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