With oil prices having crashed this week and demand concerns only mounting, it seems bullish traders will have to forget about triple-digit oil prices for now.
The worst week for crude since March, oil prices have shed $10 per barrel this week, pressurized by the US bond selloff that soured the economic outlook into 2024 and then suffered another blow from this week’s EIA numbers that indicated a steep drop in gasoline demand across the US. With Friday focused on US non-farm payroll data, ICE Brent climbing to triple digits is firmly out of bounds for now, currently hovering at $84 per barrel, OilPrice said.
Saudi Arabia sticks to charted course.Saudi Arabia announced it is sticking with its 1 million b/d production cut until the end of the year 2023, with a press communique issued this week signaling Riyadh would review its decision again next month and may deepen the cut if required. ADNOC splashes the cash on new gas fields.ADNOC, the national oil company of the UAE, awarded contracts worth $17 billion for the Hail and Ghasha offshore gas fields that it intends to operate with net zero carbon dioxide emissions, choosing Italian firms Maire and Saipem.
Chevron’s Australian srike nightmare continues. Despite Australia’s industrial arbitrage compelling Chevron and its trade unions to strike a compromise, workers at the Gorgon and Wheatstone platforms voted to restart strikes accusing the US major of reneging its commitments. BlackRock moves into Italian LNG. US oil major ExxonMobil chose investment fund BlackRock as the buyer for its 70.68% majority stake in Italy’s Adriatic LNG offshore terminal, valued at approximately $900 million. Vitol sells its Permian acreage to Civitas.
Exxon Mobil is in advanced talks to acquire Pioneer Natural Resources in a deal that could value the Permian shale basin producer at about $60 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The acquisition would be Exxon’s biggest since its $81 billion deal for Mobil in 1998 and would expand its footprint in one of the most lucrative regions of the U.S. oil patch. US shale producer Civitas Resources agreed to buy the Permian Basin assets of Vencer Energy, Vitol’s US upstream subsidiary created in early 2020, for $2.1 billion in cash and stock, thereby adding some 44,000 net acres in the Midland Basin.
White House acquiesces on delayed oil auction. The Biden administration said it would hold a delayed offshore auction in the Gulf of Mexico on November 8, offering 72.7 million acres on the Outer Continental Shelf, including 6 million acres that the US DoI had initially withdrawn from the lease.
/OilPrice/