Day: April 26, 2022

When Dutch-Anglo oil giant Shell decided to build a massive floating gas factory known as Prelude in 2011, it was billed as the dawn of a new era for the industry. Australia was midway through a once-in-a-lifetime $300 billion splurge that would make the country the world’s biggest producer of super-chilled, shipped gas. Floating gas plants were supposed to be the logical evolution, vacuuming up gas wherever they went and making fortunes for shareholders and taxpayers. But barely a decade later, Prelude has been racked by cost and time blowouts,…

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Moody’s Investor Service has upgraded its outlook for the global energy industry from “neutral” to “positive”, forecasting “record profit and free cash flow” for exploration and production companies in 2022, thanks to a combination of strong commodity prices and spending discipline. The ratings agency expects oil and gas supply constraints to keep prices high for twelve to eighteen months. Beyond that, Moody’s said the “pace of improvement” with regard to earnings will start to slow by next year. It’s not only exploration and production companies that are expected to show…

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European Union countries will this week debate a possible deal to share out the costs of buying gas to fill storage and build a supply buffer ahead of next winter, according to a draft document seen by Reuters. EU countries are negotiating proposed rules that would require them to fill their gas storage to at least 90% of capacity by Nov. 1 each year from 2023 and 80% this year – an attempt to reduce the leverage of Russia, which supplies around 40% of EU gas. The proposal had worried…

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