ENERGY HEADLINES

MAY 12 Eni Group May Delay Kashagan Oil Output Until 2013 (Bloomberg)
Excerpt: Eni SpA and partners developing the Kashagan field, the biggest oil discovery in three decades, may delay production at the Kazakh deposit by as much as two years, the fourth postponement for the $136 billion project... The originally planned start date of 2005 was pushed back to 2008 and Eni later said output would begin in 2010.

MAY 8 Russia's oil industry: Trouble in the pipeline (The Economist)
Excerpt: Over the past seven years, according to Citibank, Russia accounted for 80% of the growth in oil production outside the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The increase in its output in the early part of the decade matched the growth in demand from China and India almost barrel for barrel. Yet in April, production fell for the fourth month in a row. It is now over 2% below the peak of 9.9m barrels a day (b/d) reached in October last year... Leonid Fedun, a vice-president of Lukoil, a local oil firm, says Russia's production will never top 10m b/d.

MAY 6 Goldman's Murti Says Oil `Likely' to Reach $150-$200 (Bloomberg)
Excerpt: Crude oil may rise to between $150 and $200 a barrel within two years as growth in supply fails to keep pace with increased demand from developing nations, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts led by Arjun N. Murti said in a report...

MAY 6 Indonesia May Leave OPEC in 2009 as Oil Output Drops (Bloomberg)
Excerpt: Indonesia, the only OPEC member in Southeast Asia, may leave the group as early as next year because shrinking production has made the country a net importer of oil... Southeast Asia's biggest economy imports about one-third of its oil product needs because it lacks adequate refining capacity and faces falling oil output.

MAY 6 Tracking Saudi Oil From Space (Wall Street Journal)
Excerpt: Combing through dozens of high-resolution satellite images of Ghawar going back to 2001, the Bernstein team has concluded in a study sent to clients at the end of April that only part of the vast field "is suffering signs of old age." On the whole, Bernstein says, the field "is being properly managed" and is experiencing only "mild production-decline rates at worst"... "This is junk science," says Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons, who insists that only detailed, on-the-ground records can speak to the field's real condition.

MAY 1 OPEC April oil output slips - Reuters survey (Reuters)
Excerpt: Output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries slipped to 31.64 million barrels per day in April from 32.05 million bpd in March, according to the survey of oil firms, OPEC officials and analysts.

MAY 1 Non-OPEC oil producers hampered in efforts to boost output (AFP)
Excerpt: While the market until recently had been expecting an output hike in non-OPEC producers, analysts are now revising downward their projections in light of disappointing performances by Mexico, Russia and Brazil, said Mike Wittner of the bank Societe Generale. While in the long-term Kazakhstan, Brazil and Canada could boost output, "it would hardly compensate for a decline" in British and Norwegian fields in the North Sea...

APR 28 Exxon shuts all its Nigeria oil production (Reuters)
Excerpt: The supply loss brings the amount offline in Africa's largest oil exporter to 1.36 million bpd, more than half of its output, according to oil companies and industry sources.

APR 24 Gas, oil prices to double by 2012, CIBC economist predicts (Financial Post)
Excerpt: Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets says oil production will barely grow over the next five years, edging up barely more than 1-million barrels a day over the next three years, and only half a million barrels a day between 2010 and 2012.

APR 21 Mexican oil production falls 7.8 percent in first quarter (Associated Press)
Excerpt: Mexico's state-run oil company said Monday that oil production fell 7.8 percent to 2.91 million barrels a day in the first quarter as current reserves dwindle... Pemex also said Monday that oil exports had dropped 12.5 percent in the first quarter.

APR 21 Saudis Wary of New Oil Projects Pending Sales Forecast (Wall Street Journal)
Excerpt: The multiyear plan is expected to be completed by next year. After 2009, the kingdom is putting a brake on new projects, because it fears rising output and consumption of biofuels and other nonfossil fuels will erode crude-oil demand and hurt the profitability of developing additional oil fields.

APR 17 Nigerian Oil Output Could Decline 30 Percent by 2015, FT Says (Bloomberg)
Excerpt: Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, could lose 30 percent of its oil output by 2015 due to funding problems, the Financial Times reported, citing a government report.

APR 15 Oil Prices Surge to a New High (New York Times)
Excerpt: Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah also suggested that new oil discoveries in the kingdom would remain untapped to preserve the nation’s wealth for future generation, according to various wire reports. “Let them remain in the ground for our children and grandchildren who need them,” the king said in a speech, according the official Saudi Press Agency.

APR 15 Russian Oil Slump Stirs Supply Jitters (Wall Street Journal)
Excerpt: Russian oil production, for years a vital source of new supplies for world markets, is showing signs of a slump... Russian output fell for the first time in a decade in the first three months of this year, according to the International Energy Agency, which represents industrialized oil-consuming countries. It said Russian production averaged about 10 million barrels a day, a 1% drop from the first-quarter of 2007.

MAR 24 Mexico's oil production falls 6.4 percent in first two months of year (Associated Press)
Excerpt: Mexico's oil production fell 6.4 percent in the first two months of the year compared to the same period in 2007, while exports fell by more than twice that much, the state-owned oil company reported Monday. Daily crude output fell to an average of 2.94 million barrels per day in January and February, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said. Exports were down 14.6 percent.

MAR 18 IEA: Non-OPEC output decline rates lower than believed (Oil & Gas Journal)
Excerpt: IEA says in its March Oil Market Report, the aggregate decline rate for mature non-OPEC fields already in steady decline averaged 7.7%/year during 2000-07 and did not "accelerate markedly" during the study period... The agency believes the net decline rate for non-OPEC production, accounting for fields not in decline as well as those that are, is 4-5%/year.

MAR 11 Oil prices hit fresh record near $110 (Financial Times)
Excerpt: Crude oil prices on Tuesday surged to a fresh all-time high near $110 a barrel as the International Energy Agency, the western countries’ energy watchdog, said that oil demand would be robust this year, boosted by consumption in China and the Middle East... “We are in an era of higher oil prices, and so if we look at $100/bbl oil we have to do so with an understanding that prices are unlikely to return to levels seen in the early part of this decade,” the IEA said in its monthly report.

MAR 10 Gas Prices Near Records, Following Oil (Associated Press)
Excerpt: Gasoline prices were poised Monday to set a new record at the pump, having surged to within half a cent of their record high of $3.227 a gallon. Oil prices, meanwhile, surged above $108 to a new inflation-adjusted record and their fifth new high in the last six sessions on an upbeat report on wholesale inventories.

MAR 6 Oil hits record above $105 on dollar, OPEC, supply (Reuters)
Excerpt: Oil hit a record high above $105 on Thursday as a weak dollar helped prices to extend the previous day's gains, which were prompted by a drop in U.S. oil inventories and OPEC's decision to keep output unchanged.

MAR 4 Australian Oil, LNG Production to Fall This Year, Bureau Says (Bloomberg)
Excerpt: Oil output may fall to 450,000 barrels a day in the 12 months ending June 30, compared with an estimate a year ago of a gain to 500,000, the Canberra-based bureau said today in a report. Output of liquefied natural gas may slide 3 percent due to shutdowns for maintenance at both Australia's plants...
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