.The Texas Energy Report

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.The Texas Energy Report

Energy Markets Face ‘Delicate Re-balancing’

By Alex Mills

September 17, 2020 — Since the coronavirus pandemic disrupted worldwide economic activity this year, global energy markets have been in a “delicate re-balancing” situation.

Two reports issued this week indicate further declines in energy demand as the pandemic continues.

“The uncertainty created by Covid-19 shows little sign of abating,” the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated in its monthly report issued on Sept. 14.

“With the on-coming northern hemisphere winter, we will enter unchartered territory regarding the virulence of Covid-19. In last month’s report, we said that the market was in a state of ‘delicate rebalancing.’ One month later, the outlook appears even more fragile,” IEA said.

IEA, organized in 1974 following the first Arab oil embargo, consists of 30 countries, including the U.S., and serves as the main international forum for energy co-operation on a variety of issues including information transparency, research and development, and international energy relations…..

Is BP’s Latest Energy Outlook Imminent “Death of Oil?” Nah, Let’s Look Closer

The report sees an expanded role for natural gas .. media and analysts should start “dividing O&G assessments between two main blocks, IOCs (Shell, Chevron, BP, Exxon, ENI, and Total) and NOCs (Aramco, ADNOC, Gazprom, etc.)”. … IOCs may take a beating, but NOCs?

By Mike Shiloh

 

September 15, 2020 — Socially Responsible Investing will combine with “peak oil demand,” an increasing lower-carbon transition and rising efficiency to bring big changes to the fossil fuels industry over the coming years, BP indicates in its latest outlook on the future of energy — but the outcomes as presented are informed speculation from open sources.

The inexhaustive report’s loud-volume news value derives largely from the fact that BP compiled it — and gains New Energy and investor cred for it — but if DeSmog Blog had released it, for example, the dominant sound would likely have been crickets.

And if The Texas Energy Report had released it, it would have of course been dismissed as “clickbait.” The point is you might expect these two publications to put out such a report, but not BP.

Still, company CEO Bernard Looney reiterated at a London conference on Wednesday that oil and natural gas projects are still key to profits and viability over the coming decade, that renewables such as solar and wind are the “direction” of the company.

In the report released on Monday, BP crafts three scenarios, which it calls “different pathways for the global energy system to 2050,” but the British company is quick to point out that they are not predictions nor are they situations that BP would prefer to happen — and they certainly don’t represent “all possible outcomes.”

It’s simply how things look from their current vantage point — it’s extreme to say the report proclaims O&G demand “dead” or that it “buries a dagger in the heart of the oil industry” — when, as BP notes, it’s speculation based on present models and things do change, often in unpredictable ways.

Take, for instance, as BP does, the “Black Swan Event” called COVID-19 — just as an example.

Unreported but important details of the report include the expanded role of natural gas in the future “in ‎supporting fast growing developing economies as they decarbonize and reduce their reliance ‎on coal, and as a source of near-zero carbon energy when combined with Carbon Capture Use ‎and Storage,” as BP put it [phrasing corrected]. ……