CNBC | October 16, 2018 | Brian Sullivan
CNBC's Brian Sullivan reports from one of Shell's offshore drilling platforms, which go down more than 3,000 feet.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry: ‘True energy independence is finally within our grasp’
CNBC | Secretary Rick Perry | July 29, 2018
By all accounts, the United States is in the midst of truly spectacular progress in the vital realm of energy. Spurred by technological breakthroughs unleashed by innovation, deregulation and pro-growth policies, we are now producing energy more abundantly and affordably, using it more cleanly and efficiently, and obtaining it from a wider range of sources than anyone ever thought possible.
Gone are the days of America's crippling dependence on foreign energy sources. True energy independence is finally within our grasp and we are exporting more of our energy to our allies.
Nowhere is this stunning turnaround more dramatic than with natural gas.
Thanks to significant innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, the United States is the number-one natural gas producer in the world.
A few short years ago, U.S. natural gas producers were spending billions to construct facilities to import liquefied natural gas (LNG). Today, they are converting investments to export operations and last year, for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower was president, America became a net natural gas exporter.
We currently have two LNG export facilities operating in the United States – Sabine Pass on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Cove Point on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland – and another four export terminals under construction. Sabine Pass and Cove Point ship American LNG to 30 nations on five continents.
During a recent visit to Cove Point, I witnessed the historic completion of its LNG export expansion project — a great milestone in America's natural gas journey — and watched as a tanker was loaded and readied for shipment to overseas customers.
Cove Point's contracted LNG customers are companies based in Japan, a prosperous nation of 127 million people, and India, the world's largest democracy with a growing economy and population of more than 1.3 billion. These contracts carry destination flexibility, and have allowed LNG from Cove Point to reach global destinations that include the United Kingdom, Argentina, Jordan, Japan, Pakistan, Kuwait, the Dominican Republic, and Panama, with more opportunities on the horizon.
In fact, DOE just finalized a new rule that will expedite the permitting of certain small-scale exports of natural gas to reduce the regulatory burden on American businesses, while providing significant benefits to our trading partners in the Caribbean, Central and South America.
Rick Perry is the U.S. Secretary of Energy.
US becoming a ‘swing producer’ after oil crash woke ‘sleeping giant,’ says Pioneer CEO
CNBC | Elizabeth Gurdus | August 24, 2017
US becoming 'swing producer' after oil crash: Pioneer CEO from CNBC.
Wall Street traders are all to familiar with oil's recent trajectory — trading in a tight range and struggling to break out above $50 a barrel.
But if oil's 2014 crash was an obstacle for Pioneer Natural Resources chief Timothy Dove, it was hardly enough to eradicate the U.S. oil industry altogether, he told CNBC on Wednesday.
"It's a bit like waking the sleeping giant," Pioneer's president and CEO told "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer. "In other words, challenging U.S. industry to improve in the face of adversity, in this case price adversity, is something that we all stood up to and accepted."
During the crash, oil prices tumbled from over $100 to the $40s in about a year. But rather than letting the fall shutter the oil industry altogether, Dove said it actually spurred innovation.
"We've both been able to have our cost reduced somewhat by our service companies, but at the same time, by our own productivity increases, by our own ingenuity, improving how the wells were drilled and completed and increasing the amount that each oil well produces," Dove said. "And so what happens is our economics are very strong at $45 to $50. Our returns are strong. It's a return-based industry. And so therefore we're drilling wells that make money. And that's going to continue."
And while commodity watchers may have initially balked at the idea of drillers and producers recovering from the crash, Dove told Cramer that his drilling giant has adjusted.
Read the full story here.
US oil output poised to hit 10 million barrels a day next year, breaking 1970 record, EIA says
CNBC | Tom DiChristopher | June 6, 2017
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday signaled it is now more confident that U.S. oil production will rise to 10 million barrels a day next year, the highest average annual level on the books.
The department's Energy Information Administration forecast output would surge to the historic level in 2018 after last month projecting the country would produce just shy of 10 million barrels a day next year. The previous record average was 9.6 million barrels a day in 1970.
"Increased drilling activity in U.S. tight oil basins, especially those located in Texas, is the main contributor to oil production growth, as the total number of active rigs drilling for oil in the United States has more than doubled over the past 12 months," EIA acting Administrator Howard Gruenspecht said in a statement.
The revision is another sign that U.S. drillers are taking full advantage of higher oil prices buoyed by OPEC's deal with crude exporters to limit production in a bid to shrink a global oversupply. Output in the American oil patch has surged about 9 percent to 9.3 million barrels over the last eight months.
Throughout a nearly three-year downturn, American oil companies have driven down the cost of advanced drilling methods, allowing them to pump profitably, even with U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude trading between about $45 and $55 a barrel — roughly half of peak 2014 prices.
The EIA revised down its outlook for prices in 2018 on Tuesday, raising the prospect that U.S. drillers might have to live with thinner profit margins next year.
The agency now sees WTI averaging $53.61 a barrel next year, down 2.7 percent from a forecast of $55.10 in last month's short-term energy outlook. It also revised down its price expectation for international benchmark Brent crude by 2.6 percent.
Read the full story here.
New oil projects to double in 2017, WoodMac says
CNBC | January 11, 2017
Oil and gas companies will increase spending in 2017 and more than double new project developments as they gain confidence that a two-year oil price slump is behind them, consultancy Wood Mackenzie said.
The upbeat outlook follows a more than 20 percent rise in benchmark crude oil prices in the past two months to around $55 a barrel on the back of an agreement by major producers to trim output.
"We've just come through two years of gloom and lots of costs cutting and now we are cautiously optimistic there will be a start of recovery in 2017," Malcolm Dickson, a principal oil and gas analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said.
According to WoodMac's global upstream outlook for 2017, exploration and production spending is expected to rise by 3 percent to $450 billion. This is still 40 percent below 2014 levels.
Geographically, the increased activity will vary hugely. U.S. shale oil production is expected to account for most of the gains because it is relatively cheap and quick to develop, in some cases it can take only 6 months.
Shale was the main driver of the recent supply glut and also experienced the sharpest declines in terms of output during the downturn.
Production in the most attractive shale areas, particularly in the Permian basin in Texas, is currently profitable with oil at $40 to $60 a barrel, according to WoodMac analyst Tom Ellacott.
U.S. shale oil production is expected to grow by around 300,000 bpd in 2017 to around 4 million bpd, according to WoodMac estimates.
Read the full story here.
