.The Texas Energy Report

17 Years Bringing You News from the Energy Capital of the Planet
 
.The Texas Energy Report

Crashing Oil Prices and Equity Market Volatility Grind Energy Deals to a Halt: Enverus

April 5, 2020

Oil and gas and data analytics company Enverus has released its Q1 summary of M&A activity, which revealed a substantial collapse as oil prices plunged to 18-year lows. Only $770 million in U.S. upstream deals were completed during the first quarter of 2020—less than one-tenth of the ~$8 billion average for Q1 from 2010-2019. Virtually all deal activity occurred before the global COVID-19 pandemic and production hike from Saudi Arabia slammed markets in early March…..
 

Dub Taylor Joins Advisory Board of Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation

Former Head of Texas Energy Conservation Office Brings Decades of Clean Energy Expertise\

 

April 6, 2020

Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation (CTEI) announced today that Dub Taylor has joined the organization’s Advisory Board. For more than 25 years, Dub Taylor has helped advance cost-effective, clean energy technology and policy through his work in the public sector. First, with the Texas Railroad Commission’s Alternative Fuels Research and Education Division, then leading the Texas State Energy Conservation Office under three State Comptrollers.

Matt Welch, State Director of CTEI, said, “we are incredibly fortunate and very appreciative that Dub is joining our organization. His institutional knowledge of energy policy in Texas is a tremendous resource and will be invaluable in the future.”

At the national level, Taylor served on and twice chaired the U.S. Department of Energy’s State Energy Advisory Board (STEAB). Originally appointed Chair by President George W. Bush’s Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, he was again appointed to this role by former Energy Secretary and Texas Governor Rick Perry…..
 

No Easy Solutions to Petroleum Issues

By Alex Mills

 

April 3, 2020

The economic chaos facing the oil and natural gas industry in the United States is real and it is coming fast like a runaway locomotive blasting everything in its path.

Crude oil prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange have declined from $63 per barrel in January to $20 this week, but the spot price at Cushing, OK., a major trading terminal, closed even lower at $14.10. The posted price for South Texas was $10.50, and Louisiana Light closed at $5.85. Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, closed at $19.07.

If these prices hold for an extended period of time, many companies will not be around to see 2021.

The Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas surveyed oil company executives and “more than 80 percent reported a deteriorating outlook for their firms, while a similar share noted increase uncertainty about the future.”

The survey released last week revealed 60 percent of all firms reported lowering capital expenditures this quarter relative to the fourth quarter of 2019…..