Category: quotes

“This [Exxon] is the company that denied the [climate] science, despite knowing the damage their oil exploitation was causing; which funded campaigns to block action on climate and now refuses to face up to its environmental crimes by attending today’s hearing. We cannot allow the lobbyists from such corporations free access to the corridors of the European parliament. We must remove their badges immediately.”

Molly Scott Cato, member of EU parliament

“Total open interest has fallen by twenty percent, as can be seen from the figure [below]. Swap dealer short positions have also contracted. The message is clear: producers are hedging less, and they are hedging less because they expect to produce less. The statistics point to a one to two-million-barrel decline in production from the frackers. Some but not all this loss may be made up by the increased activity of firms such as Exxon. In short, the growth in US oil output is about to be reversed.

Philip Verleger, energy analyst

“All the climate arguments are real, urgent and important.”

Spencer Dale, group chief economist at supermajor BP, told the Washington Post.

“The once-powerful partnership between fracking companies and Wall Street is fraying as the industry struggles to attract investors after nearly a decade of losing money. Frequent infusions of Wall Street capital have sustained the US shale boom. But that largess is running out. New bond and equity deals have dwindled to the lowest level since 2007. Companies raised about $22 billion from equity and debt financing in 2018, less than half the total in 2016 and almost one-third of what they raised in 2012.

Bradley Olson and Rebecca Elliott, Wall Street Journal, 2/24/19

“While Exxon invested $12.5 billion on international upstream capital expenditures (CAPEX) to produce 1.7 million barrels a day of total liquid oil production in 2018, it spent a staggering $7.7 billion in US upstream CAPEX to supply only 551,000 b/d of oil. Thus, Exxon spent nearly double the amount of CAPEX for each barrel of US oil production versus its international oil supply… ExxonMobil’s US oil and gas sector is heading toward a financial disaster. It’s US oil and gas CAPEX spending will choke the living hell out of its profits. While some may think I am fermenting hype, the financial results shown above point to a pretty clear trend… and it ain’t good. If one of the world’s largest oil companies can’t make money producing US shale, then what does that say for the rest of the industry?”

Steve St. Angelo, independent precious metals and energy researcher

“Washington doesn’t like cartels like OPEC. But then how can you have one market [the oil trade] dominated by one currency – the dollar?”

Participant at an EU industrial working group convened to promote the euro and fight the monopoly of the US dollar in oil and commodities trading (2/14)

“[W]ith President Trump’s poll numbers in negative territory, whichever candidate emerges from the Democratic primary will have a decent shot at winning the presidency. If that occurs, they will be on record having supported the Green New Deal and will most likely push for some version of it in 2021. That means that oil and gas companies, having enjoyed a deregulatory bonanza under Trump, could see rougher waters ahead. But with the climate debate getting momentum, that pressure is not going away, no matter what happens with the Green New Deal.”

Nick Cunningham, Oilprice.com

“Because energy can be generated by technologies, using the sun and wind, rather than concentrated natural resources in the form of oil and gas, which is not ubiquitous in geographic terms, many countries will be able to reduce their vulnerabilities to price spikes and outright supply disruptions by pivoting to renewable energy. Moreover, the strategic importance of chokepoints – the Straits of Hormuz, or the Straits of Malacca for instance – will diminish as fossil fuels lose their grip.”

Global Commission on the Geopolitics of Energy Transformation

“The fracking industry has helped set new records for US oil production while continuing to lose huge amounts of money — and that was before the recent crash in oil prices. But plenty of people in the industry and media make it sound like a much different, and more profitable, story… The explanation is pretty simple: Shale companies are not counting many of their operating expenses in the “break-even” calculations. Convenient for them, but highly misleading about the economics of fracking because factoring in the costs of running one of these companies often leads those so-called profits from the black and into the red.”

Justin Mikulka, DeSmog Blog (1/19)

“Global automakers are planning an unprecedented level of spending to develop and procure batteries and electric vehicles over the next five to 10 years, with a significant portion of their budgets targeted at China… Automakers’ plans to spend at least $300 billion on EVs are driven largely by environmental concerns and government policy, and supported by rapid technological advances that have improved battery cost, range and charging time.”

Paul Lienert and Christine Chan, Reuters

“Shale companies have attracted huge amounts of capital from Wall Street over the past decade. So far, investors have largely lost money. Since 2008, an index of US oil and gas companies has fallen 43%, while the S&P 500 index has more than doubled in that time, including dividends. The 29 companies in the Journal’s analysis have spent $112 billion more in cash than they generated from operations in the last 10 years, according to data from FactSet, a financial-information firm.”

Bradley Olson, Rebecca Elliott and Christopher M. Matthews, The Wall Street Journal (1/2/19)

“Some geologists harbor doubts about ANWR’s prospective resources. ‘I don’t see (in the refuge’s geology) what I hear in the political talk,’ about the refuge’s potential, said Richard Garrard, an Alaskan-based exploration geologist. said. Geologically, the region is an extension of the Brooks Range, which is to the south. ‘How many oil fields have been discovered in the Brooks Range? None.’”

From S&P Global Platts

[about proposed seismic testing off the east US coast] “Almost every single one of those states is pretty adamant about not wanting that activity off their shore. The administration is pushing through the industry agenda on expanded oil and gas leasing despite all evidence that other stakeholders have other viewpoints about the appropriateness and the scope of that activity.”

Elizabeth Klein, deputy director, State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, NYU School of Law

“Last week’s meeting reminded us that the Big Three of oil – Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States – whose total liquids production now comprises about 40 percent of the global total, are the dominant players.”

International Energy Agency (12/14)

“As a matter of our policy, we want to end all of those subsidies [for electric vehicles]. And by the way, other subsidies that were imposed during the Obama administration, we are ending, whether it’s for renewables and so forth…It’s just all going to end in the near future. I don’t know whether it will end in 2020 or 2021.”

Larry Kudlow, White House economic advisor

“Total US oil reserves in 2017 exceeded a … 47-year-old record, highlighting the importance of crude oil development in shales and low permeability plays, mainly in the Southwest.”

US EIA

“In my 36 years in this [petroleum] business, I have never seen such a wide differential in sentiment between Canada and the US. I’ve never seen more frustration among our customers and our competitors and in our peer-group companies than right now.”

Kevin Neveu, chief executive officer of the oilfield-service company Precision Drilling Corp.

“The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid…With continued growth in [greenhouse gas] emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century – more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states,”

The Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II, compiled through combined efforts of 13 US government agencies

“It is likely that in the coming years world oil production will decline (at around 5 percent per year) and that LTO [light tight oil] will decline more sharply. This will come as a shock because it is contrary to the official forecasts, which see oil production rising up to 2040.”

Jean Laherrère, retired geologist-geophysicist involved in oil and gas exploration worldwide; from “Thoughts on the Future of World Oil Production,” 11/18

“US crude oil production reached 11.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in August 2018, up from 10.9 million b/d in July. This is the firded the Russian Ministry of Energy’s estimated August production of 11.2 million b/d, making the United States the leading crude oil producer in the world.”
US EIA monthly report

“We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted. But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already.”
Laure Resplandy, Princeton University research team leader

“To outward appearances, the US oil and gas industry is in the midst of a decade-long boom. [However] America’s fracking boom has been a world-class [financial] bust …. Even after two and a half years of rising oil prices and growing expectations for improved financial results, a review of 33 publicly traded oil and gas fracking companies shows the companies posting $3.9 billion in negative free cash flows through June.”

Report from Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, and the Sightline Institute

“The well-established market consensus that the Permian [basin] can continue to provide 1.5 million barrels per day of annual production growth for the foreseeable future is starting to be called into question.”
Paal Kibsgaard, CEO of Schlumberger

“Two-thirds of US oil producers failed to live within their means in the second quarter, even as oil prices have risen almost 40% over the past year to more than $70 per barrel. Fifty major US oil companies reported they collectively spent $2 billion more than they took in.”
FactSet’s analysis of free cash flow

“Higher oil prices seem inevitable and, in our view, $100/barrel is easily within reach.”

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

“The amazing thing [the Trump administration] is saying is human activities are going to lead to a rise in [atmospheric carbon] that is disastrous for the environment and society [a 7-degree Fahrenheit increase from pre-industrial levels]. And then they are saying they are not going to do anything about it.”

Michael MacCracken, senior scientist at US Global Change Research Program (1993 – 2002)

“The sanctioning of LNG Canada would mark a potential turning point in the LNG market, signaling the industry’s appetite to invest has returned. Even new large-scale greenfield projects are back on the agenda, after a dearth of project financial investment decisions over the last few years.”

Saul Kavonic, Credit Suisse Group AG’s director of Asia energy research

”Assuming that the balancing act between declining and growing [oil producing] countries continues (from Mexico through to Canada) the whole system will peak when the US shale oil peaks (in the Permian) as a result of geology or other factors and/or lack of finance in the next credit crunch, and when Iraq peaks due to social unrest or other military confrontation in the oil-producing Basra region. There are added risks from continuing disruptions in Nigeria and Libya, steeper declines in Venezuela and the impact of sanctions on Iran.”

Matt Mushalik, Australian engineer and oil industry analyst