Norway’s oil industry is in full recovery mode, but the country’s top petroleum lobbyist is worried about growing opposition ahead.
At the same time as it gave a big boost to investment forecasts for the next five years, the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association sounded one of its starkest warnings yet on the political risk facing the nation’s biggest industry. Explorers and producers are finding themselves in the midst of an increasingly heated debate in Norway on the future of fossil fuels, with calls for cuts to incentives, more drilling restrictions and higher taxes.
South Sudan resumed production at its Unity oilfields, where operations were halted five years ago when a civil war erupted.
The East African nation is boosting output to fund a power-sharing government that’s being formed in the latest bid to end five years of conflict. South Sudan has sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest crude reserves and pumped about 350,000 bopd before fighting broke out in December 2013.
BP Plc is considering selling its stake in the Shearwater assets in the North Sea as it focuses on new projects in the area and expands in U.S. shale, according to people familiar with the matter.
...DPR, downstream operators to meet over regulatory compliance
Although Nigeria has set a target of ending gas flaring by 2020, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, said the country’s infrastructure gap remain a critical challenge to government’s gas commercialisation agenda.
A major advantage to Nigeria as Total Upstream Nigeria Limited began production from its Egina field on December 29, 2018, is a strong local content base, with the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit used to develop the giant field the largest that the firm has ever built.
Nigeria has suffered a plunge of $17.12 million foreign investment in its oil industry in just three months.
Investigations showed that investor apathy, which trailed the petroleum industry from August to September 2018, has been listed as the cause of the plunge – highest since the first quarter of 2016.
Oman’s government, whose budget deficit is among the largest of all the sovereigns tracked by Fitch Ratings, will tap capital markets for a fourth straight year to plug a fiscal gap vulnerable to lower oil prices.
What’s worse: Too much oil, or too much gasoline? The government of Alberta, weighing the potential of a new refinery for the province, may be on its way to finding out.
In 2018, surging crude production in the Canadian province ran into limited space on export pipelines, creating bottlenecks and sending the price of local oil to record lows relative to world benchmarks. Now Premier Rachel Notley’s government wants to see if keeping more of the oil at home with a new refinery will make a difference.
Norway’s oil lobby raised its forecast for investments in the country’s petroleum industry as cost cuts during a three-year downturn made projects more profitable and able to withstand even the recent slump in crude prices.
OPEC’s bold strategy to revive oil markets proved a surprise success last year, but the sequel they’ve unveiled for 2019 is getting a cooler reception.
Oil prices have slumped in the two weeks since the cartel and its allies announced they will cut production to prevent a surplus, in contrast to the rally that greeted their previous intervention. From Wall Street oil-watchers to Russia’s central bank, speculation is growing that booming U.S. shale output and shaky fuel demand may thwart the coalition’s efforts.
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