an increase of over 20% from current levels). With Willow starting up in 2029, we project Alaskan production will peak at 660 Mb/d by 2032 as Willow ramps up to full operation. Thereafter, we expect production will gradually fall back again due to continued declines in legacy volumes — if additional projects (like the 88 Energy development) don’t come to fruition.
Oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge draws no bids • Alaska Beacon - No bids were received in the second congressionally managed oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Department of the Interior announced on Wednesday. Had any been received, bids were scheduled to be opened on Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. That Interior agency was charged with managing the refuge leasing program created through a 2017 tax bill passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in his first term. The absence of bids this time, after very few bids were received in the first lease sale held four years ago, backs up Biden administration officials’ beliefs that drilling in the refuge is bad policy, said a statement released by the Interior Department. “The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all along – there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling. This proposal was misguided in 2017, and it’s misguided now,” Acting Interior Secretary Laura Daniel-David said in the statement. “The BLM has followed the law and held two lease sales that have exposed the false promises made in the Tax Act. The oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere; we’d suggest that’s a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world.” This week’s lease sale follows one held on Jan. 6, 2021, that drew little bidding, and none from large oil companies. Most bids in that sale were from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, an Alaska state development agency. AIDEA’s head disclosed Wednesday that the agency and the Biden administration have reached an agreement to ensure that the leases acquired in that first sale will not be resold to other parties. Supporters of oil development in the refuge blamed the Biden administration for the lack of bids this time, saying it put too many restrictions on oil development in the refuge, sometimes referred to as ANWR. “This is no surprise. From Day 1, Joe Biden and (Interior Secretary) Deb Haaland have sought to illegally shut down any chance of developing ANWR and have said as much. They and their eco-colonialist allies have made every effort to delay, and ultimately kill, any chance of successful ANWR lease sales and have canceled the voices of the Iñupiat Native people of Alaska in the process,” U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said in a statement. Sullivan’s statement referred to the pro-drilling stance of many of the North Slope’s Iñupiat people. He said the second lease sale was structured “to circumvent the federal law Congress passed and President Trump signed” by closing off nearly three-quarters of the coastal plain to new leasing. “The good news is we will soon be working with the Trump administration which, unlike Biden-Harris, has a proven track record of responsible Alaska resource development, faithfully implementing the laws passed by Congress, and respecting the voices of the Iñupiat people of the North Slope who strongly support the ANWR leasing program. January 20th can’t come soon enough,” Sullivan added.
Alberta announces new effort to expand oil and gas pipeline capacity | Calgary Herald - The Alberta government is partnering with Calgary-based pipeline company Enbridge Inc. to increase the province’s oil and gas pipeline capacity. The agreement is to begin with a new formal working group between Enbridge and the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, a Crown corporation. Premier Danielle Smith says they will focus on streamlining regulations and permitting approvals, and expanding opportunities along Enbridge’s existing 29,000-kilometre network. It’s all part of her United Conservative government’s push to double oil production and increase exports to the United States. Smith says rather than investing taxpayer dollars directly into pipeline projects, the province will look to guarantee capacity by leveraging oil and gas that is paid in-kind to the government instead of financial royalties. She says the province has a responsibility to ensure its oil and natural gas has market access, and noted Alberta exports more than 4.3 million barrels per day of crude oil to the U.S.
Mexican Firms Tout Coatzacoalcos LNG Project Targeting European Market -Mexican firms Comercializadora Aqualita SA and Casarve Servicios SRL are designing a ready-to-build LNG project in the Mexican Gulf port of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz. It joins a host of other LNG projects in Mexico that are seeking to get off the ground. The Coatzacoalcos II LNG terminal would target European as well as South American markets, according to Casarve director Santiago Arroyo, who spoke with NGI. It would be developed privately, without the assistance of Mexican state utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE).
Britain’s Gas Storage Worries Rise as Levels Dip to Less Than a Week's Supply, Centrica Warns (Reuters) — Britain's gas storage levels are worryingly low, with less than a week's worth of gas in storage after a cold snap, energy company Centrica said on Friday while the government said there was no need for concern. Much of Britain has been hit by cold weather and snow this week, ramping up demand for gas, which heats about 75% of the country's homes. The cold weather has also been accompanied by low wind speeds, reducing output from the country's wind farms and increasing demand for gas from power plants to produce electricity. “As of the 9th of January 2025, UK storage sites are 26% lower than last year’s inventory at the same time, leaving them around half full. This means the UK has less than a week of gas demand in store,” Centrica, operator of the country’s largest gas storage site and owner of energy supplier British Gas, said in a statement. Britain's Department for Energy Security (DESNZ) said it had no concerns about the country's energy supplies. "(We) are confident we will have a sufficient gas supply and electricity capacity to meet demand this winter, due to our diverse and resilient energy system," a DESNZ spokesperson said in an email. Britain obtains the majority of its gas via pipelines to Norway, the UK Continental Shelf, including the North Sea, and from shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Supply through pipelines is stable while eight LNG tankers are scheduled to arrive by the end of the month, LSEG data showed. "The overall picture across Great Britain’s eight main gas storage sites remains healthy - with average levels at just over 60% across the board," a spokesperson for National Gas, owned by Macquarie Asset Management and responsible for the country's gas networks, said via email. Gas in storage is used to bolster supply when demand is high and help to moderate price swings. Unlike the European Union, Britain does not have a mandatory gas storage target, which the EU set after price spikes and supply fears during the energy crisis. “We are an outlier from the rest of Europe when it comes to the role of storage in our energy system and we are now seeing the implications of that,” Centrica CEO Chris O'Shea said. Centrica’s Rough gas storage site, a depleted field off England's east coast, accounts for about half of the country’s gas storage capacity. Rough stopped storing gas in 2017 but was reopened in 2022 at lower capacity because of the global energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The company said it could invest 2 billion pounds ($2.46 billion) to upgrade the site to maximum capacity but is seeking support from the government through a price cap and floor mechanism to make this viable.
Norway’s Troll Field Reaches Record Output as Equinor Boosts Natural Gas Exports to Europe - The largest natural gas field in the North Sea hit record output in 2024 as operator Equinor ASA continues its plans to use existing discoveries and infrastructure to replace Russian pipeline gas supply to Europe. Two graphs from Natural Gasw Intelligence (NGI) showing European Union natural gas storage levels with historical volatility. Troll field natural gas production reached a record 42.5 billion cubic meters (Bcm) last year, according to Equinor. It was an almost 10% increase over the previous production record set in 2022. "With record-high production in 2024, the Troll field confirms its position as a pillar of Europe's energy security,” Equinor’s Kjetil Hove, executive vice president for Norwegian exploration and production said. “The field contributes to a stable gas supply for millions of households and is important for European industry.”
Germany And Italy Have Replaced Russian Gas Via Ukraine - Central European gas flows have fully adapted to the end of Russian gas supply via Ukraine, with Germany and Italy making up the shortfall. According to Austrian Grid Management, the country boosted imports from Germany and Italy when flows from Slovakia were halted after Ukraine declined to renew a 5-year gas transit deal with Russia. Slovakia has drawn on a connection with Hungary as its only source of imports so far in the new year after Gazprom stopped supplying Slovenský plynárenský priemysel (SPP) as the Ukraine transit ended.Energy experts had earlier warned that Austria, Hungary and Slovakia are likely to be the hardest hit after imports of Russian gas via Ukraine are cut off. Thankfully, they have managed to secure alternative supplies: last year, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR,started supplying natural gas to Slovakia’s SPP, the country’s largest state-owned energy operator. This came just a month after SPPsigned a short-term pilot contract to buy natural gas from Azerbaijan as it prepared for a possible halt to Russian supplies via Ukraine. SPP has pledged to supply its customers mainly via pipelines from Germany and also Hungary, albeit at additional transit costs.Meanwhile, the United States is likely to emerge as the biggest winner of the unfolding situation in Europe–if recent developments are any indication. Norway and the U.S. have replaced Russia as Europe’s biggest gas supplier: last year, Norway supplied 87.8 bcm (billion cubic meters) of gas to Europe, good for 30.3% of total imports while the U.S. supplied 56.2 bcm, accounting for 19.4% of total. However, the U.S. is the biggest LNG supplier to Europe: last year, the U.S. accounted for nearly half of total LNG imports by the continent, marking the third consecutive year in which the United States supplied more LNG to Europe than any other country. The U.S. supplied 27%, or 2.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), of total European LNG imports in 2021; 44% (6.5 Bcf/d) in 2022; and 48% (7.1 Bcf/d) in 2023. Meanwhile, Europe’s capacity to accept LNG is increasing. Europe’s LNG import, or regasification, capacity was on track to expand to 29.3 Bcf/d in 2024, a 33% increase compared with 2021. Germany is adding the most LNG regasification capacity in Europe, with developers in the country having added 1.8 Bcf/d in 2023 and on track to add another 1.6 Bcf/d in 2024.'
Winter Weather, Natural Gas Storage Withdrawals Keep TTF Elevated — LNG Recap -European natural gas prices on Monday corrected after a rally last week that pushed the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) to its highest point since November 2023. (a chart showing European natural gas storage levels) The prompt TTF closed 5% lower at $14.40/MMBtu after finishing above $15 late last week. The contract is still trading in a narrow range with the prompt Japan-Korea Marker, which closed at $14.36 last week. European prices gained sharply last week after a transit deal that allowed Russia to move natural gas to the continent via Ukraine expired on New Year’s Day. The end of the deal leaves Europe without about 530 Bcf of natural gas, or enough to meet 5% of its demand.
U.S. LNG Wins Big As Europe Boosts Overseas Gas Imports -- The early winter cold snaps prompted Europe to boost its liquefied natural gas imports to a near one-year high in December, with arrivals of American LNG also at their highest since January 2024. Following two consecutive milder winters, Europe now sees the first proper winter since the 2022 energy crisis and is depleting its natural gas in storage at the fastest pace in seven years. The end of the Russian pipeline gas flows to Europe via Ukraine has also stoked uneasiness in the European gas market, and buyers have been boosting LNG purchases in recent weeks. European LNG imports jumped in December to an 11-month high at 10.89 million metric tons, according to data from commodity analysts Kpler cited by Reuters columnist Clyde Russell. Yet, Europe’s higher LNG imports in December have not been at the expense of Asia, which also boosted imports of the super-chilled fuel last month to the highest in 11 months, per the data compiled by Kpler. Europe’s December import volumes represented a 23% surge compared to the LNG arrivals in November of 8.86 million tons and were the highest since the 11.18 million tons of imports in January last year, the data showed.Half of the 10.89 million tons imported in December 2024 came from the United States. Europe’s imports of American LNG are estimated to have also hit an 11-month high at 5.22 million tons. Since 2022, U.S. LNG has played an increasingly bigger role in meeting part of European gas demand after Russia cut off deliveries to most of its EU customers in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Norway has replaced Russia as Europe’s top pipeline natural gas supplier, while the U.S. has delivered at least half of the LNG that European countries import.With European inventories depleting fast and now sitting below the five-year average for this point during the winter season, Europe will need to boost overseas supply not only for this winter’s consumption, but also in the spring and summer, to fill up storage sites ahead of the 2025/2026 winter. U.S. LNG can come to the rescue this year as supply from America is growing with the start-up of Venture Global’s second facility, Plaquemines LNG, in Louisiana, and the commissioning of Cheniere’s Corpus Christi Stage 3 project. Both Plaquemines LNG and Corpus Christi Stage 3 achieved first gas in late December 2024 and are expected to ramp up operations and exports throughout this year.U.S. LNG exports surged to a new high of 8.5 million metric tons in December, pushing the annual total up by 4.5% compared to 2023, according to LSEG data. Of the total exports in December, 5.84 million tons, or 69%, went to Europe, up from 5.09 million tons in November.The 2024 total reached 88.3 million tons, which was up from 84.5 million tons a year earlier and cemented the United States’ position as the biggest LNG exporter globally. U.S. LNG exports are expected to jump by 15% in 2025, reaching almost 14 Bcf/d, thanks to higher export capacity with the Plaquemines LNG and Corpus Christi LNG Stage 3 plants, the EIA said in the Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for December.Europe’s gas demand this year could be a boon to U.S. LNG exporters as European gas storage will need to be filled to at least 90% of capacity by November 1, 2025, in anticipation of the 2025/2026 winter.For now, it looks like the recent rally in Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures, the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, is giving Europe an advantage in attracting U.S. LNG cargoes. Spark Commodities assessed the front-month price for February delivery of LNG to northwest Europe at $14.904 per MMBtu as of last week—the highest level since October 2023. This rise in the European price, driven by the TTF rally, has effectively closed the U.S.-northeast Asia arbitrage via the Cape of Good Hope, the commodities analysts said.
LNG Price Rally Could Prompt Gas-to-Oil Switching in Asia - The recent rally in LNG prices amid tightening global markets in the winter has moved the Asian LNG benchmark prices to a rare premium over Brent prices, suggesting that oil-based fuels are now more cost-competitive than natural gas. This premium of LNG prices over the Brent crude benchmark could prompt fuel switching in the price-sensitive Asian economies from natural gas to oil and oil-based fuels, according to Bloomberg.The Asian LNG benchmark, the Japan-Korea marker price, traded in early January at 22% higher than Brent on an energy-equivalent basis, per Bloomberg’s calculations.In the first week of the New Year, spot LNG prices for delivery into northeast Asia in February jumped to their highest in a month, according to industry sources estimates reported by Reuters.The rally in Asia’s LNG prices was driven by a surge in European benchmark gas prices amid fast-depleting inventories and the end of the Russian transit flows to Europe via Ukraine.“The suspension of the Russian gas flow via Ukraine could result in a net loss for the European market, necessitating higher LNG imports to balance the market in 2025,” Siamak Adibi, an analyst at consultancy FGE, told Reuters last week.Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices rose on the first trading day for 2025, a day after Russian flows to Europe via Ukraine stopped after decades of pipeline deliveries through the route.The end of the Russian pipeline gas flows to Europe via Ukraine has stoked uneasiness in the European gas market, and buyers have been boosting LNG purchases in recent weeks, driving up prices.With European inventories depleting fast and now sitting below the five-year average for this point during the winter season, Europe will need to boost overseas supply not only for this winter’s consumption but also in the spring and summer, to fill up storage sites ahead of the 2025/2026 winter.
Next Wave of Global LNG Projects Nearing Startup as BP’s Greater Tortue Advances - BP plc has moved one step closer to bringing online its Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) LNG project offshore Western Africa, which is among just a few liquefaction facilities expected to enter service this year across a tight global market. The company started flowing gas from wells offshore Mauritania and Senegal at the beginning of January. Gas from first phase wells is being moved to the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel about 25 miles offshore for the next stage of commissioning. The FPSO would remove water, condensate and impurities before the gas is eventually moved to a 2.3 million tons/year (Mt/y) floating LNG vessel six miles offshore.
India’s Newest LNG Import Terminal Welcomes Its First Cargo --The latest Indian LNG import terminal, owned by state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), has just received its first cargo of the super-chilled fuel, HPCL officials told Bloomberg on Thursday. The terminal is undergoing commissioning activities and the shipment is expected to fully unload by January 16, the officials said.In October, sources told Reuters that HPCL aims to commission its new LNG import terminal in December and January, and is holding talks with potential suppliers of LNG for the long term.HPCL was looking for a cargo to commission the new facility in Gujarat State on India’s west coast in December or January, after failing to do so in April 2024, due to bad weather.India plans to ramp up LNG imports and the use of natural gas as a fuel cleaner than coal and needed in many industrial processes.For Indian firms, securing LNG supply is crucial as consumption of natural gas in industrial activities is set to soar.India’s industry expansion and rising oil refining to meet higher fuel demand are set to drive a tripling of the country’s natural gas consumption by 2050, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said last year.Per the EIA forecasts, India’s gas demand – buoyed by oil refining and other industrial production – is expected to grow at an annual rate of 4.4% by 2050, more than twice the 2.0% annual growth rate of gas consumption in China, the next-fastest-growing country.India, the world’s third-largest crude oil importer, is set to become a major force in the natural gas market, too, as its demand is expected to surge in the coming decades amid industry and population expansion.As India sees fertilizers as a critical industry for its agricultural sector, and as steelmaking and construction are booming to meet the growing economy and population, natural gas demand will continue to rise. India’s domestic production, although it has increased over the past two decades, will not be enough to meet growth in demand. So the country will have to rely on more LNG imports, considering that it lacks pipeline connections with major gas producers such as Russia or the Gulf petrostates.
Indian Natural Gas Demand Growth Challenged By LNG Terminal Rates, Regulatory Agency Says - Petronet LNG Ltd. is facing scrutiny from regulators and financial markets after a government report highlighted its tariff rates as an obstacle to the country’s wider adoption of natural gas. Graph showing yearly natural gas production and imports to India. In a case study published at the end of December, researchers with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) outlined the current competitive landscape of India’s LNG import market and suggested regulatory reforms to boost consumer adoption of gas. India’s government is currently aiming to grow the share of natural gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030 compared to 6.3% in 2023. However, PNGRB suggested the end cost to consumers has remained a barrier despite wholesale costs and terminal utilization rates improving for India’s regasification capacity holders. While the study did not mention Petronet by name, it used the facilities at Dahej and Kochi as examples, which are operated by the company.
Japan’s LNG Imports Forecast to Stay Steady as Buyers Increase Trading -LNG could continue to play an important role in Japan’s energy transition, according to a draft of the country’s latest energy strategy plan unveiled by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Chart by Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) showing Asian LNG parity prices. The government agency said Japan would continue to diversify its energy supplies and avoid becoming too reliant on any source. The draft was released in December, just as the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) study said LNG demand has peaked in Japan. Fossil fuels are expected to account for 30-40% of Japan’s energy mix by 2040, a major reduction as coal, oil, and natural gas represented about 69% of the country’s power generation last year. Renewable energy is expected to produce up to 50% of Japan’s electricity by 2040, up from 23% in 2023. METI also detailed a plan to continue reviving the nuclear sector.
Russia Crimea news: emergency declared after black sea oil spill - India Today - Russia declared a regional state of emergency on Saturday in Crimea, as workers cleared tons of contaminated sand and earth on either side of the Kerch Strait following an oil spill in the Black Sea last month. Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of the city of Sevastopol, said new traces of minor pollution required urgent elimination and declared a state of emergency in the city - giving authorities more power to take swift decisions such as ordering citizens to evacuate their homes.
Russia's Putin orders authorities to ramp up efforts to control Black Sea oil spill -Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, expressed his dissatisfaction with the Emergency Situations Ministry's inadequate response to the oil spill caused by the damage to two oil ships in the Black Sea. Putin described it as "one of the most serious environmental challenges" Russia has faced in recent years, instructing the authorities concerned to expedite efforts to control the damage caused by the incident. On Dec. 15, two Russian oil tankers were caught in a storm south of the Kerch Strait. The Volgoneft-212 oil ship, which was reportedly carrying approximately 4,900 tonnes of mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product, before it broke in two and sank, leading to an oil spill and the death of a crew member. The Volgoneft-239 was also damaged, causing it to drift for several hours before running aground near the Port of Taman in Krasnodar Krai and leaking oil. The Russian president emphasized the urgency of addressing the issue and asked for a detailed report from Minister of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov on the current situation and instructed immediate steps to reduce the spill's impact. "This matter cannot be ignored at today’s meeting," Putin said, stressing the need for decisive action. To tackle the crisis, the president also ordered the establishment of an emergency task force to remove the consequences of the fuel oil spill and mitigating its environmental impact.
Fuel oil leaks from stranded tanker near Hokkaido beach | The Asahi Shimbun - Hakodate, Hokkaido— Fuel oil has leaked from a 3,919-ton tanker that ran aground here on Jan. 6, but its cargo of 3,800 kiloliters of diesel fuel and kerosene did not spill out, authorities said. The fuel oil slick, covering an area about 2.7 kilometers long and 1 km wide, was found on Jan. 8, when the Japan Coast Guard was preparing to tow away the Sanwa Maru off Cape Esan in the Tsugaru Strait. The 11 crew members were not injured. According to the Hakodate Coast Guard, the 1st Regional Coast Guard Headquarters received a report from another tanker at 6:20 p.m. on Jan. 6 that “the Sanwa Maru is heading toward land and is in danger of running aground.” The Sanwa Maru struck a rocky beach about 20 meters from shore with its bow facing land. It was heading from Tomakomai Port in Hokkaido to Funagawa Port in Oga, Akita Prefecture. The sea was not rough at the time, according to the Hakodate Coast Guard. The Sanwa Maru is owned by Wako Kisen, a limited private company in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture. It was loaded with about 59 kiloliters of fuel oil A and 140 kiloliters of fuel oil C. Damage near the ship’s fuel tank at the stern was seen, the Hakodate Coast Guard said. Its cargo of 700 kiloliters of diesel oil and 3,100 kiloliters of kerosene appears to have remained onboard, officials said. On Jan. 7, a salvage operation started, but the Sanwa Maru could not be moved from the reef. At around 5:45 a.m. on Jan. 8, the Sanwa Maru reported that fuel oil had spilled. The vessel put up an oil fence on the port side to contain the spread. The vessel was tilting about 5 degrees toward the starboard side. Seven of the crew members who were not involved in the salvage operation were rescued by a boat dispatched by the patrol vessel Okushiri. Around noon on Jan. 8, oil could be smelled on the beach near the ship. Oil slicks were found on rocks and vanishing wave blocks. The Coast Guard is investigating the cause of the stranding. The shipowner and salvage company will decide on future plans after analyzing the fuel oil spill.
Santos fined $10,000 for condensate spill off WA coast -Santos WA Northwest Pty Ltd has been fined $10,000 plus $9,700 in costs after pleading guilty to charges related to a condensate spill at the Varanus Island Marine Terminal off the northwest coast of Western Australia. The company admitted to failing to operate its licensed pipeline properly and prevent the escape of petroleum, violating the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act 1982.The incident occurred on March 20, 2022, when approximately 25,000 litres of condensate leaked from a ruptured flexible pipeline used to transfer petroleum condensate to offshore shipping tankers.The spill was discovered shortly after dawn, prompting an immediate halt to loading operations.Investigations revealed that the rupture was caused by repeated overbending and kinking of the flexible loading line, which gradually compromised its structural integrity.The pipeline, stored on the seabed at depths of 20-25 metres, was connected to surface buoys for retrieval by support vessels.Santos‘ failures as the pipeline licensee included:
- Insufficient monitoring of condensate loading operations
- Failure to conduct an adequate investigation of the pipeline’s fitness for purpose before its use in 2022
- Inadequate training of support vessel crews on the company’s written procedures for loading offtake tankers
Following the spill, the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DEMIRS) required Santos to strengthen its operational controls by amending the company’s environmental plan to reduce the risk of future incidents.Tyler Sujdovic, Executive Director of Resource and Environmental Compliance at DEMIRS, emphasised the importance of operating subsea pipelines in a “proper and workmanlike manner” as a fundamental principle in the oil and gas industry.He stated: “Companies must ensure all workers, including contractors, have the required training and access to up-to-date written procedures to manage petroleum effectively when performing their assigned tasks.” in response to the incident, Santos has reviewed its practices and implemented measures to prevent the kinking of flexible loading lines and improve subsea monitoring of the line’s position.
CNOOC Starts Production in Panyu Oilfield Project in South China Sea - CNOOC Ltd. has put onstream the Panyu 11-12/10-1/10-2 Oilfield Adjustment Joint Development Project in the South China Sea, its first startup announcement in 2025. The state-backed oil and gas exploration and production company expects the project to reach about 13,600 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boed) in peak production this year, according to a statement on CNOOC Ltd.’s website. It aims to develop 15 wells. The Panyu oilfield has produced over 380 million barrels of petroleum since coming online 2003, according to CNOOC Ltd., the field’s sole developer. “An intelligent oilfield cluster with digital, intelligent and unmanned operation has already been established”, the statement said. The Panyu 11-12/10-1/10-2 project sits in the eastern part of the South China Sea. The project has an average water depth of approximately 100 meters (328.08 feet), according to CNOOC Ltd., majority-owned by China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC). The project has a new wellhead platform and unmanned wellhead platform. The wellhead platform links to the existing Panyu 10-2 platform via a trestle bridge, CNOOC Ltd. said. “The new unmanned wellhead platform of the project is equipped with ‘Typhoon Production Mode’ and heavy oil intelligent processing system, which can effectively improve production safety and operation efficiency”, it stated. Last year CNOOC Ltd. announced six production startups in the South China Sea: the Huizhou 26-6 Oilfield Development Project, the Liuhua 11-1/4-1 Oilfield Secondary Development Project, the Shenhai-1 Phase II Natural Gas Development Project, the Wushi 17-2 Oilfields Development Project, the Wushi 23-5 Oilfields Development Project and the Xijiang 30-2 Oilfield Xijiang 30-1 Block Development Project. At home, besides the South China Sea, the Bohai waters also saw five startups by CNOOC Ltd. in 2024: the Bozhong 19-2 Oilfield Development Project, the Bozhong 19-6 Gas Field 13-2 Block 5 Well Site Development Project, the Jinzhou 23-2 Oilfield Development Project, the Suizhong 36-1/Luda 5-2 Oilfield Secondary Adjustment and Development Project and the Suizhong 36-2 Oilfield 36-2 Block Development Project. Overseas in 2024 CNOOC Ltd. also unlocked new production in Brazil and Canada. On November 6, 2024, CNOOC Ltd. announced production had started at the Long Lake Northwest Project in the Canadian province of Alberta. It expects the project to achieve a peak production of 8,200 bpd in 2025. CNOOC Petroleum North America ULC, a wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Ltd., operates the project with a 100 percent stake. On October 31, 2024, CNOOC Ltd. and its partners announced start-up in the third phase of the Mero oilfield in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil. Mero3 has a production capacity of 180,000 bpd, which will raise the field’s installed capacity to 590,000 bpd, according to the owners. CNOOC Ltd., through CNOOC Petroleum Brasil Ltda., holds a 9.65 percent stake. Operator Petróleo Brasileiro SA owns 38.6 percent, TotalEnergies SE 19.3 percent, Shell PLC 19.3 percent, China National Petroleum Corp. 9.65 percent and Pré-Sal Petróleo SA 3.5 percent. In the first nine months of 2024 CNOOC Ltd.’s domestic output rose 6.6 percent year-on-year to 369.2 million boe (MMboe), according to the company’s quarterly report published October 28, 2024. Meanwhile its production abroad during the same period grew 12.2 percent year-over-year to 172.9 MMboe, driven by the Payara oilfield in Guyana’s Stabroek block. Total production in the first three quarters of 2024 increased 8.5 percent to 542.1 MMboe, a company record for the January–September period, according to the quarterly report on CNOOC Ltd.’s website.
Iraq’s oil exports to the US exceed $5 billion in 2024 - Shafaq News - Iraq’s oil exports to the United States surpassed $5 billion during the first 11 months of 2024, making it the second-largest Arab oil supplier to the US market, according to US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. EIA reported, “Iraq exported 64.11 million barrels of crude oil to the US between January and November of 2024, generating a total revenue of $5.18 billion.” Saudi Arabia retained its status as the top Arab exporter to the United States, shipping 92.53 million barrels of crude oil during the same period, valued at $7.73 billion. Libya followed Iraq in third place, while the UAE and Kuwait ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. The report highlighted that Arab oil exports from these five countries combined amounted to 174 million barrels, with a cumulative financial value of $14.5 billion.
Global Crude Exports Fall in 2024 for First Time Since Covid - Weaker oil demand growth in key consuming regions and reshuffled trade routes resulted in 2024 in the first decline in the world’s crude oil exports since the 2020-2021 pandemic-influenced slump, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing ship-tracking data. Global crude exports declined by 2% last year to 41.68 million barrels per day (bpd), down from 42.51 million bpd in 2023, according to data from Kpler cited by Reuters.The decline in 2024 was the first since the period 2020-2021 when crude exports fell from 41.85 million bpd in 2019 to below 40 million bpd amid the slump in global demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.In 2024, the shifts in crude flows due to the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea affected global oil trade.According to vessel-tracking data from Kpler, crude exports from the Middle East to Europe slumped by 22% last year, due to tankers avoiding the shortest route from the Middle East to Europe and opting for the longer route via the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.The closure of some refining capacity also lowered crude demand at European refineries.Elsewhere, China’s weaker-than-expected oil demand also played a role in the change in oil routes, and so did rising production from Guyana, Brazil, and the United States.“Oil is no longer flowing along the least cost curve, and the first consequence is tight shipping, which raises freight prices and eventually cuts into refining margins,” Adi Imsirovic, an energy consultant and former oil trader, told Reuters.The sanctions on Russia and Iran are also changing global oil flows and this “is creating opportunistic alliances,” Imsirovic said.China continues to be the key and nearly only buyer of Iranian crude, while China and India are now Russia’s most important customers as Western sanctions, embargoes, and the price cap on Russian oil have shrunk the pool of potential buyers of Russia’s petroleum.
Russia Claims Compliance With OPEC+ Oil Output Cuts in December -Russian crude oil production fell in December to below Moscow’s output cap under the OPEC+ agreement, anonymous sources with knowledge of Russian production data told Bloomberg on Tuesday.Russia produced 8.971 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil last month, down from previous months and about 7,000 bpd below the country’s production target under the OPEC+ deal, according to the sources.Russia stopped releasing oil and gas output data shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The market and analysts have to rely on sources familiar with the figures that aren’t public anymore, or on ship-tracking data for Russian overseas shipments of crude and refined petroleum products.Russia has been overproducing above its OPEC+ quota for the most part of the past couple of years. Moscow, as well as Kazakhstan and OPEC’s second-largest producer, Iraq, have pledged to compensate for previous overproduction with deeper cuts later this year.Russia, Iraq, and Kazakhstan submitted in July 2024 their compensation plans to the OPEC Secretariat for overproduced crude volumes for the first six months of 2024. The cumulative overproduction in these six months was about 1.184 million bpd for Iraq, 620,000 bpd for Kazakhstan, and 480,000 bpd for Russia, OPEC said back then. Russia’s plan envisages Moscow mostly compensating for its overproduction in the months March to September 2025, due to the more challenging conditions in the winter. Russian output could see further declines in the coming months if the tightened Western sanctions curb Moscow’s exports, since Russia doesn’t have much storage capacity for the crude that isn’t shipped abroad or refined locally.The Biden Administration is set to slap more sanctions on Russia’s oil exports by targeting tankers hauling Russian crude and products, sources familiar with the outgoing administration’s plans told Reuters earlier this week.European countries have been ramping up sanctions pressure on Russia as they look to reduce Vladimir Putin’s oil revenues that fund the war in Ukraine. The UK and the European Union announced in the middle of December a raft of new sanctions that target Russia’s shadow fleet of tankers enabling oil trade.
OPEC oil output falls in December on UAE and Iran, survey finds (Reuters) - OPEC oil output fell in December after two months of increases, a Reuters survey found, as a drop from the United Arab Emirates due to field maintenance and from Iran offset a hike from Nigeria and other gains elsewhere in the group.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 26.46 million barrels per day last month, down 50,000 bpd from November, the survey showed on Tuesday, with the UAE providing the biggest drop.The modest decline in output came as the wider OPEC+ group kept production cuts in place in December due to global demand concerns and rising output outside the group. OPEC+ decided last month to postpone its plan to start raising output until April.OPEC's biggest drop, of 90,000 bpd, came from the UAE, the survey found. A source said field maintenance was the reason for the decline, and the survey put output at 2.85 million bpd.Iran's output, which hit the highest since 2018 last year despite U.S. sanctions, fell by 70,000 bpd, the survey found. It may soon be curbed by tighter sanctions from the administration of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump, Goldman Sachs and other analysts have forecast.OPEC's top two producers, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, kept output steady and the group pumped below its implied target for the nine members covered by supply agreements, the survey found. Nigeria exceeded its target by the largest amount.While the survey indicates the UAE and Iraq are pumping below their targets and November data provided by OPEC's secondary sources puts them not far above, other estimates such as those of the International Energy Agency suggest they are pumping significantly more.Among countries boosting output, Nigeria raised production by 50,000 bpd, the survey found, reflecting higher domestic usage in refineries such as Dangote and higher exports. Nigeria said in December it had resumed some operations at its Warri refinery after years of shutdowns. Libyan output also rose by 50,000 bpd, continuing a recovery after the resolution of a dispute over control of the central bank that had led to production cuts. The country is exempt from OPEC+ agreements to limit output. The Reuters survey aims to track supply to the market and is based on flows data from financial group LSEG, information from other companies that track flows such as Kpler, and information provided by sources at oil companies, OPEC and consultants.
Oil Prices Fall To $76.23 Amid Strong Dollar And Market Anticipation - BizWatchNigeria.Ng - Global oil prices dip on Monday, ending a five-day upward trend fueled by seasonal demand and economic interventions in China. Brent crude falls by 0.4% to $76.23 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude eases to $73.69, marking their first decline after reaching highs not seen since October.The U.S. dollar’s recent strength heavily influences this retreat, as a stronger dollar raises costs for international buyers purchasing dollar-denominated commodities like oil. Analysts attribute the cautious market sentiment to the currency’s two-year peak.Investors focus on forthcoming U.S. economic reports, including the Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes and December’s employment data, which are expected to provide insights into monetary policy and energy consumption trends. These indicators will likely shape expectations around inflation and interest rate adjustments.Saudi Aramco increases its crude prices for Asian buyers in February, signaling confidence in regional demand recovery after three consecutive months of price reductions. The decision highlights optimism despite broader market uncertainties.Geopolitical tensions further complicate the landscape, with potential sanctions against Iranian and Russian oil exports looming. Analysts warn that stricter sanctions could reduce Iran’s output by up to 300,000 barrels per day, affecting global supply chains.OPEC faces increasing challenges as non-OPEC producers expand output. Analysts predict that rising supplies from the U.S. and other non-OPEC countries in 2025 may outpace global demand growth, reducing OPEC’s market influence. Industry experts suggest that OPEC’s role as a market balancer continues to weaken in the face of growing competition and evolving energy policies. As these dynamics unfold, oil prices are likely to experience continued volatility, reflecting the interplay of demand, supply, and macroeconomic factors.
US Storm, Weaker Dollar Push Oil To 12-Week High - Oil prices edged up to a 12-week high on Monday as a winter storm boosted demand for energy to heat U.S. homes and businesses, and on support from a weaker U.S. dollar and expectations of tighter sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil exports. Brent futures rose 27 cents, or 0.4%, to $76.78 a barrel by 11:33 a.m. EST (1633 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 27 cents, or 0.4%, to $74.23. Both crude benchmarks gained for a sixth-straight day with Brent on track for its highest close since Oct. 14 and WTI on track for its highest close since Oct. 11. Brent and WTI remained in technically overbought territory for a third day in a row on forecasts for colder weather and more heating demand in the northern hemisphere and more fiscal stimulus to revitalize China's faltering economy. With interest in energy trade growing in recent weeks, open interest in WTI futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange soared to 1.933 million contracts on Jan. 3, the most since June 2023. In the world's biggest economy, a winter storm marching across much of the U.S. boosted heating demand, causing natural gas futures to spike by as much as 10% earlier on Monday, while diesel futures were on track for their highest close in 13 weeks. The U.S. dollar slumped by 1% against a basket of other currencies earlier on Monday following a newspaper report that President-elect Donald Trump was mulling tariffs that would only be applied to critical imports, potentially a relief for countries that were expecting broader levies. The dollar, however, pared some of its earlier losses against the other currencies after Trump denied the newspaper report. A weaker U.S. currency makes dollar-priced commodities such as oil cheaper for buyers using other currencies. In China, the world's second-biggest economy, the yuan ended the domestic session at its weakest level in 16 months against the U.S. dollar, weighed down by trade concerns. In a sign of firmer demand expectations, Saudi Aramco, the world's top oil exporter, raised crude prices for Asian buyers in February for the first time in three months. But in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, annual inflation rose more than forecast in December due to higher food prices and a smaller drop in energy prices than in previous months. To combat higher inflation, central banks usually boost interest rates, which can slow economic growth and demand for energy. On the supply front, stronger Western sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil shipments are a possibility. The Biden administration plans to impose more sanctions on Russia over its war on Ukraine, taking aim at its oil revenues with action against tankers carrying Russian crude. Goldman Sachs expects Iranian oil production and exports to fall by the second quarter due to expected policy changes and tighter sanctions from the incoming Trump administration. Sudan, meanwhile, lifted a nearly year-long force majeure on the transport of crude oil from its neighbor South Sudan to a port on the Red Sea after security conditions improved.
The Market Gave Up its Previous Sharp Gains After Being in Overbought Territory The oil market ended the session lower on Monday after it gave up some of its previous sharp gains after being in technically overbought territory over the last few sessions. Earlier in the session, the crude market was well supported by a weaker U.S. dollar and expectations of tighter sanctions against Russia and Iran following the news that the Biden administration was planning on imposing more sanctions on Russia over its war on Ukraine. It is planning to impose sanctions on tankers carrying Russian oil. The market rallied to a high of $74.99 by mid-morning before it erased its gains after failing to test the $75 level. It sold off to a low of $73.20 in afternoon trading. The February WTI contract settled down 40 cents at $73.56 and the March Brent contract settled down 21 cents at $76.30. Meanwhile, the product markets ended the session mixed, with the heating oil market settling up 74 points at $2.3552 and the RB market settling down 1.82 cents at $2.0355. U.S. President Joe Biden will ban new offshore oil and gas development along most U.S. coastlines. The White House said President Biden will use his authority under the 70-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect all federal waters off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the northern Bering Sea in Alaska. The ban will affect 625 million acres or 253 million hectares of ocean. President Biden said the move was aligned with both his climate change agenda and his goal to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. He also invoked the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, saying the low drilling potential of the areas included in the ban did not justify the public health and economic risks of future leasing. American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers said the decision would harm American energy security and should be reversed by Congress. Environmental group Oceana called it a victory for Americans who depend on clean coastlines and fisheries.Source stated that the Biden administration plans to impose more sanctions on Russia over its war on Ukraine, taking aim at its oil revenues with action against tankers carrying Russian crude. The Biden administration is planning sanctions on tankers that carry Russian oil sold above the West’s $60/barrel price cap. A source said the sanctions were likely to target some of the people involved in the networks trading oil above the price cap.Vortexa reported today that crude oil stored on tankers that have been stationary for at least seven days fell by -33% w/w to 48.02 million bbl in the week ended January 3.IIR Energy reported that U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 928,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending January 10th, cutting available refining capacity by 688,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to increase to 1.61 million bpd in the week ending January 17th.
Heating Oil Demand Rises with Frigid Weather - The oil market ended the session higher on Tuesday after it reversed its early declines. The market was supported by the near term weather forecasts calling for frigid weather increasing heating oil demand and expectations that demand will be helped by Chinese economic stimulus. In overnight trading, the market continued to pullback after it failed to test its resistance at the $75 level on Monday. The crude market posted a low of $73.11 in overnight trading before it bounced off that level and erased its previous losses. The market traded to a high of $74.53 in afternoon trading. The February WTI contract later traded in a sideways trading range ahead of the close and settled up 69 cents at $74.25. The March Brent contract settled up 75 cents at $77.05. The product markets ended the session in mixed territory, with the heating oil market settling up 1.11 cents at $2.3663 and the RB market settling down 89 points at $2.0266. Goldman Sachs expects colder temperatures in the U.S. and Europe to increase oil demand by 100,000 bpd next week, providing further support to diesel prices. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he will revoke an offshore oil and gas drilling ban announced by outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden.Shipping data showed that the volume of global crude exports in 2024 fell 2%, the first decline since the COVID-19 pandemic due to weak demand growth and as refinery and pipeline changes reshuffled trade routes. Global crude flows have been affected for a second year by war in Ukraine and the Middle East, with tanker shipments rerouted and suppliers and buyers split into regions. Middle East oil exports to Europe declined and more U.S. oil and South American oil went to Europe. Russian oil that formerly went to Europe has been redirected to India and China. These shifts have become more pronounced as oil refineries have shut in Europe amid continued attacks on Red Sea shipping. Ship tracking data from researcher Kpler showed that Middle Eastern crude exports to Europe fell 22% in 2024. The U.S. exports 4 million bpd, increasing its share of global oil trade to 9.5%, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. Also, according to Kpler, Nigeria’s new Dangote refinery consumed enough domestic supply to keep around 13% of Nigeria’s crude exports in the country in 2024, up from 2% in 2023. New refining capacity ramping up in Bahrain, Oman and Iraq as well as Dos Bocas in Mexico are also likely to soak up oil production in those regions. In Canada, the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline can now ship an extra 590,000 bpd to the Pacific Coast, lifting the nation’s waterborne exports to a record 550,000 bpd in 2024.Bloomberg News reported that Russia said it cut its crude oil output below its OPEC+ target in December. Russia produced 8.971 million bpd in December.A Reuters survey showed that OPEC oil output fell in December after two months of increases, as a drop from the United Arab Emirates due to field maintenance and from Iran offset an increase in output from Nigeria and other gains elsewhere in the group. OPEC produced 26.46 million bpd in December, down 50,000 bpd from November, with the UAE providing the biggest decline of 90,000 bpd. The nine OPEC members covered by supply agreements produced 21.213 million bpd, below its implied target of 21.236 million bpd.
Oil prices settle up on possible supply disruption, hopes for China demand (Reuters) - Oil prices settled higher on Tuesday, driven by concerns over limited supply from Russia and Iran because of Western sanctionsand expected higher Chinese demand.Brent crude futures settled at $77.05 a barrel, up 75 cents, or 0.98%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude finished at $74.25 a barrel, up 69 cents, 0.94%.Traders were looking to the Chinese stimulus plans to drive growth as supplies are tight following the Christmas and New Year's holidays, said Forex market analyst Razan Hilal. "While the market is currently range-bound, it is recording gains on the back of improved demand expectations fueled by holiday traffic and China’s economic pledges,". "However, the primary trend remains bearish." Some market participants have apparently started to price in small supply disruption risks on Iranian crude exports to China, Concern over sanctions tightening supply has translated into increased demand for Middle Eastern oil, reflected in a rise in Saudi Arabia's February oil pricesto Asia, the first such increase in three months. On Monday in China, Shandong Port Group issued a notice banning U.S.-sanctioned oil vessels from its network of ports, three traders said, potentially restricting blacklisted vessels from major energy terminals on China's east coast.Shandong Port Group oversees large ports on China's east coast, including Qingdao, Rizhao and Yantai, which are major terminals for importing sanctioned oil.Meanwhile, cold weather in the U.S. and Europe boosted heating oil demand, though oil price gains were capped by global economic data.Euro zone inflation accelerated in December, an expected blip that is unlikely to derail further interest rate cuts from the European Central Bank. "Higher inflation in Germany raised suggestions the ECB may not be able to cut rates as fast as hoped across the euro zone," Technical indicators for oil futures are now in overbought territory and sellers are keen to step in again to take advantage of the strength, tempering additional price advances, said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of research at Onyx Capital Group.Market participants await more economic data, including the U.S. December non-farm payrolls report on Friday."We have a very tight physical market and see demand exceeding supply,". "That should lead to more drop downs of inventories around the globe."
Global oil prices climb on supply cuts and hopes of economic revival - Oil prices rose on Wednesday as tightening supplies from Russia and OPEC members, coupled with declining U.S. crude oil inventories, spurred market optimism. Brent crude increased by $0.69, or 0.90%, to $77.74 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) climbed $0.87, or 1.17%, to $75.12 by 0954 GMT. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) saw its production decline in December, breaking a two-month streak of increases. This drop was attributed to field maintenance in the United Arab Emirates, which offset gains from Nigeria and other member states. In Russia, crude output averaged 8.971 million barrels per day in December, falling short of the country’s target, according to Bloomberg. Market analysts linked the price surge to reduced seaborne exports from Russia’s western ports, which have been declining since their October 2024 peak. “The buoyancy in oil prices comes against a background of reportedly lower crude exports out of Russia,” remarked Harry Tchilinguirian, head of research at Onyx Capital Group. Adding to the optimism, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a drawdown of 4 million barrels in U.S. crude inventories last week, even as gasoline and distillate stockpiles increased. Analysts viewed this as a sign of strong demand resilience. Economic activity also played a role, with an unexpected rise in U.S. job openings fueling hopes of greater oil consumption. Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM, noted that weather-related disruptions, potential sanctions on Russia, and expectations of a rebound in Chinese demand were supporting the upward momentum in oil prices. Despite the current gains, analysts predict oil prices to average lower in 2025 than in 2024, driven by anticipated production increases from non-OPEC countries. BMI, a division of Fitch Group, maintained its forecast for Brent crude to average $76 per barrel in 2025, down from $80 in 2024. The market remains cautiously optimistic, balancing immediate supply challenges against broader macroeconomic factors and evolving geopolitical dynamics.
WTI Dips As Cushing 'Tank Bottoms' Loom; Longest Crude Draw Streak In 3 Years - Oil prices are lower this morning after running up to test the 200DMA overnight (following API's report of a big crude draw). That would be a seventh straight drawdown and the longest streak of declines in three years if confirmed by government data. Traders are also bracing for frigid weather in the US, which has boosted demand for heating fuel and raised the risk of freeze-offs in production areas.“Cold fronts in the US and Europe are driving crude higher, with some support from concerns over the loss of Iranian barrels if the Trump administration tightens sanctions,” .“Nonetheless, crude looks overbought. It may yield to profit-taking, though that might need a reminder of the global economic headwinds.”In another sign of tightening supply, Russian data show that the country’s oil production was below its OPEC+ output target last month, after seaborne exports slumped to the lowest level since August 2023. Meanwhile, ports in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, the top destination for Iranian crude, were urged to prevent US-sanctioned tankers from docking at their berths. So will the official data confirm API's report?
API
- Crude -4.02mm
- Cushing -3.1mm
- Gasoline +7.3mm
- Distillates +3.2mm
DOE
- Crude -959k (-342k exp)
- Cushing -2.50mm - biggest draw since Aug 2023
- Gasoline +6.33mm
- Distillates +6.07mm
Some shocking official prints with Crude seeing its 7th weekly draw in a row (longest streak in three years), stocks at the Cushing hub crashing by the most since Aug 2023, and products seeing huge builds.Even with a small 247k barrel addition SPR, total crude stocks drewdown for the 7th week in a row...Stocks are sufficient to meet 24.8 days of demand, which is the lowest since 2017 on a seasonal basis, testing 'tank bottoms' once again...
Oil prices settle lower as U.S. crude supplies fall but product stocks rise -Oil futures settled with a loss on Wednesday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that commercial crude inventories fell for a seventh straight week, but gasoline and distillate stockpiles climbed by more than 6 million barrels each.
- -- West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery fell by 93 cents, or nearly 1.3%, to settle at $73.32 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after seesawing between modest losses and gains during the session.
- -- March Brent crude, the global benchmark, lost 89 cents, or 1.2%, at $76.16 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
- -- February gasoline RBG25 declined by 0.8% to $2.01 a gallon, while February heating oil HOG25 shed 0.7% to $2.35 a gallon.
- -- Natural gas for February delivery NGG25 settled at $3.65 per million British thermal units, up 5.9%, after losing 6.1% Tuesday.
The EIA reported Wednesday that domestic commercial crude supplies declined by 1 million barrels for the week that ended Jan. 3. The government agency has shown declines in crude stockpiles for seven weeks in a row.The U.S. marked a "minor draw to crude inventories, as lower exports have provided a counterweight to ongoing strength in refining activity, helping to keep the draw in check," said Matt Smith, head U.S. analyst at Kpler.The report was expected to show a rise of 100,000 barrels on average, according to a survey of analysts conducted by S&P Global Commodity Insights. Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute reported a crude inventory decline of 4.02 million barrels, according to a source citing the data.The EIA also reported weekly supply gains of 6.3 million barrels for gasoline and 6.1 million barrels for distillates. The Wall Street Journal survey had forecast inventory gains of 2.7 million barrels for gasoline and 2.3 million barrels for distillates.U.S. oil production was down by 10,000 barrels at 13.56 million barrels per day in the latest week, the EIA said, while crude stocks at the Cushing, Okla., Nymex delivery hub fell by 2.5 million barrels to 20 million barrels."Given the strong pace of refining activity, it is no surprise to see large builds to the products," Smith said in emailed comments.A ramp-up in refinery maintenance in the coming weeks should, however, "usher in a return to crude inventory builds," he said. For now, "focus remains on big builds to the products and Cushing inventory levels."Demand for gasoline, meanwhile, rose, with total motor gasoline supplied, a proxy for demand, at 8.481 million barrels per day in the latest week, from 8.168 million bpd from a week earlier, according to the EIA.Looking beyond the inventories report, the crude-oil outlook is "far from great this year," said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index and Forex.com.Prices are "caught in a tug-of-war" between China's evolving economic strategies and geopolitical tension, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump's energy policies that are deemed bearish for oil prices, plus OPEC's plans to unwind supply restrictions - another bearish factor - and the accelerating global shift toward clean energy, he said.On Tuesday, Brent and WTI closed near three-month highs, lifted in part by reports that members of OPEC+ - the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies - saw production fall last month.Bloomberg reported Tuesday that figures from the Russian energy ministry showed the country produced 8.971 million barrels a day of crude in December, which was 7,000 barrels a day below Moscow's December pledge. A Reuters survey released Tuesday found OPEC members produced 26.46 million barrels a day of crude last month, down 50,000 barrels a day from November.Separately, a Reuters survey showed a decline in oil output from Iran in December, and Saudi Aramco said it would raise oil prices for Asian buyers next month.The Saudi move "suggests that Aramco's physical traders anticipate tighter market conditions in China due to economic stimulus effects," Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, said in emailed commentary. "Tighter supply and increasing demand are classic ingredients for rising oil prices."Elsewhere in the energy sector, prices for natural-gas futures recouped most of Tuesday's losses after data from the EIA showed a weekly fall in supplies of the fuel that was in line with market expectations. The numbers were released a day earlier than usual due to Thursday's National Day of Mourning in the U.S. for former President Jimmy Carter.The EIA reported Wednesday that U.S. natural-gas supplies in storage declined by 40 billion cubic feet for the week that ended Jan. 3. On average, analysts forecast a fall of 41 billion cubic feet, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Oil prices steady; traders digest mixed US inventories, weak China data -- Oil prices steadied Thursday as traders digested data showing an unexpected increase in US product inventories, while weak economic data from top importer China weighed. At 05:25 ET (10:25 GMT), Brent oil futures expiring in March gained 0.1% to $76.25 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 0.1% to $73.37 a barrel. The crude benchmarks had slumped more than 1% on Wednesday, but trading ranges, and volumes, are likely to be limited throughout Thursday with the US market closed to honor former President Jimmy Carter, ahead of a state funeral later in the session. Chinese inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, remained unchanged in December, while the producer price index shrank for a 27th consecutive month, data showed on Thursday. The reading pointed to limited improvement in China’s prolonged disinflationary trend, even as the government doled out its most aggressive round of stimulus measures yet through late-2024. China is the world’s biggest oil importer, and has been a key source of anxiety for crude markets. Traders fear that weak economic growth in the country will eat into oil demand. The country is also facing potential economic headwinds from the incoming Donald Trump administration in the US, as Trump has vowed to impose steep trade tariffs on Beijing. US oil product inventories rise sharply U.S. gasoline and distillate inventories grew substantially more than expected in the week to January 3, government data showed on Wednesday. Gasoline inventories grew 6.3 million barrels against expectations of 0.5 mb, while distillates grew 6.1 mb on expectations of 0.5 mb. Overall crude inventories also shrank less than expected, at 0.96 mb, against expectations of 1.8 mb. The build in product inventories marked an eighth straight week of outsized product builds, and spurred concerns that demand in the world’s biggest fuel consumer was cooling. While cold weather in the country spurred some demand for heating, it also disrupted holiday travel in several areas. EIA data also showed that US crude oil imports from Canada rose last week to the highest on record, ahead of incoming U.S. president Donald Trump's plans to levy a 25% tariff on Canadian imports. Canada has been the top source of U.S. oil imports for many years, and supplied more than half of the total U.S. crude imports in 2023. Strength in the dollar also weighed on crude prices, as the greenback shot back up to more than two-year highs on hawkish signals from the Federal Reserve. A strong dollar pressures oil demand by making crude more expensive for international buyers.
Crude Oil Market Traded Higher, Supported by Increased Winter Fuel Demand -- The oil market on Thursday traded higher as the market was supported by increased winter fuel demand, shrugging off the latest weekly inventory reports showing large builds in product stocks. The market traded lower in overnight trading and posted a low of $72.84 in follow through selling amid the EIA weekly petroleum stocks report showing large builds in distillate and gasoline stocks. However, the market bounced off its low and rallied higher as a cold snap drives heating oil demand. The crude market retraced more than 50% of its move from Wednesday’s high to today’s low as it traded to $74.26 by mid-day. The market gave up some of its gains and traded mostly sideways during the remainder of the session. The February WTI contract settled up 60 cents at $73.92. The market posted a high of $74.28 in the post settlement period. The March Brent contract settled up 76 cents at $76.92. The product market ended higher, with the heating oil market settling up 2.75 cents at $2.3782 and the RB market settling up 1.81 cents at $2.0283. JPMorgan analysts expect oil demand for January to increase by 1.4 million bpd year on year to 101.4 million bpd, primarily driven by increased use of heating fuels in the Northern Hemisphere. Citi raised its average Brent price forecast for the first quarter from $65/barrel to $71/barrel as Chinese buyers have pulled back more than expected on buying Iranian oil. It also raised its WTI price forecast for the first quarter to $67/barrel. It said it maintains its overall bearish 2025 view, with Brent prices falling to $60s/barrel from the second quarter amid larger than usual seasonal stock builds. BNP Paribas in a research note to clients warned that “…crude prices have risen too much too soon” and Brent, currently above $76 per barrel, will likely “fall back to the low $70s” once seasonal refinery maintenance begins. Bank of America analysts are forecasting Brent crude oil prices will average just $65 per barrel in 2025 as a result of new oil production from non-OPEC countries continuing to grow faster than global oil demand. The bank noted production gains from Brazil, Canada, Guyana and Norway will lead the gains in new supply. Kinder Morgan reported on Wednesday it had shut down two Southern California-area refined product pipelines as a result of power outages in the area due to the ongoing several wildfires in the area. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center noted Thursday that a La Nina event has finally developed in the equatorial Pacific. It noted ocean surface temperatures have dropped by 0.9F degrees below normal across parts of the Pacific. Forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center noted though there is a 60% chance it will likely fade by the March, April and May time frame.
Oil settles up 1% as cold weather in US, Europe drives winter fuel demand (Reuters) - Oil prices rose more than 1% on Thursday as cold weather gripped parts of the United States and Europe, boosting winter fuel demand. Brent crude futures settled up 76 cents, or 1%, at $76.92 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up 60 cents, or 0.82%, to $73.92. On Wednesday, both benchmarks fell more than 1%. Thursday's rise is "definitely winter fuel demand kicking in here in the U.S.," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York. Parts of east Texas up to west Virginia were under a winter storm warning on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service, covering large swathes of Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky. Ultra-low sulfur diesel futures were trading at around $2.38 a gallon, their highest since Oct. 8, according to data from LSEG. JP Morgan analysts estimate that for the United States, Europe and Japan, for every degree Fahrenheit the temperature drops below its 10-year average, there is an increase of 113,000 barrels per day (bpd) in demand for heating oil and propane "as teeth-chattering temperatures prompt consumers to crank up their heat." Extreme winter conditions can lead to disruptions in oil supplies as freezing temperatures may cause temporary freeze-offs and production cuts, JP Morgan analysts said. "Right now it appears that the ice will stay north of refinery row along the U.S. Gulf Coast, but power outages will be a concern as heavy rain and wind comes along for the ride," TACenergy's trading desk wrote on Thursday. Meanwhile, the market structure in Brent futures is indicating that traders are becoming more concerned about supply tightening at the same time demand is increasing. The premium of the front-month Brent contract over the six-month contract reached its widest since August on Wednesday. A widening of this backwardation, when futures for prompt delivery are higher than for later delivery, typically indicates that supply is declining or demand is increasing. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce new sanctions targeting Russia's economy this week, according to a U.S. official. The administration is trying to bolster Ukraine's war effort against Russia before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. A key target of sanctions so far has been Russia's oil industry. The dollar strengthened further on Thursday. Looking ahead, WTI crude oil is expected to oscillate within a range of $67.55 to $77.95 into February as the market awaits more clarity on Trump's planned policies and fiscal stimulus from China,
Oil jumps more than 4% on concern over more sanctions on Russia - Oil prices rallied more than 4% on Friday to reach their highest levels since October as traders focused on potential supply disruptions from more sanctions on Russia. Brent crude futures gained $3.50, or 4.6%, to $80.42 a barrel by 1422 GMT, reaching $80 a barrel for the first time since Oct.7. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures advanced $3.57, or 4.8%, to $77.49. The United States will impose some of the harshest sanctions on the Russian oil industry to date, designating 180 vessels, dozens of traders, two major oil companies and some top Russian oil executives, a document seen by Reuters said. The document, purported to be from the U.S. Treasury, was being circulated among traders in Europe and Asia. Reuters could not verify the veracity of the document. Ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, expectations have been mounting that President Joe Biden’s administration will tighten sanctions against Russia and Iran, at a time when oil stockpiles remain low. “That would be the farewell gift of the Biden administration,” \. Existing and possible further sanctions, as well as market expectations of draws on fuel inventories because of cold weather, are driving prices higher, he added. The U.S. weather bureau expects central and eastern parts of the country to experience below-average temperatures. Many regions in Europe have also been hit by extreme cold and are likely to continue to experience a chillier than usual start to the year. “We anticipate a significant year-over-year increase in global oil demand of 1.6 million barrels a day in the first quarter of 2025, primarily boosted by … demand for heating oil, kerosene and LPG,” JPMorgan analysts said in a note on Friday. The premium on the front-month Brent contract over the six-month contract reached its widest since August this week, potentially indicating supply tightness at a time of rising demand. Inflation worries are also boosting crude oil prices, Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said. Investors are concerned about Trump’s planned tariffs, which could drive inflation higher. A popular trade to hedge against rising consumer prices is through buying oil futures. Oil prices have rallied despite the U.S. dollar strengthening for six straight weeks, making crude oil more expensive outside the United States.
Oil prices rally 3% as US hits Russian oil with tougher sanctions (Reuters) - Oil prices rallied nearly 3% to their highest in three months on Friday as traders braced for supply disruptions from the broadest U.S. sanctions package targeting Russian oil and gas revenue. President Joe Biden's administration imposed fresh sanctions targeting Russian oil producers, tankers, intermediaries, traders and ports, aiming to hit every stage of Moscow's oil production and distribution chains. Brent crude futures settled at $79.76 a barrel, up $2.84, or 3.7%, after crossing $80 a barrel for the first time since Oct.7. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $2.65, or 3.6%, to settle at $76.57 per barrel, also a three-month high. At their session high, both contracts were up more than 4% after traders in Europe and Asia circulated an unverified document detailing the sanctions. Sources in Russian oil trade and Indian refining told Reuters the sanctions will severely disrupt Russian oil exports to its major buyers India and China. "India and China (are) scrambling right now to find alternatives," . The sanctions will cut Russian oil export volumes and make them more expensive, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said. Their timing, just a few days before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, makes it likely that Trump will keep the sanctions in place and use them as a negotiating tool for a Ukraine peace treaty, Staunovo added. Oil prices were also buoyed as extreme cold in the U.S. and Europe has lifted demand for heating oil, "We have several customers in the New York Harbor that have been seeing an uptick in heating oil demand," Hodes said. "We have seen a bid in other heating fuels as well," he added. U.S. ultra-low sulfur diesel futures , previously called the heating oil contract, rose 5.1% to settle at $105.07 per barrel, the highest since July. "We anticipate a significant year-over-year increase in global oil demand of 1.6 million barrels a day in the first quarter of 2025, primarily boosted by ... demand for heating oil, kerosene and LPG," JPMorgan analysts said in a note on Friday.
Oil touches $80 per barrel as sweeping sanctions against Russia rattle markets - Oil prices jumped to a three-month high on Friday, with traders digesting new sweeping sanctions against Russia as the Biden administration tries to cut off Moscow from crude revenue amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. West Texas Intermediate crude (CL=F) rose more than 3.5% to settle at $76.57 per barrel while Brent crude futures (BZ=F), the international benchmark price, briefly hit $80 before settling at $79.76, the highest level since October. More than 180 vessels, two oil companies, traders, insurers, and top Russian executives were named in the sanctions. "The United States is taking sweeping action against Russia’s key source of revenue for funding its brutal and illegal war against Ukraine,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said in a statement. Oil prices were already on an upward trend since late December, with traders uncertain over President-elect Donald Trump's policy toward Iran. Tehran currently produces more than 3 million barrels of crude per day. "News continues to filter in about [the] Trump administration's hard stance on Iran that may come very quickly," Dennis Kissler, senior vice president at BOK Financial, wrote in a note to clients on Friday. "Add in the freezing temps across most of the US, along with shrinking storage numbers, and crude has now become a new 'fund favorite,'" he added. Crude oil prices jumped to a three-month high on Friday. · JPMorgan analysts said global oil demand is expected to remain strong through January due to colder-than-expected weather in the Northern Hemisphere "boosting heating fuel consumption" and early travel activities in China for the country's Lunar New Year holiday. Despite Friday's sharp rise, many analysts expect that oil prices will move lower this year than in 2024. "Despite ongoing geopolitical conflicts, a combination of bearish factors will likely keep oil prices structurally low in 2025, with a likely price range of $60-$80 per barrel for Brent spot crude oil. That would be below the $70-$90 per barrel range that dominated 2024," Eurasia Group wrote in a note on Thursday.
The Race Is On Between West And East For Control In Syria - Following the surprise removal on 8 December of President Bashar al-Assad after 53 years of his family’s rule in Syria, long-dormant plans in the U.S. are being dusted off about what will happen next there and who will control it. The plans were drawn up in anticipation that Bashar al-Assad would fall soon after July 2011, a senior energy security source who worked closely with the administration of then-U.S. President Barack Obama exclusively told OilPrice.com.“At that point [when defectors from the Syrian army formed the Free Syrian Army and began an armed conflict across the country], Washington was certain that he [al-Assad] would fall in a matter of weeks, so they expedited the existing planning for that contingency, as did Russia and Iran, and the European Union too,” he said. “The plans for each included options to support its [Syria’s] production of oil and gas as this was a key source of its revenues,” he said.“These were to run in parallel with, and support, whichever group finally came out on top after he [al-Assad] was removed from the picture,” he added. At the time of the outbreak of hostilities in 2011, Syria had been producing around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from proved reserves of 2.5 billion barrels. For a long period before that – prior to the recovery rate dropping off due to a lack of enhanced oil recovery techniques being employed at the major fields -- it had been producing nearly 600,000 bpd. Europe imported at least US$3 billion worth of oil per year from Syria up to the beginning of 2011, and many European refineries were configured to process the heavy, sour ‘Souedie’ crude oil that makes up much of Syria’s output, with the remainder being the sweet and lighter ‘Syrian Light’ grade.Most of this – some 150,000-bpd combined – went to Germany, Italy, and France, from one of Syria’s three Mediterranean export terminals: Banias, Tartus, and Latakia. As an adjunct to this, a multitude of international oil companies were operating in Syria’s energy sector, including the UK’s Shell, Petrofac and Gulfsands Petroleum, France’s then-Total, the China National Petroleum Corporation, India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Canada’s Suncor Energy, and Russia’s Tatneft and Stroytransgaz. Syria’s gas sector was at least as vibrant as its oil one, with proved reserves of 8.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, and around 316 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of dry natural gas produced.After the fighting began in earnest in 2011, the first of the three major options to support the Syrian energy and financial infrastructure for whichever group took over was from the U.S.This involved moving gas from Qatar through Saudi Arabia and Jordan, then through Syria whereupon it could be moved into Turkey and sold on in the rest of Europe, if resources allowed. The European option involved United Nations peace-keeping monitors in Syria, bringing in hydrocarbons industry experts from the UN Security Council member states, and letting the Qatar-Syria-Turkey, and Iran-Iraq-Syria-Turkey, pipelines develop organically over time. The Russian option focused on resuscitating the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, moving Iranian, and later Iraqi and Syrian gas into Europe. However, as al-Assad survived the initial phases of the uprising – crucially supported by the Russian military -- he went with the Russian energy and financial option focusing long term on the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plans shorter-term on the build-out of Syria’s oil and gas infrastructure.In 2017 this was formalised in a memorandum of understanding that encompassed 40 energy projects, plus the full reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Aleppo thermal plant, the installation of the Deir Ezzor power plant, and the expansion of capacity of the Mharda and Tishreen plants, with a view to re-energising Syria’s power grid and restoring the main control centre for the grid back to Damascus.Consequently, it was little surprise that early on after al-Assad fled to Moscow a month ago, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov confirmed that his country had been in direct contact with the radical Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), about the future of its energy projects, and of its key military bases across Syria as well. These comprise the naval base at Tartus – Russia’s only Mediterranean port, its Khmeimim air force base near Latakia, and its huge listening station nearby. Aside from these prized assets,there are three other reasons why Syria remains so crucial to Russia’s core geopolitical strategy in the Middle East and globally, as fully analysed in my latest book on the new global oil market order.
- First, it is the biggest country on the western side of the Shia Crescent of Power that Russia had been meticulously developing for years as a counterpoint to the U.S.’s own sphere of influence centred then on Saudi Arabia (for hydrocarbons supplies) and Israel (for military and intelligence assets).
- Second, it offers a long Mediterranean coastline from which Russia can send oil and gas products – or anything else it wanted – from itself or from its allies (notably Iran) for export into major oil and gas hubs in Turkey, Greece and Italy or into Africa.
- And third, it highlighted to other countries in the Middle East and beyond Russia’s willingness and ability to act decisively on the side of the autocratic dynasties across the region.
Aside from denying Russia all these direct benefits (and doing the same for China indirectly) – which has enormous value in itself -- the U.S. and its allies also understand the key role that Syria was to play logistically for Russia’s plans to expedite Iran’s long-desired ‘Land Bridge’ and for China’s broader ambitions for its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI).
Erdogan says Turkey ready to intervene to prevent any division of Syria -Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he would order an intervention to prevent any splintering of Syria, a warning aimed particularly at the country’s Kurdish forces.“We cannot accept under any pretext that Syria be divided and if we notice the slightest risk we will take the necessary measures,” the Turkish head of state said, adding that “we have the means.” Erdogan’s warning is the latest aimed at the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces and to the United States, which backed the SDF’s offensive against ISIS.Saying there is no room for “terror” in Syria, Erdogan said that “should the risk present itself, we could intervene in one night.”At least 100 people died in fighting over the weekend between pro-Turkish factions and the Kurdish-dominated People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the SDF.Ankara considers the YPG to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been in an armed struggle with the Turkish state since the 1980s and is classified by Turkey and its Western allies as a terrorist movement.Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had said that “the elimination of the PKK/YPG is only a matter of time,” raising the possibility that the movement could join the Syrian government and lay down its arms. But he warned that Western countries should not use the threat of ISIS as “a pretext to strengthen the PKK.”
Over 100 Killed as Fighting Between North Syria Kurds, Turkey-Backed Fighters Escalates -Since the Syrian regime change, there has been almost constant fighting between the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and the US-backed Kurdish SDF. That fighting is escalating precipitously, with over 100 combatants killed over the last 48 hours, and no signs of the fight slowing down.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 85 SNA fighters killed in that span of time, along with 16 SDF fighters. Turkey’s own Defense Ministry claimed they had “neutralized” 32 Kurds across the north, but didn’t offer specific details.Turkey and its SNA have taken virtually the whole area around Manbij, the initial focus of this offensive, but have since moved on to attacking the Tishreen Dam and Kobane. It is expected they’ll also attempt to take al-Tabqa, giving them a route to attack the major city of Raqqa.Most of the casualties in the last 48 hours were in fighting around Kobane, and the SDF has reported that they have repelled all the attacks on that area. It doesn’t seem likely that’s going to end the matter, however.Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that the “revolution” in Syria marks the end for Kurdish “separatist terrorists.” He said he believes the new Islamist government will move against the Kurds, and that they will also face “Turkey’s iron fist.”Turkey and the SNA heavily backed the regime change, even though it led to the installation of al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in power. Turkey has long believed that a Syria dominated by Sunni Arabs would crack down harder on the autonomous ambitions of the Kurds.The US has so far not gotten directly involved, though Turkey is demanding they stop supporting the Kurds. US forces have recently begun setting up a base in Kobane as well, suggesting direct US involvement is going to happen sooner rather than later.Beyond backing the SNA offensive against the SDF, Turkey has alsolaunched artillery attacks from the city of Jarabulus against Tishreen Dam, and drone strikes against a house on the outskirts of Kobane. A Turkish drone was also reported to have destroyed a vehicle near Tishreen Dam, though no casualties were reported there.
280 Dead in Heavy Turkish-backed Fighting Over Northern Syria’s Tishreen Dam - While much of the fighting between the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and the US-backed Kurdish SDF has centered on the cities of Manbij and Kobani, the largest focus in recent days has been the Tishreen Dam, a major hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates River.According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 280 people have been killed so far in the battle over the dam. The split is 199 SNA fighters, 56 SDF fighters, and 25 civilians, including five women and two children.Together with the Taqba Dam further east down the Euphrates River, Tishreen Dam provides approximately 90% of northeastern Syria’s electricity. Concerns are growing that Turkey is taking more and more water share on the river, while the river’s water level has been low in recent years.The SDF has bragged it foiled attacks on metro Manbij and the Tishreen Dam, reporting the SNA attacks were backed by both Turkish artillery and air support. There have been multiple reports of Turkish drone strikesaround the area in recent days.The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), the SDF’s political ally, expressed concern about the continued attacks on Tishreen Dam, warning the dam has yet to be restored to full, normal operation. If continued Turkish attacks put it out of commission, AANES cautions this would be a humanitarian disaster in the region.Turkey remains confident about its gains in the area, despite not having yet taken the dam. Yesterday Turkey’s foreign minister stated that they believe it is only a matter of time before the YPG is wiped out. The YPG is the largest member organization making up the SDF.
Turkey FM: Only a Matter of Time Until Syrian Kurdish Fighters Are Wiped Out - Fighting and attacks continue to rage across northern Syria, as Turkey and their allies in the self-described Syrian National Army (SNA) attack Kurdish forces from the US-backed SDF. Strikes and clashes are reported in multiple areas. SNA forces attacked areas south of Manbij and near the Tishreen Dam. Turkish artillery forces attacked areas around the city of Kobani, and further to the east, there were four Turkish drone strikes against Kurdish forces in the Raqqa Province. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke at a news conference in Ankara on Monday, saying the situation is changing inside Syria and it is “only a matter of time” before Kurdish militant groups there are totally wiped out.Fidan warned western nations against continuing to support the Kurds, insisting that they were using ISIS “as an excuse to embolden the PKK,” a banned Kurdish faction in Turkey.Turkey has been demanding the US stop backing the SDF recently, and indeed have been for years. Turkey’s official narrative claims the PKK and the YPG are effectively the same organization. The YPG is the largest faction inside the SDF.There have been reports since late last week that the US is in the process of establishing a military base in Kobani to support the Kurds. Over the weekend the Pentagon said there were “no plans” to set up such a base and a spokesperson claimed not to know where the reports came from. Despite this denial, reports of convoys full of US military construction equipment heading into Kobani continue to emerge. Clearly images and sightings of the convoy are where the reports are coming from. While Turkey keeps demanding everyone else back away from support for the SDF, Turkish officials are virtually uniformly upbeat about the military prospect of defeating them, and soon. There were reports of Turkeyclaiming effective victory in Manbij in the past week, and the increased focus further east on Kobani and even the Raqqa Province underscores their intention to expand deeper into the SDF’s territory.
Fighting Rages as Kurdish SDF Suggests US, French Troops in Northern Syria - Heavy fighting continues to be reported across north-central Syria today,with at least 37 combatants killed today alone in fighting in the area around Manbij. The fighting involves the Turkish-backed SNA and the US-backed Kurdish SDF.The SNA, with Turkish air and artillery support, have been pushing against Kurdish territory for weeks, and Turkey has recently threatened direct military action to ensure the defeat of the SDF.The SDF has suggested that US and French troops could be deployed to secure the northern Syrian border. Co-chair for Foreign Affairs in Syrian Kurdistan’s administration Ilham Ahmed said that they could help establish a demilitarized zone and help them improve relations with Turkey.Turkey, however, has promised to wipe out the Kurdish SDF’s largest constituent group, the YPG. The US has not taken a position on the idea of deploying troops, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he believes Turkey has “legitimate concerns” about the Kurdish PKK.The PKK is a banned Kurdish group in Turkey, but Turkish officials have presented the YPG as effectively the same organization. In practice, the PKK and YPG have strong ideological similarities, though they are distinct groups.The US has been reported to be setting up a military position inside Kobani, though the Pentagon has denied that they plan a military base in the city, which is one of those Turkey and the SNA intend to invade. Turkey has been shelling the area around Kobani in recent days.In addition to fighting over Manbij and Kobani, fighting continues at the Tishreen Dam. The SNA, backed by Turkey and with support from the new Syrian Islamist government have been throwing troops at the Dam for over a week, and reports are that they also intend to move on and attack the Tabqa Dam, another SDF-controlled dam downriver from Tishreen. The dams are the primary source of electricity generation in northeastern Syria, and control of them is considered strategically important. Kurdish officials have warned that recent attacks on Tishreen Dam put the dam at structural risk, and could cause humanitarian problems if it is put out of operation.
Israeli Troops Beat, Arrest French Journalist As They Expand South Syria Presence - Israeli troops continue to advance deeper into southern Syria, particularly in the Quneitra Governate, where they are occupying a growing amount of territory and have been expelling Syrian civilians from the area. Foreign media has been trying to offer more and more coverage of those operation.French journalist Sylvain Mercadier has been among those in Quneitra covering the Israeli invasion, but was beaten by Israeli troops and captured today alongside his Syrian lawyer. Israeli officials claimed the journalist had gotten “too close” to the Israeli troops in the village of El Hmidaiah.Mercadier has reportedly been released after five hours in Israeli custody, blindfolded and on his knees. Israeli troops called him a “mercenary,” and confiscated his camera memory cards. They also reportedly took $200 in cash from his lawyer.El Hmidaiah is on highway 7 between the towns of Quneitra and Khan Arnabeh. It has been a topic in recent media reports, as Israel has occupied the village, expelled the civilian population, and has destroyed possessions in multiple homes, including reportedly burning Qurans. They have also set up barricades and closed highway 7 in the area.There are also reports of Israeli troops forcing their way deeper into the town of Ba’ath. One resident reported that Israeli troops forced him to enter the cultural center first during one of their raids, and that they had smashed up the doors in the center, along with damaging electronic equipment. The photograph of Israeli troops in Ba’ath, ironically, came from Mercadier himself, and was taken before he was “arrested.”
Israel Plans Long-Term Occupation of New Zone Inside Syria - Though Israel was very supportive of the HTS regime change in Syria last month, Tel Aviv is now using that regime change as a pretext for open-ended occupation of more Syrian territory, above and beyond the occupied Golan Heights.New reports citing unnamed senior Israeli officials express “shock” at Western nations embracing the Islamist leaders of post-Assad Syria, and accuse them of turning a blind eye to hypothetical future risks Syria could pose.According to these officials, Israel’s plan is to create an occupied “control zone” inside Syria, stretching out 15 km from the already-occupied Golan Heights. This, they say, would prevent any future rocket fire against the Heights.In addition to this expanded military occupation, Israel intends to have a 60-km deep “sphere of influence” in Syria under the control of Israeli intelligence agencies. The claim is this would prevent future threats from developing. Israel invaded the demilitarized zone between the Golan Heights and the rest of Syria almost immediately upon the regime change. While Israeli troops have steadily moved deeper and deeper into southern Syria’s Quneitra and Daraa Province, it is only now that a potential permanent occupation of these areas is being talked about. Israel has long considered its occupation of the Golan Heights since 1967 as permanent. While the international community overwhelmingly doesn’t recognize this, Israel annexed the Heights, and President Trump endorsed that annexation in 2019..The Golan Heights annexation was supposedly a strategic matter, but the seizure of new territory overlooked by the Heights is based on the pretext of a “threat” posed by a new government that openly says it wants to be on positive terms with Israel.“No one can guarantee that they will not eventually turn against us” appears to be the sum total of Israel’s new justification for the territory seizure. Given Israel’s overt hostility toward the Islamist government since the takeover, it’s hard to see Israeli leadership continuing to talk of “cordial” relations with the occupying power.Israel was long hostile to former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and took credit for his ouster in favor of al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Still, being hostile to whomever is in power in Syria seems to be the underlying policy and the justification for continued military action on Syrian soil.
As Israel Flouts Lebanon Ceasefire, DM Says Deal May Be Scrapped Entirely -- With just a few weeks left in the 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, it seems increasingly that not only will the war resume after that, but the ceasefire may not last, even in pretense, for the whole 60 days. Israel continues to commit dozens of violations daily, attacking southern Lebanon and invading new towns that they hadn’t occupied during the war itself. Maroun al-Ras and Burj al-Mukuk were the latest areas to be taken by Israeli troops.Ironically, Israeli DM Israel Katz is claiming that the main ceasefire threat is Hezbollah not fulfilling requirements, and that “Israel will be forced to act.” Since they keep attacking targets in Lebanon throughout the ceasefire, it’s not clear what this would actually change, beyond rhetoric. It’s increasingly likely that Israel won’t leave Lebanon within the 60 days, and indeed it is being reported Israel intends to inform the US of its intentions to stay in Lebanon past the deadline. They also will inform the US that they’ve decided that Lebanese civilians cannot be allowed to return to the border villages. Israel has been demolishing towns and villages in the border area, and has warned civilians to stay out. Israel’s violations of the ceasefire have persisted throughout. Within just hours of the ceasefire taking effect, Israeli troops were shooting at Lebanese journalists in Khiam. The violations are larger and more flagrant these days, however.The UNIFIL peacekeepers have issued a statement slamming Israel for a “flagrant” violations of the ceasefire this weekend, noting that Israeli military bulldozers demolished UN property, including a UNIFIL observation post and one of the barrels near Labbouneh. The barrels were put out specifically to mark the line across which Israel is supposed to withdraw its forces by 60 days.That withdrawal seems like it’s not going to happen at any rate, but demolishing the barrels seems a bit more obvious a step in that direction than most of what Israel has done, which they’ve couched as reactions to civilians “violating” the ceasefire by trying to return to their homes.Last week, Hezbollah said its intentions were to remain “patient” and not react to Israel’s violations during the ceasefire, warning that troops that don’t leave by the 60-day deadline would be treated as an occupying force.Hezbollah figure Naim Qassem is now warning that their patience may not last a full 60 days and continued Israeli violations may lead to Hezbollah reacting to Israel soon.
Israel's Smotrich Calls for Major Destruction in the West Bank - On Monday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for massive destruction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, saying several cities should look like Gaza’s Jabalia.“Funduq, Nablus, and Jenin must look like Jabalia,” Smotrich wrote on X. The Israeli military has almost completely destroyed the Jabalia refugee camp as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.Smotrich’s call for escalation in the West Bank came after a shooting attack killed three Israeli settlers, including two women, near an illegal settlement. “The terrorism in Judea and Samaria and the terrorism from Gaza and Iran is the same terrorism – and it must be defeated,” Smotrich, a settler himself, wrote on X.“Those who trust the Palestinian Authority to maintain the security of Israeli citizens wake up to a morning when terrorists are again slaughtering Jewish residents,” he added.Smotrich said the Palestinian West Bank cities need to look like Jabalia so “Kfar Saba does not become Kfar Aza, God forbid,” referring to a central Israel town and a Gaza border town hit by Hamas on October 7.
Israeli Attacks Kill 88 Palestinians in Gaza Over 24 Hours - Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli attacks killed at least 88 Palestinians and wounded 208 over the previous 24-hour period as Israel has stepped up its bombing of the besieged enclave in recent days.Al Jazeera reported on Sunday that Israeli attacks across Gaza killed over 200 Palestinians over the past three days. “We are seeing women and children making up the vast majority of casualties,” said Hani Mahmoud, an Al Jazeera journalist reporting from Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.Also on Sunday, an eighth Palestinian baby died of hypothermia due to exposure from living in a tent. “He died because of the very cold weather. He slept next to me and in the morning I found him frozen and dead. I don’t know what to say,” the baby’s mother told Al Jazeera.Israeli strikes on Sunday included a drone strike near the southern city of Khan Younis that killed at least five Palestinians. The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported at least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli shelling in central and northern Gaza.Since Thursday, Israel has significantly stepped up attacks on the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City, raising fears that the Israeli military is moving its ethnic cleansing campaign, known as the “general’s plan,” further south.Since early October, the IDF has been conducting ethnic cleansing in the North Gaza Governorate, which includes the cities of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia. The campaign involved a total siege and orders for all civilians to leave under the threat of death, whether by bombing, shooting, or starvation. IDF soldiers have also been demolishing every building in sight, so civilians have nowhere to return.The general’s plan aims to cleanse all Palestinians from both North Gaza and Gaza Governorates so none remain north of the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land where the IDF has demolished most buildings and established military bases. Completing the ethnic cleansing will likely pave the way for the establishment of Jewish settlements in northern Gaza. WAFA reported that 45 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in the North Gaza Governorate on Saturday. In October, a group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden that the US-backed Israeli onslaught has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, a total that includes indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who led the letter, told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that the estimate was the bare minimum they came up with by looking at the available data.
'All Attempts Denied' - Israel Blocks Humanitarian Aid to Northern Gaza - Palestine Chronicle - Israel continues to deny the delivery of humanitarian aid to northern Gaza, the United Nations has said. “Three attempts by the United Nations to reach these areas over the past three days — that’s one on Saturday, one on Sunday and another one today — were all denied,” said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, in a press briefing on Monday. He said that across the Gaza Strip over the weekend, “37 UN-led humanitarian missions were planned. Twelve of these missions were facilitated, but 15 others were denied outright, nine were impeded, and one was canceled due to logistical and operational issues.” The Israeli army conducted a large-scale ground offensive in northern Gaza since October 5 last year, forcibly displacing thousands of Palestinians and preventing humanitarian aid including food, medicine and fuel from reaching the territory. The situation has left the remaining population on the verge of imminent famine. Dujarric also pointed out that armed looting of humanitarian convoys continues to be reported to the UN, in southern Gaza as well as in central Gaza. “Once again, we stress that there must be a stop to the looting of humanitarian supplies and that Israel must facilitate the flow of aid, fuel and commercial goods into and within Gaza swiftly and at scale through multiple entry points,” the spokesperson said. “We also call on the civilian police to be allowed to operate and thereby restore public order,” he emphasized.
Israel Attacks a 'Clearly Marked' World Food Programme Aid Convoy in Gaza - On Monday, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said Israeli forces fired on one of the group’s aid convoys in Gaza and strongly denounced the attack.The WFP said the convoy was “clearly marked” and that 16 bullets struck three vehicles that were carrying a total of eight aid workers. None of the aid workers were hurt in the attack.The WFP said the aid convoy had obtained the necessary clearances to operate in the area.“ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE: A [WFP] convoy, clearly marked & carrying 8 team members, was shot at by Israeli forces near Wadi Gaza despite prior clearances,” Cindy McCain, the executive director of the WFP, wrote on X.“We MUST have safe, secure access to continue delivering life-saving aid,” McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, added in her post.The Israeli military has targeted aid workers throughout its genocidal war on Gaza. The WFP said the latest attack came after a missile struck a flour distribution warehouse in central Gaza run by a UN aid partner over the weekend, seriously injuring three humanitarian workers.The incident that gained the most attention was the Israeli strike that killed seven workers for the World Central Kitchen on April 1, 2024. The strike killed six foreign aid workers, including three British citizens and one American.Israel’s targeting of Palestinian aid workers has gotten much less attention. The UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said on Saturdaythat 263 of its employees have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, 2023.
Gaza's Bitter Winter - 8 Palestinian Infants Die from Cold amid Ongoing Israeli Siege - Palestine Chronicle - The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced today that another infant has tragically died from the extreme cold, bringing the total number of children who have lost their lives due to the freezing temperatures to eight. This comes as Israel’s suffocating siege and ongoing military aggression against the Strip have now continued for over 15 months, leaving millions of Palestinians in unbearable conditions. The latest victim, identified as 35-day-old Yusuf Ahmad Anwar Kloub, succumbed to the harsh weather conditions in Gaza. His death underscores the dire situation faced by infants and vulnerable populations as winter sets in, with no relief in sight. In an interview with local media, Gaza Municipality spokesperson Hosni Mahna highlighted the increasing suffering of displaced families in the city as cold waves and heavy rainfall intensify. The blockade, which has greatly worsened since October 27, 2023, has compounded these conditions. Restrictions on the entry of essential goods, including fuel and cooking gas, have forced the population to rely on burning wood and debris from destroyed homes, further endangering their lives. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has raised alarms over the rising number of child fatalities in Gaza due to the cold and lack of shelter. A recent UNRWA report revealed that at least 7 newborns have already perished, and 7,700 other newborns are lacking critical life-saving care. Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) condemned Israel’s continuous assaults on health infrastructure, notably the repeated attacks on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, which has been hit at least 50 times since the beginning of Israel’s ground invasion in October 2024. The hospital has been rendered nearly nonfunctional, adding to the already strained healthcare system. Amidst this crisis, the displaced population in Gaza — estimated at nearly 2 million people — is living in tents made of flimsy materials such as nylon and fabric, which provide little protection from the elements. Many of these displaced families were forced to leave their homes in northern Gaza, which were destroyed in Israeli airstrikes, and sought refuge in the southern regions of the Strip. The ongoing siege, supported by the US, has contributed to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with over 154,000 Palestinians — the majority of them women and children — either dead or injured since the genocidal war began on October 7, 2023. More than 11,000 people are still missing, adding to the trauma and despair that has gripped the population.
Lancet Study: Gaza Health Ministry Undercounted Death Toll By 41% - A new study published in the British medical journal The Lancet found that the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip has significantly undercounted the number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s genocidal war.The study reviewed the period between October 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024, and found there were 64,260 “traumatic injury deaths” in that timeframe. At the end of June 2024, Gaza’s Health Ministry said there were 37,877 dead, an undercount of about 41%.As of October 2024, the study said the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli military action likely exceeds 70,000. The latest numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry put the death toll at 46,006.Explaining the methodology, the study said it used “capture-recapture methods to estimate total deaths from traumatic injury in the Gaza Strip from Oct 7, 2023, to June 30, 2024. By combining three data lists—official hospital lists, an MoH survey, and social media obituaries—we provide an estimate of mortality that accounts for under-reporting.”The study only accounts for deaths caused by violence and not indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege and the destruction of medical and other civilian infrastructure.The figures coming from Gaza’s Health Ministry have been under significant scrutiny from Israeli officials and their supporters in the West. In the early days of the genocidal war, President Biden cast doubt on their accuracy, but a high-level US State Department official later acknowledged the real number of dead was likely higher than what the Health Ministry was reporting.The number of indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege is unclear but is likely significantly higher than the violent deaths. A letter written by experts and published by The Lancet in July 2024 estimated that if the war ended at that time, the conflict could account for 186,000 deaths, including 37,396 violent deaths (based on June 2024 Health Ministry figures) and indirect deaths.
Gaza’s True Death Toll Revealed to Be Much Higher, Study Finds - A recent study published in The Lancet estimates the death toll in Gaza to be 64,260, a figure 41% higher than the official reports from Gaza’s Health Ministry. The study, conducted by a UK-based team of researchers, analyzed data from multiple sources, including Gaza’s Health Ministry, online surveys, and social media obituaries, and concluded that the toll is significantly underreported by the official figures.As of June 30, 2024, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 37,877 deaths resulting from the ongoing genocide. However, the new study estimates that between 55,298 and 78,525 individuals died from traumatic injuries by that date. The study’s best estimate of 64,260 deaths shows that the official death toll was underreported by 41%. This figure represents 2.9% of Gaza’s pre-war population, or approximately one in every 35 residents. The research found that 59% of the victims were women, children, and the elderly. Importantly, the figures only account for deaths from traumatic injuries and do not include fatalities from the lack of healthcare, food, or sanitation. The study also does not consider the thousands of missing persons, many of whom are believed to be buried under rubble. The researchers used a statistical technique called “capture-recapture,” which has been employed in past studies of war zones worldwide. The method involves cross-referencing multiple data sources to estimate the total death toll. The data for this analysis came from three lists: Gaza’s Health Ministry list of identified bodies, an online survey initiated by the Health Ministry where Palestinians reported the deaths of their relatives, and obituaries posted on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. “We only kept in the analysis those who were confirmed dead by their relatives or confirmed dead by the morgues and hospitals,” said lead study author Zeina Jamaluddine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Then we looked at the overlaps between the three lists, and based on these overlaps, you can come up with a total estimation of the population that was killed,” she added. Kevin McConway, a professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Open University, praised the researchers for their approach. “There is inevitably a lot of uncertainty when making estimates from incomplete data,” he said. “But it’s admirable that the researchers used three other statistical analysis approaches to check their estimates. Overall, I find these estimates reasonably compelling,” he concluded. Despite its thorough methodology, the study acknowledges some limitations. The data does not account for the 10,000 Gazans believed to be buried under rubble, and the death toll might still be underestimated due to indirect causes of death such as a lack of healthcare, food, water, sanitation, or the spread of disease. These factors have become increasingly problematic in Gaza since October 2023.
Pope Francis Steps Up Criticism of Israel, Says Bombing of Civilians Is Unacceptable - On Thursday, Pope Francis offered more criticism of the Israeli bombing campaign and siege on the Gaza Strip, calling it “shameful” and saying the bombing of civilians is unacceptable. “I renew my appeal for a ceasefire and the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, where there is a very serious and shameful humanitarian situation, and I ask that the Palestinian population receive all the aid it needs,” the Pope said in a yearly address to diplomats that was delivered by an aide. “We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians or the attacking of infrastructures necessary for their survival. We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country’s energy network has been hit,” the Pope added. The Catholic Church teaches that attacks on civilians and military operations that destroy whole cities are a grave crime. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.”Pope Francis also called for an end to the proliferation of destructive weapons. “This morning, I reiterate my appeal that ‘with the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, let us establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger and favor development in the most impoverished countries so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory solutions, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life,'” he said.Pope Francis’ latest criticism of Israel comes a few weeks after he denounced Israel’s “cruelty” in Gaza, which prompted a strong backlash from the Israeli foreign ministry.The Pope has kept in touch with the only Roman Catholic Church in Gaza, the Holy Family Parish in Gaza City. Back in December 2023, the church came under Israeli siege, and Israeli snipers killed two Palestinian Christian women, an incident Pope Francis condemned as “terrorism.”
ICJ: Ireland 'Intervenes' in South Africa's Genocide Case against Israel - Palestine Chronicle -- Ireland has officially intervened in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, asserting its stance on the violations of the Genocide Convention related to Gaza. Ireland has submitted a declaration to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, the court announced on Tuesday.“Ireland, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” the ICJ said in a statement. Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin had previously announced that Ireland would join the case after receiving government approval to do so under the Genocide Convention. Article 63 allows any state party to a convention currently under judicial consideration the right to intervene, meaning the ICJ’s interpretation of the convention will also be binding on those states.In December 2023, South Africa filed a case against Israel, alleging violations of the Genocide Convention regarding Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, several countries, including Nicaragua, Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, and Türkiye, have joined the case. Ireland confirmed its decision to intervene in the case on December 12, following the approval of its government. “There has been a collective punishment of the Palestinian people through the intent and impact of military actions of Israel in Gaza, leaving 44,000 dead and millions of civilians displaced,” Foreign Minister Micheál Martin said on Wednesday.“By legally intervening in South Africa’s case, Ireland will be asking the ICJ to broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of genocide by a State,” Martin noted.He stated that Ireland was “concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimized.”“Ireland’s view of the Convention is broader and prioritizes the protection of civilian life – as a committed supporter of the Convention, the Government will promote that interpretation in its intervention in this case,” Martin continued.The Irish cabinet also approved intervention in The Gambia’s case against Myanmar under the same Convention.Martin said intervening in both cases “demonstrates the consistency of Ireland’s approach to the interpretation and application of the Genocide Convention. ”The case accusing Israel of genocide was brought by South Africa Israel in December last year and culminated in the filing of the memorial at the UN’s highest court in The Hague in October.South Africa’s presidency said in a statement that the memorial “contains evidence which shows how the government of Israel has violated the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza.”President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an address to the Algerian parliament last week that Israel’s “barbaric war” against the people of Gaza must end “and we demand that it should end now.”
Israel To Hide Identity of Soldiers Amid War Crimes Probes Abroad - The Israeli military has decided to hide the identity of its soldiers amid efforts by pro-Palestinian organizations to have Israeli soldiers investigated for war crimes while traveling abroad.Under the new policy, combat troops will now have their faces blurred and names hidden in any interviews they give to the media. Soldiers will also not be “linked” to a specific incident in Gaza. Only senior officers above the rank of brigadier general will have their faces and names shown.The new policy does not deal with the main source of evidence of IDF soldiers committing war crimes, which is their own social media posts. An Israeli soldier recently fled Brazil after a Brazilian court ordered an investigation into him for potential war crimes based on social media posts that showed the destruction of Palestinian homes.The charges against the IDF soldier who fled Brazil were brought forward by the Hind Rajab Foundation, named after a five-year-old girl killed by the IDF in Gaza. The foundation and other pro-Palestinian groups have filed 50 complaints in courts around the world against Israeli soldiers. According to The Times of Israel, the Israeli military has done little to stop soldiers from sharing such content online besides advising against it. Amid the global campaign against IDF soldiers, Israeli media published a guide to avoid being arrested overseas, which also advised against the social media posts.
Israeli Media Publishes Guide for IDF Soldiers To Avoid Arrest Abroad - The Israeli news site Ynet has published a guide for Israeli soldiers to help them avoid arrest for potential war crimes while traveling abroad.The guide comes after an Israeli soldier visiting Brazil fled the countryover an order from a Brazilian court to investigate him for potential war crimes based on social media posts that showed the destruction of Palestinian homes. The Hind Rajab Foundation, named after a five-year-old girl killed by the IDF in Gaza, said the soldier had participated in “massive demolitions of civilian homes in Gaza during a systematic campaign of destruction.”Israeli soldiers have been documenting war crimes in posts on social media, a practice the Israeli government is now advising against following the incident in Brazil. Israeli media has reported that pro-Palestinian organizations have filed 50 complaints in courts around the world against Israeli soldiers.The guide from Ynet, which quoted Nick Kaufmann, a defense lawyer at the International Criminal Court (ICC), also advised Israeli soldiers not to post as much on social media.“Soldiers should avoid posting photos or videos from their service, especially content showing destroyed buildings, even if there’s a military justification,” Kaufmann said.“Such posts violate operational security and could harm Israel’s image. Some countries might treat seemingly minor content, such as racist songs, as incitement to genocide,” Kaufmann added.He said the problem for Israeli soldiers was countries that have adopted the principle of “universal jurisdiction,” which allows the arrest, investigation, and potential prosecution of people accused of war crimes or other human rights violations in other countries.“The list of countries applying universal jurisdiction changes over time. Even friendly nations like the UK, France, and Spain have applied it in the past,” Kaufman said. Kaufman warned that the problem could get worse for Israeli soldiers after the conflict is over if foreign journalists are allowed into Gaza. “The threat may not diminish and could even intensify as Gaza opens to human rights groups and foreign journalists,” he said.
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