Oil prices closed 1% lower on Friday and fell even more for the week as markets remained wary of soft Chinese demand even as producer group OPEC+ extended supply cuts.
Non-OPEC production growth set to outstrip OPEC output growth: S&P Global
Non-OPEC+ oil finding new markets traditionally controlled by the Middle East
South Korea, Taiwan appetite for US crude robust; India’s Russian crude buying intact
LONDON-Oil prices pulled back on Wednesday as the prospect of delays to U.S. interest rate cuts and a jump in U.S. crude stocks that trounced expectations offset a boost from a potential extension to OPEC+ supply curbs.
Supergiants like Exxon are focused on big offshore venues like Guyana and Namibia, leaving behind prime onshore natural gas assets in Europe – a region that is now desperate for affordable domestic resources that aren’t controlled by Russian Gazprom.
Coming amid attacks on refineries, ban is intended to avert shortages and spiking prices on the domestic market.
Over the last decade, the US has become the top producer of crude oil globally, thanks in part to hydraulic fracturing in shale formations.
The US overtook Saudi Arabia and Russia in oil production in 2018, accounting for 14.7% of global crude oil production in 2022.
Despite leading in production, the US still trails in remaining proven reserves underground, ranking seventh globally behind countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.
Europe’s increased dependence on Norway’s oil and gas has made the country’s energy installations more at risk of attack, the head of one of the agencies charged with securing them told Reuters on Monday
The head of Russian oil major Gazprom Neft said on Saturday he sees no need for additional oil supply cuts by OPEC+ oil producers, days before the group is due to meet on output policy.
India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer, gets a bulk of its Russian supplies made up over 35% of India’s total crude imports in 2023, amounting to 1 .7 million barrels per day.
PetroChina’s contract to develop the Nahr bin Umar gas field follows the takeover by PetroChina of ExxonMobil’s operator role in the giant West Qurna 1 field.
For China, Iraq’s gas sector is not just potentially massive but is also highly connected to its equally potentially huge oil sector.
Around 70 percent of Iraq’s gas reserves are ‘associated’ with oil fields, and the majority of these fields are located in the southeast of Iraq.