Free Republic

"There cannot be "U.S. energy dominance" and $50 per barrel oil; those two statements are contradictory. At $50-per-barrel oil, we will see U.S. oil production start to decline immediately and likely significantly (1 million barrels per day plus within a couple quarters),” an executive at an exploration and production firm said. Another executive put it even more bluntly, “The administration’s chaos is a disaster for the commodity markets. "Drill, baby, drill" is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn't have a clear goal. We want more stability.”

Russia's flagship Urals crude grade has tumbled alongside all major oil benchmarks in the global market rout and is close to the $50 per barrel threshold for the first time in nearly two years. The Urals price was at around $52 per barrel at the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk on Friday, according to data from Argus Media cited by Bloomberg. The price of Urals further dropped on Monday as oil prices continued to fall, with WTI Crude, the U.S. benchmark, down to $60 per barrel, and Brent Crude prices at $64. - snip- As the price of the flagship...

Intraday power prices in Germany jumped and natural gas-fired electricity generation rose to a two-year high this week as low wind speeds continue to depress wind power output. Natural gas use for power generation rose on Wednesday to its highest level since December 2022, as a wider power supply gap had to be filled by fossil fuels amid very weak wind power generation. ... Germany’s power margin, the available electricity supply to meet demand, has dropped this week to the lowest level so far this winter, as low wind speeds and colder weather are straining the power system. This week,...

On Monday, Europe’s natural gas prices fell to the lowest level in three months thanks to mild weather and a high level of LNG imports... hitting an intra-day low of $140 per megawatt-hour (down from $350 on August 26th, the lowest since July 1st). Gas storage in the EU is now at more than 90% and the bloc has managed to reduce its gas consumption by 10%.

In July, Germany reported a 45.8% reduction in imports from Russia compared to a year ago, but the value of those imports had increased by over 10%. This increase in cost was due largely to higher energy prices, with the value of crude oil, natural gas, petroleum products, and coal all climbing. The UK, by comparison, has managed to cut its imports from Russia to zero, although it was always less dependent than Germany on Russian energy.

For the first time ever, the European Union has imported in June more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States than gas via pipeline from Russia, as Moscow slashed supply to Europe earlier this month, Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said on Thursday. “The drop in Russian supply calls for efforts to reduce EU demand to prepare for a tough winter,” the head of the Paris-based agency added. In April 2022 alone, five European countries—France, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, and Poland—accounted for 54.1% of total U.S. LNG exports, data from the U.S. Energy...

The biggest reshuffle of oil trade flows since the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s is underway—and things may never return to normal. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions on Russian oil exports are changing global oil trade routes. Over the past nearly five decades, oil flowed more or less freely from any supplier to any customer in the world, except for sanctions on Iran and Venezuela in recent years. This free energy trade is now over, after the Russian aggression and the Western sanctions that followed, plus Europe’s irreversible decision to cut off its dependence on Russian...

Canada’s oil could replace American imports of Russian crude, the top officials of the oil-producing province Alberta said this weekend. As talks about banning Russian oil imports in the United States and its European allies intensify, reports have started to emerge that the U.S. Administration could be looking to persuade Saudi Arabia to pump more oil or lift some sanctions on Venezuela to help fill the gap that a Russian oil embargo would open. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States and its European allies were in “very active discussions” about banning the import...

Canada’s oil could replace American imports of Russian crude, the top officials of the oil-producing province Alberta said this weekend.As talks about banning Russian oil imports in the United States and its European allies intensify, reports have started to emerge that the U.S. Administration could be looking to persuade Saudi Arabia to pump more oil or lift some sanctions on Venezuela to help fill the gap that a Russian oil embargo would open.On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States and its European allies were in “very active discussions” about banning the import of Russian...