Oil & Gas Prices - Aug 12
Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:47 am
Opening Prices:
> WTI is down $1.54 to $92.80/bbl, and Brent is down $1.45 to $98.15/bbl.
> Natural gas is down -15.2c to $8.722/MMBtu.
AEGIS Notes
Oil
Shell announced the closure of six oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico after discovering a leak at a Louisiana booster station and halted two nearby pipelines
> That resulted in the closure of Shell’s Mars, Ursa and Olympus fields, as well as Chevron’s Jack/St. Malo, Tahiti and Big Foot fields
> The Mars and Amberjack pipelines transport roughly 500 MBbl/d of crude from the Gulf
< Today, Mars and Amberjack pipelines may resume operations after Shell confirmed the leak had been contained
EU offers Iran a significant concession to revive the nuclear deal (WSJ)
> Diplomats offer a way to end the probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency into undeclared nuclear material found in Iran in 2019
> The EU has informed Iran and the other parties that it wants a yes-or-no answer to the negotiations by August 15
> If the U.S. and Iran can agree to revive the deal, oil sanctions relief as part of the deal could return as much as 1 MMBbl/d to the tight global market that has few options for near-term incremental supply
Natural Gas
Natural gas futures rose to nearly $9/mmbtu yesterday following news reports of the gulf coast pipeline outage and the EIA storage report
> The EIA reported an injection of 44 Bcf, which fell on the (bearish) higher-end of the 30-44 Bcf range reported by analysts
> This leaves total gas in storage at 2,501 Bcf, which is 268 Bcf less than one year ago and 338 Bcf below the five-year average
> Prices have softened this morning, with the prompt month trading down 1.5%
U.S. questioned Cheniere pollution controls during LNG plant permitting (Reuters)
> U.S. regulators raised doubts about Cheniere Energy's decision to install higher-polluting gas-fired turbines at its Gulf Coast LNG terminals in Texas and Louisiana years before they began operating
> The documents show that Cheniere, the top U.S. LNG exporter, may have had a chance to avoid its current struggle with looming federal limits on emissions of formaldehyde and other dangerous chemicals
> The Texas-based company could be forced to undertake outages that might reduce or slow gas shipments to make upgrades
> Cheniere said its turbine technology was in compliance with air quality rules in place at the time they were proposed, and it believes the EPA should exempt it from the emissions limits
> WTI is down $1.54 to $92.80/bbl, and Brent is down $1.45 to $98.15/bbl.
> Natural gas is down -15.2c to $8.722/MMBtu.
AEGIS Notes
Oil
Shell announced the closure of six oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico after discovering a leak at a Louisiana booster station and halted two nearby pipelines
> That resulted in the closure of Shell’s Mars, Ursa and Olympus fields, as well as Chevron’s Jack/St. Malo, Tahiti and Big Foot fields
> The Mars and Amberjack pipelines transport roughly 500 MBbl/d of crude from the Gulf
< Today, Mars and Amberjack pipelines may resume operations after Shell confirmed the leak had been contained
EU offers Iran a significant concession to revive the nuclear deal (WSJ)
> Diplomats offer a way to end the probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency into undeclared nuclear material found in Iran in 2019
> The EU has informed Iran and the other parties that it wants a yes-or-no answer to the negotiations by August 15
> If the U.S. and Iran can agree to revive the deal, oil sanctions relief as part of the deal could return as much as 1 MMBbl/d to the tight global market that has few options for near-term incremental supply
Natural Gas
Natural gas futures rose to nearly $9/mmbtu yesterday following news reports of the gulf coast pipeline outage and the EIA storage report
> The EIA reported an injection of 44 Bcf, which fell on the (bearish) higher-end of the 30-44 Bcf range reported by analysts
> This leaves total gas in storage at 2,501 Bcf, which is 268 Bcf less than one year ago and 338 Bcf below the five-year average
> Prices have softened this morning, with the prompt month trading down 1.5%
U.S. questioned Cheniere pollution controls during LNG plant permitting (Reuters)
> U.S. regulators raised doubts about Cheniere Energy's decision to install higher-polluting gas-fired turbines at its Gulf Coast LNG terminals in Texas and Louisiana years before they began operating
> The documents show that Cheniere, the top U.S. LNG exporter, may have had a chance to avoid its current struggle with looming federal limits on emissions of formaldehyde and other dangerous chemicals
> The Texas-based company could be forced to undertake outages that might reduce or slow gas shipments to make upgrades
> Cheniere said its turbine technology was in compliance with air quality rules in place at the time they were proposed, and it believes the EPA should exempt it from the emissions limits