Category: Highlights

With the EIA reporting an almost 5-million-barrel stock draw in gasoline over the week ending May 13, with inventories dropping to levels last seen in December and completely ignoring the seasonal build-up trend, gasoline has become the talk of the US market. This week brought a long-anticipated breakthrough as even the last states to see gasoline prices below $4 per gallon (Georgia, Kansas, and Oklahoma) have surpassed that threshold and every single US state now sees gasoline prices above the WTI contract. At the same time, the backwardation in the…

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China is seeking to replenish its strategic crude stockpiles with cheap Russian oil, a sign Beijing is strengthening its energy ties with Moscow just as Europe works toward banning imports due to the war in Ukraine. Beijing is in discussions with Moscow to buy additional supplies, according to people with knowledge of the plan who asked not to be named as the matter is private. Crude would be used to fill China’s strategic petroleum reserves, and talks are being conducted at a government level with little direct involvement from oil…

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Russia’s state-owned oil producers Rosneft and Gazprom Neft have started to use tankers of local state tanker operator Sovcomflot to ship their crude to Asia, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, quoting tanker-tracking data and sources familiar with the operations. Tankers owned by Sovcomflot struggled to find destinations shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine as countries either banned imports of Russian oil or Russian vessels docking at their ports, all this while many traders and buyers refuse to deal with Russian crude. Insurers have also backed out of covering potential liabilities…

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Oil and gas sector employment is on the road to recovery in the United States after the significant job shedding that took place during the pandemic era. But a full recovery won’t be seen for another five years, a new analysis from Rystad Energy showed on Wednesday. The U.S. oil and gas industry lost 200,000 jobs during the pandemic, according to Rystad calculations. This represented 20% of the total workforce in the sector. In 2020 alone, 100,000 oil and gas jobs were lost in the United States—mostly in the drilling…

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Back in mid-February, Pioneer Natural Resources’ Scott Sheffield told Bloomberg that “Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans.” Despite all that has happened since then, centered on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the attitude expressed by Sheffield in February has not changed, even though shale drillers are now almost literally raking in the cash after years of sinking in debt. This year, U.S. shale oil companies will generate as much as $180 billion in free cash flow, according to Rystad Energy,…

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