Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Even as fears of shortages grow throughout the world and prices remain high, the cash-rich oil companies are not pouring a large portion of their money into their basic business: drilling for oil. Indeed, oil executives, in their second straight year of rising profits, are finding that too much money is chasing too few oil fields.
Under the stricter SEC rules, BP replaced only 89 per cent of the barrels it produced. Excluding joint ventures, notably its Russian acquisition TNK-BP, BP’s replacement ratio falls to 78 per cent.
BP OPENED its coffers to investors yesterday, promising a step change in the level of the dividend payout. But even as it revealed record profits of $16.2 billion (£8.7 billion), the oil company admitted that it had failed to replace fully the four million barrels of oil and gas that it pumped out of the ground each day last year.
Crude-oil production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell 1.2 per cent in January, led by declines in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, a Bloomberg survey showed.
A complex look at Shells performance and prospects that, while loosing a few broadsides, fails to draw any useful conclusions from its observations; worth reading for the latest in corporate spins on depletion.
Royal Dutch/Shell Group cut its reserves for a fifth time, showing its oil and gas holdings were at least a third lower than reported in 2002 after the company misled investors and failed to find new fields.
The competition for remaining oil & gas reserves just gets hotter, with India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation making recent commitments to Caspian and Sakhalin Island projects, meanwhile pursuing stray Yukos assets.
Article describes Putins success in using competition between China & Japan for oil supply to pay for a rather long pipeline, while ultimately managing to please all parties.
Royal Dutch/Shell Group unveiled another, bigger-than-expected, cut in oil reserves on Thursday but tempered the news by announcing record profits.
The Iraqi government that emerges from Sunday’s election may open its oil business to foreign investment, and international petroleum companies are jockeying to curry favor with the war-torn country.
The outgoing chairman of Shell has announced he wants to take up a post with a climate-change charity when he quits the oil giant later this year, writes Jonathan Leake.
Includes report of planned & recent deepwater oil exploration off the coast of South Africa, and some pleasantly frank comments from the head of the SA Petroleum Agency.
