Category Archives: Oil and gas companies

Opec, Russia and other oil producers make draft deal to cut output

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Mexico holds out against scale of reductions which would amount to 10m barrels per day, or 10% of global supply

Opec countries and allies led by Russia have agreed in principle to cut their oil output by more than a fifth and said they expected the United States and other producers to join in their effort to prop up prices hammered in the coronavirus crisis.

But there was some confusion after Mexico apparently refused to sign up to its share of cuts under the deal, which would have been 400,000 barrels per day. The Mexican energy minister Rocio Nahle Garcia tweeted that her country had suggested a cut of 100,000 barrels.

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Oil rig closures rising as prices hit 18-year lows

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Global producers running out of storage for surplus due to coronavirus crisis

Global oil producers have begun shutting down their oil rigs on the largest scale in 35 years as the coronavirus continues to drive market prices to their lowest level since 2002.

Related: More than 4,000 North Sea oil rig jobs cut amid Covid-19 crisis

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Saudi Arabia price war wipes billions from value of major oil firms

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Royal Dutch Shell and BP lose more than £32bn from their combined market value

Saudi Arabia’s oil price war has wiped billions of pounds from the market value of the industry’s biggest companies after oil markets recorded one of the biggest price slumps in history.

The decision of the world’s largest oil-producing nation to increase its production even as the coronavirus outbreak stalls global oil demand triggered a 30% drop in oil prices on Monday morning.

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Oil price plunges 20% as Saudis vow to step up production

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Move follows Russian refusal to join Opec-led production cut aimed at keeping prices high

The price of crude oil has plunged by more than 20% after Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, said it would step up production from next month, flooding global markets and most likely depressing petrol and diesel prices.

Brent crude futures slid 30% to $31.02 a barrel in chaotic trade on Monday morning, before recovering slightly to $36.06, a drop of 20% on Friday night’s close. It was the worst one-day fall for brent since the start of the first Gulf war in 1991. US crude fell 27% to $30.

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World Bank accused over ExxonMobil plans to tap Guyana oil rush

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Washington DC-based bank grants funds to redraft south American state’s oil laws by lawyers linked to oil giant

The World Bank is to pay for Guyana’s oil laws to be rewritten by a legal firm that has regularly worked for ExxonMobil, just as the US producer prepares to extract as much as 8bn barrels of oil off the country’s coast.

The World Bank has pledged not to fund fossil fuel extraction directly, but it is giving Guyana millions of dollars to develop governance in its burgeoning oil sector, as the south American country prepares for an oil rush led by ExxonMobil and its partners.

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ExxonMobil ‘tried to get European Green Deal watered down’

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Climate lobbying watchdog claims US oil giant met EC officials in run-up to policy

The US oil firm ExxonMobil met key European commission officials in an attempt to water down the European Green Deal in the weeks before it was agreed, according to a climate lobbying watchdog.

Documents unearthed by InfluenceMap revealed that Exxon lobbyists met Brussels officials in November to urge the EU to extend its carbon-pricing scheme to “stationary” sources, such as power plants, to include tailpipe emissions from vehicles using petrol or diesel.

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Oil and gas firms ‘have had far worse climate impact than thought’

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Study indicates human fossil methane emissions have been underestimated by up to 40%

The oil and gas industry has had a far worse impact on the climate than previously believed, according to a study indicating that human emissions of fossil methane have been underestimated by up to 40%.

Although the research will add to pressure on fossil fuel companies, scientists said there was cause for hope because it showed a big extra benefit could come from tighter regulation of the industry and a faster shift towards renewable energy.

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Activists try to occupy British Museum in protest against BP ties

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Environmental group puts pressure on museum to end its partnership with oil company

Dozens of activists have coated themselves in plaster and are trying to occupy the British Museum overnight in a bid to pressure the institution to cut ties with oil corporation BP.

About 60 protesters were taking part in the defiant act of impromptu sculpture making as the museum in London attempted to close its doors at 5pm on Saturday.

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Saudi Aramco becomes most valuable listed company in history

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Investor demand pushes oil giant’s market value to $1.9tn on first day of trade in Riyadh

Saudi Aramco has secured its position as the most valuable listed company in history after investor appetite for the world’s biggest fossil fuel producer pushed its market value to $1.9tn (£1.4tn) on its first day of trade.

Shares in the Saudi state-backed oil company defied Aramco’s critics by climbing nearly $200bn above the $1.7tn valuation set before its market debut on Riyadh’s stock exchange.

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Saudi Aramco to be world’s most valuable firm after IPO next week

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Oversubscribed listing in Riyadh of 1.5% stake in state oil company will value it at $1.7tn

Saudi Aramco is poised to achieve the biggest initial public offering in history next week by raising $25.7bn for the Saudi state in its market debut.

The state-owned oil business will emerge as the world’s most valuable listed company after reportedly valuing its shares at 32 riyals ($8.53) apiece before its float on Riyadh’s stock exchange next week.

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Saudi Arabia aims to buoy oil price before Aramco stock market debut

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De facto Opec leader will push other countries to rein in oil output before Aramco’s IPO

Saudi Arabia is planning to use its position at the head of the Opec oil cartel to buoy global oil prices before the $25bn stock market debut of its state-owned oil giant.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is due to meet its oil market allies this week to agree the cartel’s oil production policy for 2020.

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Jeremy Corbyn urges public to vote for ‘manifesto of hope’

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‘Investment blitz’ promised as experts taken aback by scale of Labour’s tax and spend plans

Jeremy Corbyn has urged the public to vote for his “manifesto of hope” as he unveiled plans for the most dramatic increase in tax and spending in more than half a century if Labour wins power next month’s general election.

In an upbeat launch event at Birmingham City University, the Labour leader said he welcomed the hostility of the billionaires, bad bosses and dodgy landlords who would lose out from his policies.

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Revealed: Cameron and May lobbied Bahrain royals for Tory donor’s oil firm

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Former PMs asked princes to support bid for $5bn contract by Ayman Asfari’s firm Petrofac

Two former Conservative prime ministers lobbied a Middle Eastern royal family to award a multi-billion dollar oil contract to a company headed by a major Tory donor, the Guardian has established.

In March 2017, while in Downing Street, Theresa May wrote to the Bahraini prime minister to support the oil firm Petrofac while it was bidding to win the contract from the Gulf state.

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Saudi attack dampens faint chance of a Trump-Iran meeting

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Despite no specific evidence of Iranian involvement, the US treat Yemen’s Houthi rebels as tame creatures of Tehran

The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s bald claim this weekend that Iran was responsible for the attack on the Saudi oilfields came with no marshalled public evidence, but dampens any likelihood that Donald Trump will countenance a meeting with Tehran in the near future or press ahead with tentative peace talks with Houthi rebels in Oman.

Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s foreign policy supporters in the Senate, was clear talks with Iran are now off the agenda saying: “The Iranian regime is not interested in peace – they’re pursuing nuclear weapons and regional dominance.”

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‘Biggest compliment yet’: Greta Thunberg welcomes oil chief’s ‘greatest threat’ label

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Activists say comments by Opec head prove world opinion is turning against fossil fuels

Greta Thunberg and other climate activists have said it is a badge of honour that the head of the world’s most powerful oil cartel believes their campaign may be the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry.

The criticism of striking students by the trillion-dollar Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) highlights the growing reputational concerns of oil companies as public protests intensify along with extreme weather.

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Timor-Leste rejects report it is taking $16bn loan from China’s Exim bank for gas project

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State-owned company seeks partners to develop $50bn of untapped reserves in Timor Sea

Timor-Leste’s state-owned gas company has rejected reports it is set to take a $16bn loan from China’s Exim bank to finance the Greater Sunrise project.

The Timor-Leste government recently took majority ownership of the project after buying out its former partners – ConocoPhillips and Shell – with the aim of ensuring the gas is piped to its shores instead of Australia’s.

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Revealed: Mobil sought to fight environmental regulation, documents show

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Oil giant looked to make tax-exempt donations to universities and civic groups in the early 1990s to promote the company’s interests

Oil giant Mobil sought to make tax-exempt donations to leading universities, civic groups and arts programmes to promote the company’s interests and undermine environmental regulation, according to internal documents from the early 1990s obtained by the Guardian.

Related: How Mobil pushed its oil agenda through 'charitable giving'

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US imposes sanctions on Iran’s largest petrochemical group

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PGPIC hit with economic penalties because of its ties to Revolutionary Guards, US treasury says

The United States has hit Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC) with economic sanctions due to its ties with the country’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the Treasury department has said.

The move aims to choke off financing to the country’s largest and most profitable petrochemical group and extends to its 39 subsidiaries and “foreign-based sales agents,” Treasury said in a statement.

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Turkey insists on right to drill for energy reserves off Cyprus

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Dispute likely to escalate after Nicosia said it would seek to arrest anyone caught drilling

Tensions over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean have risen sharply after Turkey said it would “exercise its sovereign rights” to drill off Cyprus in flagrant defiance of warnings from western allies.

As the dispute over potential gas reserves intensified, Ankara insisted its state-of-the-art drilling ship, the Fatih, and its support vessels would begin operations in waters viewed by the EU as being within the island’s exclusive economic zone.

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Saudi oil company named world’s most profitable business

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State-owned Saudi Aramco makes profits of £84.7bn last year, beating Apple and Exxon

Saudi Arabia’s state oil company has emerged as the most profitable business in the world, racking up profits of $111.1bn (£84.7bn) in 2018 to overtake Apple.

According to a rare glimpse into its finances contained in a bond-offering document, Saudi Aramco made the profit on revenues of $355.9bn last year, as it produced 10.3m barrels per day of crude oil.

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