The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects global liquid fuels production to increase by 1.0 million barrels per day next year. EIA expects OPEC+ production cuts will remain in place through the end of 2024 and offset non-OPEC production growth. EIA expects a slight decline in global oil inventories in... Read more →

The greenhouse gas intensity of western Canadian condensate—which averaged 35 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per barrel (kgCO2e/bbl) in 2021—is expected to decline in the coming years as domestic supply from unconventional production in western Canada, as well as recycling, increases, according to a new analysis by S&P Global Commodity... Read more →

Chevron Corporation entered into a definitive agreement with Hess Corporation to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Hess in an all-stock transaction valued at $53 billion, or $171 per share based on Chevron’s closing price on 20 October 2023. Under the terms of the agreement, Hess shareholders will receive... Read more →

Sonangol and China National Chemical Engineering Company (CNCEC) signed a contract for the construction of the Lobito Refinery in Angola. The final agreement, which provides for construction, technical support and supervision, follows the Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties, signed four months ago in Beijing. The refinery is to... Read more →

Exxon Mobil and Pioneer Natural Resources announced a definitive agreement for ExxonMobil to acquire Pioneer. The merger is an all-stock transaction valued at $59.5 billion, or $253 per share, based on ExxonMobil’s closing price on 5 October 2023. Under the terms of the agreement, Pioneer shareholders will receive 2.3234 shares... Read more →

Crude oil production cuts among OPEC+ members are limiting the global supply of medium, sour and heavy, sour grades of crude oil. These cuts are increasing prices for these grades compared with sweet crude oils, reversing typical price relationships, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Crude oil is... Read more →

CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corp.) announced that Lufeng 12-3 Oilfield Development Project has begun production. The project is located in the eastern South China Sea, with an average water depth of approximately 240 meters. Lufeng 12-3 Oilfield is the largest jointly-developed oilfield in the South China Sea in the... Read more →

Record volumes of crude oil were imported into China during the first half of 2023 because of refinery expansions in the country and initiatives to reopen the economy after the government eased COVID-19 mobility restrictions. China imported an average of 11.4 million barrels of crude oil per day (b/d) in... Read more →

In the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Arctic Refuge), US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has authorized the cancellation of the remaining seven oil and gas leases issued by the previous administration in the Coastal Plain. The leases were suspended in June 2021 following the issuance of Secretary’s Order (S.O.)... Read more →

To reduce the number of accidents in the global oil and gas industry caused by damaged pipelines, University of Houston researchers are developing an autonomous robot to identify potential pipeline leaks and structural failures during subsea inspections. The transformative technology will make the inspection process far safer and more cost... Read more →

Permian Resources Corporation and Earthstone Energy entered into a definitive agreement under which Permian Resources will acquire Earthstone in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $4.5 billion, inclusive of Earthstone’s net debt. The transaction increases Permian Resources’ position in the Permian Basin by approximately 223,000 net acres to more than... Read more →

Occidental announced that a wholly owned subsidiary—1PointFive—has entered into a definitive purchase agreement to acquire all the outstanding equity of Carbon Engineering Ltd. (CE) for total cash consideration of approximately $1.1 billion, to be made in three approximately equivalent annual payments, with the first at closing. This transaction is expected... Read more →

Researchers in India are using multi-wall carbon nanotube-optimized surfactant-polymer flooding for enhanced oil recovery. In an open-access paper in the journal Fuel, they report that their experimental application of carbon nanotube-based fluids yielded an oil recovery factor of approximately 70% of the original oil in place. Pandey et al. Primary... Read more →

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects US crude oil production to surpass 12.9 million barrels per day for the first time in late 2023 and to exceed 13 million barrels per day in early 2024. In its August Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts US crude oil production to... Read more →

Since the EU imposed sanctions on Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, there has been a redrawing of the global oil map, a new study by Transport & Environment (T&E) shows. Instead of cutting demand, Europe has simply replaced imports from Russia with oil from other producing... Read more →

Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, released the Inefficient Fossil Fuel Subsidies Government of Canada Self‑Review Assessment Framework and the Inefficient Fossil Fuel Subsidies Government of Canada Guidelines, which were jointly developed by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Department of Finance Canada. The Government of... Read more →

More than three-fourths of all oil and gas production in the US Gulf of Mexico has a lower greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity than the basin-wide average, according to a new S&P Global Commodity Insights analysis. The analysis is the latest in an ongoing series that utilizes a new comprehensive model... Read more →

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Department of Energy (DOE) are partnering to provide more than $1 billion in funding to help reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector through the creation of the Methane Emissions Reduction Program. This collaboration will leverage EPA and DOE’s shared... Read more →

Australia-based Woodside Energy has made a final investment decision to develop the large, high-quality Trion resource in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. First oil is targeted for 2028. Trion is located in a water depth of 2,500 meters, approximately 180 km off the Mexican coastline and 30 km south of... Read more →

India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) said that oil output from the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia has returned to a plateau level of 190,000 - 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) from zero. Sakhalin-1 produced an average of 227,000 bpd in 2021. Following the onset of sanctions against Russia... Read more →

The Cushing Economic Development Foundation, Inc. and the City of Cushing, Oklahoma announced that Southern Rock Energy Partners, LLC (SREP) has selected Cushing as the site for its 250,000 BPD next-generation, full conversion crude refinery. The project is expected to have $5.56 billion in capital investment and supply 423+ full-time... Read more →

Outgoing Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is commissioning the 650,000 BPD Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals plant today. The Dangote Petroleum Refinery, which covers an area of approximately 2,635 hectares—about the six times the size of Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria—is expected to be Africa’s largest oil refinery and the world’s... Read more →

Electricity is continuing to gain traction in previously thought to be hard-to-electrify sectors including heavy trucking and aviation. Electricity’s share in transport will grow from 1% today to 23% in 2050, according to DNV’s latest Transport in Transition report. DNV’s Transport in Transition report draws on DNV’s system dynamics-based Energy... Read more →

Project InnerSpace, a non-profit organization focused on removing barriers to exponential geothermal growth by 2030, announced that the US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a $165-million Geothermal Energy from Oil and gas Demonstrated Engineering (GEODE) grant (earlier post) to a consortium formed by Project InnerSpace, the Society of Petroleum... Read more →

In its April Oil Market Report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that world oil demand will climb by 2 mb/d in 2023 to a record 101.9 million barrels per day. Reflecting the widening disparity between regions, non-OECD countries, buoyed by a resurgent China, will account for 90% of growth.... Read more →

bp has successfully started oil production at its Argos offshore platform, strengthening bp’s position as a leading producer in the deepwater US Gulf of Mexico. (Earlier post.) With a gross production capacity of up to 140,000 barrels of oil per day, Argos is bp’s fifth platform in the Gulf of... Read more →

Strong continuing international demand for petroleum and other liquids will sustain US production above 2022 levels through 2050, according to most of the cases in the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) Annual Energy Outlook 2023 (AEO2023). EIA projects that the United States will continue to be an integral part of... Read more →

In February, API’s industry data showed petroleum demand of 19.8 million barrels per day (Mb/d) at its second highest for the month since 2020, a rebound in oil production and record level exports, with reductions in inventories and domestic refining activities when compared to January 2023. The monthly growth in... Read more →

ExxonMobil recently announced the successful startup of its Beaumont refinery expansion project, which adds 250,000 barrels per day of capacity to one of the largest refining and petrochemical complexes along the US Gulf Coast. (Earlier post.) Supported by the company’s growing crude production in the Permian Basin, the project is... Read more →

US Department of the Interior has approved a scaled-back version of ConocoPhillips’ Willow Master Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). (Earlier post.) The Record of Decision (ROD) reduces the size of the project by denying two of the original five drill sites proposed by ConocoPhillips, which is seeking... Read more →

In 2022, US ethane demand increased by approximately 9%, or almost 0.2 million barrels per day (b/d), according to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) Petroleum Supply Monthly. US production and consumption of ethane (a hydrocarbon gas liquid used almost exclusively as a feedstock in the petrochemical industry) has grown... Read more →

SLB (Schlumberger) introduced the EcoShield geopolymer cement-free system that minimizes the CO2 footprint of a well’s construction. This innovative technology eliminates up to 85% of embodied CO2 emissions compared with conventional well cementing systems, which include portland cement. The EcoShield geopolymer cement-free system matches the rheology, thickening time, and compressive... Read more →

Shell Offshore, a subsidiary of Shell plc, has started production at the Shell-operated Vito floating production facility in the US Gulf of Mexico (GoM). With an estimated peak production of 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Vito is the company’s first deep-water platform in the GoM to employ a... Read more →

bp says that it will invest more in the energy transition and bp’s own transition, with up to $8 billion more slated for transition growth engines (TGEs) by 2030. These include higher-return bioenergy, and convenience & EV charging; and focusing hydrogen and renewables & power where bp can leverage integration.... Read more →

The Bureau of Land Management Alaska State Office recently released the final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for ConocoPhillips’s proposed Willow Master Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). The document addresses the flaws identified by the US District Court for the District of Alaska in its... Read more →

In its January 2023 Short-Term Energy Outlook, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that crude oil production in the United States will average 12.4 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2023 and 12.8 million b/d in 2024, surpassing the previous record of 12.3 million b/d set in 2019. In... Read more →

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects global consumption of liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, to set new record highs in 2024. According to EIA’s January Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), global liquid fuel consumption will exceed 100 million barrels per day, on average, in 2023 for... Read more →

Liquid intermediates from pyrolysis and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) can be co-processed in an oil refinery along with conventional crude oil. In an open-access paper in the journal Energy & Fuels, a team from VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, with colleagues from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Ghent University,... Read more →

In 2021, proved reserves of natural gas set a new record in the United States, and proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate increased, but not quite to pre-pandemic levels, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Energy demand rose from the 2020 lows that resulted from the... Read more →

A team from the University of Calgary and Rice University has used flash joule heating (FJH) (earlier post) to convert low-value asphaltenes—a by-product of crude oil refining—into a high-value carbon allotrope, asphaltene-derived flash graphene (AFG). Flash graphene from asphaltenes. (A) Schematic conceptualization of sustainable valorization of asphaltene. (B) Photograph of... Read more →

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), one of the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, and Shandong Energy Group, are exploring collaboration on integrated refining and petrochemical opportunities in China. The companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which includes a potential crude oil supply agreement and chemicals... Read more →

Equatorial Guinea’s Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons and the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC’s) Ministry of Hydrocarbons signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the Angola Oil & Gas (AOG) 2022 Conference & Exhibition to develop existing synergies across their respective upstream, downstream, energy infrastructure and logistics sectors. The... Read more →

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued Venezuela General License (GL) 41, authorizing Chevron Corporation to resume limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela. GL 41 authorizes: Production and lifting of petroleum or petroleum products produced by the Chevron JVs, and any related... Read more →

At the 45th Meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) and the 33rd OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting (OPEC+) in Vienna, the organizations decided to cut crude oil production by 2 million barrels per day (mb/d), starting in November 2022. The adjustment will reduce OPEC+ production from 43,856 million... Read more →

In the first half of 2022 (January–June), US exports of petroleum products averaged nearly 6 million barrels per day (b/d), the most first-half-of-year exports in Petroleum Supply Monthly data, going back to 1973, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). US petroleum product exports increased in the first half... Read more →

Chevron New Energies, and Mitsui Oil Exploration (MOECO) signed a Joint Collaboration Agreement to explore the technical and commercial feasibility of advanced geothermal power generation in Japan. Building on Chevron and MOECO’s long-standing relationship, the new collaboration will study geothermal resource potential across Japan and will evaluate the effectiveness of... Read more →

Building on its capability of proactive transformation, Neste has initiated a strategic study on transitioning its refinery in Porvoo, Finland to non-crude oil refining and into a globally leading renewable and circular solutions site. Porvoo refinery Through co-processing and retrofitting of units, and benefiting from available refining assets, experience and... Read more →

Polymer-based membranes developed at KAUST could enable greener and cheaper industrial separation approaches. Their stability and selectivity can be tuned by thermal crosslinking to separate simple hydrocarbon mixtures and complex crude oil fractions. A paper on the work is published in Science. We report a versatile strategy to fabricate polytriazole... Read more →

Schlumberger, Aker Solutions and Subsea 7 will form a joint venture to drive innovation and efficiency in subsea production by helping customers unlock reserves and reduce cycle time. The agreement will bring together a portfolio of innovative technologies such as subsea gas compression, all-electric subsea production systems and other electrification... Read more →

The Department of the Interiorawarded an initial $560 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to 24 states to begin work to plug, cap and reclaim orphaned oil and gas wells. Eligible states have indicated that there are more than 10,000 high-priority well sites across the country ready for immediate remediation... Read more →